Review: I Capture the Castle

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I am absolutely furious... The book had a very good beginning, I first liked the members of the family, and could sympathize with them, although their misery and hopelessness was a tad too much. Upon the arrival of the Cottons, everything seemed to take a turn for better. I wasn't bored by the story like many other readers/reviewers here, but my heart ached very much for Stephen. The thing with the wireless vs. the gramophone was simply unfair and heart-breaking. And I wasn’t happy with Cassandra’s way of handling the situation. As the story continued, I started to feel utter hatred towards Rose, she is definitely that kind of woman whom I mostly avoid in real life. Hence, I am extremely angry that it is exactly her who got a happy ending in the end (although of course I guessed very early on where her real interests lie). With respect to the men, first I had a very good feeling about the Cottons, but very soon I had to come to the realization that they are two very stupid men. They simply fell for the looks of Rose, and that’s that. Besides her looks, she was lacking any virtues, but these men didn’t see or didn’t want to see it. For this reason, I began to have my doubts if it would be any good for the heroine to be with any of them. But I was hoping till the very end that even if she cannot be in love with the best male character of the book (aka Stephen), at least Simon should recognize her worth and his own stupidity. Regrettably, the author disappointed me. The ending was even made worse by the very boring conversation about Mr. Mortmain’s second book. I have a PhD in Political Science, so I read some highly philosophical books, but even for me, it was so out of place here and I couldn’t be bothered to understand half of what they were talking about. This line of the story also had so much potential, but in the end, it was also resolved very poorly. (For example, I wished Mr Mortmain to tell Topaz to leave him in the tower and let him work.) Anyway, I even read this boring part word for word because I knew the end was near and I didn’t want to skip something important. My expectations were really high up when I arrived at the last couple of paragraphs, and I couldn’t believe my eyes that after having been invested in the story so much, I get next to nothing. Some would say: yeah this is a coming of age novel, this is just Cassandra’s first love, etc. But in that era, it wasn’t a strange thing if a 17-18 years old fell in love with a man twice her age and they got married. My grandmother (born in 1933) was 17 when she married my grandfather, who was 31 at the time. To sum up, I can see why many people may like this story, but it disappointed me in so many aspects that I can only give it one star, and am glad that I didn’t buy the hardcover, which I originally wanted to buy; so I don’t have to dust this book every time I clean my bookshelves and won’t get angry over and over again.

View all my reviews

Review: Pat of Silver Bush

Pat of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was quite different from the Anne books. Pat is obsessed with her home and is unhealthily afraid of changes. I can relate to her story because I also had such a lovely home as a child that I used to be very homesick whenever I had to leave it. I also can relate to her not wanting to have a career only wanting to make home for her family, but I don’t understand why she doesn’t want to have her own family. The lovely home my parents established made me yearn for a similarly happy home which is mine and my husband’s, but Pat doesn’t want this at all. She just want everything stay the same and everybody remain in the house forever, which is of course impossible. I didn’t mind Pat being different from Anne, but I didn’t like the ending and the fact that despite the inevitable changes and the fact that even Pat was able to accept them, her basic attitude to life didn’t change. I also agree with someone else’s opinion that the other characters are not as well developed in this novel. We only get to know Pat and Judy, we learn very few things about the other people. For all this reasons, I’m giving it 3,5 stars.

View all my reviews

Review: The Switch

The Switch by Beth O'Leary
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Teared me up and made me laugh

Once again, Beth O’Leary did it, this book gave me all the feelings, the goosebumps, I cried and laughed my way through it. I simply loved it.

View all my reviews

Review: The Royal We

The Royal We by Heather Cocks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Funny and touching

Being obsessed with everything British, including Wills&Kate, I enjoyed this funny but also full of serious stuff fictional story. I wasn’t really happy with the ending though, that’s why I am giving it four stars only.

View all my reviews

Review: The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure

The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

* This review may contain spoilers, please proceed with caution... *

I am probably the one and only who did not like this book, and NOT because it had been boring or worse than the film. I haven't seen the film yet and I'm not sure I want to. I read the 2013 edition with the two lengthy introductions, and even though I couldn't wait for the real story to begin, I quite enjoyed the introductions and Goldman's satire/humour. Once the story began, I grow very fond of Inigo and Fezzik, although I didn't really care for Buttercup, the heroine, who is an empty-headed Barbie doll. (I have yet to find a male writer who is able to write a strong female character, all of my favourite female characters were penned by women...) Still, up until page 247 I rather enjoyed the book, though there were some disturbing moments, such as the death of a character who wasn't a really bad villain, just a petty criminal. I didn't understand why it was necessary to kill him off. But back to page 247, which is when all the torture began. I DID NOT enjoy it and it came as a shock that in the middle of a "fairy tale" I had to read very detailed descriptions of such a cruel torture. Up until a certain point I was able to continue reading, but when a completely innocent dog was tortured to death in order to test a torture machine, I gave up. I DID not read the scene how the machine was used for torturing the human being. The rest of the book I just skimmed, so as to find out how this awful story ends. Regrettably, even the ending was just as bad, because there was no real happy ending, but what is more, one of the major villains hasn't even been punished!!! After that, I had no interest whatsoever to read the first part of the planned sequel "Buttercup's Baby", especially as its title is "Fezzik Dies". No need to read that. William Goldman may be a wonderful writer, but he has definitely no idea about the genre FAIRY TALE. He keeps repeating that "life is not fair" and that's reason enough to kill off innocent people and animals. He is of course right, life isn't fair, and if I had wanted to read a book on the Holocaust, Kosovo, or Rwanda, I wouldn't have been surprised by the torture. But for goodness sake, I was reading a book which had been characterised by the New York Times as a "funny fairy tale" (see dust jacket)! According to "My Encyclopaedia of Fairy Tales", fairy tales have at least three defining features, namely: (1) Happy Ending, (2) Good Conquering Evil, and (3) Suitable for Children to read. Goldman failed all of these, I'm afraid. I would never ever give this book to a child, because of the cruelty to animals/people it depicts. The whole concept of the Zoo of Death is awful and out of place in a fairy tale for children. Even though I'm an adult and regularly watch TV series containing cruel scenes, such as the CSI, upon reading this book, I will have some nightmares I'm sure. Imagine what a child would feel! As I've mentioned, I haven't watched the film yet, and lots of people say it's better than the book. I can only hope that the torture scenes are less naturalistic on the screen...

View all my reviews

Review: The Teashop on the Corner

The Teashop on the Corner by Milly Johnson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This was such a charming little book. I'd never read anything by and never heard of Milly Johnson before, so I didn't know what to expect. I assumed it would be a light and fluffy romance. It was much more than that: yes it is a romance, but it also has some dramatic elements to it. Even though there are some happy endings, they're not cheesy at all; they're quite realistic. And not everyone is fortunate to get a 'happily ever after' ending. The book totally reminds me of the movie Love Actually. Several characters are introduced at the beginning, and the chapters alternate between the different plots. But then, some way or another all the characters find their ways to the Teashop on the Corner, so their stories intertwine. New friendships and love relationships develop. And at this point, the book started to make me think about what I call the Facebook phenomenon. I have always thought that Facebook is actually a "Fakebook", meaning that everyone on it pretends to have a perfect life, even though everybody has lots of skeletons in their closets. But online you can pretend not to have any. By contrast, in real life you can only hide your skeletons temporarily. But real friendship/love is about loving each other with/despite our skeletons. All the characters have their skeletons, and of course they try to hide them, but life forces them to reveal their secrets. But thankfully they have people around them who don't mind their skeletons at all. And those are the moments when highly sensitive people (like me) start crying, and then cry and cry... (And then the book becomes a favourite...)

What I also liked about the book that there are lots of literary references (especially to Jane Austen), which I totally enjoyed. And the teashop is the teashop of my dreams. A teashop where there are some fantastic desserts and you can buy stationery (bags, bookmarks, notebooks etc.) related to classics. (If I won the lottery, I'd totally open a teashop like this.)

But most important, I loved each and every character (except of course the villains). However, my favourites were (whose not, I wonder) Molly and Harvey, who were apparently based on real characters. So, let me finish of this little review with my favourite quote (attributed to Harvey), which is also the last sentence of the book: "It’s never too late to have a happy ending".



View all my reviews

Review: The One Plus One

The One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



18.01.2015: Ugh. This book was so hard to read and it is so hard to rate it. Jojo Moyes is clearly a wonderful author, and I will probably read more books by her. But this book was very depressing most of the time. Sometimes I even had to put it down and read something lighter (compared to this book, a crime by Agatha Christie with lots of people dying is light), because I couldn't cope with the depression it made me feel. The worst thing about it was that I couldn't even cry, as I often do. I just had this heavy feelings in my chest and couldn't let them out. I kept thinking that there are indeed women who live in this kind of wretchedness with their children, who and whose children have no hope, and whose Prince Charming will never come. I was prepared for reading a fluffy, light, and funny romance, upon reading the reviews on Goodreads. However, what I got was a heavy drama, even though this is a Cinderella story and there's a happy ending. The heroine and her little family, together with the hero experience almost every kind of problems you could imagine. Even at moments where you think it can't get worse, it just does. There were some moments where I had a moment of happy feeling and found myself laughing out loud. (Moyes clearly has a good sense of humour.) But in the next second, something bad happens, and your feeling of happiness disappears by the "speed of light". Only in the last 4-5 chapters can you enjoy lasting happiness, if you refrain from thinking - what I was thinking - that in real life things definitely wouldn't turn out like this. Of course, I too believe in the "the kindness of strangers" and "forgiveness", but very often, if you make a mistake, you have to live with it, and won't get back what you have lost. So actually, the happy ending felt somewhat odd in light of the whole book. All in all, if you are not as highly emotional as me, or if you don't mind feeling depressed all the time, you will very much love this book, because it is well written and the characters are all very likable. You may also want to re-read it. As for me, I'm not sure when/if I'll ever be able to re-read it.

Update 19.01.2015: One day later, I'm having a major book hangover. I've never thought I would miss these characters so much. Jojo Moyes is clearly a magician. Maybe I'm going to re-read it rather sooner than later...



View all my reviews