I Went to See My Father by Shin Kyung-sook – ARC Review

Title:  I Went to See My Father

Author: Shin Kyung-sook

Rating: 3,75/5 Stars

Summary: Two years after losing her daughter in a tragic accident, Hon finally returns to her home in the countryside to take care of her father. At first, her father only appears withdrawn and fragile, an aging man, awkward but kind around his own daughter. Then, after stumbling upon a chest of letters, Hon discovers the truth of her father’s past and reconstructs her own family history.

Consumed with her own grief, Hon had been blind to her father’s vulnerability and her family’s fragility. Unraveling secret after secret and thanks to conversations with loving family and friends, Hon grows closer to her father, who proves to be more complex than she ever gave him credit for. After living through one of the most tumultuous times in Korean history, her father’s life was once vibrant and ambitious, but spiraled during the postwar years. Now, after years of emotional isolation, Hon learns the whole truth, from her father’s affair and involvement in a cult, to the dynamic lives of her own siblings, to her family’s financial hardships.

What Hon uncovers about her father builds towards her understanding of the great scope of his sacrifice and heroism, and of her country as a whole. More than just the portrait of a single man, I Went to See My Father opens a window onto humankind, family, loss, and war. With this long-awaited follow-up to Please Look After Mom–flawlessly rendered by award-winning translator Anton Hur–Kyung-Sook Shin has crafted an ambitious, global, epic, and lasting novel.

The ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

I was so looking forward to reading Shin Kyung-sook’s new book. I read Please Look After Mom a few years ago and I’m still mesmerized by it to this day, so I was very happy to get the chance to read this new story in advance.

I wanna start this review by saying that this novel depicts such a heart-breaking and moving story of discovery. Due to her mother being away in the capital for health reasons, the main character, Hon, gets to spend time taking care of her old father in their family home. In the meantime she also gets the chance to discovers who this man really is and all the things that she hadn’t realized when she was just a young girl living in the countryside with her parents and her siblings. Thanks to some old letters that she finds in a shed in the garden, she undertakes a research of sort into the past. She also has the help of the people who have been part or are still part of her father’s life, such as some family members and friends that talk to her and share their experiences and memories related to her father. My favorite moment to read was the letter exchange between the father and his first-born son. The ending of the father’s letters was always the same and it just broke my heart into pieces every single time I read it.

nothing more I would want. as long as you are healthy somewhere under this sky.

I don’t know what it is, but it just got me extremely emotional every time. The fact that the father just wished for the son’s health even when they could not see each other and were miles apart really got to me.

I think this novel really shows how much we may not know the people who have surrounded us our whole lives and also how people are always beings to be discovered, for better and for worse. In the end, even though Hon might find some things she doesn’t agree with or she’s not happy about, I think she also comes to the conclusion that her father really did his best for her and the family as a whole and I didn’t feel any resentment between the two, just a sense of melancholy that really touched my heart.

Overall it was a touching story that definitely had its moments and it also made me shed a few tears. If you’re into family stories I recommend you check out this novel.

Thanks for reading,

The Little French Bookshop by Cecile Pivot – ARC Review

Title: The Little French Bookshop

Author: Cecile Pivot

Publishing House: Hodder & Stoughton

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis (from Goodreads): A letter writing workshop.
Five strangers.
Countless secrets bursting in between the pages.

When French bookseller Esther loses her father, she decides to place an ad in a newspaper, inviting struggling readers to join her secret letter writing workshop.
To Esther’s surprise, applications pile in by the dozens – and before long, an elderly lady, a disillusioned businessman, a disheartened couple and an awkward teenager find themselves sharing stories, seeking advice, and forging new friendships.
As Esther’s students uncover the hopes, dreams and fears that were hiding behind the pen, Esther, too, finds herself thrown into a new world full of unexpected adventures.

Rating: 2.25/5 stars

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for giving me the chance to read this novel as an E-Arc before the release date.
All opinions, however, are completely my own.

CW: death of a brother, cancer, death of a husband, stroke, postpartum depression, suicide, child abandonment, divorce.

This review will be completely spoiler free.

“The Little French Bookshop” is a lovely epistolary novel about Esther, a French bookseller who takes the decision to start a writing workshop.
I was really drawn to the premise of this story, but I have to say that sadly my expectations were not met.

This novel follows a variety of different characters, but I feel like we really don’t get to see a lot of their personalities and their lives. I usually really like epistolary novels, but I think in this one there were too many points of view and they were put in a very chaotic way, many times for some minutes while starting the POV I didn’t even know who we were talking about.
The main points of view are that of a young boy, an elderly woman who’s very fond of her town, a couple who has trouble in communication, and a businessman.

One thing that really bothered me was, sadly, that I think the translated title, since this is a translated work, was quite misleading. For all of the book we see next to nothing close to a bookshop. I know this is just a little remark, nothing of major importance, but since I love books that talk about books, I’m sad to say that this was not the case. The original title is way more fitting for this story, in my opinion.

What didn’t really work for me, though, like I said before, were the characters in this novel. I think they were quite flat, and while I appreciated how Pivot tries to deal with serious topics and they way she talks about them, at the same time I felt like the characters were really empty.
I get that it’s really difficult to get to know a lot about the characters only through letters, but I found that in this case it was really difficult to empathize or sympathize with them. I felt quite detached from anyone, and since I’m a very character-led person, this was something I really had a problem with.

The thing I particularly enjoyed, and maybe the thing that really redeemed the book for me was how certain topics were dealt with in the letters. I believe certain topics would have not come out in that way if the characters actually spoke to each other in a dialogue, while in this way, we could really get to know all of the thoughts and the emotions that these people felt. It was interesting to see that aspect, but I felt like it was a very solitary journey, since the response was not immediate.
I think letters, as a literary device, sometimes show more about the person who writes them, and the response is sometimes superfluous.

These are all my thoughts about this book, I still think this is a novel you could really enjoy if you like novels dealing with finding yourself again after some hard times and founding new friendships.
Sadly, this one didn’t completely work for me.

Thank you so much for reading, I’ll talk to you soon,

Memento by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – Review

Title: Memento

Author:  Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Synopsis (from Goodreads): AIDAN is the AI you’ll love to hate. The advanced AI system was supposed to protect a fleet of survivors who’d escaped the deadly attack on Kerenza IV. AIDAN was supposed to be infallible. But in the chaotic weeks and months that followed, it became clear that something was terribly, terribly wrong with AIDAN…

Rating: 5/5 stars

This review will be spoiler-free!

Well, well, well, who’d have thought that this novella would come out this year? I did my waiting… 12 years… No, ok, let’s be serious. We ALL waited for so long to have the opportunity to read this novella and finally this is our chance. I would have so liked to have a physical copy, because I wanted to complete my collection of books, but I guess I’ll be fine with my digital edition. I’m trying to contain the fanboy that’s inside of me while talking about this story, because all I can say is that it was AWESOME.
Before starting with this review, I just wanted to say that if you would like to know my thoughts about the main series, you can find all the reviews at the following links: Illuminae, Gemina, Obsidio. Now, let’s talk about it better.
This was the prequel novella to the main series “The Illuminae Files”. Although it takes place before (and a little during) the major events that we see in Illuminae, I think it’s better to read it after the first book. I’m saying so because I think you could understand better some references to events and main characters. And also, because we can see a tiny little interaction between the protagonist of this novella, Olivia Klein, and a character we come to know better in Illuminae, Ezra Mason (AKA my favourite, adorable, lovely and handsome space boy). Don’t get me wrong, you can read this novella before the main series as well, but I think you can have a much greater time by following my advice. It’s your choice.
As I previously said, the main character of this story is Olivia Klein. She just joined the Alexander spaceship to work on the AI that is installed on board: AIDAN. We can see how they start interacting and how this AI tries really hard to solve problems and situations as much as it can. What Olivia is doing is trying to improve it, in order to make it more professional. She also chats with it, so we can see how it tries to interact with her, so it can understand better every nuance of the human brain. We also see its struggles with human feelings and how it can’t completely see how elaborated they are, and that was the thing I loved the most. The authors are really good in delivering how difficult the AI’s work is.
I think that Kaufman and Kristoff did an amazing job with AIDAN. If you still don’t know it, you will love it for sure in the main series, because it’s the most terrible but fascinating character of all the books.
The writing style is, as in the three main books, simply made of chats, recordings and other files that are collected aboard the spaceship. Many people think that this can’t really help you connect with the characters, but in my opinion the authors have done a great work throughout the entire saga, because even in this novella I got the chance to understand Olivia Klein really well, even if it was less than 100 pages.
I won’t go any further because it’s a 60-page book and it’s terribly easy to make spoilers. I just want to repeat myself by encouraging you to read this novella if you still haven’t had the chance and also to read “The Illuminae Files” series. Trust me, you won’t regret it. And for your own information: before, during or after you have read the books, go check out the authors profiles, here and here, to see the spectacular portrait artworks that @kate.k.art did.

So, this was my review of “Memento” by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, hope you liked it! If you would like to let me know your opinions about this novella, feel free to leave them in a comment down below.  Thanks for reading!

Alice Oseman’s Novellas Reviews

Hey readers! Last month I read Solitaire by Alice Oseman and since I’m up to date with Heartstopper (that I love soooo much), I decided to read the two novellas that are related to this book. They are “This Winter”, a prequel, and “Nick and Charlie”, a sequel. So, without further ado, let’s start!

*Beware, the following reviews contain spoilers from the novellas, Solitaire and Heartstopper*

Title: This Winter (Solitaire 0.5)
Author: Alice Oseman
Synopsis (from Goodreads): I used to think that difficult was better than boring, but I know better now… I’m not going to think about the past few months, about Charlie and me, and all of the sad. I’m going to block it all out. Just for today. “Happy Christmas, ” I say. The festive season isn’t always happy for Tori and her brother Charlie. And this year’s going to be harder than most.
Rating: 4/5 stars

This story was a little prequel of the main novel by the author. It introduces and follows the three Spring siblings and what happens to them at Christmas. I’m very interested in knowing more about Charlie and Tori, because they are two of my favourite characters of this fictional world (along with Nick).
I love how Tori is so protective with Charlie and she is always so good with him. After all he went through, Charlie deserves better, but his parents and relatives aren’t the best option right now.
For the first time I could experience what it is like to be in Charlie’s mind. I always read what he says in the graphic novel but I never got the chance to know more about his behaviour and his thoughts, but with this story I started getting a glimpse of them and I did enjoy them.

Title: Nick and Charlie (Solitaire 1.5)
Author: Alice Oseman
Synopsis (from Goodreads): Everyone knows that Nick and Charlie are the perfect couple – that they’re inseparable. But now Nick is leaving for university, and Charlie will be left behind at Sixth Form. Everyone’s asking if they’re staying together, which is a stupid question – they’re ‘Nick and Charlie’, for God’s sake! But as the time to say goodbye gets inevitably closer, both Nick and Charlie question whether their love is strong enough to survive being apart. Or are they delaying the inevitable? Because everyone knows that first loves rarely last forever…
Rating: 4/5 stars

If I got the chance to experience what it was like to be in Charlie’s mind with the previous novella, now I finally know what it is like to be also in Nick’s mind. And I loved it. Even if it’s based on a huge misunderstanding, this novella is the celebration of Charlie and Nick’s love. I can’t help myself but ship them, they are the best couple ever. I can’t stop loving them, whatever they do. Also, I was so happy to see that Charlie, two years after his relationship with Nick, was starting to feel better after his illness. It filled my heart with happiness and joy. This couple will (and has to) last forever and I couldn’t be gladder than that.

These are my opinions about these two novellas, hope you enjoyed reading them! If you would like to let me know your own thoughts about them or you would like to comment what I said here, leave a comment down below. Thank you!

Solitaire by Alice Oseman – Review

Title: Solitaire

Author: Alice Oseman

Synopsis (from Goodreads): In case you’re wondering, this is not a love story. My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep, and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now. Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden. I don’t know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don’t care about Michael Holden. I really don’t.

Rating: 4/5 stars

 

Beware, the following review will contain some spoilers!

 

I really enjoyed reading this book in the last few days. I didn’t expect the story to be like this, in fact I was quite surprised about what happened in there!

I think that the plot was pretty cool, I started it thinking it was just about Tori, her life, her struggles, her friends, Charlie and Nick and so on. But, in addition to that, there’s also a mystery! Not the kind of guess-who-killed-someone mystery, ok, but it’s still something that needs to be solved. I’m talking about Solitaire’s blog and the many things that happen around Tori. Someone is trying really hard to impress her by doing many different things. And the mind behind was none other than Lucas. It was a bit obvious; I was unsure if it was Michael or him, but in the end, I was 90% sure it was Lucas.

Talking about Michael, I loved him so much. He was so adorable and peculiar, I got along with him immediately. He was a bit funny sometimes, but still lovely. And I was so excited that he and Tori ended up together! They are one of my new favourite ships (even though Nick and Charlie are still in the first place, no doubts).

I have to admit that I started reading this book because I was curious to know more about Nick and Charlie. Heartstopper is such an adorable and amazing graphic novel, it’s quite obvious that I would be so interested in knowing more. Well, their story wasn’t all easy peasy lemon squeezy at all. In the graphic novel the author is still introducing the main challenge that Charlie will face in Solitaire. It was hard to read about his disorder, really hard. I hope he will feel better in the future. And with Tori on his side I’m sure he will have all the help he needs.

Last but not least, Tori. I got along with her really well since the beginning. Maybe because sometimes I feel like her or maybe it’s because of this quarantine, I don’t know, but I felt what she felt for almost the entire book. And her relationship with Michael was adorable. I so loved them!

So, these are my opinions about this book, hope you liked reading it! If you would like to let me know your own thoughts about the novel or you would like to talk about what I said in this review, leave a comment down below! Thanks.

Into the Crooked Place by Alexandra Christo – ARC Review

Title: Into the Crooked Place

Author: Alexandra Christo

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Synopsis: The streets of Creije are for the deadly and the dreamers, and four crooks in particular know just how much magic they need up their sleeve to survive.
Tavia, a busker ready to pack up her dark-magic wares and turn her back on Creije for good. She’ll do anything to put her crimes behind her.
Wesley, the closest thing Creije has to a gangster. After growing up on streets hungry enough to swallow the weak whole, he won’t stop until he has brought the entire realm to kneel before him.
Karam, a warrior who spends her days watching over the city’s worst criminals and her nights in the fighting rings, making a deadly name for herself.
And Saxony, a resistance fighter hiding from the very people who destroyed her family, and willing to do whatever it takes to get her revenge.
Everything in their lives is going to plan, until Tavia makes a crucial mistake: she delivers a vial of dark magic—a weapon she didn’t know she had—to someone she cares about, sparking the greatest conflict in decades. Now these four magical outsiders must come together to save their home and the world, before it’s too late. But with enemies at all sides, they can trust nobody. Least of all each other.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher Hot Key Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This review is spoiler free.

This new gangster fantasy left me happy and disappointed at the same time.
Into the Crooked Place has an interesting enough world filled with magic, which I think could have been explained a lot better than it was. I think there’s still a lot to discover about the magic system and I honestly cannot wait for it.

The characters are what drives the story forward, especially in the middle of the book where the storyline kind of dragged and the only thing that kept me reading were their interactions.
I truly feel like there were characters that were well developed and others that were just there. Wesley is a cut above all others, he just is. I loved how he cared for the city, and also one person in particular, of which I will not tell the name because I don’t want to spoil anyone. (But just know that I ship, I ship it so bad.) The only other character who comes close to being well-crafted is Tavia. She was interesting, dynamic and resourceful, and I really liked her. The other narrators and their points of view didn’t really catch my attention. And I’m truly sorry to say this about Karam and Saxony because I truly feel like they had a lot of potential.

The main storyline and mission were just okay, they didn’t thrill me as much as I hoped they would. The only thing I was interested in were Wesley and his feelings. I just wanted him to succeed because I liked him and I wanted him to be happy and have whatever he wanted. What can I say? I guess I do love a crook.

This book has been compared to Six of Crows on multiple occasions and I can totally see why. I think that the feel is pretty much the same, but I personally prefer Leigh Bardugo’s books. Also, Wesley resembles Kaz quite a lot, which, let’s be real, it’s probably why I liked him so much.

I think this book has some great potential even though it has not the most original story.
The last 100 pages of this novel were very good and totally redeemed the book. I flew through them and there were some really good plot twists. The ending definitely left me curious to see how the author decides to continue on with the series.

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater – Review (September 2019 Book Club)

Title: All the Crooked Saints

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Synopsis: Here is a thing everyone wants: A miracle. Here is a thing everyone fears: What it takes to get one. Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars.
At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo. They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro are never quite what you expect

Rating: 2.8/5 stars

*Beware this review will contain SPOILERS*

 

I’m not sure what to say about this book. I think that it was both boring and interesting, but it was also difficult to read. Let’s talk about it.

The main problem in this book is that nothing is explained. Things are left to the reader without any explanation, or there are very few of them. Things are always very messy and the reader has to work out them in order to understand the entire plot. For example, at first I didn’t get how the miracles worked, it was a little confusing with the first and the second miracle and how people need to solve them.
Not to mention the owls and everything that surrounded them. What was their role? I’m still trying to figure it out.
One of the biggest questions I still have in my mind is: if the main characters couldn’t interfere with the pilgrims, what is happening in the second half of the book? Here the author didn’t explain well what was going on and that was totally frustrating.
What I liked and disliked at the same time was the structure of the plot. In the first half nothing happened and then in the second one in every chapter a pilgrim solved their second miracle. I think that Stiefvater could have organized the story better because the end was a little too rushed.

The plot would have been pretty cool per se, but it wasn’t well developed by the author. Let’s be honest, this wasn’t her greatest work, but neither something that wasn’t readable. It is a troubled book with a difficult magic system to understand, but at least it was original. I got involved in the story from half of the book, when I began to understand how some things worked and when things started to develop.

Another thing that I didn’t get was the Soria’s family tree. What disappointed me was that the first 30% of the book was focused mainly on the presentation of all the main characters, their relatives and what they wanted and hated. They were too many and I got confused immediately. Right now, I can’t remember who Luis or Michael are. Even this thing made me a little frustrated about this book and this story.

What I really loved was Pete and Beatriz’s relationship. They were so cute and lovely. They were a breath of fresh air in this book and I fell in love with them immediately. I would like to say the same for Marisita and Daniel but I didn’t really relate to them. I found their story really marginal and slow, even though it is the main plot of the story.
I have to give a great praise to Stiefvater’s writing style, because this was the most beautiful thing of the book. Even though the book is very confusing and sometimes a bit frustrating, the reading process is very fluent and fast and in a few minutes you find yourself halfway through the book.

So, this is my opinion about our book pick for the month of September, I hope you enjoyed reading this review. If you would like to let me know your own thoughts about this novel, leave them in a comment down here.

Aaaaand our next pick for the month of October is…

“Like a Love Story” by Abdi Nazemian. Since the day it came out we were really eager to read it. So, if you’d like to read it with us this month, feel free to join us in our Goodread Group so we can comment it together at the end of the month. Thanks for reading!

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – Review

Title: The Goldfinch

Author: Donna Tartt

Rating: 3.75/5 Stars

Synopsis: A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend’s family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld.

Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America, and a drama of almost unbearable acuity and power. It is a story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the enormous power of art.

This review contains spoilers.

Let’s just say that I was a little bit late to the party and I only managed to read this book last month, even though I bought it as soon as it came out in 2013. But anyway, better late than never, right? And it’s also perfect timing because the movie comes out this month!

This novel demands a lot from its readers, it’s not an easy read, that’s for sure. And I’m not only talking about the huge number of pages of this book baby, but also about the variety of themes and the devoted attention that is required by the story. Even though I was interested, I found myself struggling to follow the pages if I was tired, I needed to be in the right mindset to get to the end of the chapters and properly enjoy the story.

The premise of this book is pretty straightforward. After the terrible events, in which his mother tragically dies, Theo’s life literally gets turned upside-down. The story then takes off from there and follows Theo throughout some of his teenage years and also some of his adult life.

In my opinion, there are three main narratives that take form on the first day in which we meet Theo.

The first one is obviously the one regarding his mother, and then later in the story all that concerns his family and the people in his life. Theo’s mother is always present on the page, it’s always there in the back of his head, leading him to behave in a certain way and do certain things. Losing her is a very pivotal point in the story, even though it happens at the very beginning of the book. She was the only person Theo had in its life and without her he is undoubtedly lost.

“…still when I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life…”

The portrayal of Theo’s feelings towards his mother just broke my heart, it was so real and raw. I could really empathize with Theo and given the fact that we knew his mother was the focal point of his life, it was so easy to believe and see how losing her truly destroyed him.

I would say the second narrative revolves around the ring Welty gives Theo. It’s a very important object that sends the main character on a kind of epic quest, in search of something he doesn’t even realize he needs: a real home. Thanks to the ring he gets the chance to meet Hobie, and the rest is history.

The third and final narrative is about the object to which Theo aspires to for the entirety of the novel: The Goldfinch. It’s the painting that puts a lot of the story into motion, the focal point of this entire book. It is also the source of eternal admiration and reverence on Theo’s part. I think the paragraphs detailing the way he thought about this object were some of the most beautifully written. The Goldfinch was basically a sort of character in the book and I think this quote, about the beloved painting, sums up this entity very nicely.

“Only-if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it?”

 I could talk to you about the themes or the characters of this book for hours on end, but unfortunately we don’t have all day. All the themes are interconnected with one another and there’s such a variety of them it’s impossible to keep up: from loss to art, from love to obsession, from drugs to mental health. It’s a lot to take in, but if you’re up for the challenge you won’t be disappointed by this book.

The characters are very well crafted and even the ones that at first glance might seem like portrayals of only one or a few qualities reveal themselves to be multilayered and full of endless possibilities.

I’m going to end this review by saying that this book is well deserving of its praise because it truly is a majestic novel. I’m really looking forward to the movie and I hope to like it as much as I adore the trailer, which definitely looks amazing. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to wait because here in Italy the movie won’t be out until October. Are you guys going to watch it?

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman – Review

Title: Northern Lights

Author: Philip Pullman

Synopsis: Lyra Belacqua is a young girl that lives at the Jordan College in Oxford. She lives in a world that is very different from ours; in fact, every person has its own Dæmon, a sort of animal that is strictly bound to its human being.
At some point, we discover that many children are disappearing and no one knows where they are even if they are alive at all. When Lyra’s best friend Roger disappears too, she decides to take a journey to the North in order to know more about what is happening.

Rating: 4/5 stars

 

This review is completely spoiler free, so don’t worry and enjoy your reading!

 

I have to admit it. When one or two years ago I heard that they were going to make a tv-series adaptation of these books I was a little wary. After watching the movie adaptation of the first novel of the amazing trilogy of “His Dark Materials” no one can blame me. This film was terrible, and they didn’t even try to go ahead with the story. Not to mention that they said many times that they were going to do some tv series or new movie adaptations about it but then nothing became real.
So when I heard that the trailer was out, the show was produced by HBO and the release date was November 3^rd, I started screaming and crying out of joy. Also, I couldn’t miss the chance to re-read the books in order to be ready to watch it. Well, I had to re-read them because I’m also writing my University thesis about one specific topic that involves them (and if you’d like to know more about it, here is the link to the article).
Now, let’s talk about the first book of this wonderful trilogy: Northern Lights, aka The Golden Compass.

I tried many times to convince my friends to read these novels because they are amazing in many different ways.
Firstly, if you don’t know this fun fact, this trilogy was written by Philip Pullman in order to go against C.S. Lewis’s most famous work “The Chronicles of Narnia”. [Beware, if you haven’t read yet this book series it might be a spoiler] This saga is a huge allegory of the Christian world, where we see Aslan, the famous Lion that gives the name to the second book of the series, as a metaphor of God and Jesus.

For this reason, Pullman decided to write his trilogy by creating a totally different world where the Church was in control of everything and was seen as an enemy. The first time I started reading “His Dark Materials” and I got to know this information I was completely shocked.

Another important reason why this book is amazing is its protagonist: Lyra. She is just twelve years old and she might be sometimes a bit whimsical, but she is brilliant. She is very smart and the greatest friend everyone would like to have on their side. Not every person is ready to leave everything, take a difficult and dangerous journey in order to save you. Also, I loved the fact that she is a fantastic liar. This is not the virtue someone would like to find in their friends, but when she needs to save herself or her precious ones and she starts lying to anyone, I can’t help but love her. She is just brilliant and amazing.

One of the last things that makes this book great is its world. We are in a completely different world from ours. In fact, there are many different populations like Gyptians, canal-faring nomads, panserbjørne, armoured bears that are unlike the normal bears, Tartars, a peculiar population that lives in the north of Europe, witches and many others.
Not to mention the most important thing that every single person in this world possesses: dæmons. These are a person’s soul and they are external to their body. This sort of animal is always near to its human and can’t be separated from it. Before puberty, people’s dæmons can change the animal species every time they want until they become adults and transform into a specific animal forever.
The first time I read it (and also now) I started trying to imagine my own dæmon in order to know which animal was the one that represents me the most. I guess it is a cat or an otter. At least I hope so.

So, this is my opinion about Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, I hope you enjoyed reading this review. If you would like to let me know your own thoughts or what kind of dæmon you have, leave them in a comment down here. Thanks!

How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters – ARC Review

Title: How to Be Remy Cameron

Author: Julian Winters

Rating: 3.25 Stars

Synopsis: Everyone on campus knows Remy Cameron. He’s the out-and-gay, super-likable guy that people admire for his confidence. The only person who may not know Remy that well is Remy himself. So when he is assigned to write an essay describing himself, he goes on a journey to reconcile the labels that people have attached to him, and get to know the real Remy Cameron.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher Interlude Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This review is spoiler-free.

After his AP Literature teacher assigns him the task to write an essay on himself, Remy realizes he has to face a journey of self-discovery. This book is basically an introspective journey that Remy, the main character, embarks on. He’s trying to figure out who he really is and what the labels, that have been assigned to him throughout all his life, truly mean. He knows he’s a black, gay young man who was adopted by a very lovable family and who has a little sister whom he loves to pieces, and also an adorable dog named Clover. He has a nice group of friends and he’s sure he can always count on his two besties, Rio and Lucy. Remy cannot function without coffee and peanut butter cups are his stress reliever. That’s what people know about him, but who is Remy really?
Remy asks himself this question throughout the whole book. Answering obviously isn’t an easy task and sometimes we see that Remy truly struggles with finding the answers to such a huge life question. It’s all very understandable of course, I mean who wouldn’t?

I think this book could be an important and meaningful read if the question “Who am I?” has ever crossed your mind. This novel definitely puts things into perspective and makes you think, that’s for sure.

For me a negative aspect of the book was that sometimes I felt like we were getting nowhere in the narration and even though time passed I felt stuck, just like Remy was stuck in writing his essay. Even with the subplots the author decided to include in the book, something didn’t feel right. In my opinion an example of this aspect might be all that regards the Mad Tagger investigation. To me it just felt like something not organic or meaningful to the general story we were presented. The subplots were resolved very quickly and for that I’m grateful since I had very little interest in them.
Needless to say, it was a relief to see that after the first half of the book things started to pick up the pace and we focused more on Remy’s main storyline.

This book was a generally nice read that might interest a lot of people. If you’re one of those people, then I suggest you check it out!