Talking 'bout my Generation - Music

Hi!

I saw Lindsay talk about this book a while ago and I knew I had to read it.

Eve and Leonora Epstein are two sisters, born 14 years apart. Eve is part of Generation X (born mid 60s to late 70s), while Leonora is part of Generation Y (born early 80s to late 90s). I would definitely put myself in that "grey area" in between the two, the people born between 1979 and 1984 who identify with a lot of stuff from both generations. Some of the late 90s stuff seems alien to me - I would have considered the whole Mean Girls age to be a completely different era, but it's easy to forget that time went pretty quick there for a while - Clueless was released a mere 5 years before Mean Girls.

In this book, Eve and Leonora cover chapters on Music, TV, Fashion, Movies, Sex & Dating, Books, and Technology. It's peppered with really good graphics, lists, conversations between the sisters - I loved the Mix Tape lists (definitely identified more with Gen X on that one). I loved this book a lot, you can get it on amazon here.

I thought I'd do some graphics and some lists of my own to show you the kind of stuff that I'd pick as a representation of my generation - I was born in 1983. My husband is very much generation X (born in the 70s) - but we have a huge amount of similar interests. Leonora states in the book - "Generation Y couldn't exist without Generation X because we've (selectively) made their nostalgia our nostalgia." I definitely agree. I also agree with the occurrence of "Fauxstalgia" in Generation Y - we tend to pine for things we've never experienced. I had fond memories of watching Live Aid on TV - I couldn't have watched Live Aid on TV, because I had just turned 2 a month before it aired.

Like a lot of 30 somethings, I've gained a new respect for the nostalgia of the older generations. I understand what it's like to hear a heinous remix of some song you loved when you were 11. I understand what it's like to see a 14 year old wearing the T-shirt of a band she's never even heard of. I understand what it feels like to look a favourite video up on youtube and find the comment section peppered with references to the fact that it was just played in the background of some hipster programme or that you're there because some obscure twitter personality just tweeted about it. But I will never, ever understand how jelly shoes are back.

Music
My music education came courtesy of Dave Fanning or Ruth Scott on 2fm, who introduced me to "alternative" music back in the day (through the radio, obviously). Also deserving credit is the legendary Larry Gogan with his Golden Hour, and the DJs from Atlantic 252 (Rick O'Shea, Dusty Rhodes). A love of radio from an early age meant that although I could sing every word of every Backstreet Boys song, I still knew who David Bowie and REM were. Atlantic 252 was my favourite, and if you want to listen to some of the jingles from back in the day, here's a great site I found courtesy of DJ Fergal D'Arcy a while ago: Aircheck Downloads.

This is from an actual mix tape that I made. 

Edit: When I went into the living room to get the cassette tape from the press, two guys from one of those Pawn Shop/Auction programmes that my husband watches were singing "My Generation" by The Who. I had already written the title of this post - I LOVE when shit like that happens.

I put this at 1998 given the songs, so welcome to the music world of 16 year old me.....there's no accounting for taste, is there?

There were a few albums (on tape, obviously) that everyone had to have around the time I started to get old enough to buy my own tapes. My favourite thing was to sit in on a Sunday and tape stuff off the radio, but here are the ones I owned on proper tapes. I got my first CD player in 1995 but CDs were still so expensive that I rarely got them, I did have the Five, Titanic & Garbage albums on CD but the rest were all tapes.

It's amazing how even an album title can bring back so much memories - 1995 in particular was an epic year in albums - and I sang them all to death. Even if I did make up all my own words to most of the Pearl Jam album. Anyone up for a chorus of La Vida Loca in Spanish? No?

I had one other tape - one that became such a favourite that I actually had one of the songs from it in our wedding two years ago (Feels Like Home). It's the quintessential teen tape of the mid-90s - the one I listened to while simultaneously reading the series of books based on the show, dreaming about Pacey Witter and wishing I had Joey Potter's hair.

I'm not going to go on, or I'd be here all day, but I discovered the glorious world of 80s hair bands around this time too and built up a collection of compilation tapes, all with names like Best Driving Songs even though I could just about ride a bicycle, let alone drive. The Britney Spears & N*Sync era followed, then I went through a phase of buying film soundtracks - Edward Scissorhands, Wild Wild West (bought for one Enrique Iglesias song), Back to Titanic. Nothing says Sad Girl more than a teenager sitting listening to music from Titanic alone in the dark. 

In the X vs Y book, one of the girls speculates on the upcoming Generation Z - is this the first generation who will never have to wait for anything? I mean, if you hear a song now all you have to do is Shazam it or Google a few lyrics and you can have the track on your phone in seconds. I remember waiting weeks for songs to crop up on the radio, stalking the chart shows and Atlantic 252. Sometimes I'd get the same song on the same tape 2 or 3 times to try and get the "best" version of it. That excitement is all gone now.

I'll shut up, but I'm leaving you with this - potentially my sister and I are the only two people who remember this as clear as day and still sing it word for word, but see if it rings a bell with you. It was on telly morning noon and night around the earth in the late 90's - does anyone else remember it?



Next time - movies!!

Books I Read in July

Hi!

Apologies for the lateness of this, August seems to be running away from me. We had to get a new laptop as well, after 8 years the old one finally gave up the ghost, so I'm still trying to transfer pictures and files. Oh, and for the record, I HATE WINDOWS 8. On to the books.

The Booktube-a-thon ran for a week in July - it was an intensive readathon organized through social media. I've already covered the 10 books I read during that week, so I'm not going to include those in this post, but you can read about them here if you want to. I joined Netgalley in July, too - it's a fantastic site that allows you to build a profile and request books to review before they are released. It's completely addictive, but I still have a world of books that I've bought to get through, so I'll mix & match.

Before booktube-a-thon, I read these:

Ava Dellaira: Love Letters to the Dead
Laurel is a teenage girl who has recently lost her sister, May. Laurel idolised her and doesn't know quite how to cope, especially as she knows something about May that she has never told anyone. When her English teacher sets an assignment to write a letter to a dead person, Laurel chooses lots of different celebrities (Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, River Phoenix) and uses her letters to tell them about her life, about her sister, and about the boy who is slowly becoming a big part of her existence. This is a really nice coming-of-age story with a very hopeful message, and it's beautifully written.

Ken Wheaton: Sweet as Cane, Salty as Tears (Netgalley)
This was my first request granted on Netgalley, so it's pretty special for that reason alone! Ken Wheaton isn't a writer who I was previously familiar with, but I'll definitely read more by him. This is a story told from the point of view of a 50-year old Louisiana woman who is desperately trying to avoid family drama - until tragedy strikes and she has to return home. I would have read another ten chapters, it surprised me how much I enjoyed this book. If he wrote a series about the main character I would read every single book! It was warm, witty and touching.

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: Dash and Lily's Book of Dares
I keep saying this title to the tone of "Joey and Janice's Day of Fun", but leaving that aside, the premise of this book sounded great - a boy is browsing the shelves of his favourite bookstore and happens upon a red notebook daring him to begin an adventure. The author of the notes, Lily, is a dreamer (and has serious temper issues judging by the screaming and tantrums that regularly crop up). The finder, Dash, is a hipster and really bloody annoyed me. The whole book annoyed me - it was more like a book of questions than a book of dares, and I thought Lily was miles too good for Dash. He reminded me instantly of Jesse Eisenberg, who I am not a fan of, and who I have mixed up with Michael Cera, who played the male lead in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, written by the same authors. Not my cup of tea at all, I was glad to finish it.

Ben Goldacre: Bad Science
Technically I started this way back in April, but I finally finished it in July. It's not the type of book I could sit down and read straight, I had to keep going back a chapter at a time. Ben Goldacre debunks lots of popular treatments and fads, using very funny examples like creating a toxic foot bath for a Barbie. The book was enjoyable, but the one part that had me crying laughing was the one about Dr. Gillian McKeith claiming that
green vegetables have more chlorophyll and oxygenate blood: "Is chlorophyll high in oxygen? No. It helps to make oxygen. In sunlight. And it's pretty dark in your bowels...even if Dr. Gillian McKeith PhD stuck a searchlight right up your bum to prove her point, and your salad began photosynthesizing... you still wouldn't absorb a significant amount of it through your bowel, because your bowel is adapted to absorb food, while your lungs are optimized to absorb oxygen. You do not have gills in your bowels." Brilliant!!

Kate Karyus Quinn - Another Little Piece
I first heard about this on one of Lindsay Hearts Books haul videos, and I immediately wanted to read it. A week before her 18th birthday, Annaliese Gordon is at a party in the woods with lots of other young people. During the party, Annaliese emerges from the woods, covered in blood, runs screaming, and is not seen again...until she turns up halfway across the country, almost a year later, suffering from memory loss. This is not a run-of-the-mill missing person book - I got completely and utterly lost after about 30 pages until I realised that there's a strong Supernatural element at play here (think The Skeleton Key mixed with The Buffy episode The Wish and a dash of teen angst) and Annaliese is not who or what she seems. This is a really unique book, something I hadn't read before, but man - that ending. Still haven't a clue what happened. It's still worth a read, see if you can decipher it and get back to me!

Tawni O'Dell - One of Us (Netgalley)
This book is about Sheridan "Danny" Doyle, who is a forensic psychologist based in Philadelphia. Danny hails from the small mining town of Lost Creek, but has avoided going back there for a long time. When his Grandfather falls ill, Danny returns - and as luck would have it, he discovers a dead body. While he's in Lost Creek, he begins to discover that all he thought he knew about his family is at risk - and there's someone else back in the Creek too, determined to get what's rightfully theirs...I really enjoyed this book, the villian was at times almost cartoon-like in their evilness. This has been compared to Gone Girl but it's nothing like that.

RANT:  I actually wish we could stop comparing every thriller to Gone Girl and every romance to Me Before You. They immediately make me all judgey and I don't like it, it's not fair on the books. This is more than good enough to stand up on its own without having to depend on a Gillian Flynn comparison. And while I'm on that subject, in my humble opinion, Sharp Objects was a million times better than Gone Girl. /RANT.

I read these last three books after the booktube-a-thon.

Katlyn Duncan: This Summer (Netgalley)
Hadley and her friend Lily are determined to spend their last summer before college having fun. They both have jobs at Hadley's Dad's summer camp, and are looking forward to a summer of freedom after Hadley split up with her boyfriend of a year. The only problem is, someone from Hadley's past has returned. How will they deal with seeing each other again after he walked out on her without saying a word more than two years ago? This is geared more towards teenagers, but it was a light summer read and I enjoyed reading a book about a summer camp again. There is one particularly hot scene which surprised me, so I wouldn't be handing this to a 13 or 14 year old, but anyone over 16 would enjoy it.

Mhairi McFarlane: You Had me at Hello
The blurb says - "what if the one that got away came back?" but this is my bugbear with this book - he doesn't just "come back", she practically hunts him down because time and consequences suit her. Even though she rejected him several years before, and he's now married. If you're married, this will irk you. It's not that anyone cheats as such - but the thoughts of someone getting back in contact with a man they were very close to years ago and then practically obsessing over him (immediately condemning his wife to be a bitch, of course) doesn't sit well with me. The same with a husband who is supposedly happily married but has no problem mocking his wife in front of a former University friend or having secret lunch meetings to give dating advice to said "friend". I didn't enjoy it, it dragged (but yet nothing happened) and the two main characters deserved each other because they were both awful.

Karin Slaughter: Cop Town (Netgalley)
This is one of the best books I've read this year, and I'm almost ashamed to say that it's my first Karin Slaughter book. I wrote a separate blog post all about it, because it deserves a post to itself. It's brilliant.

So, that's it! 19 books for July, my favourites were definitely the Karin Slaughter, Ken Wheaton and Virginia Bergin ones. I'm well on my way with my August reads, which include Unravelling Oliver by Liz Nugent, the first pick for Rick O'Sheas book club. If you want to join, have a look at the facebook group here and get reading!

Book Review: Cop Town by Karin Slaughter

Hi!

I do have a "What I read in July" post coming up next week, but I thought this deserved a review all to itself.

" This woman's lib stuff works for rich girls, but all you've got going for you is your face and your figure. You need to take advantage of both before you lose them"

So says Terry Lawson, uncle of Atlanta Police Officers Jimmy and Maggie Lawson. There's a shooter on the loose - he's targeting cops, and he's not showing signs of slowing down any time soon. When Jimmy's partner gets killed, Maggie (along with new recruit Kate Murphy) steps things up a gear and tries to get some answers - but this does not go down well with the male officers. This book covers the events of one week. Will the shooter be caught, or will there be more casualties first?

Sexism, misogyny, racism, segregation and homophobia are rampant on the streets and in homes. Maggie raises some really valid theories about the killer, but is immediately dismissed and told to shut up. Her Uncle is in control of all the money in the household, and has no problem shutting Maggie up with his fists if he doesn't agree with what she says. The female officers are verbally abused, groped, and taunted by most of the men, and this is all completely expected. They expect the drawing of the penis on the ladies' changing room door every morning. They expect new recruits to be given the wrong size uniforms on purpose. They expect to be hit on, fondled, and groped. They expect to be called sugar, princess, doll, sweetheart. It's just what happens. The male officers do not want the women there, doing a man's job. Black officers and White officers agree only on one thing: that women should not be wearing that uniform.

Never in my life have I been more disgusted or annoyed while reading a book than I was by Terry Lawson in this book. He is vile, absolutely abhorrent. To think that there are men out there like that, with his viewpoint on society and on women (and there are, because I know it still exists) is beyond comprehension. He riled me something rotten, to the point that I was wishing for a bullet with his name on. I HATED him. The amount of adversity and downright bullshit those women had to put up with was unbelievable. They were every bit as intelligent as the males, moreso in some cases, but they were dismissed because of their sex.

The main character in this book for me is Atlanta. As Kate's father in the book says, "There is no one city"  - two people could live in the same city for years and not experience the same things or see the same people or streets. Everything the female officers experience - that won't be experienced by their families or their friends. After reading this, I wanted to get a feel for the place, so I had a search around - album.atlantahistorycenter.com has an amazing collection of photographs. Just type 1975 into the search box and knock yourself out - I lost hours on that website.

The Atlanta Police Department have one of the most sophisticated websites I've seen in a long time. It has a detailed history of the force, as well as a current interactive map where you can zoom in on different zones and crimes committed. It has also finally reached staffing levels promised by a former Mayor - "2,000 by 2,000".

I found a video from 1974 by a Grady High school student about noise pollution - watch it, it will give you a great idea of what the area was like.



Also worth a read is this article from Atlanta News Anchor Monica Pearson, who became the first black person AND the first woman to read the six o'clock news on TV in Atlanta in 1975 (beating out Oprah Winfrey in the process). What she experienced from some viewers is pretty much in line with the book - pulled over by a condescending prick of a cop for no reason, receiving comments from viewers like " Put a bone in your nose and go back to Africa" or "N*gger, get off the air". 

Karin Slaughter herself uploaded a video of an interview with a female police officer in Atlanta in 1975, I think that you should watch it if you're planning on reading Cop Town. It gives such a great insight into the minds of women like Kate and Maggie at the time.



The two main female characters - Maggie and Kate - were brilliant. I feel a little sad that the book is over and I don't get to read any more about them! The story itself was fantastic too. I didn't guess anything and I was in no rush to get to the end. Everything was wrapped up perfectly.

One of the best books I've read in 2014 by far, thank you to the publisher for granting my request to read it on Netgalley.

Booktube-a-thon 2014: Results!

Hi!

Now, firstly, I don't want this to come across as a "look at me, I'm great, look how much I can read in a week" type thing. When I go into reading mode, as I call it, I literally spend every spare second reading. Always have done, I used to pull all-nighters with a pile of library books when I was a child. So seriously, it's just the way I do it - I'm not trying to one-up anyone. I'm genuinely just a fast reader & I just really love talking books!

So - you may remember in my last post, I talked about Booktube-a-thon 2014. It ran from July 14th-21st, and it was an epic collaboration between several booktubers, bloggers and readers all over the world. Everyone involved did an amazing job, and I even got to take part in a few twitter sprints when the boys took their afternoon nap. The sprints were really fun, they had challenges like "read for 15 minutes and find a weapon in your story" or "you're getting hungry, list all the food you find over the next 10 minutes" - it was great to feel like part of a community with other people all reading at the same time from many different parts of the world.

Here's a quick recap of the challenges:

• Read a book and watch the film adaptation. DONE
• Read a book with the colour red on the cover. DONE
• Read a book chosen by someone else. DONE
• Start and finish a series. DONE
• Read a book with pictures. DONE
• Read a book from the genre you've read least from this year. DONE
• Read 7 books and/or 300 pages a day. DONE

As Chloe mentioned in her results post, I think this really proved just how much you can read if you put your mind to it. I've had books on my TBR (to be read) list for years - I could easily scratch some of them off the list if I wanted to do this again. It was definitely intense - I didn't watch any TV all week (not that I missed it) and I read when the boys were napping or while I was giving them bottles. I had a few 5am starts so that definitely helped to get more reading in! I'm totally burnt out after it though, the leg even fell off my glasses on Monday morning (genuinely, just plopped off) so I won't be doing the whole book-a-day thing again any time soon. Here's what I read:

Monday: I read "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman and started "Where She Went" by the same author.
Tuesday: I finished "Where She Went" (completing the series challenge) and read "Rosemary's Baby" by Ira Levin (half of the book/movie challenge). I started "Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell that night (red on the cover).
Wednesday: I finished "Fangirl" and read the first few chapters of "In the Shadow of Blackbirds" by Cat Winters (a book with pictures included).
Thursday: I finished "In the Shadow of Blackbirds", read "Bossypants" by Tina Fey (least-read genre) and started "Butter" by Erin Jade Lange (chosen by someone else).
Friday: I finished "Butter", thus completing all the reading challenges for Booktube-a-thon!

I really, really enjoyed "Butter", "Fangirl" and "Rosemary's Baby". I liked "In the Shadow of Blackbirds" a lot, it was a nice unique little book and the photographs were great. I did like "If I Stay", but I didn't like "Where She Went" as much. I was most disappointed by "Bossypants" - but I think I'd built it up in my head to be this amazingly unputdownable laugh-a-mintue read, and it wasn't. I really enjoyed the last 40-50 pages of it, but I found some of the TV sections boring. I'd wager that's because I've never seen the shows nor have I any interest in them, but for fans of Tina's TV work I can see how it would be really enjoyable. She definitely doesn't hold back on behind-the-scenes information like some celebrities (coughMelissaJoanHartcough). I was so happy to have finished the challenges this year because I missed out on the entire Booktube-a-thon last year and I was raging.

I had a few Netgalley requests granted, and I had a new book pre-ordered on Amazon that arrived on my Kindle at midnight on Saturday, so I kept reading.

From Friday to Sunday, I also read:

Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris - I tried to read this before I knew anything about David Sedaris and I didn't get it at all. I saw it on my reader and it was really short, so I read it and knocked a good laugh out of it, as with all of Sedaris' work. I think there are collections of Christmas stories marketed under the same name, but mine is the one with the cover above and only has the short stories about his time as a 33 year old Macy's Christmas Elf.

Tape by Steven Camden - This was a request granted on Netgalley. The idea was so good - a 13 year old girl moves in with her Grandmother after her parents die. While rooting around the spare room, she finds a tape. Back in 1993, Ryan records a tape about things that are happening in his life. How are they connected? The one thing that annoyed me the most about this book was the lack of quotation marks to show dialogue. A phone conversation is written like this: - Hello. No. What do you mean she wasn't there. Was she there. Are you kidding me. Are you messing with me. Yes. Okay. See you tomorrow. (not actual dialogue, but you get the idea). Conversations are like this (also not actual dialogue):
Ameliah walked into the kitchen. Her Grandmother was chopping carrots.
- Hello dear, are you hungry?
- Not really.
- Did you eat?
- No.
- You must be hungry.
- I said, I'm not.
- What are your plans for tonight?
- No plans.
I found it incredibly hard to read and hard to follow. My heart broke when I got to the end (seriously, when I didn't fling this at the wall at 58% it's a miracle) and read that the author had been dreaming about this story since he was 10 - it must be a dream come true for him but my god, it was a chore to read. I do hope younger teenagers enjoy it.

The Rain by Virginia Bergin
This is a YA (young adult) novel. It's a genre that I've been getting into more & more lately, the writing is generally so good and the genre has come a hell of a long way since the nineties. I requested this on Netgalley but got turned down - I really, really wanted to read it so I pre-ordered it on Amazon and it arrived at midnight on the release date. Ruby Morris is a typical 15 year old teenager - loves her phone, her friends, tea, doesn't really like her Stepdad, whinges a bit, and has a massive crush on a boy at school. She has just locked lips with said boy at a party when it starts to rain - and the parents of the party-thrower freak out. All the guests are rushed inside, because this is no ordinary rainshower - it's a national emergency. One drop of this rain will kill you within 3 hours, in a grotesque and painful way. Ruby is a brilliant heroine, because she's real! She doesn't automatically turn into a brave Superhero. She bitches and whinges and moans about the inconvenience of the killer rain and the fact that she has to use a bucket as a toilet. There are hilariously funny moments - like her reasoning behind looting a shop - but also some very touching ones, like the scenes with Simon, her Stepdad. It's a brilliant book and one that demonstrates how worthy the Young Adult genre is of its increasing popularity among older readers.

I watched the movie version of Rosemary's Baby on Sunday - as I predicted, I found it much harder to find time to sit and watch a movie than I did to read! The movie stayed very true to the book, there were only minor differences and I enjoyed watching it. I will track down more of the same genre.

So there it is - over for another year! I loved every second of it, and I look forward to Booktube-a-thon 2015. Thanks so much to Ariel and all involved for making it such a fun experience.

I'll leave you with one last picture - the definition of WINNING at a car boot sale. €3 for all these - I nearly took hand and all off her.

Please check out the blogs below to see how some other Irish bloggers got on! If you took part, please link me so I can add you.

Chloe
Breige
Róisín

Booktube-a-thon 2014 TBR List!

Hi!

I'm so excited, the Booktube-a-thon 2014 starts TONIGHT. That's just over 12 hours until it all kicks off - wherever you are in the world, it starts on the stroke of midnight your time (when the 13th becomes the 14th) and ends next Sunday night (when the 20th becomes the 21st). I don't know if I'll be able to do much reading tonight, but I've definitely got my game face on for the next week (this all depends entirely on my babies, I may not even finish one book - but I'm going to give it my best shot!!).

If you want to take part, get yourself over to the official Booktube-a-thon 2014 channel, hosted at the moment by organizer Ariel Bissett, but with different guest hosts all week. If you do videos, there are challenges you can take part in specifically for booktubers or avid readers with a youtube channel. For the rest of us, there are challenges and twitter sprints - the sprints this year are going to be 12 hours apart, and they're little bursts where everyone participating in the Booktube-a-thon gets together on twitter at set times and reads as much as they can. For those of us in GMT, the sprints are from 3am-7am (not a hope) and 3pm-7pm(totally depends on the twins). You can find the booktube-a-thon twitter here.

This year, The Book Depository have also gotten involved. They're offering a 10% discount when you use the code BookTubeAThon on this list of 100 books chosen by booktubers.

On to the reading challenges and my TBR list!

The Challenges

Start and Finish a series. This can be a series of 2,3,5, 10 books - go wild.
Read a book with pictures. This can be a graphic novel or any book with photographs in it.
Read a book with red on the cover. As long as it has something red on the cover, it counts.
Read a book someone else has picked for you.
Read a book from the genre you've read least this year.
Read a book that's been adapted into a movie, AND watch the movie.
Read 7 books and/or 300 pages a day.

You can double up on the challenges (for example reading a graphic novel with red on the cover completes two challenges) but you can't use the same book for more than two challenges.

I really wanted to pick books from my ever-growing TBR (to be read) list, so here's what I picked.

Read a book and watch the movie: Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin. I've never read this, and I've never seen the movie - I've wanted to read the book since I saw Chloe's review, so I'm looking forward to this one.

Read a book from the genre you've read least this year: Bossypants by Tina Fey. I haven't read any biographies yet this year, and it's a genre I really enjoy. I've been meaning to read this for ages, so I can finally get into it.

Read a book someone else has picked for you: I have a list of books I own but haven't read in my notebook, so I tweeted out for one of my twitter followers to pick a number. 11 was the first reply, and #11 on my list is Butter by Erin Jade Lange. (thanks Liloo!)

Read a book with pictures in it: I was going to pick the second Miss Peregrine book but I don't have it yet, and I really wanted to avoid buying books specifically for this challenge. I had a look through my reader and found this one, In The Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters.

Read a book with red on the cover: For this, I picked Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, because I really, really want to read it. Even if the writing is more pink, that guy there has red on his shirt. RED. Done.

Start and finish a series: With the exception of Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy, I have never finished a trilogy in under a week, never mind try and read 4 others as well. I want to try my best to complete the challenges so I picked a series with two books, Gayle Forman's If I Stay and Where She Went.

I think they're all pretty realistic aims, the 7 books just have 2,111 pages in total (according to Goodreads stats - yes, I added them all up) which is just about 300 pages a day. I mainly read at night so it should be fairly do-able. To be honest, getting time to watch the movie will be more challenging than the reading!!

I know that Breige, Róisín and Chloe are also taking part. I'm not aware of any other Irish or UK bloggers who are getting involved, so please do let me know if you're planning on taking part!

I really wish this was around when I was a teenager and had the energy for book all-nighters. Even the thoughts of trying to stay up until midnight to start this on time has me yearning for a disco nap. You young 'uns don't know how lucky you are! Now, where are my slippers?

Books I read in May/June and Booktube-a-thon 2014

Hi!

In my last book round-up, I covered everything I'd read from April up to Mid-May. In this post, I'll cover everything I read from mid-May to the end of June, and that should get me back on track so I can post a round-up once a month.

As usual, all images are either Goodreads or Amazon. If you want to join me on Goodreads and follow my reviews (I try to review every book I read) you can add me here.

The Wronged Sons by John Marrs
The Wronged Sons is a thriller about a man who walks out on his family, with the intention of committing suicide. His wife, Catherine, has to deal with the disappearance of Simon, slowly sinking to rock bottom and building herself back up again. 25 years later, Simon knocks on her front door. Where has he been? Why did he leave? Why is he back?! The book jumps back & forth to reveal a tragic, heartbreaking, (and at times hard to read) story about the long-term effects of a misunderstanding. I'd recommend this book to fans of Gillian Flynn or Alex Marwood.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller
I first read this as a teenager, but if it's possible I think it's even more relevant today. It's not a huge book, you could read it in a few hours, but it covers the mass hysteria and suspicion in a small community at the time of the Salem witch trials. The motivation behind some of the accusations was pure and simple - greed. It's a fascinating look at society - but please avoid the Winona Ryder/Daniel Day Lewis movie version. Muck.

Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn by Tilly Tennant
Holden Finn is the equivalent of Harry Styles - member of a popular boyband, idolised by thousands - including single Mum-of-teen-terror, Bonnie. Bonnie writes letters to Holden that she never sends - but what would happen if she got to meet him? This sounds like absolute drivel but I promise you, stick with it, it's not saccharin sweet or twee at all. It's possibly my favourite light-hearted read so far of 2014, perfect for a curl up on the couch. It's nice to find a romance novel that isn't full of cliches, and this was such a unique take on the genre.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
I'd heard about this book several times but never bothered to pick it up. I definitely missed out - it's amazing, it completely sucked me in and made me cry. I read it without spoilers, so that's how I'm going to leave it.

The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth
I read these one after another - I think I definitely would have lost interest had I had to wait for each subsequent one to be released. The series has inevitably drawn comparisons to The Hunger Games, but I enjoyed both series. Tris is really likeable and gutsy. The book from Four's point of view (the last one) changed my opinion of him a bit - he wasn't nearly as strong or admirable as I had first thought, but it made me like Tris even more. I don't think I'll bother with the movies, but it's a good series and it's one I'd recommend if you like a little dystopia with your ass-kicking.

Alice Peterson - Ten Years On
I thought I'd give some more romances a go after an overdose of Crime, Sci-Fi and Dystopia - I could have picked a better one, to be honest. It's not that it's particularly bad, it was just a bit predictable. The male character also wasn't particularly likeable, and the female character went through an enormous amount of emotional distress and upheaval without one mention of any kind of counselling or help. It smacked a little bit of "the love of a man cures all" kinda thing, which I don't like. There was one avenue that I thought was going to make for a brilliantly different book - but the author didn't follow it up at all, which I was disappointed about. It'd be grand if you were stuck on a bus or a train, but I wouldn't bother with it otherwise.

April's Fool by Blanche Marriott
Why is it when you pick one mediocre book, others seem to come out of the sky like flies? This book.............I'll write what I've written in my reading journal (which is this one, by the way - brilliant for keeping track of books). April works in the web divison of a big corporate firm. Michael is the boss, or soon will be. April is so insecure with the fact that she's not married that she takes a load of photos of Michael at an event and photoshops herself into them, turns it all into a big wedding album to show her friends, brings it to a restaurant where all friends coo over her wonderful new husband and her perfect life, when......*Eastenders dum-dum-dums*......April LEAVES the book in the restaurant, one of the waitresses recognises Mr. thingamibob, drops it off at his office, he gets all "Me Tarzan, you Bitch" and annoyed and stomps down to April's office banging his chest like a drum (okay not really) saying (direct quote) - "We'll see what Miss Curly Hair has to say about this" but when he sees how goooorgeous she is in real life, his willy starts bothering him so he doesn't say anything. And that, my friends, is where I decided life is too short, and deleted it.

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey
I came across this by pure chance while browsing Netgalley - it's not normally the kind of book I'd go for, but I was glad I did because it's right up there with my 2014 favourites so far. Melanie is a ten-year-old girl, who lives at a base with lots of other ten-year-olds somewhere in England (a very different England, half the country has been wiped out by some major catastrophic event). Miss Justineau teaches the children English literature - Greek Myths and Legends are Melanie's favourite. Melanie loves her teacher. The base is also home to scientist Caroline Caldwell, who keeps coming for some of the children. Those children don't come back. One day, she comes for Melanie. Read. It.

Gracefully Insane by Alex Beam
This is an account of the rise and fall of McLean Mental Hospital in Massachusetts. McLean was once home to "famous" residents like Sylvia Plath and Susanna Kaysen - Susanna's book Girl, Interrupted was written about her time at the hospital. It's an interesting premise, and there are some really good anecdotes, but for the most part it's a bit rambly, a bit disjointed and at times suffers from a personality disorder itself. Is it a story about the actual hospital, or a collection of patient accounts? It's a total mish-mash, and jumps around a lot. If you can put up with that, some waffle about Freud and some mind-numbingly boring financial stuff shoved in here and there, it's a nice insight into the place that was once the "dumping ground" for wealthy families to ditch an eccentric relative.

Little Hands Clapping by Dan Rhodes
This popped up as a Goodreads recommendation, and the cover caught my eye. If Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman and Jane Goldman all had a big hooley on Halloween night, this would be the result. Set in a Suicide Museum (the owner wanted to discourage people from committing suicide but is unaware that it's having the opposite effect) ran by a creepy old man who hates people and is only in the job because he gets free cake, the museum is a hotspot for troubled souls. The old man has an arrangement with the local Doctor ("he had moved to the city ten years later, bringing with him a black Labrador called Hans and a heart-stopping tale of tragedy") to "dispose" of any victims in a rather unique and sick way. Throw in a Chief Wiggum-esque cop who really wants his big break, a dog who inadvertently throws the whole can of worms open (or up, actually), a couple of intertwined tales of love and loss, and you end up with an amazing little book. I don't know how he managed it, but it left me with the warm and fuzzies at the end. Which is ludicrous, given the subject matter, but true. Dan Rhodes - to quote Britney - you're on my radar.

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
The first of a projected trilogy, Mr. Mercedes is Stephen King's first old-school cop thriller. There's still a healthy dose of King in there, but this isn't a horror. Detective William Hodges has taken retirement and is toying with the idea of putting a gun in his mouth, until a letter comes through the door from the "Mercedes Killer" - a criminal Hodges wasn't able to nail down before retiring. Hodges takes it upon himself to catch this guy once and for all - and it makes for an epic thriller, one I couldn't put down. I loved the Lethal Weapon-style comradery (I refuse to use the word 'banter') between Hodges and Jerome, and I grew to like Holly by the end. I pictured Holly as the actress Mary Lynn Rajskub, in case anyone's wondering. Doubtful, but I thought I'd pop that in there anyway.

Can Anybody Help Me? by Sinéad Crowley
Sinéad is RTE's Arts Correspondant, and this is her debut novel. Yvonne is a young Mum, recently having moved to Ireland because of her husband's demanding job. Bored and a bit lonely, she joins a parenting forum and chats to other Mums. When a young mother turns up dead, Yvonne is certain that she knows the woman from the forum. Can she convince Detective Sergeant Claire Boyle that the dead woman is her pal, and will she do it before someone else becomes a victim? A cautionary tale about how much information you can share online without even realising it - and one of the main reasons you'll not be seeing any more baba pictures on my blog or twitter. There are lots of weirdos out there, and not all of them are technophobic oddballs. They're among us right now, fellow oversharers. The *only* thing I didn't like about this - and it's minor - is the line on the cover that tells us there's a "shocker of a twist". I spent half the book trying to predict the twist, and I irritated myself. Apart from that, I'm looking forward to more of Sinéad's work.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
This is only my second foray into Sedaris' work, and while I didn't enjoy it as much as Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, it did still make me laugh. A lot. As the title suggests, this book focuses on tales related to conversation or speech. Particular highlights include trying to learn French after living in France for a while: "I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is them the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains on display in the front window." If you listen to this on an audiobook, you'll get a kick out of his Billie Holliday impression - it's uncanny, and very, very funny.

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer
I don't have much luck with prize-winning books. Which is why I'm really glad I only found out after I'd read it, that this was a winner at the 2013 Costa Book Awards. The digital edition I had was the one with the special font changes, and that really adds something to the story. The story itself is a very frank, honest, and at times tragic, account of a man's descent into mental illness after a horrible accident. I couldn't put this one down at all, it will stay with me for a long time. Another favourite of 2014 so far.

The Haunting of Harriet by Jennifer Button
This was.....meh. Harriet is a ghost, which is pretty evident by the title and the first few pages, yet Harriet doesn't know it - I call BS, because a family moved into her house and didn't speak to her, so there's no way she couldn't have known. That's not even the story - Liz (the new owner along with her blah husband Edward) starts acting strangely and gets all freaked out about some old boathouse. Harriet tells the story of what went on in times past.......and lo and behold, it almost happens all over again. This book went on far too long, it was really muddled, and it was a bit of a chore to finish. I found Harriet's parents much more interesting than dreary Liz & Edward, and I wish that we'd had more tales of her mother instead of the blunt ending to that part of the story. At times the language was overly flowery too, it reminded me of the episode of Friends where Joey changed every single word in his letter using a thesaurus.  I'm on the lookout for a really good ghost fiction book, so if you have any recommendations in that genre, please do let me know.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Like a lot of people, I'd never heard of Gillian Flynn before Gone Girl, which I enjoyed. This, in my humble opinion, is a far superior book. Newspaper reporter Camille Preaker (who I was certain was a man for the first few pages) is sent to her hometown to cover the story of a missing child. The previous summer, a child was murdered - is there a serial killer at large, or is it a copycat? Camille's hometown holds a lot of painful memories for her, memories that have contributed to years of self-harm and subsequent rehabilitation. As she gets closer to finding out the truth about what's happening in the town, is she putting her own health and life at risk? She also has to deal with a bratty, jealous, troublesome stepsister and a mother who makes no secret of the fact that she doesn't want Camille home. At times difficult to read, but a brilliant, heart-pounding thriller.

And breathe. I know that these book posts make me look like I do nothing but sit on my arse all day reading, but I promise I do actually cook, clean and look after the children! I read quick, I don't watch a lot of TV anymore, and I squish in a few chapters at any opportunity when I'm in full-on reading mode.

Booktube-a-thon 2014 is almost here!
For fellow readers, there's something very exciting coming up. I missed the Booktube-a-thon last year because I was very pregnant and very flustered, but I'm looking forward to participating this year (Chloe and Breige have some great posts about last years). It runs from July 14th-21st. For those who don't know, it's a week-long intensive reading marathon organised by Booktuber Ariel Bissett.  There will be challenges, daily goals, videos and other cool stuff - keep an eye on the official Booktube-a-thon twitter for details, they should be revealed over the next day or two.

I'm nearly afraid to ask, because with the addition of a Kindle Fire to my collection of gadgets, I now have two devices full of books to read in addition to a pile on top of the wardrobe - but any recommendations for me? Especially anything ghosty! If you're doing booktube-a-thon please let me know so I can add your link when I post about what I'm reading for it.

Books I Read in April/May

Hi!

I haven't done a book post in so long - I'm still crawling through my last pick for the 1,000 Books Challenge (The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides) and to be honest it's almost like a chore to pick it up - I'll give it another week and if I still can't get into it I'll pick another number.

In the meantime, I've set myself the task of reading 50 books this year on Goodreads - it was at 100 but I kept falling behind, so if I manage to clear 50 before the end of the year, I'll increase the number.

Here's what I've read in April/May. (All book images are from Goodreads).

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green 
I adored this book, I have passed it over many times and I was livid with myself for not discovering it sooner. I fell in love with the characters and the story - it was just so beautifully told. If someone had told me last year that a YA novel about a 16 year old cancer patient and a 17 year old amputee would turn out to be one of the most touching, warm, books I'd read in years - I wouldn't have believed them. Please read it! Definitely not in public though. It made me do a Dawson cry.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 

This one was narrated by teenager Charlie, who is said to be on the Autism spectrum (this isn't said in the book), while others think he may be affected by PTSD. I didn't enjoy this book, I have to say. I found it depressing and upsetting. Think of every bad thing that could possibly happen to someone before they reach adulthood - and it all happens. I just don't think I was in the right headspace for reading it, and Charlie really irritated me. The formatting on my e-copy was all wonky too - for example, when he mentioned the TV show M*A*S*H, it came up on my Kobo as MoreInAInSoInHave - I didn't have a baldy notion what he was on about. The film is on my to-watch list, many people have said that I may enjoy it more than the book.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman 

This was a re-read, and I took my time with it this time. Coraline is a young girl who has parents who are always really busy. They don't pay much attention to what she wants or does - so when Coraline finds an alternate reality with a pretty nifty set of really attentive parents, what's a girl to do? She finds out fairly quickly that the grass is not always greener, and with the aid of a new friend in the form of a talking cat, takes on a pretty impressive villain in order to put things right. 

A Heart So Big by Rio Hogarty 

I bought this after Rio appeared on the Late Late Show here a couple of months ago. A little unassuming woman in her seventies, she looks no different on the outside to any other well-groomed lady. But her story is amazing - Rio has single-handedly fostered over 140 children (even before State support was available) over the past few decades. If she saw a child in need, she stepped in. She's a true fighter, she's absolutely hilarious, and she's one of life's good people. This book was such a great insight into her world - I laughed, I cried, and I fell in love with her. 

The Memory Child by Steena Holmes
This was one of those cheap books that catch my eye on the Kindle charts on Amazon sometimes (that one-click is a danger). Brian and Diane have always planned to have children - when Diane finds out she is pregnant, she begins to panic due to a tragic accident years ago after her mother suffered severe post partum psychosis. Brian, however, is overjoyed - and promises Diane that he will do all he can to help her come to terms with the fact that she is not her mother, and history doesn't have to repeat itself. So why, then, has he disappeared? Why has he not come home from working abroad? Why hasn't he contacted his wife, or seen his baby daughter? Why does the Nanny keep making secret whispered calls? It's told in alternating chapters, so we get to see both Brian and Diane's point of view.

Perfect by Rachel Joyce
Written by the author of "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry", Perfect is based on the notion that two seconds can change several lives forever. It's set in 1972, when two seconds were added to the clock to balance things out in accordance with the way the Earth is moving (this has happened a few times since, too). For Byron, this becomes an obsession. His friend James has told him about the two seconds and Byron finds it fascinating. Unfortunately, his obsession leads to an incident that will change the lives of everyone in his family spectacularly. Interweaved with the melancholy tale of what happens because of the incident in 1972 is a present-day account of a lonely, isolated man named Jim who suffers with pretty severe OCD, and his blossoming friendships with his workmates. I would recommend this - it's like nothing I've read before, even if the 1972 parts seem like they were set several decades earlier. I was sure I had figured out the ending - I couldn't have been more wrong. Really good.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Don Tillman wants a wife - a very specific wife. He draws up a questionnaire and will not entertain the notion of even dating any woman who does not measure up to it - then Rosie comes crashing into his life and guess what happens. Leaving predictable romances aside, Rosie asks geneticist Don to help her with something - she needs to find out who her real father is, and she wants Don to find him. Don and Rosie embark on a frankly ludicrous mission to gather as much DNA as possible from all the guys her mother associated with the night Rosie was conceived. This book was okay - it's not that I didn't enjoy it, it's just that it's blatantly obvious even from the cover what's going to happen, and for a man who definitely exhibits most of the symptoms of Aspergers at the start of the book, it's amazing how quickly he can leave all that by the wayside and just "train" himself  - like the combination of how fantastic Rosie is and the fact that Don's so unbelievably intelligent is enough to just get rid of any spectrum disorder almost overnight. Apart from that, and the cocktail party chapter, it was grand.  I've seen it described as "Sheldon in Love" for those of you who are Big Bang Theory fans. I, unfortunately, am not, so that didn't endear it to me.

Hidden Secrets by Carolyn Brown
Mills and Boon in disguise - and not a very good one, either. This was another one-click disaster, based on 4-5 star reviews on Amazon (whoever gave this 5 stars needs an introduction to Stephen King). A tale of four generations of the one family - a 20 year old pregnant divorcee, her mother, her mother, and her mother. Following? Young girl, her Mam, her Granny, and her Great-Granny all up sticks and move to a farm after it's left to the Great-Grandmother in a will. I kept forgetting which one was which, and in the end I genuinely didn't give a shite, I just wanted it to end. I did read to the end of it but it was so schmaltzy and so "happiness =  men" that I'm surprised my eyes didn't fall out on the table from rolling them so much.

The One Plus One by Jojo Moyes
The One Plus One is essentially the story of an unconventional road trip - Jess has done a very bad thing in order to give her daughter a chance at a better life, and needs to get to Scotland for a maths competition so that Tanzie can win some money to sort things out. Ed has also done a very bad thing that might result in prison time, so he needs to get away and clear his head for a few days. They cross each others path and form an unlikely alliance - Ed offers to drive Jess, her daughter Tanzie, stepson Nicky, and their great big dog (whose name I can't remember) to the maths competition. It's good, it's an enjoyable read, but I've (somewhat unfairly) come to expect so much more from Jojo Moyes. This one didn't hit me emotionally at all, maybe because I didn't find myself rooting for Jess at any point. I loved Nicky and Tanzie.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Embarrassingly, I'd never read anything by David Sedaris before. I definitely will read some more of his stories - this was so, so funny. The first chapter alone had me crying laughing - the image of his mother standing at the door trying to make small talk about trailers while David shut himself in his room trying to eat all his Halloween candy for fear she might take some of it for the neighbours had me in tears. David treats us to some hilarious family anecdotes in a series of short stories - it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea, but you're in for a treat if you like observational comedy.

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
This is a book told from several points of view, and in three parts. In the first part, we meet Sage - a reclusive baker who is struggling with a facial disfigurement after an accident, her affair with a married man, and her assumption that her sisters blame her for the death of a parent. Sage strikes up an unlikely friendship with ninety-something year old Josef Weber at a grief group. Josef is well-loved within the community, and seems like a quiet, happy man - until one night when he confesses to Sage that he is a former Nazi SS Guard and he wants her to help him to die. Sage's Grandmother was a Holocaust survivor - and there begins our real story. The whole middle section of the book is a brutal, harrowing account of the Holocaust as told from the point of view of both Guard and Prisoner. I actually had to put the book aside for a few days, it affected me to the point that I was dreaming about it and woke up in tears. The amount of research Jodi Picoult put into this book is just unbelievable - if you told me it was a real-life account, I'd believe you. By the time we got to the third part of the book, I was fairly sure I'd figured out the ending, but it didn't ruin the story. I could have done without the fairytale woven through the book - a tale Sage's Grandmother wrote during the War in order to help her through it. I do understand why it's there, but I wouldn't have missed it. I also wouldn't have missed that stupid character that worked at the bakery and spoke only in Haiku, or the stupid insta-romance, but the middle section of the book more than makes up for any minor annoyances elsewhere. This one will stay with me for a while!

Summer's Child by Diane Chamberlain
This is a fluffy, light read - definitely what I needed after reading that Picoult one. On the morning of Daria's 11th birthday, she finds a newborn baby girl under an enormous shell on the beach. She carries her home, and her parents end up adopting her and raising her as their own. Roll on 22 years, and the baby is now Shelly (see what they did there, etc), a young woman who wants to find out who her birth mother is. She gets in touch with TV investigator Rory Taylor, who specialises in true life stories. Rory is a former neighbour of Daria and her family, so he comes back to Kill Devil Hills for the summer with his teenage son to see if he can help Shelly find some information about where she came from. Now here's the problem I had with this - by the end of the 20th chapter, Rory had still done bugger all apart from ponce around the beach after a woman he'd just met. The mysterious Grace arrives and starts asking questions about Shelly - does she have something to hide? Course she does. Is Rory too busy thinking with his willy to see that Grace isn't there for him, but she has a weird obsession with Shelly? Indeed he is. Does anyone else in the small community have something to hide? You betcha. Is the ending rushed, predictable, and silly? Yep! Look - it's not terrible. Bring it on holiday with you, it's the absolute perfect beach read. No brain power required!

The Girl Who Chased The Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
I have a soft spot for Sarah Addison Allen's books - the first one I read was Garden Spells, and it reminded me so much of the film Practical Magic (based on an Alice Hoffman book) which was one of my favourite films for years until I overdosed on it - I practically know the script at this stage. Dubbed "magical realism", Sarah's books have a smattering of magic in them - just enough so that it's almost believable. She knocked it out of the park again with this one, a charming tale of teenage orphan Emily, sent to live with her gentle Giant Grandfather Vance in the magical town of Mullaby. Few are happy to see Emily in the town - her mother apparently did a very bad thing years ago that resulted in a death and a ruined family secret. Mysterious Win Coffey takes a shine to Emily, but it was his family that bore the brunt of Emily's mother's mistake. Emily finds an ally in neighbour Julia, who has returned to Mullaby despite having some horrible experiences there as a teen (some at the hands of Emily's mother) in order to turn her Dad's business around so she can sell it off. Add in some magical lights that appear at night, wallpaper that changes depending on your mood, a handsome ex-love, and a baker that can lead people to her with her creations - It's just a gorgeous little book, I really loved it.

Phew!! I've several more on the go at the moment, but I'll leave them for a few weeks (if anyone's still reading, thank you!!) or this post will be double the length.

Any recommendations for me?