Top Ten Tuesday | It's not you, it's me (but also you)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Books I Disliked/Hated but Am Really Glad I Read'. I thought this would be a tricky one because usually if I really didn't like a book I wish I hadn't wasted time on it, and most of the time these days I don't! If I'm really not liking something I'll DNF it. I did manage to find ten books that fit this week's theme, though!

Five I had to read for school or university, and therefore needed to finish, while others I didn't hate enough to put down while I was reading them but I definitely wouldn't say I liked them either. Anyway, on with my list!

Hamlet by William Shakespeare: I had to read this in school and then again in university, and it's probably my least favourite of Shakespeare's plays because I had to read it so much and also because I just find it boring. Hamlet's irritating and the whole story feels like it should be on an episode of Jerry Springer, which I suppose could be said for a lot of Shakespeare's plays. It is said to be the most quoted play in the world, though, so I'm at least glad I can say I've read it. I'd much rather see it performed, though.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: UGH I hate this book so much. I had to read it in sixth form and I despised every minute. The only reason I'm glad I've read it is so I can tell people I don't like it when they tell me I should read it.

The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman: This one I read for my Victorian Gothic course at university and I found it really interesting! It's one of the earliest examples of werewolf literature that sparked the love for monster stories in the 19th century. I enjoyed studying it, but the story itself I didn't like; the titular character is a woman, interesting when so many werewolves in modern fiction are men, but she's also the villain and to be honest I was rooting for her. The protagonist is so boring in comparison.

Regeneration by Pat Barker: I had to read this one while studying the First World War in literature during sixth form. This is another book that I enjoyed studying more than I enjoyed actually reading, when it comes to historical fiction I'm just not all that interested in modern history, but it's stayed with me a decade later so I guess it can't be that bad!

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie: I read this one for my Popular Victorian Fiction module at university and didn't like it at all, it's so sinister, but I'm glad I know the origins of Peter Pan!

What We Left Behind by Robin Talley: This was Talley's second novel after Lies We Tell Ourselves, which I loved, and sadly I didn't like it very much at all. You can check out my review here if you'd like to know why! That being said I do like that it included a genderqueer protagonist and I'd like to read about more non-binary protagonists, especially characters written by non-binary authors.

Angelfall by Susan Ee: There was so much hype around this one when it came out but I just found it really boring? I also wasn't a fan of the way the protagonist's mother's mental health was portrayed. This book did help me realise I'm just not into angel books, though, so I'm glad I read it.

Among Others by Jo Walton: This is my biggest disappointment on this list, because I put off reading this one for the longest time thinking it was going to become a new favourite when I got to it. I was very wrong. You can read my review here, if you like.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire: I love the concept of this book SO MUCH, I just didn't like the plot. Why it had to become a really obvious whodunnit I don't understand, because I think it would have been far more powerful as character study.

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer: I'm not going to sit here and pretend I wasn't swept away by the Twilight craze, because I totally was, but I remember finishing Breaking Dawn and being so disappointed that nobody important had died. What kind of finale was that? I'm glad I followed the series to the end, though, and whatever we think of it now it played a huge part in getting publishers to take YA publishing seriously.

Which books made your list this week?

What's Up Wednesday! | 19/03/13

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop created by Jaime Morrow and Erin L. Funk as a way for writers and readers to stay in touch!

What I'm Reading

On Monday I finished Jane Nickerson's Strands of Bronze and Gold, which is a retelling of the Bluebeard myth set in 19th century Mississippi. I enjoyed it, but I found quite a few flaws in it. I'm planning on writing up a review of it soon, so keep an eye out for that if you're interested in hearing my thoughts on it!

Right now I'm making my way through Ian Mortimer's The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England and I'm liking it so far - it's very conversational, which is always a plus when it comes to non-fiction! I'm also making my way through Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches, the first book in the All Souls trilogy, and Susan Ee's World After, the second book in the Penryn and the End of Days series. I'm not quite sure how I feel about them yet, but they're definitely both series with a lot of potential.

What I'm Writing

I'm still working away on my WIP, and I have to submit an extract on Friday for my first seminar with one of our new tutors next week. I'm working on a pretty important scene that a lot of my seminar group have been waiting to see for a while, so I just hope I can do it justice! That being said we usually submit pretty rough drafts to our workshops, so I'm not letting myself stress out over it too much. 

I've recently started planning a novella I'd like to write for Camp NaNoWriMo in April, too, and by recently I mean really recently. It's going okay so far - I'm waiting until I finish the scene for Friday before I start planning it in more detail.

Outside of story writing I've been writing a bunch of reviews for throughout April (I'll be talking about this in more detail at the end of next week!) and the other day I finished writing a post about why we still read and write about witches, which I suppose is kind of a companion post to my post from last week about Historical Fiction. 

I mentioned last week that I had to do a presentation. I had to talk about my current WIP and how it relates to the wider world, so I ended up doing a lot of thinking about why people write Historical Fiction and why witches still fascinate us. It seemed a shame to let that research go to waste!

What Inspires Me Right Now

March is Women's History Month in the UK, US and Australia, so this month I've been learning about some pretty amazing women that I'd never heard about before.

One woman I had heard about before is Ching Shih, the Cantonese pirate who terrorised the China sea in the early 19th century. I haven't delved into poetry in a while, but I'd love to try and write a sea shanty about her!

What Else I've Been Up To

Somehow last week I completely forgot to mention that I'm a Book Depository Affiliate! There's now a snazzy little link on the right that you can click if you want to buy yourself a book from The Book Depository, and I'll get a small commission. I'm still a student, so every little helps!

I've been a little unwell the past few days so I haven't been up to that much outside of reading and writing, but this weekend I'm off to my friend's birthday party. She's having a 1920's themed cocktail party so I get to dress up as a flapper - needless to say, I'm excited!

What's new with you?

Reading Wrap-Up | June 2013

Unfortunately June was a really bad reading month for me, in fact it was even worse than May. I managed to get through five books in May, but in June I only managed three. I've been in such a slump lately, I've started plenty of books but I've been really struggling to get into any of them. I'd like to say that July will be better, but I'm taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo so there's a chance I'm going to be doing more writing than reading, hopefully that way I'll be out of my slump come August.
     Oh well, on with the wrap-up!

My Rating: 

Lena's been to the very edge. She's questioned love and the life-changing and agonising choices that come with it.

She's made her decision. But can she survive the consequences?

The first book I finished in June was the second installment in Lauren Oliver's Delirium trilogy, Pandemonium.

     I finished Delirium, the first book in the trilogy, back in February and I adored it. Since finishing The Hunger Games trilogy it was the best YA dystopian novel I had read; the narrative voice was gorgeous, the protagonist was relatable and the world-building was magnificent. The ending, though terribly bittersweet, was stunning, so I was rather hesitant to read Pandemonium as I was worried it was never going to be quite as good. Unfortunately, I was right.

     There were definitely elements of Pandemonium that I enjoyed, particularly the chapters which explored Lena's life in the Wilds after her escape, but I felt as though this book focused too much on introducing another love interest and subsequent love triangle rather than on the relationship between Lena and her mother I had hoped it would tackle.

     Ultimately it was an enjoyable enough read, and a fairly decent sequel, but it was nowhere near as good as the first book. If you'd like to see some more of my thoughts on this particular book I have written a review of it which you can find here.

My Rating: 

Battling against a society in which love has been declared a disease, Lena now finds herself at the centre of a fierce revolution. But the Wilds are no longer the haven they once were as the government seeks to stamp out the rebels. And Lena's emotions are in turmoil following the dramatic return of someone she thought was lost forever...

After Pandemonium I was determined to read Requiem, the third book in the trilogy, and finally finish one of the many trilogies waiting to be read on my shelves.

     The good thing about Requiem is that it made Pandemonium seem even better, the bad thing was that it did so by being such an unbelievably disappointing conclusion to what could have been an amazing trilogy. The ending, as far as I'm concerned, was not an ending, it could have benefitted immensely with just the simple addition of an epilogue because, ultimately, we really don't know what happens to any of these characters we have grown to love. We don't know if they succeed in overthrowing the government or if they are caught, tried and executed. Even if it wasn't a happy ending I still would have liked an ending. I don't like it when authors ask me to imagine my own; I expect the author to know what happens to their own characters.

     The book wasn't all bad, of course. Personally I really enjoyed the chapters which followed Hana, Lena's old best friend who has since been cured, while she struggled with feelings she shouldn't still be feeling and awaited her marriage to a man who proved to be abusive. It was interesting to see the world from the point of view of a person who has been cured, but I was again disappointed in that we never really know what happens to Hana either.

     All in all this was a very disappoining read, and possibly one of the worst conclusions to a trilogy/series I have ever read. If you have yet to read the Delirium trilogy then please take my advice: read the first book and only the first book. Even though the ending is sad there is a finality to it that the latter two books lack, and it is by far the best book in the trilogy.

My Rating: 

It's been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels' stronghold in San Francisco where she'll risk everything to rescue her sister and he'll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

After the disappointment that was the ending of the Delirium trilogy I was in the mood to read something a little more angry. Something post-apocalyptic seemed perfect and, after plenty of recommendations from all over the place, I picked up a copy of Susan Ee's Angelfall. I read it in two days because it was such a fast-paced read, and I certainly enjoyed it a lot more than the other two books I read in June.

     I haven't read a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, it's a genre that I'm just starting to get into, and I've also never read anything with angels in it, so this book really was quite a new reading adventure for me. I'm not entirely sure why I generally stay away from books involving angels or fallen angels, they're just not mythological/fantastical/theological creatures that I have much interest in. I liked Ee's representation of the angels, however; I was a little worried they were somehow going to be rather preachy and 'better than thou' but they were actually rather brutal themselves, which makes perfect sense given some of the passages in the Bible.

     Penryn was a pretty cool protagonist to follow - I really love her name - and her relationship with Raffe was a lot of fun, too, though there were times when I felt as though the obvious romance that was blossoming between the two of them was blossoming a little too fast. The only thing I was really unsure of was the ending. Why were there weird scorpion people? It seemed as though it had nothing whatsoever to do with the angels other than to make them seem creepy.

     Other than that I did enjoy it and I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series.

Since finishing Angelfall I've been stuck in a reading rut. I'm currently reading about six books, I just haven't really gotten into one and that's sad; I'm really in the mood to get into a new book, so I'll just have to keep persevering. Part of me can't help but think that the conclusion to the Delirium trilogy really got me into the rut; the majority of the books on my shelves are part of a series, because there's a real lack of good standalone books in the genres I enjoy recently, and after reading such a disappointing ending I'm nervous of becoming invested in something else only to be let down. I had intended to read Moira Young's Rebel Heart, the second installment in the Dustlands trilogy, this month but I just couldn't get into it after Requiem. Hopefully I'll get through it this month instead.

     That's it for this month, check back in at the end of July for another monthly wrap-up and keep reading throughout the month; I'm probably going to write a few Camp NaNoWriMo updates and possibly a few personal posts as well as hopefully posting some more reviews very soon.

     Until then, thanks for reading! J.