Books

I have decided to give my love for reading its proper place and space. I don’t want to write about the books just at the end of a post anymore but want to give them the space they deserve. Also I have seen it this way at Adrea in Wonderland and just loved it immediately and I am not above using good ideas. Since this blog is still a work in progress there can always be changes.

Mostly Harmless (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, volume 5) by Douglas Adams: Book 5 in the Hitchhiker’s trilogy. Don’t ask me why I read it in the first place but the last book in the series gives all a proper ending. I like it when the ending is like a neat little bow that ties it all together. And then you can file the book away under ‘weird experience’… which it was. I am not really sure what to think about it after having read the complete series. I am glad I did because it is kind of a ‘classic’ but it was overall a weird experience. Sometimes funny and sometimes wacky, overall more weird than anything else. Would I recommend it? Probably yes.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: I read about the book the first time here on Lainey Gossip. It’s a YA book but it is so much more than the genre would imply. It’s definitely not fair to categorize books as YA and then not read them just for this label. It is an amazing story and the two main characters are so loveable in their way that I wished someone like Park had been in my life when I was their age. Beautiful!

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: immediately after Eleanor & Park I started with her new book which I liked as well. Maybe just not so much as the other one. I couldn’t connect with Cath, the fangirl. Her issues are so far away from everything I have ever felt that I couldn’t make the connection. But I like that she was writing fan fiction. I never heard this expression before until “50 shades of Grey” and “Twilight” (and this might be the worst fan fiction ever imagined).

Her sister and her roommate make for great support characters, also very believable. But her story just didn’t touch me. I liked the book in the book though! Great story, even googled if it existed (which of course it does not, being a stand in for “Harry Potter”). The love story was again really well-developed and Levi is crush worthy. Such a shame that I could be his mother.

Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan: Since it was originally published in Chinese I was reading the book in German. I mean what’s the point of reading it in English if it is a translation anyway? But now after having finished the book I can see a point. The German version is exactly 257 pages longer. And I cannot see any added value of the 257 pages (I also don’t think that the German version was printed in a larger font or has a bigger line spacing which could explain the difference). Having said this, the book itself gets better after a while but 809 pages are just a bit much of it.

Would it not have been my current book club book, I doubt if I would have finished it. It took me almost three weeks to get there and I forced myself not to read anything else (let’s talk about being committed!). The book starts slowly and only picks up a bit near the end. Which is a shame since the end is far away in the beginning. The story is about a man who is killed during the land reform in the 50s and then gets reborn five times.

The Chinese history that gets narrated along with the story of his family was interesting because it is completely new to me. I have to apologize here but China was never on my history agenda (except for the book ‘Silk’ by Alessandro Baricco). The style of Mo Yan is also not really my favorite. He often writes about himself in the third person. He also refers to other books and stories he has written within the story which I found weird. Also it was not helping the story along but just added to the apparently 257 superfluous pages. I am so glad I finished it, so there is no need for you to read it!

Please note: These links lead you to Amazon. As an associate I earn from qualifying purchases.