Smashing & Dashing Characters of 2016 Awards

Cait at Paper Fury created this awesome book tag and I had to do it. Because fictional characters! So, here are the best and worst characters from the books I read this year (the books don't have to be published in 2016, otherwise I couldn't do the challenge). Not spoiler-free, but I won't go into too much detail.

MOST RELATABLE CHARACTER

The character I most related to was Marya Bolkonskaya (War and Peace). Apart from the fact that she's very religious and I'm not, I definitely identified with her.

MOST PURE AND PRECIOUS ANIMAL COMPANION

Maruman, the cat from The Red Queen. He's grumpy and cynical, and that is what makes him pure and precious.

 

FIERCEST FIGHTER

Colonel Jack Collins in Ancients. Some of the fighting he does is so he doesn't have to think about his dying girlfriend. Ouch.

MOST AMAZING SIDEKICK

I haven't  read many sidekick characters in 2016, but Ana and Swallow in The Red Queen are both cool sidekicks.

ONE YOU’RE SURPRISED YOU LOVED

Nikolai Rostov (War and Peace). I was neutral about him in the BBC mini-series, which I watched first, but I found him hilarious in the book. He's a problematic fave and not the nicest person, but still a fave.

BEST SASSMASTER

That's Maruman again.

 

BEST ANTI-HERO AND MORALLY GREY GRAPE

Frances Wray in The Paying Guests. She has an affair with a married woman and covers up the manslaughter of her lover's husband, but it's with the best intentions.

BEST WORST VILLAIN TO HATE

Anatole Kuragin (War and Peace). I cannot stand him. He gets his comeuppance in an emotionally traumatic scene, though.

TRULY ASTOUNDING WORST YA PARENT

Old Prince Bolkonsky from War and Peace is a shit dad. He's completely awful to his daughter. You can't just treat people like that.

TRULY ASTOUNDING BEST YA PARENT

Countess Natalya Rostova's relationship with her sons and her daughter Natasha in War and Peace is very cute. She loves them and is so proud of them. Too bad she forgets about her other daughter Vera and treats her niece Sonya shockingly.

TOOT TOOT BEST SHIP OF THEM ALL

Andrei and Natasha (War and Peace). Because happy ships are boring.

THE MOST IN NEED OF PROTECTION

#ProtectMaryaBolkonskaya

MOST BORING AS A BARNACLE

Masha in Enchantments had a very interesting history but still managed to not have a personality. Given the overall quality of the book, I can't even be surprised or disappointed.

BEST LITTLE ROYAL

Dragon from The Red Queen, who is, in fact, the Red Queen. She just rides up to the city centre on a horse and the people make her their queen and revolt against their oppressive system. Goals.

VERY SURPRISED YOU’RE STILL ALIVE

Elspeth Gordie. Actually, a lot of characters in The Red Queen survived when I thought they wouldn't.

BEST AT HORRIBLE DECISION MAKING

It's a tie between Nikolai "Gambled Away My Family's Money" Rostov and his sister Natasha "Cheated On My Beloved With A Man I'd Known For 3 Days" Rostova.

CUTEST DORK

Florence Banner (Tipping the Velvet). Don't ask how a serious, Victorian socialist can be a cute dork. I don't know.

CLEVEREST LITTLE HELLION

Nancy King (Tipping the Velvet) wins this award for always making her way in the world.

MOST IN NEED OF A NAP

Elspeth Gordie deserves a long sleep by her choice this time.

WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT YOU

Mademoiselle Amelie Bourienne from War and Peace. She's a minor character who's there in the background throughout the entire book, but she's so mysterious. She's a Frenchwoman in Russia during the Napoleonic invasion - what does she think about it all??? I want to know!

I'm tagging everyone reading this post - if you haven't already done the thing, do the thing!

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5 Ways My Reading Habits Have Changed in 2016

As we've already established, 2016 hasn't been my best reading year in terms in number of books read (as of today, I've finished 22 books this whole year). Apart from reading fewer books, how else have my reading habits changed this year? Quite a lot, it turns out.

I haven't been afraid to DNF books 

I've officially DNFed 3 books, and I've put at least one book down after reading the first page. I'm also taking a break from a book I started last month. I've realised that life's too short to bother with finishing books I'm not enjoying, especially when my TBR's as enormous as it is... My most notable DNF was Fallen Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes.

I've read less contemporary, more historical

My historical fiction to contemporary fiction ratio is more than 2:1. I've always loved historical fiction, but this year I've loved historical fiction and haven't been very interested in contemporary. History nerdiness strikes again. The most notable historical fiction I read was Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters, and the most notable contemporary I read was The Flywheel by Erin Gough.

 

I've read fewer series

In the past I've been mad about series, especially epic fantasy series. This year, enough was enough and I leaned more towards standalones. Apart from the standalones I read a couple of books I didn't know were in the middle of a series, I read several first-in-a-series, and the others were the last in their respective series. I'm a changed woman and could live without reading book series for the rest of my life. Once I've finished all the series I'm in the middle of, of course. The most epic standalone I read was War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, while the most epic in-a-series I read was The Red Queen (the conclusion to the Obernewtyn Chronicles) by Isobelle Carmody.

I've read less YA

Less than half the books I've read this year have been YA, and I've enjoyed the Adult books more. I'm just not in the target YA audience anymore, I suppose, as I can't relate to the characters now. I'm older and I never had a lot of the experiences these characters have, especially the relationship and/or high school dramas. I think it's safe to say that, although I still have a lot of YA on my TBR, Adult fiction has won me over. The most notable Adult fiction I read was Love in the Land of Midas by Kapka Kassabova; the most notable YA was Solitaire by Alice Oseman.

I've read fewer ebooks

I read ebooks faster than I read physical books, so I wonder if picking ebooks over physical books this year would've meant I'd read more. It's quite possible. But I suppose my ereader has had a small break, as I've only read maybe 9 ebooks this year. The best physical book I read was If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho translated by Anne Carson. The best ebook I read was A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab. Okay, my goal for next year is to pick ebooks over physical books, as it's faster. Let's see how that affects my reading stats for 2017!

How have your reading habits changed this year? What about your reading stats? Did you meet any goals? How do you anticipate your 2017 reading year?

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Top 5 Writers That Were New to Me in 2016

Top Ten Tuesday is an awesome meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read For The First Time In 2016 but I don't have a top ten because I haven't read enough books this year. So here are my top five.

1. Leo Tolstoy

What I love about his writing: It makes you think you will never be as wise or as observant as an old Russian man from the 19th Century. He knows everything about all kinds of people.


My review of War and Peace

2. Sappho

What I love about her writing: It says so much in just a few words, even though all that remains is small fragments. Her imagery is just delicious.


My post about Sappho

3. Sarah Waters

What I love about her writing: It's descriptive and the characterisation is on point. You feel you are the protagonist.

4. Shamim Sarif

What I love about her writing: It tears out your heart and you wonder what did you do to deserve this pain?

 

5. Kapka Kassabova

What I love about her writing: It's realistic and bittersweet - there's no glossing over the truth.


My review of Love in the Land of Midas

Have you read these writers? What are your opinions of them? Who are your top new-to-you writers this year?

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November Wrap Up

 

Life

• I had my birthday! I still don't feel 19 yet.
• Uni ended. I had an exam and got my final results. Now I have 3 months until Year 2!
• My country had a major earthquake! I didn't feel it though. For those of us who weren't affected, it was great, because it gave the media something to report on other than the US election. Obviously it wasn't great for all the people affected - people's homes were wrecked and it must've been a traumatising time, especially for students sitting exams!
• I've been applying for jobs. No luck though :(

Posts

October: a busy month
A New Favourite: Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace
The good, the bad, and the ugly: The Red Queen (The Obernewtyn Chronicles #7) by Isobelle Carmody
Review: Pompeii by Robert Harris
Top Ten LGBTQ-Related Films
My 2016 Reading Stats
Stacking the Shelves: Library Haul
9 Things I Disliked About Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison

 

 

Read

Click the covers to go to the Goodreads link.

Finally finished:
 
Read from the start:
     

Around the blogosphere

Cait at Paper Fury finished NaNoWriMo in 3 days!!! How? What?
Bec at Readers Wonderland told us how to find time to read.
Puput at Sparkling Letters discussed discussion posts - why you should post them and how to write them.
Nemo at Young Adult At Heart wrote about why diversity is important to her.

November was a very good reading and blogging month for me, yay! What did you get up to this month?

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9 Things I Disliked About Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison

Pretty language doesn't make a book unproblematic.

I didn't hate everything about this book, but it's so problematic I can't rate it any higher than 1 star. I don't recommend it to anyone. Don't read it. Here's why. (Warning: This review is extremely spoilery so that I can explain my distaste.)

 

First, the problematic content:

There's a romance between an 18-year-old and a 13-year old.

She's 18, he's 13. Nope nope nope nope nope.

Sexual assault and rape are handled terribly.

First, Masha gets sexually assaulted by a 13-year-old she's become close to. While she may be attracted to him (see above) she says no. No means no means no means no. Then, her husband repeatedly rapes her during their marriage. On both occasions, Masha doesn't seem to care, nor does she seem to be affected in any way ever. This is very alarming! What is the author trying to say??

There's a sex scene with a 13-year-old boy...

and a 17-year-old girl (not Masha, thankfully). Not only that, but they continue their sexual relationship. A) Both the author and the main character of this book are way too interested in other people's sex lives (Masha talks about her father's sex life!?). B) Given that the target audience for this adult book is women, we don't want to read things like this. It's gross and unnecessary.

  

Now the plain bad:

There's no plot.

What even happens in this book? It's just the characters telling stories, and stories within stories. Where's the actual narrative?

The structure is confusing.

It's not chronological, and goes from this time back to this time forwards to this time with no warning, and there's often no specification of when this section takes place or how it connects to the previous section.

It's historically inaccurate.

A couple of quick Google searches told me the author took liberties. Certain events in history don't happen in the book, and certain events in the book didn't happen in history. So why wasn't it hinted in the blurb or an author's note that events were changed significantly?

The book is confused about its own genre.

Is it historical fiction? Magic realism? Historical fantasy??? Not even the book itself knows.

There's a sudden, jarring career decision.

I hate it when characters suddenly decide they've always wanted to do this job, with no previous dreaming or planning of it. Why didn't you mention it earlier then???

There's a completely unbelievable plot point near the end.

Since the book is told in the first person, the reason for this plot point is for Masha and the reader to know about the Romanovs' last months after she left them. An anonymous man turns up at Masha's work in a different country X years later to give her a diary that was smuggled away after the owner died? It's too unbelievable; who would buy that?

Excessive Summary

From Kathryn Harrison, one of America’s most admired literary voices, comes a gorgeously written, enthralling novel set in the final days of Russia’s Romanov Empire.

St. Petersburg, 1917. After Rasputin’s body is pulled from the icy waters of the Neva River, his eighteen-year-old daughter, Masha, is sent to live at the imperial palace with Tsar Nikolay and his family—including the headstrong Prince Alyosha. Desperately hoping that Masha has inherited Rasputin’s miraculous healing powers, Tsarina Alexandra asks her to tend to Aloysha, who suffers from hemophilia, a blood disease that keeps the boy confined to his sickbed, lest a simple scrape or bump prove fatal.

Two months after Masha arrives at the palace, the tsar is forced to abdicate, and Bolsheviks place the royal family under house arrest. As Russia descends into civil war, Masha and Alyosha grieve the loss of their former lives, finding solace in each other’s company. To escape the confinement of the palace, they tell stories—some embellished and some entirely imagined—about Nikolay and Alexandra’s courtship, Rasputin’s many exploits, and the wild and wonderful country on the brink of an irrevocable transformation. In the worlds of their imagination, the weak become strong, legend becomes fact, and a future that will never come to pass feels close at hand.

Mesmerizing, haunting, and told in Kathryn Harrison’s signature crystalline prose, Enchantments is a love story about two people who come together as everything around them is falling apart.

Goodreads

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Stacking the Shelves: Library Haul

 

 Stacking The Shelves is a meme created by Tynga’s Reviews. The following links go to Goodreads.

I went for a walk because today was lovely and sunny and I hadn't left the house in a week, so I was getting cabin fever. I felt like going to the library, because while I've been good lately at reading the books already on my shelf, the remaining ones didn't inspire me. So I walked to the local public library, which I hadn't been to in a very long time (possibly since March or February, can you believe it?). I expected to get some books on my ginormous TBR list, but alas, I didn't (in fact I only found one of the books on my TBR at the library). Isn't it always the case?

Enchantments by Kathryn Harrison

I picked up this one for the cover, and borrowed it for the history. I don't have high expectations for the quality of the book (the average rating on Goodreads is only 3.21); I'll be reading it for the history and Russian-ness alone.

St. Petersburg, 1917. After Rasputin’s body is pulled from the icy waters of the Neva River, his eighteen-year-old daughter, Masha, is sent to live at the imperial palace with Tsar Nikolay and his family—including the headstrong Prince Alyosha. Desperately hoping that Masha has inherited Rasputin’s miraculous healing powers, Tsarina Alexandra asks her to tend to Aloysha, who suffers from hemophilia, a blood disease that keeps the boy confined to his sickbed, lest a simple scrape or bump prove fatal.

Two months after Masha arrives at the palace, the tsar is forced to abdicate, and Bolsheviks place the royal family under house arrest. As Russia descends into civil war, Masha and Alyosha grieve the loss of their former lives, finding solace in each other’s company. To escape the confinement of the palace, they tell stories—some embellished and some entirely imagined—about Nikolay and Alexandra’s courtship, Rasputin’s many exploits, and the wild and wonderful country on the brink of an irrevocable transformation. In the worlds of their imagination, the weak become strong, legend becomes fact, and a future that will never come to pass feels close at hand.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

 

I have some other Sarah Waters books on my TBR since I read and loved Tipping the Velvet earlier this month. So I knew the chances of me enjoying this one were pretty high. I don't really know anything about 1920s London (1920s New York, yes), so this will be interesting.

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

For with the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the 'clerk class', the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. And as passions mount and frustration gathers, no one can foresee just how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.

Ancients by David Lynn Golemon

I love ancient mythology (especially Greek) so this book had me at "Ancients" and "Atlantis". My sister took one look at it and asked if it's about Stargate. It's not, but it looks very similar. It also looks exciting, but guess what? I just discovered it's the 3rd in a series! I just hope that it can be a standalone as well.

The lost city of Atlantis is the stuff of legend. A vast treasure of secret knowledge and unimaginable wealth. An entire civilisation that disappeared for unknown reasons, forgotten in the mists of time. But now, battle lines are being drawn to claim the immense power which once resided there.

On one side, led by Colonel Jack Collins, is the Event Group - a top secret government organisation made of the most brilliant soldiers, scientists and historians on earth, all dedicated to discovering the truth behind the world's greatest unsolved myths. They must take down a shadowy conspiracy of men fuelled by hatred who want to unleash a weapon which could change life as we know it forever...

These are all fairly different books, although they all have elements of history. Is anyone surprised by that? I'm not. 

These also aren't small, read-in-a-day books, but I have until 9th January to read them, so I should get through them. Better start now...

Have you read any of these? Do you often borrow or buy a book only to find it's the middle of a series? What books have you bought or borrowed this week?

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My 2016 Reading Stats

2016 has been a worse reading year than 2015, but I can blame that on uni - you read a lot more for uni than you do for school, and this ruins a) your time for reading for pleasure and b) your enthusiasm for reading. I've read 18 books total! (But two of these were over 1,100 pages long...) That's 6,633 pages.

But while this hasn't been a good reading year, I have been reading more in the past few months, especially this November. So that's something to be happy about. (Reading makes me happy, and I've noticed I've been happier since I've been reading more these past few months.)

My reading so far this year comprises:

• 8 Adult books 
• 8 YA books
• 2 poetry books (both were related to Sappho)
• 4 contemporary/fiction books 
• 6 fantasy or sci-fi books  
• 8 historical or history-related books
• 7 books with any LGBTQ characters (excluding the poetry)
• 0 books published this year (2016)
• 9 books published 2010-2015
• 6 books published 2000-2009
• 3 books published before 2000

I've written 7 reviews (only 7? It feels like more!) and given:

• 6 three-star ratings
• 9 four-star ratings
• 3 five-star ratings 

That's no one- or two-star ratings! So while I haven't reach much, what I've read has, on average, been very enjoyable. I've DNFed 3 books that just weren't for me, so most of my reading has been worthwhile.

I've also added 57 books to my TBR list, which sounds like a lot! But I've also culled the list a couple of times this year, so even though the number sounds bad it's not as terrible as you'd think (although I still feel the need for a reader's retreat). Most of the culling was of YA - I'm just not as interested in it as I used to be, which you might've noticed from my blog over the past year or two.

So overall, I haven't read much in 2016, but it's not all bad because I found a new favourite book (War and Peace) and finally read Sappho and Sarah Waters for the first time!

As for next year, I don't expect the number of books I read per year to increase until I've got my degree, but we'll see how the next 2 years go. Anything could happen!

How's your reading year been? Good, bad, interesting, surprising?

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