Enna Burning and Elements

WARNING: Very random personal rambling.


This is the first time in many months that I've finished a drawing that I a) did just for fun b) put enough effort into so that it's worth of putting online anywhere...

This is not because I've been lazy though! It's because for the past six months I worked on illustrations for a fantasy manuscript of mine (on the side of working on my degree work and other school stuff and editing the fantasy manuscript maniacally, eheh). I ended up drawing over 40 pages of them, redrawing a lot and finally keeping over 30 pages. Now I'm waiting for rejections...

Anyway, I was rereading Enna Burning, a very awesome, inspiring, heartaching and understanding fantasy tale by Shannon Hale. And I rarely draw fan art too, but I remembered how much I love Enna, the main character, again and I just had to draw her. I'm actually semi-happy, almost quite happy with how she turned out.

I took some liberties with the fire... She doesn't actually throw it in the story like she seems to be doing here, but more like burns things with thought. You can just imagine she threw something in the air before burning it, if you like. Because I was shameless and just wanted to try to create this cliché visual effect with the fire. It was fun.

I think I've improved my watercolour technique. A little bit.

Reading Enna again made me think about elements quite a bit. Mostly relating to people and my fictional characters. When I was younger, I used to type people by elements all the time. I had always typed people according to my own subjective categories, long before I ever came across personality theories like MBTI and Enneagram which I'm currently obsessive about. I typed everyone by colours, flowers, stones, planets, animals, mythical creatures, you name it. I didn't really think about it as a kid, but that was my way of supporting my memory and people skills. You know, it was just an association thing that helped me sort out my understanding of others. ^^'

But it was in second grade when I really got into elemental typing. It was because I started reading W.i.t.c.h. comics. (If you're not familiar with it, it's a story about five girls with elemental superpowers, the fifth element being "energy".) I read it as my comic bible for five years or so. It was hugely popular for a while. I mean, who didn't have their own W.i.t.c.h. gang? Everyone had to figure which one of their friends was which of the girls/ who used which element. It was kind of fun. (For some reason I was never one of the five though, but I was assigned as their friend Elyon who didn't use any element but rather random magic. Apparently I just didn't have the personality of any of the W.i.t.c.h. girls. I can sort of see why. I was never the funny one (Irma), the strict one (Cornelia), the brains (Taranee), the wild one (Hay Lin) or the leader (Will).)

In my head I didn't actually type people according to W.i.t.c.h. girls or the logic of elements in the comic. I went more with looking for the quality of the elements (according to my logic...) from their personality and behaviour and only used the four commonly included elements. (Though I didn't voice these typings.)

Looking back to it, I had plenty of fire around me. Raging fire, supressed fire, emerging fire. I think I was attracted to it because there was always next to no fire in me. I didn't always have the smoothest relationship with it. Although it was generally rare for me to make anyone mad, I can see why someone would get frustrated with my lack of agressiveness.

Which brings me back to Enna. She's definitely not the only fire representing character I'm so fond of (No, there's... so many of them.) but I think she does it very well. The idea that there's something in you that can turn into a destructive force and engulf you and everything you love is so well brought out in Enna's character. How addicting the power can be and how hard it is to keep it under control. And ultimately, how you can only find the perfect balance by having other elements both in you and beside you. Which applies to all people and elements of course. : )

Haha, so I guess that's it for the element rambling. I haven't really typed people according to elements in at least six years but this book took me back for a bit. And I can see why typing fictional characters like that can still be helpful, although it may seem rather simplistic. It can help articulate the impression you want to give. Not sure if I'm going to invite the elements back into my system but I guess I'll see about that.

July Reads

★★★★★
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins

I recently reread the Hunger Games and it was even better than I remembered! (Probably something to do with the fact I first read the Finnish translation...) Had to raise it from four to five stars. (Also I bought this beautiful foil edition, woah! It's amazing!)

Katniss is a really outstanding protagonist, she has an amazingly distinct voice. Often when I read in first person, it somehow seems to me that the author is trying a little too hard or not enough. But Katniss' story and personality comes through perfectly from her own point of view. I actually used to have a problem with the present tense (for some reason I never came accross it when I was a kid, so that's probably why...) but the Hunger Games is what ultimately got me over it when I first read it! I used to feel the present tense was too "in your face" but in this book it was really captivating from the first to the last page, even the first time around.

The characters in general are the best aspect of this book to me (which is how it should be, for the most part). I almost wished that Katniss wouldn't have to participate the Games, not because it's freaking traumatic but because I had to leave District Twelve and not see the life there, the life of her mother, Prim and Gale and especially Madge. For some reason I always really wanted to know more about her.

But, it never really interrupted my reading anyway because everything that happened to Katniss held my interest all the time. It didn't matter whether she was almost getting killed, or climbing a tree, or describing the food she ate in detail, not one sentence ever seemed irrelevant or uninteresting to me. Every scene was as interesting to me as another, just because it all happened to Katniss. That's just how vividly her experience has been written.

If you ask me, that's what makes a perfect protagonist. If the reader just cares about everything she sees or feels or tastes and doesn't even have time to question why.

★★☆☆☆
Ilmeetön mies (The Expressionless Man)
Anu Holopainen

This book is about a woman who struggles to make her life meaningful and let go of her painful past. Sometimes she manages to see the daily necessities in a more romantic light but then it all seems to be in vain again. Almost accidentally, she develops sort of a one-sided relationship to her neighbour, a man who doesn't seem to have friends or work and who never speaks a word.

Well, I wasn't a huge fan of this book. It had some rather well described characters and the main character's feelings were believable but they never quite reach the depth I seek. This has actually been a problem to me with this author before too, even though I love her fantasy series and rated some of her books five stars even though I felt so, because they were otherwise so outstanding to me. That's why I picked this book up in the first place, even though it screamed the kind of comtemporary fiction I don't usually enjoy (even if it has a tiny bit of surrealism).

I felt this book had some interesting ideas but none of them were really followed through. They were just dropped here and there and altogether, what little conclusion this story had, seemed to be in all the wrong places. The descriptions of loneliness, apathy and depression were believable, even captivating for some short moments but then it went flat again. Nothing really grows through the whole book.

And, to be honest I thought the ending was plain cheap. Before the end, the book was about the main character's internal struggle. And then suddenly it was about the scandal in her past. Don't get me wrong, it makes perfect sense that something like this had happened to her but it wasn't carried out well. The weight of the story was suddenly on the event itself, like the author was too lazy to go through it with the main character and just trusted the event to be scandalous enough in itself so the reader would stay interested. Like we're supposed to go all *gasp!* because what happened shocks us so much we won't even pay attention to how the character actually feels about it anymore. To me this feels like looking down on your readers.

And the ending. Ugh, are you kidding me? I can't tell if it was a cliché on purpose (which would also qualify as looking down on readers) or if the author hasn't read any depressing comtemporary novels in the last couple of decades. Didn't feel organic to me in any streatch of imagination.

Before the ending the book was very readable though, and managed to stand up to its genre's expectations in some sense. I have to say, that this overly pessimistic style of narration you see plenty of in comtemporary novels, wasn't so repulsive to me in this book. I mean the kind of narration which makes every ray of sunlight, every hair in the sink, every item in the fridge and every chipped coffee cup look like The Ultimate Proof That Life Is Miserable. I mean, sure in some cases this fits the style because the character is really depressed. But in many cases, the style itself seems to be the whole purpose of the writing and more often than not, so pseudo-artistic it's nauseating. But actually, in this book, it wasn't so all-engulfing. The main character seemed like a real person, not a tool for this style and in her most apathetic moments, this feel in the narration actually made sense.

★★★★☆
Carrie
Stephen King

I've been meaning to read Stephen King for a long, long time, so when I found Carrie super cheap I figured it was finally time. (If it wasn't super cheap there's no way I would've bought a movie edition... but luckily this one isn't that hideous.) Also I figured it was only fitting to start ”from the beginning”, with the author's debut novel.

Now I can finally say, that everyone has been right, Stephen King really is an amazingly talented writer and I can only expect more from his later work. I'm really impressed that someone can make me love a book that isn't primarily the intriguing, mysterious kind of horror but the disturbing, actually horrory kind that gets under your skin.

Carrie is a telekinetic girl, who doesn't have it easy in school or at home. Her mother is abusive and sickly obsessed with her religious believes and other girls bully and shame Carrie at school. Eventually, all her traumatic experiences turn her power into something destructive.

The idea and the plot may seem really simple, but I guess that's were great writers can really shine. There's no need to try to make it more interesting by adding complexities when you can write great characters who are fully able to carry the story on their own. Everyone in this book has been written so realistically even the supernatural elements were never able to make the story feel more distant, they never stole the spotlight from the characters, because they were always part of the characters. Because Stephen King totally knows how to raise the horror from the human being.

I was also impressed at how well the varied ways of narration work in this book. They really managed to carry the story on without ever killing the atmosphere.

The ending probably does feel like the biggest cliché to a reader of my generation but I'm guessing maybe it wasn't a cliché when this book was published in -74.

★★★★☆
The Stranger's Child
Alan Hollinghurst

Well this book turned out to be something completely different from what I was expecting. It was thoroughly enjoyable, though I have some questions and things I didn't fully get probably because I'm not british and not knowledgeable enough about the culture.

The Stranger's Child starts with the first encounter of two families and after that they are bound together through the decades the story centers on these families and their circles. It shows how their lives are interpreted and reinterpreted and how the one evening that started it all keeps coming up both in the right and in the wrong contexts.

I really enjoyed the episodic structure of the novel and how every part was like a new book (which I usually don't enjoy very much but here it was done just right) and how loosely everything was related and how the history kept repeating itself in so small ways that all felt like both, irrelevant and so significant in the end. Like the book fully noted both the worth and the unreliablity of subjective experience. The extend to which every character inserted themselves into their interpretation of everyone else was really well exposed because it did acknowledge the mistakes they might make but they also showed that "self-inserting" sometimes brought out things the other people probably should have considered. So it also showed that subjectivity doesn't mean false, that bias is inevitable which is sort of why it deserves credit. I don't know how to put it better right now.

That's probably why I loved the book, in a nutshell. All perspectives were so very well considered in it.

It was also very easy to start following each new ”protagonist”. It often happens to me that I'm still missing the old protagonist half way through the next one's story when a book has a sudden time skip. I guess it's because in this book the characters' own agenda and their interest in the previous central characters worked together so seamlessly.

★★★☆☆
Haluatko todella kirjailjaksi? (Do you really want to be a writer?)
Jera Hänninen & Jyri Hänninen

This is sort of a guide to the Finnish publishing world but it reads more like an intentionally cynic book of jokes. It was entertaining. Not very enlightening. I don't think it really answered the kind of questions the aspiring writers would really have about the industry. It was more about random trivia and making every editor, publisher and writer seem like they never have any clue about what the hell they're doing.

However, some part of the dictionary might turn out to be useful.

★★★★☆
Orlando
Virginia Woolf

I finally read Orlando, the famous story that starts with a young boy whose life changes dramatically when he turns into a woman.

I was actually surprised about how much I enjoyed reading this book. I don't usually match so well with stream-of-consciousness fiction because I get in the "stream" too but my thoughts go to completely different direction from the author's. And then I realize I don't remember what I read for the past three paragraphs. However, that didn't happen so much with Orlando. I guess the book just never wandered so far from what I thought was interesting in it.

Another thing I don't usually enjoy that much: biographies. But this book basically trolls on them. It probably breaks every possible rule there is but it still kind of is a biography and it's not even entirely fictional, it seems.

I loved how it was barely noted that Orlando didn't age like the centuries passed and how the reader was sort of assumed to take other peculiar things at face value too.

I also really liked it when the narrator figured that Orlando wasn't doing anything worth mentioning at the time and stole the spotlight for philosophical ramblings. It kind of makes it feel like the narrator is watching Orlando at the present moment all the time and only pretending to tell things from the past. After the narrator mentions that we've reached the present moment it seems like the superficial following of the form of biography is completely forgotten and the narrator is just in Orlando's head.

Somehow, the way Orlando's gender changed felt really out of place with all that mystical stuff. I don't know if it was intentional but I could definitely see it that way, maybe pointing out how the context can make the same stuff really engaging or really ridiculous.

The whole picking on gender norms was hilarious too, it reminded me slightly of Jane Austen sometimes, (although the style in general is pretty far from hers). I think Orlando was just perfectly written in that sense, he/she didn't really change at all but at the same time did change, if that makes sense. Sometimes, when people want to emphazise that men and women are the same, they completely ignore that society's expectations also play a role in one's identity and then some who want to emphasize the differences seem really stuck on the superficial level without understanding human nature at all. Well, to me it seems that Woolf totally understands the relationships in all of that.

I knew something of the book being thought of as a "love letter" from Woolf to Sackville-West but I didn't dig into that topic, because I didn't want to be seeking parallels any more than I was. Even if the book was intented as such, it's probably also intented for anyone to read as it is on its own so I prefered to read it without knowing too much.

So... altogether July was pretty good, though I had a bit of a reading slump here and there (First the Stranger's Child saved me from it and then Orlando...) Next month I probably won't be able to read very much because I have quite a bit of school work to do but I'm eager to reread some more of my favourites, so let's see.

WHY I WRITE

Well Holy Horcrux, this answer could be really short:

I can't not write kaythxbai.

Or obviously, really long. And since the topic came up from two different sources I'm going to contribute to both, 30 Day Challenge: YOUR DREAM JOB and a Flash Fiction Challenge: WHY I WRITE.

...because I'm a person highly averse to violence, danger and conflict and I very much like to prevent other people from engaging in them too. So if I decided, these characters' lives would basically be just a ridiculously happy-go-lucky family comedy or something.

Anyway, if your head fills and fills with characters and their stories, and you never put those things out, you know what happens? That's right, you go insane. Because the old things will keep replaying and the new stuff will keep coming.

Once I write the stories down, they become solid and my head will stop processing them.

(Of course I will have to process them again when I edit, but that's a completely different thing, because it's a conscious evaluation process.)

Writing eases the noise in my uncontrollably active mind, grants me some time and energy to function like a normal human being again, and everyone is happy. Yay!

So, rather than something I do, writing seems to be something that happens to me. But while I may be somewhat passive by nature, luckily, I'm not passive enough to not take advantage of something that happens naturally, and try to make it into something great, valuable, a life purpose even.

That's why I also have other motivators to write. First of all, I can't just watch people and not care. Whatever their story is, how their mind works, what makes them tick, nothing interests me more while I'm faced with them. I want to understand them and help them understand themselves to be able to solve their problems. And I don't doubt that the fictional people living in my head reflect the people and problems I've faced. However, they do not do it directly. They're more like a side effect of the developement of my theory of mind, an unconscious construct of the knowledge I gather.

That being said, I realise how stupid it sounds to call my stories ”a side effect” since they're easily a priority to me. But I only mean that in the sense that while I think of writing as something I was ”born to do”, real people are the source of my inspiration and the only thing that ultimately can give my writing any value. Ideally, they will affect my writing and my writing will affect them.

Which brings me to another reason why I write. I enjoy reading immensely. And naturally it was because of other people's books that I realised there was no other profession in the world I'd want to do rather than be an author.

I think reading is just a really great hobby in so many ways, but what I appreaciate the most about it is when it makes people both, feel understood and understand other people better. Ultimately, for me, reading is entertainment but that surely doesn't mean it's not useful outside itself. And no feeling compares to being able to give that entertainment to others. I'm not a published author yet, so the circle of people who have read my stories is small, but I'm pretty sure that without the experience of them enjoying it, my stories would never go beyond first drafts.

So yeah, while I think I write because I can't not, and I write what interests me, making no compromises, I also think that my writing wouldn't have any meaning if it wasn't about other people and for other people as much as it is for me.

Like reading, writing is also plain fun. While the stories just come to me and while there are kinda sorta humane idealistic motivations(=excuses) to pursuing a writing career, the craft itself gives me a sense of creativity and freedom no other medium does. (Drawing comes close, but I don't think I'm as good at it, so...) I may not feel like I'm in control of what I write but I very much feel I am in control of how I write it and I enjoy that feeling.

I decide which qualities and details I bring out in the characters, places and scenes. I recreate the atmosphere, I balance out my vision. It's bound to be different than what I actually saw in my head but that doesn't bother me in the slightest because that's how I control the contrasts of the story. It's up to me whether the story is supposed to come to the reader in HD screen, or like a distant memory, or something you're hearing from a friend. I think there's a place for any variation and I want to get better at writing to bring out the best in the stories that fill my head.

So, I also write because of that. Because the actual deciding which words to put on the paper/screen is fun and it makes me feel present in the story, like I'm interacting with my characters. (Especially when I write in my preferred viewpoint, omniscient.)

Those are probably the main reasons why I write, and want to be a published author...

So yeah, I don't really have anything cheesy to check out with. :D

30 Day Challenge: Favourite Quotes

DAY 3 - FAVOURITE QUOTE


Do people actually know their favourite quotes? I mean, can you decide on just one? Because it's seriously hard for me. I've never thought about which one actually is THE best.

So, I'll share a few.


The quote I possibly feel the most nostalgic about:

The quote I probably use the most:

And the two writing quotes I couldn't choose from:

That's it for this one. :)

June Reads

Hmm, last month I said I'd focus on reading fun books in June! But obviously my reading moods aren't that predictable. And even if I have a silly plan like that I don't hesitate to change it and read whatever I feel like reading, so... :D Let's see how fun June was anyway.

Maresi: The Red Abbey Chronicles   ★★★☆☆
Maria Turtschaninoff

 

Maresi is the Finlandia Junior winner of 2014. So, no, I wasn't even expecting this to be what you'd call a ”fun” book, because let's face it, the biggest award winners never are. However, it was definitely not as dark or angsty as I expected. The general tone of the book is actually pretty positive, it's hopeful, even empowering and never actually fully reaches the horror the beginning seems to promise. I'm having a hard time deciding whether this is actually a good or a bad thing for the book. I mean, I'm forever for happy endings, so the less the dark promises are kept the happier I'll be, but it's obviously not like that with everyone. I can imagine many people feeling betrayed by the beginning. (Although, critics don't seem to have much complaints either, so how about I just rest my case and be happy with happiness.)

Other than that, I wasn't really as impressed with this book as I'd hoped. It wasn't bad but it never stood out to me in any particularly good way either. Sure, it explored a wide variety of themes teenagers face in their life in this day and age and the historical-esque, fantasy-esque setting of the book but... that's pretty much it. And basically the reason I'm skeptical about many award winners. It's just so often that critics favour books with controversal themes (through safely conservative lenses) even if that's all the book is, when the themes are just that; a convient collection of topics and don't grow organically from the characters.

Sadly, this seemed to be exactly the case with Maresi. The characters, their relationships, their personal histories... all felt plotted to tell a story that illustrates the themes of matriarchy/patriarchy, religion/faith/practise, violence/abuse/trauma, education/poverty etc. All of these were raised as almost annoyingly discreed questions in the book and since it was combined with a plot copied and pasted straight from The Coming-Of-Age Story or something, it kind of left me feeling pretty much nothing. It just feels too calculated and crafted to evoke strong emotions.

Even the characters are like that. Like the author completely internalized the theory of creating characters and then followed that knowledge flawlessly with every one of them but forgot that the characters are supposed to come from the author's intuition and not from the page of a writer's manual. The Girl Who Loves To Read And Study and The Scared Abused Girl both fill their archetypal roles completely and have just the right amount of detailed, individual characteristics to also make them believable human beings in theory. The point is, you're not supposed to feel like that's the case when you're reading about the characters. The creation process shouldn't be left on the page like a math equation for the reader to see and go like ”Oh, these are the building blocks of this character because they make the most convenient stage for the themes the writer wanted to include.”

This book has been written like the perfect school essey, the A+ in mind. Everything has been written ”Just The Right Way”. I don't know how else to put it.

However, I quite liked reading the book anyway. On the surface, it's written very beautifully. The choice of words, how the scenes are carried to another and how the characters are described is what ultimately saves this book for me. There are moments in the narration when I was able to forget how crafted everyone seemed and just listen to the voice of the narrator.

The setting and many details about the society the characters lived in were interesting too. At times, they seemed to promise that the plot would go much further too, and it's a shame it just fell short in the end. There was definitely a good basis for the world building and I would like to spend more time in the book's world. Apparently there's going to be two more, so I'll be interested to see if the story improves.

This was an easy and quick read, and even entertaining at times, it just seems like the author was trying too hard to balance imagination, creativity and some external standard.

Rebel Belle   ★★★☆☆

Rachel Hawkins

Well this was a fun read! Which is a great surprise since it's a bit outside my comfort zone. But I was in exactly the right mood for this one. It's as funny and silly as I was expecting but in other ways it exceeded my expectations.

The main character is refreshing, since I'm kind of sick of seeing her "kind" of girls playing the role of antagonist in high school comedies, (some shy bookish girl making everyone see how vain they are in the end). :D No, girls who dress well, get good grades and care about their place in the society are not necessarily vain. Harper is a great character, and I'm so happy the story doesn't downplay the meaning of her accomplishments/what she finds important.

The cast of supporting characters was also unexpectedly good, for many reasons not usually seen in a high school comedy:

1. They all had a very distinct personality (way too often all the supporting girls and guys sound exactly the same but that was not the case here!)
2. The best friend was an actual person who's relationship with the heroine was important on its own! (way too often the best friend is just a fairy god mother who helps the heroine get the guy)
3. The way the heroine and the love interested flirted through picking on each other was actually believable (I can't almost believe I'm saying this.)
4. THE ENDING!!! That was such and awesome turn of events!! How often do you see that?
...or just in general how nobody stopped to matter to the heroine after she got the guy! (But there is one specific... group coming together in the end which makes it greater.)

There are some cons too though:

1. Some not so believable scenes and actions
2. Some events where sort of downplayed in order to get forward (the characters didn't seem to care as much as would've been natural)
3. The middle of the book was a little boring, not much happened
4. In general I think this book is a bit too nonchalant about all the dark topics it deals with... I mean, I get that it's supposed to be lighthearted but at times I still wished it would've been a bit more serious about some things.

Btw, the cover is just perfect. Just wow.

If you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Percy Jackson or that kind of light, low fantasy (this is way lighter than them though) and are looking for something fun and romantic this is probably the book for you.

Kuroko no Basket   ★★★★★

Fujimaki Tadatoshi

I finally finished reading this manga. (Well, finally means I think it took more than a week for me to read it.) I definitely love sports manga/anime with ridiculous, borderline magical abilities and exposition so detailed you'd think the readers are blind, but I'm not sure if I've ever been so immersed in one before (ok, maybe Kaleido Star).

I actually started watching the anime first, almost by accident. I had a friend over and she started to talk about it with my roommate. I knew she was watching some basketball anime but she hadn't asked me to watch it with her, even though we usually watch everything together, because she knew how much I hated basketball. xD (Allthough I had liked basketball manga before. You know I don't hate watching/reading about it, I just hate participating. ^^' But I guess she just didn't think about it and I didn't pay too much attention because I figured she just wanted to watch something alone. :D) When they talked about it, it started to sound really interesting and suddenly they wanted to watch it from the beginning and that was that. I was totally hooked.

But the anime was still on-going when I reached the newest episodes, so of course I couldn't take it and I just had to start reading the manga. I don't think there was more than maybe 5 episodes left when I got to the end of the manga, but I'm the kind who always wants to finish the original work first anyway.

Gee, it appears I still have troubles reviewing this. I'm probably going to be hang-overing it for the rest of the year. (This is why I tried to read it slowly.) Argh, I'm still having dreams about it.

Maybe I'll just accept it for now that this is the kind of series I rate five stars and ignore whatever flaws it may have because I'm completely biased. And happy with it.

The Secret in Belfast   ★★★★☆

Charity Bishop

This was a very intriguing and enjoyable read. I was really impressed by the way the real historical figures didn't stand out from the fictional characters! Sometimes when reading historical fiction, they are too obviously "crafted" and show that the author just couldn't make them "original" characters, which I think is really important. If you're going to write fiction about people you'll never write exactly like they were anyway, just go all the way and make them your own characters! With the Secret in Belfast I think that was done perfectly well.

The story was facinating and really surprized me quite a few times, which is always welcome and generally doesn't happen often enough. A couple of times I had this rare blind feeling I honestly had no idea where to story was going and that was refreshing! In general I was never expecting "the next obvious plot point" and that made me able to fully enjoy the present all the time while reading.

I also love these subtle crossovers with the author's other books, where you know that the world is the same where the characters from another book are living but you can never be sure if the books will cross paths and then it's just so great when it happens! xD It lifts my spirits every time and here that was done perfectly too.

Also, if you're reading about a historical event that you know won't end well and you're still so immersed in the story that you find yourself hoping a miracle would happen and the ending would be different, and then the tragedy hits you like it's the first time you've heard the story, even when it's one of the most well known in history... the author has definitely done their job well. I was more devastated over this book's Titanic than a Hollywood Titanic ever. <: D

I don't really have too much critic for this book. There was a while before half way through the book, I think, where I was feeling like the plot was missing a bit and the story was about separate scenes... which of course came together in the end, but there was this kind of "Wait, what is this story about, again?" -moment. Not very long, though.

A couple of times Richard gave off this feeling that you should've read another book about him before to be fully on track. Maybe, like as if the author was too aware of every detail in his past and had to squeeze them in a bit? That's just the feeling I got, but it was definitely nothing major, over all, Richard was a very genuine and sympathetic protagonist, definitely one of, if not the most memorable character.

The Watcher in the Shadows   ★★★☆☆

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

This book was only quite good, which is a dissapointment since it's a Carlos Ruiz Zafon book. (One of my favourite writers.) I can't point out exactly why but the characters seemed rather shallow all the way through.

However, I liked the fact that there was no obvious protagonist, I really like that kind of books... It's the most natural style of writing for myself too, and it clearly seem to be the minority.

The story didn't feel very interesting untill half way through and the impact of the events didn't really hit me at any point, and it should have. I mean, a lot of tragic things did happen.

The book seemed to be a little bit about everything but not enough about anything. Not enough about the mystery, not enough about the relationships, not enough about the grand scheme of things, not enough about the characters' pasts... and so on. Everything had just somewhat interesting bits, I was never fully immersed into any of them.

Except one moment! The Angel's Game crossover! When Andreas Corelli from the author's later work was mentioned, of course I was totally hooked for a second. But he was never mentioned again. His mystery really bugs me overall. I hope that some day I'll learn more about him. Is he really just this character that Zafon throws in when he needs something to happen that doesn't actually happen anyway? I just hope there's more to him than that. (Because I read him so differently in the Angel's Game. ^^')

At the end of the book I was pretty satisfied though, because I wasn't expecting the ending to be as happy as it was. (I know there's tragedy too, but still...) But it didn't feel extremely important since I wasn't as hooked as I've been with Zafon's other characters... it was just... nice enough I guess.

Boy Meets Boy   ★★★★★

David Levithan

Perfect! This is the kind of YA contemporary I want to read. It's neither of the things I have a low tolerance for: Not overly depressingly hopeless but also doesn't gloss over heavy subjects like they're a joke.

I hear most of the critique for the book saying that it's not realistic, but I don't see it that way at all. On the contrary, it is way more realistic than most high school contemporary novels: the ones where the characters simply don't make internal sense, the themes don't make internal sense, etc. The setting doesn't have to be something that exists in our day and age for the story to be realistic. The story only needs to be realistic in the context of the book.

I mean, for me the book is realistic if the characters seem to behave realistically in the given circumstances, not in relation to our circumstances. It's not the surface that matters but the foundation.

I'm not going to analyze the heck out of this book, because the bottom line is that it made me happy. Really happy. I wish it would happen more often that I run into a book that is just able to make me so happy that I don't care about anything else. It probably makes me ignore its flaws (for the second time this month! Yay!) but I don't even care.

That's the kind of story that I want to write too. Sure, it's nice to hear that someone thought my style is beautiful, or that my suspence is intriguing or my plot original and twists unexpected. But it's still nothing in comparison if someone were to tell me my story just made them so happy they forgot everything else.

I guess this book was just really, really inspirational in so many ways.

As Black as Ebony   ★★★☆☆

Salla Simukka

I wish I would've loved this book, and I wish I could've given it more than three stars.

I still loved Lumikki, but somehow, the writing seemed lazy to me this time. The other characters weren't as fully fleshed out as in the previous books. Most of them seemed nothing more than distractions to deceive the reader. All of them were given too obviously suspicious traits and behaviour that in the end, was indeed only that. Only to hide the real culprit, not something that really rose from the characters. They didn't feel like anything but tools. It really bothers me when EVERYONE is acting suspicious solely for the plot.

I was expecting at least some suprise along the way but that wasn't there either. All we got was basically a more thorough explanation of what we already knew about Lumikki and her past. The book really didn't manage to have that same psychological depth the others did. The whole thing seemed shallow to me.

The plot started off as fast-paced and interesting, at some point I was hooked, and expected a lot more from the resolution. After half way through the book it started to get one-dimensional and didn't seem to go anywhere.

I still managed to enjoy this well enough while reading. Lumikki is really a great protagonist. But if I didn't know her from the previous books I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to connect to her character through this book.

Yeah, basically my rating is a compromise, because I was invested in the story, for more than three star's worth because the rest of the series is so great, but this book's individual merit isn't really even three stars in my opinion.

A bit of a letdown. It's probably a good thing I didn't read it right after the first two books. That way it would've made me really upset. <: D

The Bad Beginning   ★★★★☆

Lemony Snicket

I actually haven't read this series before. I saw the movie about a year ago, I think, and absolutely fell in love with the atmosphere, so the movie probably worked its way into my reading but I don't really care, I just really enjoyed reading this. I was in the mood for a steampunk-ish fairy tale so of course this series came to my mind. It's a childhood favourite for so many people it seems weird I never read it. But maybe it wasn't so big in Finland?

I really loved the narrative, it was so funny and gentle despite stating all the time how the story wasn't. Some children's books make me wonder if the writer has ever met children or if they've just completely forgotten how it was to be a child but certainly not this one. I think the best children's books are definitely the ones that can be equally enjoyable to adults. And if an adult reader feels like the writer is looking down on the reader's ability to understand things, children are most likely going to feel like that too. But this book was perfect! The explanative parts felt simply considerate.

What I really appreaciate about this book is that it doesn't gloss over, well, ”unfortunate events”, sadness, horror or even tabus. It just keeps the narration at a distance where the reader has the control over how close they want to get. And the children are always portrayed in an empowering way, no matter how bad things get.

The only thing that I wasn't so sure about was how much the narration emphasized how badly the story was going to end. I mean, when it told the reader to go read something else if they wanted to read happy stories, I knew that as a kid, I actually would've put the book down. And I know it would've been a shame if I had. I would've gotten too scared to read it, even though the ending wasn't actually as miserable as the narration made it sound.

Oh, and the art. It's. Just. Amazing. I love the illustrations so much I have no words for it. The style is simply magical.

So, um, sure, I had a pretty fun reading month but it was only in Rebel Belle that the ”fun” was why I liked the book so... how about I won't set silly themes for myself anymore. :D (Although I may have read all summer's worth of YA now. ^^')

30 Day Challenge 2: 20 random questions

 DAY 2 – 20 FACTS ABOUT YOURSELF

I was too lazy to come up with 20 facts myself so I picked these questions pretty randomly from somewhere. Some are rather boring, some hopefully not as much.

1. Height?

2. Hair/Eye colour?

 

3. Do you dance crazy when no one is looking?

4. Do you like to sing in the shower?

 

5. Whats your favorite colour?

6. Favourite hair product?

 

7. Would you rather play basketball or hockey?

8. What's your favorite midnight snack?

 

9. What is the one, single food that you would never give up?

 

10. What is your weirdest "quirk"?

 

11. What's your favorite movie?

 

Always. Well, ever since I first saw it when I was 9.

12. What do you think is the most useless class in high school?

Well, I don't actually think any of them are... but maybe philosophy.

Because there seemed to be basically three kinds of students:

1. Actually interested, but all the theory is already pretty obvious to them so just getting booored.
2. Almost as bored because doesn't even care to understand anything.
3. Totally psyched about their sudden new ability to question EVERYTHING and they do, oh, just because they CAN. (But that's all they ever learn and in their case it probably would've been better if they hadn't...)

13. Do you shampoo first in the shower or soap?

Whatever way it happens to go.

 

14. Do you scream on roller coasters?

No. I laugh sometimes.

 

15. Where did you go on your first airplane ride?

Actually, I came back from Sweden.

 

16. What's your favourite season?

 

17. T.V. show you secretly enjoy?

 

18. Last thing you bought?

 

Gee, a book! You never would've guessed right?

19. One of your stuffed animals' names as a kid?

 

Meet my Neverlan- uh, I mean, my book shelf.

(And yes, those are Harry and Hermione dolls.)

 

20. The last song played?

Well, that was surprisingly fun. :D For me at least.

And my lack of scanner looks as great as ever.

8D