taktak:
Hello does anyone know any books that are similar to Class of Lies (where murder takes place in school) or generally thriller/action/mystery/paranormal/etc books that take place in school?
One of us is lying by Karen McManus
The cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
The name of the star by Maureen Johnson
The secret history by Donna Tartt
The broken girls by Simone St. James
Marina:
**May contain spoilers, but mostly rant**
Hi all. I haven't posted my intro here yet cause I was in kind of a reading slump. I used to read more, but nowadays I am just watching a lot of dramas instead. Can't focus when you have multiple hobbies right?
 | The book I finished yesterday was Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney . Last year I read her other really popular book Normal People . It was easy to read, short chapters, good reading flow if you have short attention span like me. The plot though, kinda meh. The characters, slightly annoying and childish. The ending & overall story, not impressive. Then I thought I'd try to read other books of hers to see if I like them better. How lucky of me choosing this one! I don't even know where to start. It's just so boring, it was physically painful to read it. I had borrowed it from the library (thank God I didn't buy it!) and I returned it before finishing the last few chapters. Found it online and listened to the last 3 chapters, but even without knowing how it ended, I could've lived just fine. The part where the 2 main characters exchange their long ass emails talking about history, philosophy, art and other intriguing stuff, were so painfully boring to read I just skipped some of them and the story went along fine. The fact that dialogue was not well defined in the page structure was so confusing to tell who was talking, what they are talking about or what is the setting of the conversation. Pages and pages of useless environment description, not written from anyone's POV, just a brain dump on a blank page. I was reading, and reading but when I closed the book I didn't remember anything. It's like I was listening to someone lecturing about something I was interested in, but the delivery was superficial. What else? The characters personalities were so annoying and unrelatable, by the end of the book I just had so much angst built up I just wanted to slap someone. Sure, was cool to describe and make use of someone's situation being mentally unstable, yet rich and successful star author, but there was no essence to it. Even if it was a sensitive topic, overall her situation was so cryptic and only brushed upon, it didn't even matter at some point. Whereas, the other female character was just a bratty spoiled girlie in her late 20s, thinking no one loves her, her sister hates her, she is alone and desperate to love someone when the 1 guy who is always on her side, she just toys with. Such a drama queen.... She didn't even have a redemption arc or anything, just literally took everything for granted, like SHE DESERVED all that. Like the hell you did, girl. Anyway, my rant ends here, for me it was a painful waste of time that got me more into a reading slump rather than getting me out of it. For you, it might be the miracle book you needed. Try it yourself and see. |
Mila Kim:I would like to join you book enthuz.ginkgo_leaves:
Is there any prerequisite conditions?
Because I haven’t read much till now.
Welcome to our Book Club family, dear friend!
We have no restrictions or conditions joining this club. You can share books from all countries, translated in English or not. After all, we all are from different parts of the world :)
Looking forward to your input about your reading progress, comments and recommendations whenever you feel like it :)
I was going through previous posts, was looking for some small size books. Will wait for few more days, then will google.
You can try "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly" by Hwang Sun Mi - a wonderful, touching little book full of love and inspiration :)
I was going through previous posts, was looking for some small size books. Will wait for few more days, then will google.
I just read The woman in the purple skirt by Natsuko Imamura. It's a translated title from Japanese and it's only 180 pages long. It's about this woman who's our narrator and she's basically stalking the the woman in the purple skirt without any harmful or sexual motive. It's a very simple book about her day to day life. You could even call it a slice of life story but it's also very creepy and weird because the narrator is literally a stalker and on it's very depth, it indirectly talks about loneliness, gossiping and a lot of stuff . I personally really enjoyed it. The writing is brilliant and i finished it in a single sitting. Give it a go if whatever i said interested you.
I will share one, I have made small notebook where I write names of main characters and I have to hit the pause button now n then n refer those names at least for first 2-3 episodes.
Many a times I don’t get to see the faces of the lead characters also when they are continuously speaking, as my eyesight would be focused upon bottom zone of tv screen ….. reading n reading…
I do this when reading books with heavy worldbuilding! Or complicated casts of characters haha. I remember when I was reading the Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum within the first five pages of the book I had at least 8 pages set up for each character and notes for the world hahaha It was just so much going on! Totally worth it though. Honestly it's kind of fun right? To have to take notes? Its like the writer is forcing you to pay attention and it gets me very absorbed in the story.
I'm currently doing so with The Langya List and Black Leopard Red Wolf as well. For the Langya List it's just a ton of characters with complicated relationships, so I write down who is related to who and how. There are probably guides somewhere online, but I like writing it down too. For Black Leopard Red Wolf they have their own character list, but I was still confused when they were introducing the protagonist's actual family situation to me so I had to reread the paragraphs a few times to sort it out and ended up writing it out to help me. In terms of notetaking though, the Unraveling was the most fun because it required it more.
Honestly most of the time I can watch a drama while reading quickly and scanning the screen. Sometimes my reading is more like skimming. It's super helpful when they talk slowly or when the subber leaves up the subs way longer than they need to right? Makes it easier to pay atttention to subs and acting. Sometimes I'll rewind a scene to see the acting if I really like an actor and ignore the subs the second time around, but these days its pretty rare for me to be that engrossed in an actor's reactions. I had the bliss of that with my most recent drama and It just made me feel soooooo good ^_^
I was afraid I wouldn't be able to finish a book this month when I remembered an anthology I hadn't finished yet!
This was an absolutely stunning collection of gorgeously illustrated short stories. For fans of creepy tales, I highly recommend it. The anthology is a large size too, giving plenty of room to appreciate the details in the pages.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hello friends, happy May!
Last month I managed to read 3 books. One was a miss for me, but I really liked the other two.
 ★★★★☆ |  ★★☆☆☆ |  ★★★★☆ |
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin - It's about a bitter man who owns a bookstore on an island. Then one day a sudden turn of events makes his life change. Without giving too much away, this book is absolutely for book lovers. I really enjoyed it. ML might be a grumpy widower in the beginning, but somehow the story becomes very heartwarming tale that's filled with literary references.
The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk - If the name sounds familiar, it's because the drama adaptation got added to Netflix recently and has been trending under top 10 global shows. I think this was a decent thriller. I just couldn't get into the writing at times and all this political conspiracy stuff seems kind of repetitive and familiar at some point. Maybe I needed to be in a certain mood for this novel and I just wasn't. It felt like a chore to get through.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - I absolutely loved this book. It is told from multiple perspectives, but the main one is from the perspective of an octopus that lives inside an aquarium. The rest of the characters either live in the same town or work at the aquarium. I know that probably doesn't sound that interesting, but it all comes together wonderfully in the end. The octopus is one of my favorite characters.
fiflydramalover:
I was afraid I wouldn't be able to finish a book this month when I remembered an anthology I hadn't finished yet!
This was an absolutely stunning collection of gorgeously illustrated short stories. For fans of creepy tales, I highly recommend it. The anthology is a large size too, giving plenty of room to appreciate the details in the pages.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Oh, this poster is really cool! Creepy, yet gorgeous at the same time.
Misunderst0_od:
For april I read 3 novels
I started with "The Paymaster" by Yannick Haenel, it talks about how a certain Georges Bataille becomes a banker who wants to spend everything. I liked the idea and found it quite original, but I didn't manage to really get excited, neither for the story of this banker whose sentimental reversals I had a little trouble understanding, nor for the secondary characters that I found not so original. I quite agree with a critic who said that even if the novelist wrote well he watched himself write and wanted to dictate our impressions too much.
Then I read "the sacred night" by Tahar Ben Jelloun because I try to discover a little Moroccan writers. This is the story of Ahmed who was actually born a girl, but his father immediately said he was a boy because he absolutely wanted to have one. She will then escape from home upon the death of her father and experience a rebirth as a woman.
I read it very easily and there are many aspects of the story that I found interesting but I admit that I was not totally convinced by its mixture of poetry, realism and I sometimes dropped out.
Then I read the first volume of the series "My Struggle" by the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgard. I bought this novel because many youtubers recommended it and I understand now why. In his work, Karl Ove Knausgard is 40 years old and partly attempts to resurrect his past, using the type of autobiographical novel. Frankly I completely understand the success of these novels, it is a very rich work that is also the representation of a whole generation. In this collection in particular, the novelist talks about his early life, his relationship with his tyrannical father and the death of the latter but also about his relationship to writing. I thought it was a very strong work with great psychological depth. I would like to read the other 5 volumes when I have more time.
law:
