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Posted:
Dec 20, 2012
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The Map of Time

Author: Felix J. Palma
First Published: October 2008 (English: June 2011) 
Publisher: Atria Books 
Series: Trilogia Victoriana #1
613 pages (hardcover)

I purchased this for sale a while back. The massmarket paperback version had just come out, and thus, all the hardcover editions at the bookstore I usually frequent had their prices drastically reduced to single digits. Intrigued by the cover and the synopsis (H.G.Wells as the main character? He’s one of my favourite classics authors, so this I had to read), I decided to give it a go. It sounded like everything I love in a novel — fantasy, science fiction, time traveling, a bit of romance, a bit of mystery, reading, books — and I have to say, I was not disappointed. There’s even some steampunk elements thrown in.

The Map of Time boasts three plots that are interwoven with one another. Well, the jacket flap says they are interwoven but to me, it really felt like three separate stories that lightly relate to one another. Reading some other reviews of this book, this seemed to be a turn-off for many readers and I completely understand. It kind of turned me off too, a bit. I like multiple plot novels as much as the next reader, but The Map of Time felt a little too similar to reading three short stories that have similar characters in the same world, instead of one novel. Don’t get me wrong, the three plots did interrelate with one another, but not as much as one would have thought.

The Map of Time has H. G. Wells as a central character in each of its three plots. H. G. Wells is, as many people know, a classic science fiction author, who wrote works such as The Time Machine and The Invisible Man. In the first plot, H. G. Wells helps a rich young man named Charles Winslow save the life of his cousin Andrew, who wants to commit suicide because the love of his life was killed by Jack the Ripper eight years ago. In the second plot, H. G. Wells helps a young man named Tom Blunt keep up an elaborate lie to save the life of a wealthy young woman whose desperately in love with Tom. And in the final and third plot, H. G. Wells tries to solve a puzzling series of murders where it appears as if the victims had a hole burned right through their body by a heat ray, an invention from the future.

Despite the disconnected feeling I got from the three plots that supposedly intersect one another (but not really), I still found this book to be absolutely mesmerizing and difficult to put down. It shocks and surprises you time after time. Whenever you think you got something figured out, it throws another curveball at you. It really feels like a magical adventure, full of good humor and really fun, clever writing. I found all three stories deliciously entertaining, addicting and full of good humor. The writing itself is brilliant, grandiose and quirky. I honestly didn’t even realize it was a translation of the original novel until I read that somewhere. I think someone described this book as a “magic show” somewhere and I think that’s a perfect description. Time and time again, I was dazzled, only to have the truth revealed … and then somehow, I get dazzled again.

Every character is unique in their own way and very memorable. They all have very elaborate backstories, which at times, can seem a bit excessive. Even rather minor characters, such as Andrew’s father, have their entire life biography revealed to you. I suppose I would ordinarily be annoyed by all this superfluous information that has no real bearing on the story, but I found even the backstories of these minor characters curiously interesting. It didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the book one bit.

You don’t need to have read any of H. G. Wells’ works in order to appreciate this book fully, although I’m certain it may help a bit (I, myself, have only read two of his works, none of them being The Time Machine which was featured so prominently in The Map of Time). It does a wonderful job of inspiring you to read his novels though, although it does spoil everything. So I would suggest reading Wells’ book first then this one second if you already intended to read The Time Machine. All in all, a brilliant story that got me through being stuck at home due to snow, and a power outage (heh). I definitely recommend giving this book a shot, hopefully you will like it too. I am looking forward to reading the second in this series, The Map of the Sky.

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Posted:
Oct 17, 2012
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Before I Go To Sleep

Author: S. J. Watson
First Published: January 2011
Publisher: Harper Collins
358 pages (trade paperback)

I remember reading about this book on someone’s blog a long time ago. By chance I found it at a thrift store in pretty much brand new condition, so I decided to give it a go, even though I normally do not go for thrillers (lately, however, it seems like I have)! I ended up really liking it, though I do have a few gripes.

If you’ve seen the movies 50 First Dates or Memento, this book is like a mixture of the two, premise-wise. Before I Go To Sleep is about Christine Lucas, a woman who has a type of amnesia where she only remembers about 24 hours’ worth of events before they are forgotten. In essence, every day with a blank slate for life — she doesn’t know who she is, where she is, who the people around her are, and so on.

One day, Christine is visited by Dr. Nash, who tells her he has been meeting her in secret from her husband for weeks, trying to work on her memory problem. Of course, Christina has no recollection of ever meeting Dr. Nash but he gives her a journal and tells her to read it. It’s her journal, which she has been keeping for several weeks, with Dr. Nash calling every morning to remind her that she has a journal and where she has hidden it in her house. The journal is where Christine writes down bits and pieces of her history that she is able to remember or from other people telling her. Slowly, Christina begins to piece together the story of her life … but there is something odd about the stories she’s being told about her life. Did she really lose her memory in a car accident, or did something more sinister happen to her? Why did she and her husband never have children? Why has her best friend completely broken contact with her?

So I read some people are put off by this book before they even read it because the amnesia presented in this book is fake. Which is true. I did a bit of poking around on the Internet and indeed, there is no such condition as Christine’s that is in existence (which is the same condition presented in 50 First Dates, where they gave the false condition a false name, Goldman’s Syndrome. The amnesia in Memento is real though — great movie by the way, definitely check it out). I can understand why the fake condition would bother someone, I really do. It sounds too wild to be true. If you don’t want to read it because it sounds just too impossible, I think I understand your rationale. Myself, I was ok with the fake condition being the premise of the novel. It didn’t really bother me, and made for good drama in my eyes, even though I knew no such amnesia exists.

I found it very hard to put down this book. Once I began reading, I couldn’t stop. I had to find out the truth of what happened to Christine as much as Christine needed to know the truth as well. One of the fun things about thrillers/mysteries is coming up with a bunch of  ideas of what the answer to the mystery is. I had several and it was fun bouncing back and forth between my own theories of what will be revealed at the end of the novel, finding passages in the book to support one idea or another.

It’s definitely psychological as well. I know I am reading Christine’s diary, and many a time, I catch myself wondering how reliable Christine really is. If was unreliable at all, it wouldn’t be her fault though. She can’t remember yesterday or any day before that, so I did wonder how much I can trust what she is writing in her diary. Christine even wonders herself, at a few points during the story, if she can trust her own diary and what she has written in it. It led her to sometimes doubt herself and her entire reality, and she wondered who she was before she became this way. I like how the book explores memory and how important it is to a person’s identity and being. Without memory, who are we? For Christine, she feels like no one, like nothing, without her memories, and desperately wants to remember them.

With all that said and done, I did have a few of complaints with this book. Firstly, the vast majority of this novel is written in diary format, but Christine did not feel like she was writing a diary at all. It felt like … well, like a novel. The writing felt kind of monotonous, or robot-like, and kind of choppy too, as there were many short sentences in succession. It didn’t feel very personal the way diaries sometimes do. There were many things written in a way that I seriously doubt would be written by someone writing a diary. I understand for the purpose of the book, dialogue was written, but diary-writing people rarely include such descriptive dialogue like: “Where’s Adam?” I said. The words came out in a gasp. “Where is he?” Ben’s expression changed. Surprise? Or shock? He swallowed. “Tell me!” I said.” I mean, who writes like that in their diary? I don’t know about you, but when I used to keep one, I would never have been so descriptive as to say I gasped the words out and detailing my listener’s facial expressions and the fact he swallowed before I screamed the next thing. It read like a book. Which, I know, it is, but it should have read more like the diary it claimed to be.

My last gripe is the ending. It was fairly satisfactory but I felt it was quite predictable. It was one of my theories, and the one I brushed off because I thought that would be too obvious and cliche. Imagine my disappointment when I found out the idea I brushed off for being too predictable was actually the ending! I won’t delve too much into it for fear of spoiling the ending, but I thought I would just put it out there.

I don’t feel like my complaints ruined the book or anything though. I don’t think they are small issues, but I just remember being completely immersed into the story and staying up quite late reading it, always saying, one more chapter, one more chapter. To me, this book was clearly entertaining and I enjoyed reading it very much, which is why I opted to kind of overlook the flaws.

My Rating:

Posted:
Oct 6, 2012
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The Other Boleyn Girl

Author: Philippa Gregory
First Published: April 2001
Publisher: Touchstone
Series: The Tudors #2
661 pages (paperback)

Been wanting to read this book for quite a while now. I ended up watching the movie before I read this book. I liked the movie, even though it felt a bit low budget. Anyway, I was pretty excited to read this book. I discovered it’s very different from the movie but I still ended up really liking it. (As a side note, you do not need to have read other books in this “series” to understand the book).

If you know anything about this period of time, then you will have a good idea of what this book is about already. The story is from the perspective of the rather passive Mary Boleyn, who comes to the English court at the mere age of fourteen and captures the attention of the King, Henry VIII with her beauty. Mary comes from a very ambitious family, who sees this as an opportunity to further their station. They ruthlessly push Mary into the king’s arms, and the two fall in love. But when Mary becomes pregnant with Henry’s child, they can no longer have one another as they usually do and Henry drifts towards Mary’s sister, Anne, instead. Henry thinks he’s fallen in love with Anne, but really, he is still falling into the Boleyn family plans.

Anne is completely different from Mary. Anne is strong-willed and self centered. While Mary resigns to the fact that she has lost the king’s favor, Anne fights tooth and nail to keep Henry’s interest as other noble families try to push their beautiful daughters forward. However, Anne is not satisfied with mere interest. She is probably the most ambitious Boleyn family member and she is aiming for the highest rank — to become Queen of England. Thus Anne becomes a driving force behind Henry’s decision to break away from the Roman church so he can divorce his wife, Queen Katherine of Aragon, in order to marry her instead. As Anne rises higher and higher, Mary finds herself sinking lower and lower. However, Mary is the one who becomes truly happy whereas Anne finds herself isolated and sad.

I really enjoyed this novel by Philippa Gregory, though that isn’t much of a surprise; I tend to fall in love with all her works. As I say with all historical novels — if you’re really picky with historical accuracy in fiction then you probably shouldn’t read this book though, and go get a biography instead (really, I don’t understand people who read historical fiction and then complain that it was too fictional)! I personally enjoyed this book a lot, it was full of twists and turns, though compared to the other two works of her’s that I read (The White Queen and The Red Queen), I liked this one a little less. I’m not sure why; like I said, I really enjoyed it but there’s something about it that didn’t grip me in quite the same way as the other books. I think it says something that I read The White Queen and The Red Queen fairly quickly, but The Other Boleyn Girl was was spread over a week’s time. The latter half of the book, when Anne kind of took over the story, got a lot more interesting though and I plowed through the last 250 pages. Even though the story had little similarity to the movie, it made me want to watch it all over again.

The characters are a bit one dimensional, I admit. Mary is portrayed as a very kind and passionate girl who just wants love, but is used by her family members for the betterment of the Boleyn name. She doesn’t have much of a backbone and rarely stands up for herself. Anne is portrayed as, simply put, a bitch. She was bossy, arrogant and plain mean. I haven’t read enough history on these two figures to have a clear idea of what most historians portray them as, but I’m sure they were not as black and white as Gregory presented them in this book. It certainly made it difficult to feel sorry for Anne near the end of the story, if it was written with that intention. For me, the entire journey to the end had me thinking, “Well, I know Anne will get her just desserts in the end, so joke’s on her” because truly, her character was so unlikeable. As for Mary, I did wish her character happiness, though it was a bit half hearted on my part. I mean, I think I understand why they were both presented as such extreme characters; to highlight the differences between the two sisters … but perhaps it was just a tad overdone.

The Other Boleyn Girl is a historical novel about love and lust, loyalty and betrayal in the world of royalty. From the viewpoint of Mary, this book tells the story of two sisters who rise and fall in opposite directions. It is, overall, and exciting story and I imagine it would be especially so for those of you who don’t have an inkling as to what happened during this time period in England (although, if you are such a person, I do recommend educating yourself on the real historical facts afterwards — it’s really very interesting!) I wholeheartedly recommend this book to others!

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Posted:
Sep 6, 2012
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Soulless

Author: Gail Carriger
First Published: 2009
Publisher: Orbit
Series: Parasol Protectorate #1
365 pages (mass market paperback)

I’ve seen this book appear on a number of Goodreads friends’ pages and was interested in it because 1) it took place in a steampunk Victorian period and 2) it’s a mish-mash of vampires, werewolves and ghosts. Essentially, I was under the impression it was a quirky book that would be fun to read and I’m happy to say, now that I finished reading it, that it is exactly that. Sometimes it’s nice to read something not serious, and Soulless was a great getaway. It was almost like fantasy chick-lit.

Soulless is about 26 year old spinster, Alexia Tarabotti. She is, if you haven’t guessed, soulless, which means she is “immune” to supernatural creatures. She can’t be bitten by them, for example, and they become human when touched by her. She lives in a steampunk Victorian era London, where werewolves, vampires and ghosts are real and integrated into society. Such supernatural creatures are registered with BUR (Bureau of Unnatural Registry) so they are all kept track of. At a ball one day, Alexia is attacked by an unregistered vampire, whom she accidentally kills. Lord Maccon, an alpha werewolf, a BUR worker and ridiculously gorgeous, is sent to investigate the killing. Nobody knows who this vampire is or where he came from. What’s worse is that registered supernaturals are disappearing and more unknown supernaturals are appearing. Even worse, everyone thinks Alexia may have something to do with this, being soulless and all.

The first thing I noticed was the writing style. It’s different from most novels, I think. I don’t really know how to describe it, other than that it’s quirky. I enjoyed the writing a lot and found it suited the humorous Victorian setting of this book. It’s witty, it’s funny and I was never bored at any time when reading this. I imagine this kind of writing style isn’t going to be for everyone, but I personally really liked it.

All the characters are very memorable and I love them all. Because of the type of story it is and the kind of atmosphere the book has, I’m not surprised that all the characters are kind of “cartoon-ish”; in fact, I loved it. Alexia is a bold, intellectual and independent woman who has resigned to the fact that she’ll probably never marry because frankly, no husband wants a wife this assertive in such a time period. That isn’t to say she doesn’t have her feminine moments. Alexia has resigned to being a spinster, but she does kind of wish she has a husband and a family and all that jazz. I loved her relationship with Lord Maccon, who becomes a love interest of her’s very early on in the story. They seem to irritate one another at first, but later it is revealed they both are quite fond of one another. Lord Maccon is so protective of Alexia, it is just adorable! I was a little surprised by how much romance was in this book (namely, all the kissing/making out scenes), but I found myself quite enjoying them bantering with one another. Even the characters that don’t speak much have wonderfully endearing qualities. For example, I really love Alexia’s family butler, Floote. He doesn’t say much, he doesn’t even appear much, but I just imagine him hovering around in the background, worrying over Alexia entertaining her adventurous spirit, and it just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

I think this is a delightfully written book that’s fun to read if you’re yearning for something light and fun. I am looking forward to reading more about Alexia in the next books in this series (makes me happy to know there are at least four more books after this first one)!

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Posted:
Jul 20, 2012
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Captive Queen

Author: Alison Weir
First Published: March 2010
Published: Ballantine Books
473 pages (paperback)

This is my second Alison Weir book. I loved her first one, Innocent Traitor, on Lady Jane Grey and was very excited to read more of her works. Captive Queen is about Eleanor of Aquitaine, who, despite my limited knowledge on her, is a favourite Queen of mine from history. This book has its flaws, but I thought overall it was quite well done and I was pretty addicted to reading it. The book starts off a bit slow, but builds up increasingly. By the middle of the book, I couldn’t put it down at all.

Captive Queen begins when Eleanor is almost thirty years old, beginning with her failure of a marriage to King Louis of France. Eleanor is a beautiful, headstrong Queen with a high sex drive; unfortunately, her husband is so pious that Eleanor practically needs to beg him to come to bed with her, for the sake of an heir at least. When Eleanor lays her eyes on young Henry of Anjou (future King Henry of England), eleven years her junior, she is instantly attracted — and so is he. Daringly, Eleanor arranges for her marriage to Louis to become annulled and before anyone can say anything, she is wed to Henry. Their relationship is extremely passionate, as Henry shares the same sexual appetite as her and together, they eventually come to have eight children.

However, as the years go on, Eleanor and Henry’s relationship begins to break down. Though they can’t get enough of one another in the bedroom, outside they are butting heads politically over land and over their children. Finding out about Henry’s faithlessness also drives the wedge deeper between them. When Eleanor’s sons revolt against their father, Eleanor can’t help but side with her sons, a decision that will cost her her freedom.

As I mentioned earlier, the book begins a bit on the slow side. I still liked it, but it wasn’t anything too impressive. I read some reviews where people were unhappy with how much sex Eleanor and Henry had in the book, but that didn’t bother me one bit. I mean, they were both known to be quite into sex, it’s kind of hard to leave that out. However, I do agree that the beginning of the book seemed to be overly dominated with sex scenes and sexual-related scenes and the like. I guess it just drove home how much of Eleanor and Henry’s relationship was built upon pure, unrestrained lust — and unfortunately, lust doesn’t last.

What I loved was reading about Eleanor and Henry’s relationship dissolving. In some ways, this book isn’t really about just Eleanor, but rather, Eleanor and Henry. They couldn’t agree on so many things outside of the bedroom. Henry wanted things one way, Eleanor wanted things another way. Eleanor, who was quite an intelligent woman herself, resented the fact that Henry technically had control of her lands as her husband, even though none of her vassals liked Henry. She would try to persuade Henry to let her handle her own vassals since they like her more, but Henry is too prideful, too “manly” to let a woman handle his affairs. Then there was also Becket, Henry’s new BFF, who came between Eleanor and Henry’s relationship even more. She hated that she wasn’t the first person Henry would turn to for advice anymore. When their children grew older, she sided with her sons who felt their father was hogging all the power, which of course, drove Eleanor and Henry apart even more. As morbid as it sounds, I loved reading about their marriage and relationship falling apart. It was exciting! Dramatic!

I loved this book a lot! No, it’s not perfect — I do wish the author focused a bit more on Eleanor’s children, specifically her sons — but it’s a great book on its own. Whether you are knowledgeable about Eleanor’s life or not, I think many people will find this book quite exciting to read.

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Posted:
Mar 16, 2012
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The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest

Author: Stieg Larsson
Series: Millennium #3
Published: May 2010
Publisher: Knopf
563 pages

I read book two 2 years ago, but recently watched the Swedish films (as well as the Hollywood version of book one). I was reminded that I still haven’t read book three and that it had, in fact, been sitting on my bookshelf for a little over a year now. I figured it was about time to finish the series.

Without giving too much away, book three focuses on the more political events that occurred as a result of book two. Salander is critically injured and lies helpless in the hospital. It is up to Mikael Blomkvist (that damn journalist again, as Salander would say) and various other allies of Salander to piece together the truth of what is really happening, and in doing so, they discover a massive political conspiracy, with Salander as the most unfortunate victim. Mikael and the others must try to figure out the entire story in time for Salander’s trial, where her enemies will try to have her locked away forever in an insane asylum if they can.

When I first started this book, I was a little surprised that I was not really as into it as I was the first two. I chalk it up to a number of factors — Lisbeth Salander, my favourite character, was out of the action and laying in the hospital for a good chunk of the plot; I have no idea how the intricacies of the Swedish government (or, any government, I guess) really work; and there were a lot of new characters introduced in this one, so it became a little difficult to remember who’s who sometimes. And there was just something I can’t quite put my finger on about the first half of the book or so. It wasn’t particularly engaging, I suppose. There wasn’t very much action, and I felt it was a lot of explanation, textbook-style, rather than a novel.

However, I have to say, the book did pick up tremendously after the halfway point — coincidentally (or not so coincidentally!) this was also when Lisbeth Salander was healthy enough to once again participate in the plot. And from that point on, I was reminded why I love the Millennium series and how it was made of sheer awesomeness. We got the crazy computer hacking again, we have people stalking people, people tailing people, people having sex with people, and people pointing their guns at people … It was thrilling again and I stayed up entirely too late finishing this book last night.

One of the final scenes, Salander’s trial, was my favourite of all. I was so in the zone while reading that, I couldn’t stop. It was one of those moments when reading where you had to keep reading, you had to find out what happens next. And I know, I know, there’s going to be those little nit-picky readers (hopefully very few of them) who will be like, “A real trial would never happen like that, yadi-yada.” Whatever, guys! I still think the entire trial was clever.

At the end of the book, I felt very satisfied with how things wrapped up. This book was really good, though it did feel a little weaker than the first two. A part of me wants to rate this a 5 just because it ended off so well in my opinion, but I think I will have to settle for the 4.5, because of the slow beginning. And some of the relationships, I felt, could have been handled a little better. For example, the mini plot with Erika’s stalker seemed unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, and primarily served as an awkward way to bring Lisbeth and Erika closer, in my opinion. There was also Mikael’s new relationship with Monica which totally had lots of potential but ended up with a wishy-washy, non-commitment kind of ending where you still have no idea what’s going on between them.

I digress. Point is, if you’ve read the first two books and plan on starting book three, you won’t be disappointed but at the same time, book three may not seem as good as the first two. Still, it’s really great and certainly memorable.

My Rating: