Paperback Castles

“Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it's social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die.”

The continuos sound of humming bees fills this book. Bees swarm around as complex symbols, resembling people and their bond towards each other. Hidden connections between loving sisters and the importance of mothers keep appearing throughout the book, making it a true delight to read and to wonder about.

Kidd's writing is exquisite - even magical at some places. Lily is the perfect narrator as well; she hides nothing, and allows the reader to catch truthful glimpses of her constantly changing teenage-mind. Seen from the outside she would probably lose her charm; but with her constantly soothing voice, the narrative is floating gracefully, and sympathy for her character is inevitable.

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.”

While this sure is a timeless book with a beautiful messages, I never fully warmed up to its religious aspect. I praise Kidd for her ingenious feminism - but at times her motives were too obvious. I also had a problem with the pacing - in particular Lily's long reluctance to finally ask about her mother felt a bit dragged out.
Still, it was an easy book to read and an interesting one. I was happy when Lily finally stood up for herself and found her own voice; she freed herself, and cast off her chains in the end.

“We walked along the river with the words streaming behind us like ribbons in the night.”

This little book/speech is yet another proof: Neil Gaiman is wise and inspirational beyond belief.

"Make Good Art" encourages its readers to chase their dreams, choose their paths, and to break the rules. Gaiman implies that failures can be fantastic; that mistakes can be good, and that it all depends on finding your own voice and creating your own originality. To witness such an artistic man as Neil Gaiman share his views on good art is truly fascinating.

Some people have complained about the layout of this book, but I really think it is brilliant. The illustrator actually proves Gaiman's point; that rules are allowed to be bend and broken. An important thing to remember and to cherish, always.

“A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.”

In this book, September walks within a dark world made entirely of shadows, of magic and of wildness. In this book September learns what it means to suppress emotions, to hide pieces and bits of oneself and to put on a different mask for the world to see. She learns the sweet bitterness that lies within stolen kisses, friendly betrayals and the words of forgiveness. She grows up, she gets hurt and she leaves Fairyland a little darker, than she entered it. (As we all do, when we tread the painful path of growing up.)

This book somehow feels a lot more dangerous, mysterious and profound than the first installment in the series. Every fantastical creature September stumbles upon are thought-provoking symbols that collide perfectly with our own world. A forgetful kangaroo won my heart, as he illustrated the importance of memories - of both the lovely and the hurting kind.
As September journeys through Fairyland-below she meets all sorts of haunted and helpless soul; and she tries to reason with herself whether shadows should live freely and wildly, or join their substances and be forced to live in their shadows. A highly complex and recognizable dilemma between freedom, sacrifice and order.

Valente writes beautifully as always, letting her words flow like pretty dreams in a pink sky. Her fantasy-creations and inventions makes Fairyland come to live before you very eyes. September's universe is so quirky, adorable and deeply hypnotizing.
This book does take place in Fairyland's underground, and as a consequence the story feels darker than its precedor. But perhaps that is only a good thing. As I walked in the shadows of Fairyland's landscape, I learned to love it even more. I grieved for the Marquess and her shadow, I wondered about Saturday and his stolen kiss, and I wished desperately for September to find her beloved dragon.

I stumbled into the beautiful Fairyland and fell in love with it - but all stumblers have a clock and of course my time ran out before I would have liked it to. I cannot wait to return, I cannot wait for the next book. This was the most spellbinding sequel I have ever read - and one of the most well-crafted children's books of all time.

“She did not know yet how sometimes people keep parts of themselves hidden and secret, sometimes wicked and unkind parts, but often brave or wild or colorful parts, cunning or powerful or even marvelous, beautiful parts, just locked up away at the bottom of their hearts. They do this because they are afraid of the world and of being stared at, or relied upon to do feats of bravery or boldness. And all of those brave and wild and cunning and marvelous and beautiful parts they hid away and left in the dark to grow strange mushrooms—and yes, sometimes those wicked and unkind parts, too—end up in their shadow.”

A peculiar and whimsical story hiding within the frames of a traditional fairy-tale and an outrageous fantasy universe. It is filled with wonder and magic; witches, purring leopards, purpose-seeking keys, loyal creatures made out of soap and a dragon with literary roots, all soaked in Valente's beautiful prose and lyrical writing. Nothing makes sense - everything is nonsense, and yet it is the truest book I've ever read.

“All stories must end so, with the next tale winking out of the corners of the last pages, promising more, promising moonlight and dancing and revels, if only you will come back when spring comes again.”

September is a charming, courageous and quirky main character - but of course it was the lovely Wyverary who won my heart in the end. A-through-L is half dragon and half library - with an intense knowledge of everything from A to L. A library-loving dragon in love with alphabetizing - I couldn't have asked for more.
Valente's writing is gorgeous - she draws you in with her picturesque and nostalgic descriptions, she stuns you with her vivid imagination of childhood wonders, and she lets you drown in insightful explanations and comparisons. I was at once reminded of Lewis Carroll, Neil Gaiman and C.S. Lewis - some of my favorite writers.

Fairyland allowed me to think of talking and living furniture, to imagine flying leopards and wish-granting marids, to speculate of wishes and heartlessness, and it took me on a journey through moonlit valleys of twinkling stars, heartfelt dreams and long-lost fantasies. It filled me with longing, with hope and with bittersweet nostalgia.

I loved it.

“One ought not to judge her: all children are Heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb high trees and say shocking things and leap so very high grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless At All. September stood very generally in the middle on the day the Green Wind took her, Somewhat Heartless, and Somewhat Grown.”

It's been a long time since I've cried like this. It almost feels like my heart has been broken and bent, and I am exhausted. My head aches, my eyes are swollen and red, and my nose keeps running. I have been shattered into a sea of tears.

I am a sentimental and impressionable young thing, and I do often shed a tear or two over the pages of someone else's story. But this time I couldn't help myself; I sobbed my way through the last 100 pages of this book, and now that they have passed and the book is closed, I feel empty and tired. So, so, so tired.
It is obvious that you're supposed to cry while reading this story. Kibler's plot is consciously designed that way. Sometimes it even feels like she is pushing you, edging you to the verge of a break-down with her beautifully touching and sad love story. At times it can be annoying, obtrusive even. But it still works.

This is a moving and well-known story of racism, love and missed opportunities - and it proves its continuous relevance by being related to the present, in the shape of Dorrie. While I didn't particularly need that aspect of the story, I still appreciate Kibler's point.

I didn't love "The Help", but I adore this. "Calling Me Home" is such a tragic love story, told in the most beautiful way possible. I fell in love while I read it - not in love with the characters, but with the character's love for each other. It felt so real, that it nearly broke my heart.

A collection of short stories with one theme in common: they're all about birthdays - and yet they are nothing alike.

The collection is dipped in a sea of melancholia and sadness, as birthdays are often associated with reflections and a profound outlook on the life that has passed by. People find themselves longing for closure, for hope, and for something more than they ever got.

My favorite story was perhaps the first one in the collection. 'The Moor' by Russell Banks is lingering in the back of my mind, and I will perhaps treasure it always. I also adored 'Birthday Present' by Andrea Lee which is a beautiful tale of decay and of powerbalance in a complicated marriage. It is so perfectly lovely and complex, that I'm considering using it for a class that I'm teaching. 'Timothy's Birthday' by William Trevor was also a pleasant surprise; it tells an interesting tale of how birthdays always force estranged families to come together in the name of tradition and habit.

What I like most of all is how minimalistic the writing is; even though the stories are widely different, they each sound alike and come together in a beautiful unision. "Birthday Stories" has left me with an urge to read more short stories in the nearest future.

“We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high.”

This book is so, so, so lovely and yet endlessly frustrating. It starts out as a deliciously creepy mystery with soft tones of childish defence mechanisms and simple escapism. The idea that Abe should be telling his stories as a way of coping with death, loss and tragedy is beautiful, sincere and believable. The subtle hints that there may hide something even darker beneath the thin layer of make-believe are disturbing. The first 100 pages of this book were everything I had imagined it to be; filled with strangeness and peculiarity.

The last 250 pages were, however, a mess. The book pulled itself in two opposite directions; what started out as a haunting mystery turned into a fantasy novel with odd elements of teen-romance. Plot holes started to appear, and confusion washed in over me in crashing waves. I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to feel, or what the novel was trying to be. It was marketed as one thing and written as another.

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.”

The characters are poorly developed and the circumstances surrounding them are bleak. Riggs' writing is beautiful; but it never comes to life, it never draws you in completely. The passage I loved most in this book, was the prologue. Everything moved slowly downhill after that.

Hilarious, nonsensical and full of rambling diversions - to read this little book is almost like listening to my great-grandfather talk. It took me a while to get completely into the writing style and to find my way in between the loud thinking and actual events, but I did get sucked in at last.

My only problem with this book is the constantly shifting tone between humorous incidents and profound philosophies. The sudden streams of deep thinking always surprised me, and the ending scene with a dead woman floating by in the water somehow seemed a bit misplaced.

Still, this book made me laugh out loud several times. Some passages are simply brilliantly written - such as this;

“My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when I’m travelling, and makes my life a misery. I dream that I haven’t packed it, and wake up in a cold perspiration, and get out of bed and hunt for it. And, in the morning, I pack it before I have used it, and have to unpack again to get it, and it is always the last thing I turn out of the bag; and then I repack and forget it, and have to rush upstairs for it at the last moment and carry it to the railway station, wrapped up in my pocket-handkerchief.”

Ok, so "City of Bones" goes something like this;

Darth Vader: "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father"
Luke: "He told me enough! He told me YOU killed him."
Vader: "No, I am your father."
Luke: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

But apparently Darth Vader is everyone's father in this one, and Luke and Leia are very twisted siblings indeed.

Star Wars comparisons aside, this book is filled with clichés and a high level of predictability. Every major plot twist is hinted 100 pages before it takes place, and every single character is a reinvention of someone you've met before in another novel. The romance consists of a love triangle between the nerdy friend, the girl-who-doesnt-know-how-beautiful-she-truly-is, and the seemingly tough guy with a harsh childhood and inner suffering. Sounds familiar? Add to that yet another love triangle (!) with the exact same elements, and you have a clear vision of Clare's plot. Not at all repetitive.

But that wouldn't be so bad, if the plot at least was fast-moving and exciting. But it isn't - it truly isn't. In the middle of the novel Clare decides to waste about 50 pages on a completely irrelevant rat-chase - just to fill out the pages. It made no sense, at all.

I like the concept of Clare's universe - but I do not like the characters she has populated it with, and I will not read the rest of the series. After all, I already know how it's going to end. (We all know that, don't we?)

Daphne du Maurier writes beautifully. Liquid streams of loveliness flows effortlessly from her pen; it numbs her reader, enchants her books and leaves an everlasting mark, a soft kiss on the cheek, when the last page is turned. Her words are pure magic in its truest form.

"My cousin Rachel" is a tangled cob web of lingering ghosts, growing suspicions and constantly shifting loyalties. du Maurier tricks her reader, she uses the pages to play with her vivid imagination and to subtly hint things that lies ahead. The ending is destined to stay with you forever; the last words are haunting. Just as they were in "Rebecca" as well.

I will not discuss the plot; you will have to experience it for yourself. The plot, the mysteries, the surppressed emotions, the dazzling descriptions and the tormenting mindgame will have to bewitch you, to work its magic on you, before you could ever fully grasp the plot.

Glittering streams of magic, encapsulated in a book.

"American Gods" is a story of family, love, war and mysteries. It is an unique tale of coin tricks, prisons, disappearings and death. But most of all, it is a book about immigration, cultural values, mythology and identity.
What perhaps seems like absurd nonsense in the beginning, is really Gaiman's portrayal of America as the big cultural melting-pot and meeting point. With a beautiful imagery, Gaiman actually describes what it means to come to America - and to leave one's national heritage behind. And he does it so fluently and elegant, that you will fall in love with his words.

“and then he looked her full in the face, and her heart leapt and sank, as the eyes the dangerous blue of the summer sky before a storm gazed back into hers.”

This book is an astonishing work of details with well-crafted and carefully executed descriptions, and an odd mixture of reality, mythology and fantasy. The sweet taste of Odin's mead will leave tickling sensations on the tip of your tongue, the world's largest carousel will move around in circles before your very eyes, and the icy cold atmosphere of Lakeside will freeze you to death.

The main plot is often interrupted by fragments and pieces of mythology, or seemingly unconnected immigrant stories - vivid portrayals of the culture and the beliefs that America has swallowed up as a whole. As the plot slowly unfolds, you will learn that they in fact are the true heart of Gaiman's story.

“Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.”

I adore the creation of the little town called Lakeside. So beautiful, peaceful and idyllic on the surface - and utterly chaotic underneath. Populated with people that lives in confined little bubbles of happiness, and close their eyes to the haunting reality. That part of the book was almost gothic - there is nothing as truly terrifying as numbed human beings, out of touch with their emotions and their sense of right and wrong.

Gaiman's book is about gods and ordinary people, murder and mythology - tightly interwoven with stories of tragic human fates, and the tale of a city where ignorance is bliss. Seemingly unconnected dots of unpredictable events, that joins together as a beautiful whole - and not only portray Americans, but also the individuals who have been absorbed and swallowed in the American culture.

I have not quite decided how to rate this book yet - I am hesitating, debating whether it is worthy of 3 or 4 stars. It was hard for me to get into, and heavy for me to read. I had absolutely no idea where it would take me - and while it certainly was interesting and surprising, it was frustrating as well. This is such a hard book to read, because it contains so much wisdom and careful consideration. Every single word is important and essential to the story - and sometimes I lost my focus a bit.
I will probably change the rating the first thing tomorrow morning - but I will need to sleep on it in order to decide.

“There are stories that are true, in which each individual's tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it to deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others' pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to.”

"Lolita" is really a mindgame; a labyrinth of deception and manipulation, a constantly shifting playing field of symphathy and revulsion.

With heartbreakingly poetic phrases and lyrical love declarations, Nabokov tries to trick his readers into siding with a pedophile. And, most scarily of all, some of the time he actually succeeds.
Humbert Humbert is really a humbug, a coward, a pathetic, self-pitying, murderous, violent and loathsome caricature of a human being. A completely unreliable narrator, hiding beneath layers and layers of beautifully woven words. Poetry, metaphors and indefinite wordplay serves as a delicate disguise for his twisted personality.

Humbert steals away Dolores Haze, bends her reality, rips off her identity, and turns her into his Lolita - a 12-year old girl without a childhood. She becomes faceless, and no accurate description of her can be found. Even though her name serves as the title of the book, she is nowhere present. Instead the pages are filled with Humbert Humbert and his sickly sweetening smell.

Nabokov's writing is perfect, and "Lolita" is an abominable story told in the most beautiful way possible.

For years and years I have been told that I had to read Martin's "A Game of Thrones". And then the TV-show came, and the reading recommendations exploded; everyone was reading the series and everyone told me to read it as well. It almost felt like the books were being forced on me; like some sort of mandatory reading that I had no choice but to read immediately.
Of course I protested. I hate being told what to read. I hate being obligated to read something. I hate the phrase "You have to read this", because in the end, I only have to read whatever I feel like reading. And I didn't feel like reading yet another so-called epic fantasy-series.

But I gave up. I caved in, and I dived into a world filled with vivid colors, odd personalities and hopeless cruelty. Martin introduced me to an old tale told in an entirely new way; "A Game of Thrones" is essentially just a story of man's need for power, domination and submission. A mindgame of manipulation, war strategies and secretive plotting - with a light touch of magic, dragons and dark forces.
What really holds the story is the characters, their actions, their reasoning and their distinct voices. Each chapter represents a new world seen from a fresh pair of eyes. The constantly shifting tones and angles make it possible to understand the dynamics of each political force and their individual set of beliefs.

However I did think Martin perhaps fell into his own trap, and his constant shift between characters created a pacing problem. There never seems to be enough of the characters you love (Daenerys, Tyrion, Eddard Stark), and the interruption created by chapters about less exciting characters (Bran Stark, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark) can almost feel like an insult at times.
The sudden death of beloved characters (which has made Martin famous) almost seem pointless at times - a bit too desperate, too dramatic and too easy for my taste. But that may just be because I've watched the TV-show, and knew it was coming all along.

Overall I enjoyed this book. I liked it, and was entertained from beginning to end. But I am not in awe, I am not spellbound and I am not lost in Martins world. I am impressed with the many characters, their different storylines and the complete mythology Martin has created. An overview like that is always impressive.

I am torn between 3 or 4 stars. 3.5 perhaps?

Some parts of "A Clash of Kings" actually worked far better than "A Game of Thrones". But once again it all comes down to pacing. I cannot in any way agree with Martin's exposure of some characters and his choice of story lines. It all feels so uneven, so unpolished. Perhaps that is the true curse of multiplot-novels: all plots never work equally well.

(That said, I really do enjoy Daenerys' story. It is so mesmerizing, so magical. I could read an entire book about her - and never even miss Bran for a second.)

This is my second time reading this book; the first time I didn't give it the attention it deserved, and I read the pages without really allowing the words to sink in. How I could not realize its true brilliance back then, I will never know.

"A Room with a View" is such an absurdly comical, lovable and endearing little book; every word on every page is chosen with care and perfect accuracy. In the course of 200 pages, Forster manages to portray a playful tumult of vivid characters, describe an inner confliction, an offer of love, a rejection and a renewed love. The story has hints of feminism and social critique as well - all this, within less than 200 pages. It is impressive and it is beautiful.

I will award this book three stars, and I will never ever pick it up again. I will never even as much as look at it again - it will be placed in the back of my bookcase, guarded by layers of lovely books.

Why? Because "American Psycho" is a horrible, horrible, horrible book. It holds a story of true terror, horror and absurdism. It is extreme.
Of course extremity is always an admirable and brave choice when writing a book - and that is why I choose to overlook my disgust and reach for three stars instead of just one. With this book Ellis' has told a story that I would rather forget and abandon forever. A book so disturbing, so disgusting, so grotesque that it made me sick; torn between the need to throw up or to scream.

Sometimes it is a good thing to read something you don't want to know, or look at something you don't want to see. "American Psycho" is an eye-opener - and it paints a picture that is anything but pretty.