Covers in the World: Bloodlines

English covers 1:

Good consistency, nice colours. Can't say I'm in love, but they're gold compared to the other covers.

English covers 2:

Getting Swedish John Green cover vibes from this one.

Russian covers:

WHAT IS WITH RUSSIA? They always make these weird and ugly photoshopped covers. ALWAYS. And wtf is up with the second cover????

German covers:

You can always trust the Germans to translate every book there ever was. However, you can't trust them to deliver nice covers. I puke.

Dutch covers:

These are actually so pretty. Kudos to whoever made these. Pity they only translated three of them.

Portuguese covers:

I guess these are... interesting? Maybe they're pretty, but I don't get intrigued by them.

Bulgarian covers:

These covers look like they belong on hair dye and skin care packaging. And wtf is the last cover. omg.

Hungarian covers:

Boooooring. Looks like a teaser for an actual cover.

Slovenian covers:

I'm confused... y would u do this?

Estonian covers:

Getting slight pornographic vibes from the second cover. Overall ugly.

French covers:

France just dead ass gave up after the first book, which I can not respect, because this was like the best cover of the bunch.

Book reviews: The Outsiders | En olustig början | Dream On

Title: The Outsiders
Author: S.E. Hinton
Original title: The Outsiders
Genre: Classic, YA
Series: --
Publisher: Puffin
Format: Hardback
Pages: 218
Finished: 01/01/2019
Summary: No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he's got things figured out. He knows that he can count on his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends - true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny and Two-Bit. And when it comes to the beating up on "greasers" like him and his friends - he knows that he can count on them for trouble. But one night someone takes things too far, and Ponyboy's world is turned upside down...

My thoughts: This will be a short review, because I really liked this book. I read this for my exam project in school about the development of core messages and sub-genres of young adult literature in school and private since the 70's. To be honest, I wasn't stoked to read this. Sure, I wanted to read it sometime, but at the time that I picked it up I just felt that the genre wasn't what I needed at the time. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. “The Outsiders” offers likeable characters, a good narrative, an exciting plot, and some wisdom, as well as insight to the underclass youth of the 60’s USA. It’s a quick and easy read, and I do highly recommend it, seeing as it’s both a classic and a good book.

Rating: 4,5/5

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Title: En olustig början (An Uneasy Beginning)
Author: Lemony Snicket
Original title: The Bad Beginning
Genre: Middlegrade
Series: A Series of Unfortunate Events #1
Publisher: Richters
Format: Hardback
Pages: 170
Finished: 05/01/2019
Summary: Dear Reader,
I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune.
In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.
It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket

My thoughts: This is the first book in the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, which Netflix series adaption I watched before reading this novel. As many other middlegrade books, it’s short and easy to get through quickly, and of course needs something extra to stand out in the sea that is middlegrade literature. This is offered by a witty and odd narrative, and a continued sense of unease through the whole book. The breaking of the fourth wall (by the narrator addressing the reading in person) also adds to the special character of this series. Although I’ve already seen the series, I’m looking forward to reading more of these books this upcoming year. The reason for the low-ish grade is because it didn't blow me away.

Rating: 3,5/5

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Title: Dream On
Author: Kerstin Gier
Original title: Das zweite Buch der Träume
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Series: The Silver Trilogy #2
Publisher: Square Fish
Format: Paperback
Pages: 317
Finished: 07/01/2019
Summary: Spoiler alert! Things seem to be going well for Liv Silver: she's adjusting to her new home (and her new family) in London; she has a burgeoning romance with Henry Harper, one of the cutest boys in school; and the girl who's been turning her dreams into nightmares, Anabel, is now locked up. But serenity doesn't last for long. It seems that Liv's troubles are far from over--in fact, suddenly they're piling up. School gossip blogger Secrecy knows all of Liv's most intimate secrets, Henry might be hiding something from her, and at night Liv senses a dark presence following her through the corridors of the dream world. Does someone have a score to settle with Liv?

My thoughts: It’s not been too many years (I think 2015?) since I read “Dream a Little Dream”; the first novel of the Silver trilogy. Kerstin Gier, a German author, has been one of my favourite writers since I first read her Ruby Red trilogy several years ago. What makes her writing and her books special is to a large extent her humour. The way she portrays her female protagonists as clumsy, witty, and goofy makes them stand out from every other bland YA main character out there. We follow Liv in this trilogy; a teenage girl who makes mistakes, has prejudices, and very much differs from the other characters in the book. Because, as it should be, the characters in Gier’s novels don’t blend together. Another thing Gier is good at is building worlds and plots that seem majestic and could be very serious and maybe even scary, but she makes them sort of fun and dainty, if that makes any sense. We’re kind of talking the opposite of The Lord of the Rings on the seriousness scale, but it’s still very entertaining. Imagine a contemporary young adult novel with a twist of time travel or dream travel. That’s what Gier’s books are like. Reading one of them is like drinking a mug of hot coacoa with whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon. I like it!
Spoiler content: (mark to see the white text) I’ve gathered from the Goodreads reviews that many people would’ve wanted Liv to end up with Grayson, even after reading this second book. I just frankly don’t agree with that, especially since the brotherly and sisterly bond between Liv and Grayson strengthens. I think Henry is a much more interesting partner choice for Liv, even if Grayson is a nice character.
Link to my review of the first book in the series.

Rating: 4,5/5

Book reviews: The Master and Margarita | Stoner | City of Heavenly Fire

Title: The Master and Margarita
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Original title: Мастер и Маргарита
Genre: Classic
Series: --
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Format: Hardback
Pages: 446
Finished: 29/11/2018
Summary: When the devil arrives in 1930's Moscow, consorting with a retinue of odd associates—including a talking black cat, an assassin, and a beautiful naked witch—his antics wreak havoc among the literary elite of the world capital of atheism. Meanwhile, the Master, author of an unpublished novel about Jesus and Pontius Pilate, languishes in despair in a pyschiatric hospital, while his devoted lover, Margarita, decides to sell her soul to save him.

My thoughts: A big thanks to PewDiePie, aka Felix Kjellberg, for recommending this novel in one of his videos. I picked it up a day or so after his review and swallowed it up during the two following weeks. So what is “The Master and Margarita”? And why had I never heard of it before?
Well, “The Master and Margarita” was first created in the late 1920’s. Its author, Mikhail Bulgakov, war born in 1891 in then Russian Kiev. He later moved to Moscow, where he worked as an author and playwright, and eventually married a woman. He participated as a medical doctor in World War I, during which he was injured and resolved to a year long morphine addiction upon the war’s end. Bulgakov first started writing “The Master and Margarita” in 1928, but burned the manuscript in 1930, simply because he could not imagine a future for such satiric work in the Russian 30’s. However, he obviously changed his mind, and spent the next decade rewriting the novel several times. The last version was never fully completed by Mikhail, as he passed away in 1940. So… what happened to the book? Well, it remained hidden in the shadows until 1966, when his widow decided to publish it. Alas, what was released to the public was a censored version with about 12% of the original content removed. However, the manuscript made its way to France, where an uncensored version was released in 1967. Today, the uncensored “The Master and Margarita” can be found translated to multiple languages.

This novel gives us a peek at the life of Mikhail Bulgakov himself. Much of it takes place at or near Patriarch’s Ponds, near which Bulgakov lived in an apartment. Today, there’s a monument in the part, erected to the honor of this Russian author. We also see traces of Bulgakov’s personal history in that of the Master; one of the main characters of the book.

So what did I think? Well, I wouldn’t have written all this (twice, thanks to bloggers fucking stinky arse) if I hadn’t adored this books. It’s quirky, unique to a ridiculous extent, satiric, historically educational, funny, and sometimes sad. I had a few issues, resulting in a slightly lower than 5/5 grade. One problem was the racism and sexism. Yes, I know, it was written in the 30’s; that was the norm back then. However, it can ruin a really good book. Luckily, I was mostly able to look past it. Another thing was simply practical; there were a lot of characters and a lot of Russian names thrown around. Once I had most of them memorized, those characters stopped appearing until the last few chapters, at which point I’d forgotten them all again. I guess my poor memory is at fault. Nevertheless, it lowered the reading experience slightly. Other than that, I really fell in love with some of the characters, like Woland, Koroviev, Ivan Nikolayich, and Behemoth. The writing style was pleasant and the story interesting. All in all, a classic that I wholeheartedly recommend!

Rating: 4/5

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Title: Stoner
Author: John Williams
Original title: Stoner
Genre: Classic
Series: --
Publisher: Vintage
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Finished: 16/12/2018
Summary: William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.

My thoughts: Also at the recommendation of Pewds, for which I am muchos gratefulos. “Stoner” is in many ways different from “The Master and Margarita”, yet also very good. I loved “Stoner” so much. The connection I felt to William Stoner was a rare one, and as I got deeper and deeper into his story, I understood that I had come to care for this unextraordinary, everyday character much more than I’d anticipated. John Williams did an amazing job with this novel; its simple yet beautiful language, its lovable and spiteful characters, its atmosphere and simplicity. Perhaps it is just that which made this novel great; the way in which it’s small and plain. Stoner’s life is one which many have lived, yet not at all. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t bawl my eyes out for the last 15 pages, to the extent that I could barely read the text. I think I recommend this book more than “The Master and Margarita”. This is great in a different way. Not extravagant or magical. It’s just so true in what it is.

Rating: 5/5

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Title: City of Heavenly Fire
Author: Cassandra Clare
Original title: City of Heavenly Fire
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Series: The Mortal Instruments #6
Publisher: McElderry Books
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 725
Finished: 01/01/2019
Summary: SPOILER ALERT Darkness has descended on the Shadowhunter world. Chaos and destruction overwhelm the Nephilim as Clary, Jace, Simon, and their friends band together to fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary’s own brother. Sebastian Morgenstern is on the move, systematically turning Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Bearing the Infernal Cup, he transforms Shadowhunters into creatures of nightmare, tearing apart families and lovers as the ranks of his Endarkened army swell. Nothing in this world can defeat Sebastian—but if they journey to the realm of demons, they just might have a chance…

My thoughts: Small Spoiler Alert The Mortal Instruments… So I’m finally done? I guess I am. The last time I finished a novel from this series was in summer of 2013, which was when I plowed through the first 5 books of TMI and the TID trilogy. I’ve had this book, “City of Heavenly Fire” in my possession since its release in 2014, and I’ve started reading it at least twice. It wasn’t until mid December (last month) that I decided the time had come. I had to finish the series.

It’s not really strange that I never finished it. 2014 was my last good reading year, and books over 500 pages were not attractive at that point. Moreover, it had been a year since I last read a book about Shadowhunters; I might have distanced myself from the hype. The rest of the years since have just been a long line of reading dips for me, so no, it’s not at all strange that I never got to complete the journey. Now, however, I have.

It took me about 500 pages to get into this book. No kidding. I had the whole plot of the series, the characters, the motivations, all fresh in my mind, as if I’d read the whole series just last week. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was… it was not as good as I remembered Cassandra Clare being. Then, back in 2014, I found that with every book I read by Clare, she just got better and better, all the way to “Clockwork Princess”, the best book I’ve read with Clare’s name on it. “City of Heavenly Fire” was released after the TID trilogy, so I expected a lot from it. What I found was that Clare seemed to have lost grip of the characters I used to love. What I remembered to be personalities built on actions, ways of speaking, little things that made the characters who they are, turned into blatant, indiscreet comments on the characters. Instead of showing that a person is reckless, the character would outright say “I’m doing this reckless thing because one of my three character traits is recklessness”. It would also be commented on a lot in between dialogues (so in the thoughts of narrators throughout the book, which shifts), so characters would think stuff along the lines of “ah, yes, I am watching this other character doing a silly thing, and I recall in my memory all the other times this character has done silly things to support the silly actions of this silly character”. Writing like this is fine when it doesn’t happen like two or three times per page.

Another thing was the exposition, which was sometimes clumsily done. I might be nitpicking, but this really bothered me at some points. Sometimes when a new scene was introduced, we would have part of it described outside of dialogue, maybe in a string of thoughts from the narrative or simply in a description of the scene. However, Clare sometimes opts to reveal new scenes through dialogue, and… it’s not always done very smoothly. A conversation in a new scene could look a bit like this:

A: “Oh what a bummer that we can’t go outside this house. B, remind me of why we can’t go outside?”

B: “Hm, maybe it’s because we’ve been trapped by an evil outer force who has all the windows and doors locked and guarded?”

A: “Right, I’d totally momentarily forgotten this important plot point so that we could weave some exposition into this dialogue!”

Idk if I conveyed it in an understandable way here, but that’s something I noticed happened a fair amount of times.

Nevertheless! “City of Heavenly Fire” has its good parts as well. For one, it really picked itself up the last 200 pages or so, and although I felt like the “final battle” was kinda anticlimactic, I just wanted to swallow up those last 200 pages at once! I couldn’t, though, because I had to finish it in 2019 in order to be able to count it to my 2019 reading goal lol. Admittedly, before those last 200 pages, I was starting to feel like I’d be done with the Shadowhunter universe after this behemoth, but now I’m not so sure. I also have to appreciate how easy Clare’s writing and plot is to get into. The quick jumping between narratives and scenes keeps the storyline quick and relatively interesting. The book is definitely bigger than it had to be (I feel like a fair share could’ve been left out without any greater loss), but I didn’t feel like I’d read a 700+ pages book once I’d finished it.

All in all, it was an entertaining read and I’m so glad to have finally finished the series. Believe it or not, it’s a big step for me. This last book didn’t have a great impact on me, but it was still worth the read. I don’t think this’ll be the last I read by Cassandra Clare (might take awhile for me to pick up the “The Dark Artifices” trilogy tho, cause them books be damned pricy).

Rating: 3,25/5