The Secret History - Donna Tartt

I have two words for this book: pretentious and asinine. It is the kind of story that you would assume the characters of this book would write, trying so hard to be educated and intelligent, when it just comes off as arrogant, long winded and boring. It reminds me of high school essays when a student wanted to sound smart and grown up. But to anyone older that was reading it, you came off as petulant and childish. That is the overall feeling from this book.

The narrator of the audio book was extremely off putting. The main character is a college aged guy from California, yet the narrator is a woman with a deep southern accent. This extreme and unnecessary contract was terrible and unneeded. Why not just get a male narrator with a nondescript accent as there are many out there. For this reason I could not listen to the audio book in large chunks, as I got quite annoyed.

I feel that the main male character, Richard, was very unbelievable in the fact that his through processes were so obviously feminine, so much so that at one point when I was listening I found myself thinking, ‘this must be written by a woman as  she doesn’t understand that guys don’t think like that’. Then I remembered that is a female author and I was right.

Eight hours into the 25 hour book I realised that nothing much had happened in the book and I couldn’t even see where the story was headed. There were flickers in the narrative of a mystery that I wanted explored more, but it just kept dragging. And drag on it did forever. Over 25 hours of almost pure boredom. The story was not even close enough to being interesting to hold anyone’s attention for so long. I’ve found myself thinking that I could condense the entire book into about eight hours and nothing would be lost apart from the inane wonderings of characters and sections that do not lead anywhere in the story itself. Yes the references are dated, but the book is from the early 90s so that is to be expected. The memories of those long disused things were the sole best part of a book which didn’t really finish. It just gave a quick overview, of which the main character even states that is what he is doing, and then fizzles out.

An utter waste of time.

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

To be honest I chose to listen to this book due to the fact that it was only 2 hours. I didn't just want to mark a book off on my read list to make my Goodreads stats look good. I am interested in Stephen Hawkins, and A Brief History of Time is on my TBR list, but I didn't know much about his life outside of his scientific achievements (and now I am aware that I only knew a little about those too).

The audio book is great in that each chapter starts out with Hawking's computerised voice and then fades into the narrators voice, so you felt that Stephen himself was talking to you and giving you his life story at a party or something.

His early life was very interesting and as I have not read a biography of someone as old as 70 before, he talks about the early/mid 1900's and gives good insight into how things were, especially in England. He gives exactly what the title describes, a brief history of his life, his family, the places he has been, all interspersed with a few funny tales of adventures. However there is a lot of physics that is described in the book. Whether this should be expected as he is a theoretical physicist, it can be quite difficult to understand and I could imagine 90% of people tuning out when the science is discussed. While I myself an not a physicist and only have a high school year 12 level of physics under my belt, I felt I could understand the concepts of what was being discussed but not the in depth information. I also found that I did tune out on one or two occasions.

Listening to this has only increased my fascination of such a brilliant man and I am amazed that there are people out there with such intellect. This biography could easily have been called "my extraordinary history", because that is what his life is, but I understand the publishers wanted to keep to the theme of his most widely known book. Also throughout this book you'll notice that Stephen has quite a healthy sense of humour, which is not what most people would assume for such a noted scientist.

A good book for those interested in a fascinating man, but perhaps not for those with no scientific background.

13 Little Blue Envelopes - Maureen Johnson

Catching a tube in London for the first time, noticing the yellow bollards at street crossings, the zigzag lines in the middle of the road, the craziness of Rome's drivers; these are but a handful of the wonders of this book. It takes me back to my first time travelling around England and Europe and all the things I think any foreigner notices when they first go there but is never normally or accurately described in books or focused on in TV and movies.

This book reminds me of P.S. I love you, by Cecelia Ahern,  with the whole premise of letters from a dead loved on leading the main characters on an adventure to get them out of their shell or comfort zone. Don't get me wrong, I do love the idea and it would be a ball to do in real life.

Though the main character, Ginny, was only 16 or so, I found that she was written as extremely naive and don't feel that I could relate to her in that respect, but her wonder at the places she was visiting was easy. Again, I listened to this as an audio book and i found the narrator was terrible at accents and wished the whole time she tried to use them that she would stop. It as very frustrating, like when a main characters name is pronounced wrong. Also the voice she put on for Ginny was annoying and sounded like a petulant 12 year old. I feel if Ginny was 18 or 19 instead of 16 the story would have been a little more interesting, plus its so far detached from reality that Ginny's parents would have allowed her to go to Europe for a summer by herself, with no money or contactable technology, based on a request in a letter from her dead aunt.

I feel this book is trying to be a coming of age trip around Europe where aunt Peg is trying to open Ginny's eyes to other places and perspectives, but unfortunately, it fall a little flat for me and i base that on the age of Ginny and her complete inability to explore, interact or ever speak. This book has shown me, for the first time, that I can dislike the main character in a book but still enjoy the book. However this is only if I take the book at face value as a fluffy holiday/summer read.

The Last Thing I Remember - Andrew Klavan

During the first half of this book I was very frustrated as it went so slowly and nothing really seemed to happen. Well it was that or the main line of the story didn't have enough to hook me into it. This did change a little as the story went on but it was more for the discovery of new information rather than what was going on, kind of like the TV show Arrow where you just want to know what happened on the island for those four years that Oliver was missing. I just want to know what happened during that year and leaving it open for sequels to get those answers left me quite upset. Now I have to read two more of these books to find that out. At least this one was a quick read and didn't require much thought and concentration to get through it, which I'm guessing the subsequent ones won't either.  

I must admit I'm not sure how, but I did know almost straight away that Charlie was older than he thought he was (although I thought it was a number of years older not just one). 

I found that I had to re read some lines as the writing was not amazing. It wasn't terrible and definitely didn't put me off the book, as I have experienced before with other authors, it just didn't seem overly polished. Or perhaps that is the way it was meant to be as it could be that is the way the character thinks, but it really annoyed me. However either I got used to it or it didn't occur much towards the second half of the book.

It seems to me that from the pace of this story, all three books could be the arc over one decent length book. It feels like the author presented a book to the publishers and they in turn said they wanted a trilogy instead, so the book was split in three. I'll see if it still feel like that after I finish all three books.

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

What a great book. To think that someone wrote a book that centres around video games and 80's movies, TV, music and culture is fantastic. It brings in all the great elements of my childhood and of all people around my age.

I was very engaged in the story the whole way through. I did not find that any part of the story was slow or made me lose interest in what was going on. I had to get back to listening to it whenever I could to find out what happened next. The great part about the audio book is that Wil Wheaton is the narrator. He is great and even puts on slightly different voices for the main few characters. The best part is when he references himself a number of times; I bet that made him laugh when going to record. 

The idea of a completely immersive online community is quite interesting and gives one the ability to be anyone they want to be, and I can see how that would be attractive and even addictive to people. I remember a few years ago when there was a very crude version of the Oasis available but I never heard of anyone ever using it and in fact I don't even know if it still exists. The suspense of the game, the chase, the puzzles is quite addictive and made me wish there were actual games out there like this.

For this book to be something completely new and yet still go through so much nostalgic 80's pop culture is amazing. I cant believe I hadn't read this book before now and that it didn't get more hype around it upon release. I didn't even hear about it until it was on the BOTNS podcast and even since then I have heard nothing of it. Until that is, I started reading it and a few of my geeky friends piped up saying they couldn't believe I hadn't read it before now. I honestly thought this book was written a few decades ago and was pleasantly surprised when i discovered it was only written in 2011. Well done on your 80's geekiness Ernest Cline, well done. 

Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher

This book is written in a very distinct style, one I don't think I have ever read before. It is told by the main character clay who is listening to cassette tapes sent to him anonymously. He listens to stories told by Hannah, a girl in his year at school who killer herself two weeks prior. She is telling her whole story.

Just the premise of this is amazing and as the whole point (or at lest I feel it is) of the book is to make people, especially teenagers, think about the repercussions of their careless actions, it makes Clay also questions his actions and reactions to each thing Hannah describes.
I found I was immediately drawn in to this book and I really wanted to know what could have happened to this young girl to make her want to commit suicide. Also to have have it told to you in this fashion, on audio suicide note, is transfixing.

The format of the cassette tapes and each 'chapter' being a side of a tape is a quaint and interesting way to go about telling the story. I must admit though that the jolting back and forth between Clay and Hannah's voices is very quick and at times extremely frustrating. Hannah is 'talking', so be quiet Clay, stop butting in to tell us stuff.

The second half of this book, from cassette 5 side A, gets a little dark and hard to listen to at times, although you are so engrossed there is no chance of pressing pause. Just a warning as it is very different to the first half where you can tell the characters are younger and things aren't as important.

This book has been on my to be read list for well over a year now and I'm so happy that I finally got around to reading/listening to it. It's very easy to listen to/read as it flows easily. I imagine the actual book with large spaces  between lines and large indents on all sides of the text. The narrators of the audio book, Debra Wiseman and Joel Johnstone, were great and Debra has a beautiful voice.

To think this book, which is told from a teenage girls perspective is written by a guy is mind blowing. He managed to get inside a young girls head so well that whilst listening to the book I was positive it must have been written by a woman.

Quidditch through the Ages - J K Rowling & Kennilworth Whisp

This was one of the most fun books I have read in a while. True, it is only a novella about an imaginary sport, but it gave so much detail into the vibrant and colourful history of Quidditch. 

I now know more about Quidditch than I know about other real sports like rugby and even soccer. 

To be able to create such an in depth history, Rowling is truly gifted with an immense imagination of which I am envious. The whole book had me wanting to know more and I thought not only giving the history but also prominent teams throughout the world was a great touch to allow everyone to feel involved and like they would have a home team to barrack for.