BookTube-A-Thon Day #3

 

During the week of July 15th – 21st I will be participating in the BookTube-A-Thon. I know this is meant to be for Booktubers, but I’m going to do it anyway even though I’m not a Booktuber.

This challenge was created by Ariel at Ariel Bissett and Raeleen at padfootandprongs07 on youtube.

 

For this reading challenge I am going to read:

1. The Night Circus 201/519 pages

2. Coraline 162/162 pages

3. Mockingjay 455/455 pages

4. The Bat 69/374 pages

5. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (Audio Book) Done!

6. Pride & Prejudice 104/368 pages

 

Today I started two books, The Night Circus and Pride & Prejudice. It took me longer time to read this far in Pride & Prejudice than I expected, but I’m really enjoying the book so far. When I started reading it I just wanted to watch the movie with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy, which is my favorite version.

The Night Circus is going well. I’m little bit confused about all the characters and how to chapters are divided. I didn’t know anything about the book before I started, other than it’s supposed to be really good. Hopefully it will be.

 

Pages read today: 305 pages

Total pages read: 991 page + and audio book

 

Love, Diljá

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

 

Name & Author: The Sisters Brothers by  Patrick deWitt

Publisher: Ecco

Release Date: April 26th 2011
Paperback, 325 pages

Genres: Fiction, Western

 

Summary:

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn’t share his brother’s appetite for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. But their prey isn’t an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm’s gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a

living–and whom he does it for.

With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters–losers, cheaters, and ne’er-do-wells from all stripes of life–and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love. -Goodreads

 

My Thoughts:

This was my first ever Western book, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.

The main character is Eli Sisters. He forms the Sisters assassin duo with his brother Charlie. Eli is not a strong minded man and he follows his brother everywhere without asking. A result of that is that Charlie is hiding orders from the Commander and taking bigger portion of the money.
Through out the book you get the feeling that something is wrong with Eli. I think that he hasn’t developed mentally and is still a young boy in a body of a man and certainly not meant to be a killer.

Eli and Charlie are supposed to travel through California, at the time of the Gold Rush, to kill a man named Herman Kermit Warm. On their way to meet Warm they meet lot of weird people and get in many difficult circumstances.

Some parts of the book really reminded me of ‘Of Mice and Men’ by John Steinbeck.

The book wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t something for me.

 

3.5/5 stars!

 

Love, Diljá

Wish-List Wednesday #3

 

Welcome to Wish-List Wednesday! Every Wednesday I will tell you about the books, series or book related things that are highest on my wish-list.

For this week I have chosen The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith, aka JK Rowling.

 

The Cuckoo’s Calling:

It was published April 30th 2013.

 

A brilliant debut mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel’s suicide. After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator.

Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

You may think you know detectives, but you’ve never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you’ve never seen them under an investigation like this.

 

Even though I don’t know much about this book it goes on my Wish-List mainly because JK Rowling wrote it (I will read anything by her because of the Harry Potter series. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the first book I read in full length, both in Icelandic and English). I still have not read Rowling’s Casual Vacancy, but that will be done soon so this one will hopefully be read soon after that.

 

Love, Diljá

 

BookTube-A-Thon Day #2

 

During the week of July 15th – 21st I will be participating in the BookTube-A-Thon. I know this is meant to be for Booktubers, but I’m going to do it anyway even though I’m not a Booktuber.

This challenge was created by Ariel at Ariel Bissett and Raeleen at padfootandprongs07 on youtube.

 

For this reading challenge I am going to read:

1. The Night Circus 0/519 pages

2. Coraline 162/162 pages

3. Mockingjay 455/455 pages

4. The Bat 69/374 pages

5. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (Audio Book) Done!

6. Pride & Prejudice 0/368 pages

 

I just finished Mockingjay. I have no idea why I didn’t read it when I read the first two books a year ago. I have seen bad reviews and people didn’t like it as much as the other ones. But I really like it. Maybe it was the gap between the reading time that made me appreciate it more?
It is a lot different from the first two books, that mainly revolves about survival. But this book shows you the effect the government can have on everyone and the corruption.

 

Pages read today: 370

Total pages read: 686 (+ an audio book)

Not bad for two days!

 

Love, Diljá

BookTube-A-Thon Day #1

During the week of July 15th – 21st I will be participating in the BookTube-A-Thon. I know this is meant to be for Booktubers, but I’m going to do it anyway even though I’m not a Booktuber.

This challenge was created by Ariel at Ariel Bissett and Raeleen at padfootandprongs07 on youtube.

The first day of BookTube-A-Thon is over. It is little bit over midnight when I’m writing this.

For this reading challenge I am going to read:

1. The Night Circus 0/519 pages

2. Coraline 162/162 pages

3. Mockingjay 85/455 pages

4. The Bat 69/374 pages

5. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (Audio Book) Done!

6. Pride & Prejudice 0/368 pages

I think that I had too high expectations for Coraline by Neil Gaiman when I started reading it. It wasn’t as scary as when I read it years ago.

The Statistical Probably of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith was really good. It was a sweet and easy read (listen).

It has been a while since I read the first two books in the Hunger Games trilogy so it took my a while to get back into it and remember how things ended in the second book.

Today went well. I read 316 pages and listened to a whole audiobook. Go me!

I will be back tomorrow with a new update.

Love, Diljá

Before I go to Sleep by S. J. Watson

 

Name & Author: Before I go to Sleep by S. J. Watson

Publisher: Harper Collins (US) & Black Swan & Doubleday (UK)

Release Date: June 14th 2011 (US) & January 1st 2011 (UK)
Paperback, 372 pages.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction & Mystery

Summary:

“As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I’m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me…”

Memories define us.

So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?

Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love—all forgotten overnight.

And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story.

Welcome to Christine’s life.
-Goodreads

 

My Thoughts:

This is the first thriller that I have read that revolves around someone with amnesia. And with someone like Christine Lucas with such severe amnesia there is lot that can happen and go wrong.
The book really delivers the message of how horrible life can be for someone with amnesia if the people around them aren’t completely honest.

Christine Lucas is a woman in her mid-forties. She has severe amnesia after an ‘accident’, as her husband calls it, and doesn’t remember anything from her 29th birthday.
Soon she gets a call from Dr. Nash who informs her that she is his patient and she has been keeping it from her husband, Ben. Later she discovers her journal that she has been keeping for Dr. Nash. The title page says: Do Not Trust Ben!

As you  get to read more and more of Christine’s journal you get more information on her life, that  once was fulfilling and good, but is now shallow and full of secrets. Things don’t add up when it comes to Ben. He is hiding things and later in the book you get to know his secret.

In my opinion Watson delivers Christine’s emotions very well. You can feel her hopelessness, fear and confusion throughout the book.

This book is supposed to be a thriller. It didn’t deliver much until the very ending. But it was good in every other way.

4/5 stars!

 

Love, Diljá

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

You never forget your first love…

Name & Author: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (US) & Orion (UK)

Release Date: February 26th 2013 (US) & February 1st 2013 (UK)
Paperback, 325 pages

Genres:  Contemporary fiction, YA, romance

Summary: 

Eleanor is the new girl in town, and with her chaotic family life, her mismatched clothes and unruly red hair, she couldn’t stick out more if she tried.

Park is the boy at the back of the bus. Black T-shirts, headphones, head in a book – he thinks he’s made himself invisible. But not to Eleanor … never to Eleanor.

Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall for each other. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you’re young, and you feel as if you have nothing and everything to lose.

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed mis

fits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.

My Thoughts:

I don’t even know where to begin or what to think about this book. It was amazing!

Set in 1986 in  Omaha, Nebraska, two teenagers and major misfits fall in love. At first the only time they share together is on bus on the way to and from school. They don’t speak to each other in the beginning, but read comic books together and share music and that is their way to great friendship and to love.

I loved how Rowell used the music and comic book references from the 80′ and it made the story so much realistic, because you know all the things that they are discovering together.

In the beginning Eleanor is the shy and quiet girl, who tries to disappear. She has a horrible home life, wich made me really sad. At parts I wanted to shake her mother to make her see how badly her children were treated. And not to mention her step-father, ugh! what a scumbag.
But as the story evolves and her and Parks relationship grows, Eleanor grows as well. She becomes the real Eleanor, not the shell of her.

Park is one of the many misfits in Omaha. As his relationship with Eleanor grows his character opens more and more up. I loved his family. In the beginning I hated his mother, but she grew on me really fast and is now one of my favorite character in the book.
I loved the part when Parkers mother gives Eleanor a makeover and Parker starts to wear eyeliner to seem different.

The book deals with being different, having bad home life, being bullied and to fall in love.

I think that everyone should read this book at some point, weather they like it or not.
4.5/5 stars!

Love, Diljá

Reading Challenge #1

 

During the week of July 15th – 21st I will be participating in the BookTube-A-Thon. I know this is ment to be for Booktubers, but I’m going to do it anyway even though I’m not a Booktuber.

This challenge was created by Ariel at Ariel Bissett and Raeleen at padfootandprongs07 on youtube. It consists of 7 challenges:

 

1. Read 300 pages per day

2. Read a book with 500+ pages

3. Re-read a book

4. Finish a series or a trilogy

5. Read a book that has been on your shelf the longest

6. Listen to an audiobook

7. Read a classic

 

I’m not sure if I will be able to do the first challenge, due to lack of time, but I’m going to try my best.

For the second challenge I will be reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, 519 pages.

For the third challenge I will be re-reading Coraline by Neil Gaiman, 162 pages

For the fourth challenge I will be reading Mockingjay, the third and last book in the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, 455 pages.

For the fifth challenge I will be reading The Bat by Jo Nesbø, 374 pages.

For the sixth challenge I will be listening to The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith, 5:17:44 (236 pages).

And for the seventh and final challenge I will be reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, 368 pages.

 

If I finish all these book and read about 300 pages a day it should take me about six days to complete them.

 

I will be doing a daily update on how I’m doing and hopefully there will be reviews of the books up in the following week.

Love, Diljá

Wish-List Wednesday #2

 

Welcome to Wish-List Wednesday! Every Wednesday I will tell you about the books, series or book related things that are highest on my wish-list.

For this week I have chosen Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell. Even though this book will not be published until next year, it is high on my wish-list.

 

Dear Killer:

Will be published April 1st 2014 by Katherine Tegen Books.

Rule One—Nothing is right, nothing is wrong. 
Rule Two—Be careful.
Rule Three—Fight using your legs whenever possible, because they’re the strongest part of your body. Your arms are the weakest.
Rule Four—Hit to kill. The first blow should be the last, if at all possible.
Rule Five—The letters are the law.

Kit takes her role as London’s notorious “Perfect Killer” seriously. The letters and cash that come to her via a secret mailbox are not a game; choosing who to kill is not an impulse decision. Every letter she receives begins with “Dear Killer,” and every time Kit murders, she leaves a letter with the dead body. Her moral nihilism and thus her murders are a way of life—the only way of life she has ever known.

But when a letter appears in the mailbox that will have the power to topple Kit’s convictions as perfectly as she commits her murders, she must make a decision: follow the only rules she has ever known, or challenge Rule One, and go from there.

Katherine’s Ewell’s Dear Killer is a sinister psychological thriller that explores the thin line between good and evil, and the messiness of that inevitable moment when life contradicts everything you believe.

 

This is Katherines Ewells debute as a teenage writer, she is only 18 years old! I’m looking forward to see how a young writer writes a psychological thriller.

Looking forward to this one!

 

Love, Diljá

 

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad

 

Name & Author: 172 Hours on the Moon (172 timer på månen) – Johan Harstad

Publisher: Cappelen Damm (Norway), Atom (UK) & Little Brown (US)

Release Date: September 2008 (Norway) & April 2012 (UK & US)
Paperback, 351 pages

Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Thriller & Science Fiction

 

Summary:

It’s been decades since anyone set foot on the moon. Now three ordinary teenagers, the winners of NASA’s unprecedented, worldwide lottery, are about to become the first young people in space–and change their lives forever.

Mia, from Norway, hopes this will be her punk band’s ticket to fame and fortune.Midori believes it’s her way out of her restrained life in Japan.
Antoine, from France, just wants to get as far away from his ex-girlfriend as possible.It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, but little do the teenagers know that something sinister is waiting for them on the desolate surface of the moon. And in the black vacuum of space… no one is coming to save them.In this chilling adventure set in the most brutal landscape known to man, highly acclaimed Norwegian novelist Johan Harstad creates a vivid and frightening world of possibilities we can only hope never come true.

 

My Thoughts:

The book starts in a NASA meeting in 2010 and then jumps to 2019 when the lottery and the moon journey takes place. As you can see this book doesn’t take place in distant future like most sci-fi books do, witch in my opinion is a good change from the ‘normal’ sci-fi plot layout.

There are three teenagers that win a trip of a lifetime to the moon. They are Mia Nomeland, 16, Stravanger, Norway. Midori Yoshida, 16, Yokohama, Japan. And Antoin Deveroux, 17, Paris, France

Mia: Her parents signed her up for the lottery so she wouldn’t regret it later. At first she doesn’t want to go, but changes her mind when she finds out that this can make her band famouse.

Midori: She signed up herself in hope that she would win so she could escape her life in Japan to live a life of her own choice in New York.

Antoin: He signed up himself as an escape from Paris and his ex-girlfriend.

 

In the book NASA hosts the lottery for publication and to get funding to go back to the moon after they stopped in 1972. When they are on the moon few suggestions why NASA stopped all moon journeys appear.

NASA is also hiding a lot of information from the public and also from they astronauts and the teenagers.

Harstad based some things in the book on real events.

 

I like Harstads idea of a horror story in space because there is no help after you leave earth and it teaches the teenagers to rely on them selves.

Even though I liked the idea behind the plot, I didn’t like some things in the book. Some things in the plot don’t add up and there is a lot of information missing, leaving big holes in the plot.

I also didn’t really like Harstads way of building the story, there is a lot of information before they go to the moon, but once they are there the plot rushes a lot and it just confused me a little.

I did like his way of building up the terror in the book; I was scared when I finished it!

 

I feel like the book could have been so much more if there where little more detales.

 

3.75/5 stars!

 

 

Love, Diljá