Tag: Book

Reading Habits Tag

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I found this on the lovely Rachel’s blog and decided to give it a go too. Definitely go and give Rachel a read for some absolutely fantastic posts! I don’t usually get tagged for things I just pick them up and throw them on my blog for you guys so if you’re not tagged but want to give this a go then go ahead! 

1. Do you have a certain place at home for reading?

I like to curl up in my bed with a lot of pillows, if I’m feeling a little more social then I’ll curl up with pillows and blankets on the sofa. Pillows are essential to thought out reading time.

2. Bookmark or random piece of paper?

I’m trying to build up my bookmark collection but there isn’t one I’ll use anything I have around.

3. Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter/ a certain amount of pages?

If I absolutely have to I’ll stop but I prefer to stop at a chapter or at an exact point in a book, like half way.

4. Do you eat or drink while reading?

Not really, I like just getting absorbed.

5. Multitasking: Music or TV while reading?

Not usually, I get too distracted.

6. One book at a time or several at once?

I’m usually reading at least 2 on the go.

7. Reading at home or everywhere?

Everywhere and anywhere.

8. Reading out loud or silently in your head?

Silently, I’ve never been someone who liked reading out loud.

9. Do you read ahead or even skip pages?

Only if I’m really bored of a book. When I was younger I used to get impatient and skip to the end.

10. Breaking the spine or keeping it like new?

Keeping it like new, my family don’t like to borrow books from me because I’m so careful with my books.

11. Do you write in your books?

No! The only time I would write or underline was for uni but even then I’d buy a second copy to do it in 🙂

12. Who do you tag?

Sunday Seven: Seven of this weeks pics!

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I’ve spent most of the past week in Basingstoke, meaning I’ve been very snap happy this week, so for a little something different I wanted to share my top seven snaps of this week.

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Ed doesn’t like me shutting the door whenever I’m at home, he wants all the attention, no matter what time it is. I snapped this little pic while I wanted to sleep and Ed wanted to play.

IMG_7626 This week my little cousin and Godson turned 13. 13! Harvey and I are really close, he’s my little dude and I can’t believe he’s gone from this chubby cheeked baby to a really awesome little man. Also, check out the cake that my super awesome sister made!

IMG_7634 It was doughnut day this week so I popped to the shop and picked up these beautiful, scrummy pink ones. They tasted good, so good. IMG_7600

I was finally able to pick up my Illumicrate from my parents! I was not only surprised but loved every item in the box and can’t wait for my next one. If you missed my post, find it here.IMG_7627

Lottie is my shadow whenever I come home. This didn’t change this week, if you couldn’t find her you could guarantee she was on my bed fast asleep…even if it’s a choice between my Mum’s double bed or my single, she still chooses my bed.

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This is Betsy, my aunts puppy, she’s also known as Chewbacca by my cousins. I swear she’s like a little walking rug apart from she jumps up and wants cuddles and has a fondness for cake. Don’t you love this little smile too?!

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Another one of my little mischief maker in the evening.

If you want to keep up with more of my snaps, make sure to follow me on Instagram @chloemetz_!

Book Review: Philomena – Martin Sixsmith

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After being made into a film starring Judi Dench I had to hunt down the book before seeing the movie, which I try and do every time. The book follows Philomena and her search for the son she was forced to give up as an unmarried mother in Ireland in the 1950s. The novel starts with Philomena’s violent labour, through the eyes of a young nun. The novel then follows her and her young son, Anthony through their time at the nunnery. The novel outlines her horrific conditions young women in Ireland in the 1950s faced, the worst being forced to sign a legal document stating that they will never contact their children again, despite bonding with them for three years. The savage beatings from horrific nuns and at times not being told as your child is simply taken away from you. The scandal of children being sold to Americans could have also been handled better. The novel does have a few unclear perspective changes I warn you, I got terribly confused at points.

I felt quite uncomfortable reading from what was supposed to be Michael’s perspective, because it really isn’t.  I don’t feel like we really get either perspective, Michaels or Philomena’s, the book is mostly guesswork from the author’s idea of what happened and the memories of others. We will never know what was really felt by Michael and I wonder if we can really appreciate his story in this manner. We will never know how he felt in his relationships with his adopted family, nor will we really know how he felt being a secretive gay man in the republican party at the height of the AIDS scare in the United States.

I desperately wanted to know more about what Philomena does after she leaves the nunnery. As fascinating as Michael’s story was I wanted to know more about the woman who had her heart broken, we are simply left to wonder and don’t meet her again for years. Apparently the book is also called The Lost child of Philomena Lee a much more fitting title than the one currently given because the book only really focuses on Michael’s life. I couldn’t help but notice throughout the novel the awful impression that religion leaves on both mother and son and the lasting effects on both of them.

I give this 3 stars simply because I got very bored with it. It wasn’t really a page turner and I could quite easily put it down and walk away from it. I felt like it was largely based on stereotypes and not always on fact, possibly due to the fact that a large part of the book was trying to put the pieces together. The ending was also a little disappointing and I’m hoping that the film version could possibly bring the story to life.

Book Review: One Step Too Far – Tina Seskis

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‘They’ll be better off without me’ 

Heartbroken and pushed to her limit Emily makes a decision that many of us only dream of, she walks out of her life.

Have you ever looked at the departures board at a train station and just thought Why don’t I just go, leave all of this behind me and just leave? The answer? You have. You can lie to yourself all you want but each and every one of us at some point have just wanted to leave and start a fresh. At the start of the novel we don’t understand Emily’s motives but we are deeply aware something has gone wrong. Leaving with the memories of her husband and son Emily gets on a train to London and attempts not to look back. As she quickly learns the ways of a London runaway Emily, now reinvented as Cat, tries desperately to shake off her past although it always comes back to haunt her…

The novel is intertwined between a mix of characters, Emily, Cat, Ben, Caroline, Frances and Angel to name a few. While this makes One Step Too Far interesting and puts together the pieces of the puzzle it is also a little confusing at times. You generally know  who is speaking but there are always questions, where are they? What is the time period that this part is set in?  For example the novel starts from Emily’s perspective and it appears to be pretty straight forward, we are then transported to the birth of twin girls and a mother who simply does not have enough love for two. That quick change is very important to the novel later on but doesn’t seem to make much sense initially. I’m quite used to novels like this however I think that for some readers this may become pretty complicated. I don’t say this lightly, even I had to go back sometimes and re read to make sure I actually understood what was going on. There were some important things towards the end that I missed and others that didn’t make sense to me until a much later point, although I do believe this was Seskis’ intention.  This is true of the ending of the novel, about 90% of the way though I got very confused and a little frustrated because of a significant change. As my regular readers know I don’t like spoiling things for you so I can’t reveal why I was so irritated at one point.

Despite any irritation I felt towards the end (although may I add this was resolved by the last page), the character of Emily/Cat fascinated me. I feel that Seskis has tapped into a gold mine after creating this plot in the sense that anyone can relate to Emily. She relates to our wildest desires of simply uprooting and getting away with it. I’m not saying I want to just dispensary but everyone’s had days where they wish they could reinvent themselves or just start over. That said I feel that Emily was made into a real person, it’s impossible to like her all the time. I sat with book in hand feeling so many emotions, I smiled at the happy times, I despaired at her lowest, I absolutely loathed her at times, I laughed occasionally and I gasped as I finally got to her darkest secret (although I’ll admit I was a little confused too).

I would generally recommend this novel to friends as I do think it is a good read, that said I do feel that sometimes there are too many twists and turns (especially at the end). I’ll give the novel 3 stars because it reflects my feelings of being right in the middle. I do like the plot and the characters but at the same time I struggled at times with quite important aspects and even now after finishing feel I may need to go back and re read some parts. I also felt that the ending kind of took away from some of the realism of the novel as a whole, however I would still recommend this to a friend as a good read.

Book Review: Sane New World: Taming the Mind – Ruby Wax

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As this week is Depression Awareness Week I decided to add this weeks book review into the theme and have picked Ruby Wax’s first book about Mental Health and Mindfulness. The choice behind this was because Ruby was coming to visit my university and I wanted to know more about her views on Mental Health. Unfortunately I couldn’t go to the talk because I just had too much work to get on with and finish BUT I did manage to work my way through Ruby’s first book.I will say before I start this is not what I would class as a memoir, although there are snippets into Wax’s life it more of a big jumble of personal opinion, science and illustrations . Not what I expected, but not bad either.

Although Ruby Wax is a known entertainer she also studied the brain at Oxford University in an attempt to better understand her own mind and the problems she has. Through the book wax tries to simplify the complex nature of the brain into something that anyone with an interest can understand. Apart from the diagrams and scientific names for all parts of the brain, Wax also tries to engage with the practice of Mindfulness and how it can be used in our busy everyday lives. It is because of this that the four sections of the book don’t seem to fit as well as they possibly could have, while I admire Wax for trying to speak about these incredibly complex scientific matters, it does at time feel like too much information that isn’t resolved. For example the second half of the book is focused on Mindfulness and techniques, exercises and stories of the use, leaving the science pretty much forgotten (in my case at least). It almost felt as if this would have worked much better as two books, or even one much bigger book because both seem like they need more time and space to be fully understood.

I think the way to describe her opinion and how it is portrayed is very marmite, you either love it or hate it. Unfortunately I was not a fan of some of Wax’s opinions, I feel like she could come across as slightly rude or even ignorant of other people. There is a heavy presence of wanting to prove herself to people in her past, and while there is nothing wrong with that the sections about her mother in particular seem to be misplaced in the book, almost as if it was a haha look at how far I’ve come. While Wax is incredibly honest about her experiences, it can leave people feeling slightly negative, there are some instances where Wax has tried to make jokes and in the process can come across as quite mean or rude to whole scores of people. This is one of the main problems with the book, it appears that Wax still has a great deal to learn about the people behind the statistics and the lives of others. She may be incredibly open about her own experiences but it comes across that she only see’s others as the numbers and reports she saw at Oxford, rather than the people behind them.

I will say though that the exercises that are in the book are great and a good way to start looking into Mindfulness. It’s definitely something that I want to look into further after reading Wax’s suggestions, thoughts and experiences. That said, I did find her very dismissive of the practice of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), something I myself use. Again Wax quotes statistics to back up her point, but this was another instance where I felt that she didn’t see it through the eyes of someone who does get a great deal of help from CBT.

Overall I gave Wax’s first book 3 stars (***), while I appreciate the topic and the fact that it opened conversations it felt really all over the place as a book. It was almost as if Wax couldn’t decide whether she wanted the book to be science based, opinion based or technique based and so all three have been kind of thrown together in a few hundred pages. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading, I did, but I found the narrative and some of the comments to really put me off of reading and so it took me a long time to sit and get myself through it.

As always I’d love to hear your comments, what do you think of this book, of CBT? Leave me a message down below!

 

 

Book Review: How I Lost You – Jenny Blackhurst

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‘My name is Susan Webster. Nearly four years ago, on 23rd July 2009, I killed my three-month-old baby boy’ 

Susan Webster has spent the past three years in a psychiatric hospital after killing her baby boy in an attack she doesn’t remember. With a new identity and heavy guilt Susan is released back into society and moves to a place where no one knows her apart from a fellow inmate who is now her best and only friend. That is until Susan, now Emma, gets an envelop hand delivered through her door addressed to Susan and inside is a picture of her son at three years old. She’s never remembered that awful day, could someone be lying or has she really gone crazy?

I picked this novel up on a three for £10 deal with Amazon, I was intrigued by the idea and how an author was going to pull this off. While the idea was not simple, I had faith in the reviews I’d read and thought I might as well give it a go because this could be absolutely fantastic. At first I was more than happy, the novel was engaging and interesting, pulling me along as I read. My favourite character was Cassie, Susan/Emma’s best friend, she seemed to have the kind of spark that I felt Susan/Emma lacked. I also felt that the character of Nick wasn’t as needed as he is made out to be, in fact he annoyed me quite a lot as a character and merely seemed like a distraction.

With that in mind, however, I can appreciate that Blackhurst is writing from the point of view of a woman who believes she has killed her son, after being told again and again that she has. I just felt that once events start to unfold she could have had more fire to her, especially when it came to believing her son may still be alive somewhere. I also wished there was more emphasis on Postnatal Depression, which is mentioned as one of the reasons that Susan/Emma had killed her son.

I think what made me struggle the most is that the further I got into the novel the more far fetched it became. There was alternating narratives throughout but the reader isn’t told who the other narrator is and for a while the reader has absolutely no idea what this has to do with Susan/Emma at all and it all just seems a little confusing. By the time I’d got to the ending of the novel I felt a little cheated, there were a lot of similarities to other authors such as Sophie McKenzie. While I’m not saying this was intentional on Blackhursts part I was expecting more. The links that were made were plausible but seemed to me more than a little far fetched.

I’m giving this novel 3 stars ***. While it was a good novel, it didn’t really stand out to me as a thriller. While the writing is good I just felt like the ending was a bit too far fetched for me personally. I do think that others would enjoy this but as I said before I’ve read a lot of thrillers and just didn’t have a huge personal interest by the end of the novel.

Review by Chloe Metzger

Book Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? – Mindy Kaling

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“There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.”

There is no doubt that Mindy Kaling is hilarious. I have to admit though, before reading this book I didn’t really know who she was, I’d seen her face when my boyfriend was watching The Office but other than that I had no idea. I picked up this book in a charity shop for something like £2 because the title appealed to me and I’d heard that it was funny, in those respects I wasn’t disappointed.

This is Mindy’s first book it isn’t an autobiography as such but features prominent parts of her life and, well, to me it was like you were chatting with an old friend. Mindy is funny, brutally honest and best of all seems just like the rest of us. She was an awkward teenager, can be an awkwards adult and has also had those, oh my god what am I doing with my life moments that we all have. She doesn’t pretend that she’s totally happy and over the fact that she has her own show and was part of one of the most popular shows on American TV, in fact she seems excited and frankly a bit geeky about it all, in a good way of course.

The book covers everything from growing up as a chubby indian kid, boyfriends (or lack thereof), sex, careers, embarrassing yourself. It has a feminine charm, but is not sickly sweet. It’s ballsy, without being too in your face. There seems to be a good balance in the book and, of course, it’s laugh out loud funny too. I wouldn’t say it’s the funniest book I’ve ever read, some of the jokes made me uncomfortable but I think that was more because of how I feel about certain topics rather than being outright rude. It’s obvious while reading that Mindy is a fantastic writer, it isn’t easy to pull off written comedy but she definitely manages.

I also found it great that Mindy stands up for being feminine. She declares her undying love for romantic comedies, which I am partial to I spend the majority of my teenage years endlessly watching them. She talks about clothes and diets and a lot of girly things that people have judged her for in the past, basically I love her for being herself and not caring what others think. She says “I think of myself as a smart and funny person, but I am very girly, and in the past I’ve been hurt by people who criticise me for liking things they think are beneath me, like shopping or whatever, and the people who give me the hardest time about it are women. I think it may be because there are so few women in comedy and so there’s a feeling that we shouldn’t sell women out, but I don’t see talking about fashion as selling women out.”

I gave this book 4 stars in total ****. It was a funny and engaging book to read, perfect for something to pick up, chill out and feel like there are a lot of other people who think, feel and act the same as you, hell some of them even get famous! The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is because while it was good, like I said there were some jokes I wasn’t entirely comfortable with and there were small parts that dragged. With that in mind as soon as I finished the next book was on my wishlist because without a doubt Mindy and write and she is funny. I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it, I can’t wait to see what she does next!

 

Book Review: Extraordinary Means – Robyn Schneider

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‘The life you plan isn’t the life that happens to you’ 

Lane’s a hard worker, he’s getting perfect scores, in the model UN and looking at a straight streak into Stanford, internships and Wall Street, that is until he gets a drug resistant form of TB which gets him sent to a boarding school for sick teens. While Lane thinks his life is over, it’s really just beginning and it teaches him something he’s never encountered before. Meanwhile troublemaker Sadie has has more than enough of Latham House and thinks that nothing will change until a past face catches up with her.

I have to start this review by saying that I am in love with this novel and I’m kicking myself for not picking it up earlier. While some people have hailed it the new The Fault in Our Stars I think that’s a brush off, not only is this novel completely different but it also doesn’t do Schneider’s writing justice, this is not a rip off of John Green although I think fans of his will appreciate it. I picked this up in a book haul and completely fell in love with it from the first chapter. It’s perfectionist characters like Lane (our protagonist) that I really fall in love with because I recognise them and I understand them, being a total perfectionist myself.

Extraordinary Means has a host of characters you can see walking around your head while reading. There are very few books that I get this emotionally involved in, that I pour over and finish in a matter of hours rather than days. What Schneider has managed to create is not one but four lovable characters, each with their own individual personalities that you can hold in your heart from the first page they’re mentioned to the last and I for one like to imagine after the novel and what the future holds.

This kind of novel is tricky, a lot of teenagers locked up for their own good dealing with being a teenager as well as being sick. There are a lot of people who write about illnesses but TB is something we no longer considered as a threat, it’s mostly wiped out, right? In this novel it’s very real and I for one sat and thought long and hard about what it must be like living with a contagious disease, taken away from everything and having to start a new. This is the power of these types of novels they make you think not only about the plot in the novel, but also about the wider world and the people in it. Would we react as people in the novel do? Would we care about the people living without a cure? It’s definitely worth a think, especially after seeing it through Lane and Sadie’s eyes.

I have to say that was one of the best parts of the novel, having two different perspectives was a nice change to a lot of YA literature. Seeing the side of a boy and a girl and their different reactions and emotions. While Lane is newer to the boarding school and a more relaxed way of life this is all Sadie has known for a long time, the differences are what makes this novel fantastic.

I have to give Extraordinary Means 5 stars *****. I read some Goodreads reviews that I felt were quite harsh on a novel that was superbly written. I finished this book in a matter of hours, it’s always going to have a place in my heart. Beautifully written and incredible…don’t try and compare this to any other book because you won’t find one.

Review by Chloe Metzger

Book Review: This Book is Gay – James (now Juno) Dawson

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‘This is a manual for everyone – no matter your gender or sexaul preference’

When I saw this book at a YA lit fair I was intrigued. The bright and beautiful cover attracted me and then I read the cover. I thought this would be a novel about someone who is gay but this is something much better. I would even go as far to say this is one of the best books of a generation. This Book is Gay is a book which covers a lot of ground that the author thought was missing after teaching PSHE (health class for my American readers) but not just from one opinion, there are stories from so many different people all with different experiences.

When this was published, James Dawson was a gay man, in the time since James has announced that his real self is Juno, a transgender woman and I celebrated along with the rest of twitter. None of that matters because the writing is funny, interesting and highly educational btu in a way you feel like you’re chatting to a friend. I only mention this incase people are confused when trying to find ‘James’ on Twitter later.

I don’t believe in someone being 100% gay or 100% straight. It seems to me, even more so after reading this, that there are so many different parts of the spectrum that slapping an either/or label on everyone is just stupid. I’ve never had a girlfriend but I feel that I’m the person who falls in love with someone because of who they are, not because of what’s in their pants. I fell in love with a male, I’m going to marry him at some point but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good looking female. If people want to label me after that, then so be it.

The book has both serious and funny chapters throughout as well as some brilliant illustrations. Some of the chapters include; Stereotypes are poo, Where to meet people like you, Nesting, Hats, The ins and outs of gay sex and Welcome to the members club. There is even a bit for parents and carers, lists of charities and organisations and notable gay and LGBTQ celebs and allies (named: A guide to recognising your gay saints). There is so much in here and I learnt so much I will just shout my love for it from the rooftops!

I 100% feel that this book should be given out at all schools as an important tool for learning and accepting LGBTQ youth. Dawson is right, there isn’t enough sex education for young  LGBTQ people. I thought long and hard after reading and we didn’t cover safe sex for anyone who wasn’t straight which, frankly, is just ridiculous. How can you just ignore the needs of people just because they’re not ‘the norm?’, they can still get STI’s like anyone else? They still have questions and worries like anyone else. If I was in charge of a school I’d make sure everyone was given a copy and there were copies in the library too. This is superbly written and has a lot of great info from a variety of people, not just Juno herself.

There have been arguments that there isn’t as much information for the Lesbian community. I can see the points people have made but I do feel there is a good amount of content in here, after all there are only so many pages here. The part about lesbian sex is a little thin, and maybe that’s what people are upset about and I can understand that. Other than that though, I feel like this is a good and inclusive guide.

Of course I’m going to give this book 5 stars *****. I was truly inspired by Dawson, her writing, her style and the way that the book itself was put together. I think everyone should read this, because everyone will learn something from it. A truly phonomenal book, not one to be missed.

Book Review: Not That Kind of Girl – Lena Dunham

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“I would be a horrible girlfriend at this point in my life, because I’m both needy and unavailable.”

Lena Dunham has become a phenomenon, as a successful young woman who has created a hit show whilst also starring in it. I didn’t really know of her before reading but I had heard good things about the book and decided to pick it up while it was on offer. I’m all for giving something a go.

Not That Kind of Girl promises to tell you what a young girl has “learned”, but I really didn’t get that. I’ve watched Lena in interviews and she seems funny and sweet but it just doesn’t come across in her book. If anything, when reading, I just felt like it was a load of first world problems. I was told it would be a great feminist book and I’d feel as empowered as I did when I read Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman. 

That said, it wasn’t all bad. There were some parts of the book that were really funny, especially when she’s talking about sex and her college years. The chapter titled Girls and Jerks was quite funny because Dunham injects humor into situations where most of us would facepalm.

Dunham is only eight years older than me but I just felt that I couldn’t connect with her. I couldn’t see myself in her situations, her New York life and just generally her life experience. It’s not that I think she’s spoilt but there are a lot of tedious and self absorbed passages that I just didn’t find interesting.

I wish that I had fallen in love with this book, but unfortunately it wasn’t for me. I ended up giving this only 2 stars **, it’s clear that Lena has a writing talent  (her show is huge after all) but as a person she didn’t come across well through the book. If you are a fan of Girls then this might be the for you but I think I’ll just stick to watching her interviews.