Saturday, May 17, 2014

Bout of Books Update Day 6

What did I even do today? I don't even know. I feel like I didn't do anything. But I'm sure I did things. I'm sure I didn't just sit at the kitchen table on my laptop...right?

"You're...half correct I guess. I mean you mostly sat at the kitchen table doing nothing, but sometimes you sat at the kitchen table reading very short books. One can't even be considered a "book." Then you got up, put away dishes and sat on the couch for several hours watching movies."

Shit.

At least I put away dishes.

-

Last night I tried to read a bit of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland blah blah long title but it was...not good. Everything that I know about this books points at me loving it but the writing style is not for me. If it was toned down a bit I would be all over it. I know I use this phrase a lot but the only way I can describe it is that it's trying way way way way too hard. It's working too hard to be quirky, to imitate other people's writing style (Lewis Carroll? Neil Gaiman and Douglas Addams love child? I don't know). I'll get to it when I have a longer time to read it, when I can put it down often and roll my eyes but also when I have opened my mind to this particular writing style.


So this morning I knew I was going to fall into a reading slump if I didn't get something good in me fast. Cue Marissa Meyer! It is no secret that I love the Lunar Chronicles. Like, a lot. It shouldn't be surprising, I devour fairy tale retellings and science fiction is my favorite genre. Unfortunately there's a huge wait for the fourth book, but thankfully she has several novellas out! This one is based on the original (well, the non-disney) Little Mermaid story and it was pretty damn good. I think the original The Little Mermaid fairy tale is my favorite out of the slightly more adult fairy tale pot that Disney has dipped into (it should be known that Beauty & the Beast is my favorite watered down Disney tale) so I was practically giddy at all the nods to the original tale in this novella. I had no idea if she was going to end it as tragically as the fairy tale does so there was some major suspense, which I normally don't get with novellas. 

One thing I just noticed about the world Meyer has created in this novella is the comparison between mental illness and android glitches. I never had that thought with Iko in the main novels, but in this novella they kept talking about how Stars was dangerous and unpredictable and how scary that possibility was to Stars. I'm not entirely sure I liked the ending when you're reading it through that lens. I might  talk about that later but I don't want to spoil anyone in this update post that shouldn't even have in depth reviews in it!


I was still feeling a little slumpy so I gave in to the 3rd volume of Scott Pilgrim that I just got in the mail, like 4 days ago. I never buy graphic novels myself at full price so it's always huge gaps of time between volumes for me which is why I like to save them. Nope, it was in the house for 4 days before I read it in one sitting. I love the humor in these books (obviously. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is my favorite movie) and how & where the flashbacks are placed. It did take me until this volume to realize that the pages with the black background are the flashbacks. Duh. It feels like a movie (which makes sense since Edgar Wright really captured the feel of the books), with the cuts perfectly placed. My only complaint is the casual racism. Although it doesn't forgive it, Bryan has said that if he could re-do it that would be the thing he would change.



So I have no idea if I read this book back in the day but I can tell you this: the movie is a fucking masterpiece and should be required watching for all film students. Maybe I just think this because it introduced me to Hugh Dancy, but I remember POC rep, singing and talking snakes so I think I'm correct in my assumption that it is a piece of art.  So it's time to either do a reread of the source material or read it for the first time because I know it's 100% magical and amazing and I WILL get this done by tomorrow night I swear. I'm going to make it happen. I only read like 3 chapters today but I'm gonna do it. Let's not talk about responsibilities like house work or friends or youtube let's just talk about Ella Enchanted.  

Number of books I've finished today: 2
Total number of books I've finished: 10

Books left on my goal TBR: ZERO!!!
Pages I've read today: 241
Total pages I've read: 1471


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1 comment:

  1. I absolutely felt the same way about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland. It sounded like it would be a "me" book but I couldn't get into it at ALL. It made me a bit sad because it sounds like everyone else loves it. :-/
    Oh well, happy reading!

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