A Magical Escape

The story begins with Prospero and the Man in the Grey Suit starting a game. We don’t know the rules, we don’t know when it will start and we don’t even know both of the players. All we know for sure is that it is a game played with magic.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is one of the most incredible books I have ever read. It was published in 2011 and I cannot believe that I waited until now to read it. For four years I missed out on unbelievable imagination, beautiful writing and a storyline that keeps you hooked until the very last word.

Picture sourced from here.

Zoo is un-bear-able (ha ha get it? Animal puns!)

Recently, a new TV show called Zoo premiered in the US. It is based on the James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge book of the same name. I have been somewhat hooked on the show, despite the fact that I find it wildly unlikely that anything like its plot line would ever happen. So I decided to read the book and see if it could give me more clarity on the apocalypse-by-animal angle.

The answer is no. I was not convinced. Actually, I think I’m enjoying the show more than the book; which is saying something since so far the only similarities I’ve managed to find are the main character’s name and a lion attack in Botswana. Aside from that, the show has done it’s own thing completely (so far).

This might turn into a rant, so prepare yourselves for spoilers.

Image sourced from here.

Finally a bit more Mia

Like many girls around my age, I grew up reading The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot. In fact, I think I’ve read almost every single book that Meg Cabot has written, save for a couple of the ones from her Mediator series. I just love her style of writing. Her characters can always make me laugh and her stories pull me in when I need an escape.

Royal Wedding comes 8 or so (my math skills are horrendous) years after the end of the 10th book in the series, which many people thought would be the last. Getting to see what has happened in the life of the charismatic Princess Mia was such a delight. It was like jumping back into my teenage years, but, just like me, Mia has grown up.

Picture sourced from here.

A girl online writing about Girl Online

Last week I finally read a book I’ve been looking forward to reading since last year. Girl Online by Zoe Sugg, the YouTube sensation who is taking over the world.

I’ve been watching Zoe’s videos on YouTube for over a year now. She has two channels; her main channel (called Zoella), which contains fashion and beauty videos, and then her vlog channel (MoreZoella), on which she sometimes records her daily life. She is a charismatic and bubbly person, with just enough humour and charm to make me wait excitedly for the release of her videos every Sunday.

Something that I realised after watching her vlogs for a year, especially when she was a daily vlogger (she posted 10-15 minute long videos every day about what happened in her live the previous day) is that it becomes very easy to start feeling as though you know Zoe personally. You learn what she wears, what she eats and who her friends are – pretty much all of the details that you would learn about your own friends…except Zoe is still technically a complete stranger.

Better than Lord of the Rings

I’m about to make a bold statement.

Last year, in my English 3 class, we had an elective called British Modern Fantasy, and in it we studied The Lord of the Rings saga (it’s not a trilogy). I loved it of course; it is pretty difficult not to love Tolkien. However, there is a certain similar set of books which I personally think are better than The Lord of the Rings.

The books I’m talking about are the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. The first book is called Eragon  and I read it for the first time when I was about 12-years-old. The series grew to be extremely popular among young adults as the second (Eldest) and third (Brisingr) books were released. There was a three year wait between each book, which meant that by the time the final book (Inheritance) was released I was almost 18, and I have to say that I was in no way patient in each of those three year gaps.

I had such conviction during the Christmas holidays that I was going to sit down and read every book on my list that I had been wanting to read but had not gotten around to. This failed miserably. I spotted Eragon on my bookshelf one day towards the end of the holiday and I couldn’t restrain myself from plucking it off the shelf and starting to read it. Before I knew it, I was just as engrossed in the series as I had been back in high school. I sat and read them at every spare moment. I sped through them at a pace that alarmed even me, especially since the entire cycle consists of about 2 779 pages. I realised with only 4 days to go in my holiday that I still had the whole of Inheritance to read. I knew that I couldn’t take it back to Rhodes with me because 860 pages was a few too many to fit into my carryon bag. Let’s just say I may not have spent as much time with my family as I should have in those last few days. (I did manage to finish it, in case you were wondering).

Not your average mystery novel

Christmas is always my favorite time of the year because it means I can add to my book collection without subtracting from my bank account. This year one of the books high up on my Christmas list was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. To be honest, I had never heard of this book until all of the hurrah about the highly rated movie appeared on my Facebook page. I knew that I couldn’t go see the movie until I had read the book, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

I spent Christmas with family in Cape Town and we were very busy most of the time, but I did eventually have a chance to sit down and start this book. I settled on a super comfortable couch on the verandah of my aunt’s house. It had a perfect view of both mountains and forest, which was absolutely beautiful. However, I was soon too engrossed in the book to even consider glancing at the stunning scenery around me.

I was drawn into the world of Nick and Amy Dunne and their seemingly perfect marriage. A marriage that is shattered on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary when Amy suddenly disappears. I want to really talk about this book so I think this is going to be more of an opinion piece than a review, and it is going to contain a hell of a lot of *SPOILERS*.

Image taken from:
http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/37400000/Gone-Girl-by-Gillian-Flynn-gone-girl-37441442-1181-1810.jpg

The Key to Copyediting

So I was supposed to write this post last week, but I suddenly came down with a nasty case of Pharyngitis, which left me pretty much bedridden for about four days. I am finally feeling better today, so I decided to post the first of about five posts that are writing assignments on the topic of ‘Reading Like A Writer’.

I already know that I do not want to be a writer when I grow up, so I have chosen to focus this series more on editing. I would ideally like to become a copyeditor or book publisher when I have finished my university degree. While researching more on the topic, I came across a book called The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications by Amy Einsohn, which contains everything I would ever need to know about becoming a copyeditor.

It took me much too long to find this book in the library. It’s true that the library has four floors and contains thousands of books, but it also has a very efficient search system which I am, for some unknown reason, incapable of using. I was eventually guided to the correct book by a helpful library assistant and was soon lugging the almost 600 page book home in my backpack.

How To Write A Fantastic Book Review

So I made this cool thing on a website called Storify. It has gifs! It’s also about book reviews and how to write a good one. Feel free to go check it out.

I’m just going to leave it here:

https://storify.com/searbear89/how-to-write-a-fantastic-book-review

Enjoy!

The Sword in the Anvil (in a Stone in a Churchyard)

I can honestly say that I absolutely adored T.H. White’s ‘The Sword in the Stone’. I read it over the weekend as a requirement for my British Modern Fantasy (more on this later) course for English, and by the end I was amazed that I had not read it before!

In hindsight, it is probably better that I only read it now, because it meant that I could understand a large amount of the references – which are clearly aimed at adults for the most part. I think if I had read it at a younger age, I would not have understood how completely hilarious parts of this book are. The personalities of the characters – such as Merlyn and (for me) King Pellinore – made the book constantly entertaining. Some of what happens is so ridiculous that you cannot help but smile.

King Pellinore was by far my favorite character. At first I thought he was incredibly strange (which he is), but he soon started to grow on me. I found myself actually laughing out loud in the scene where Pellinore comes across his Beast while out with the hunting party on Boxing Day. His life goal is to complete his Quest by finding and ‘slaying’ this beast, but he had become distracted over Christmas and had taken a break from the Quest. When they are hunting he finds the Beast very ill and close to death. He comes to the immediate (and correct) conclusion that the Beast was pining away without having him there to chase it. He proceeds to go on a rant about how it was all his fault for not living a regular life.

 

“Before, it was all right. We got up at the same time and quested for regular hours, and went to bed at half-past ten. Now look at it. It’s gone to pieces altogether , and it will be your fault if it dies. You and your hummocky bed.”

 

Pellinore follows this by nursing the Questing Beast back to health by using “kindliness and bread and milk” and was soon back on his happy Quest to kill the thing. He is later saved by the Beast after he has been captured and taken prisoner by a Giant.

Bridget Jones’ Diaries (plural)

The life of Bridget Jones appears to be one big, constantly embarrassing disaster, and yet she still manages to become a relatively successful Journalist, with her own apartment, a number of true friends and a seemingly perfect fiance. I struggle to understand how this is possible!

I saw the first Bridget Jones movie when I was about ten or eleven, and have seen it countless times since, along with the second film, which followed a few years later. I found the movies hilarious and I love Renee Zellweger but, as I realised a few weeks ago, I had never read the books!

I immediately went online and acquired both the first and second novel so that I could read them on my Ebook. Within three days I had finished them both, and had come to the conclusion that I had been seriously missing out.

Bridget dedicates her entire body and soul to complaining about what a disaster her life is at any given moment. She does seem to have some rotten luck, and falls into more embarrassing situations than the average person. However, as a reader I found that I did not mind her constant moaning, because she managed to do it in a way that is completely hilarious.

I spent most of the time while reading wondering to myself how Bridget manages to be chronically late and often completely useless and yet never seems to get into any serious trouble (slightly unrealistic). She also clearly has some kind of eating disorder (or is working towards one) because she weighs herself every day and counts all of her calories. This would be more concerning if she ever actually lost any weight.

I do however, applaud Bridget’s constant working towards ‘Inner Poise’ and her attempts to stay away from possible ’emotional fuckwittage’. She fails quite horribly, but at least she tried. She has a constant plan about what to do in every disastrous situaution, most often supplied by her friends, but things never seem to work out.