book rec and other stuff
Mar. 26th, 2012 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
I've been doing some reading. I highly, highly rec City of Thieves by David Benioff (one of the exec producers of HBO's Game of Thrones). It was the kind of book that I wanted to avoid reading because I didn't want it to end, it was so good.
The short summary: The story of two young men on an impossible adventure.
The longer summary: During the Nazis' brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter's wedding cake.
In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible.
Set within the monumental events of history, City of Thieves is an intimate coming-of-age tale of how boys become men.
It's now in my top 10 list of favorite books of all time. Or it would be, if I had such a list.
I've also read Matched, by Ally Condie. It's a teen novel set in a dystopian universe, which is one of my favorite genres. It's also got a very guilty pleasure premise.
The summary: Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate ... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.
I was meh about this book. It's not written very well; the writing is immature and unsophisticated (like Stephenie Meyer, but not quite that boring). I thought it was written by a teenager, someone like Veronica Roth or Kody Keplinger, who are like 19. But Ally Condie is an adult. In fact, I think she used to be an English teacher (which is kind of scary). In any case, I like the characters and the story OK, except the universe and everything in it could be so much better, richer, more interesting. I'm reading the sequel right now, Crossed, and I'm at a point where I'm almost bored enough to stop. The Hunger Games is still the best teen dystopia novel I've read. Veronica Roth's Divergent was fairly good too -- not as good as HG, but better than Matched. I'm also in the middle of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, which is better written than both Divergent and Matched, but whose heroine I don't like much so I've been "in the middle" of the book like forever.
Any other teen dystopia novels you've read and liked? Or just plain dystopian novels you've liked, period? I always worry that I'm missing out on a good one. ;)
Round two of the homemade bacon experiment was a rousing success. I can't stop thinking about it and it's making me really, really hungry. More details and pictures later.
Talis's eye is looking better and better. His procedure is scheduled for Thursday, but now I'm wondering if it's really necessary. I would hate to spend that kind of money and have him go through that kind of pain/stress (he'd have to be sedated and anesthetized) if he's actually getting better on his own. The eye doc said that if he hasn't fully healed on his own by now, he probably won't -- except that, like I said, the eye's actually been looking really good these last couple of days. I may just push the procedure out so I have a few more days to look at the eye and make a decision. I also don't want to jeopardize his eye healing the best it can just so that I can save that money. It's really the fact that spending the money AND doing a procedure on an almost healed eye makes no sense.
Played Pandemic with K on Sat. and she really enjoyed it. We were waiting for D but he didn't come home until like midnight, at which time I had to leave. K and I played 4 or 5 games, and we won 1 (which is better than my andadelagia's playing sometimes, though to be fair T and I play on a higher difficulty level). The weirdest thing is that we did not repeat ONE ROLE! We had different roles for all the games! Not just between ourselves, but even including the other! Sometimes I shuffled, sometimes she did. I mean, what are the chances for that to happen, when there's only like 13 roles total? That's never happened when I've played with others -- at least one role shows up again (usually T being the epidemiologist lolz). It was cool because it helped introduce nearly all the different roles to K.
I've started watching Ringer. It's kind of nonsensical, but I'm enjoying it so far. I was already pleased with Ioan Gruffudd on the show, but now Jason Dohring's shown up and I'm even more pleased. :D
The short summary: The story of two young men on an impossible adventure.
The longer summary: During the Nazis' brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter's wedding cake.
In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible.
Set within the monumental events of history, City of Thieves is an intimate coming-of-age tale of how boys become men.
It's now in my top 10 list of favorite books of all time. Or it would be, if I had such a list.
I've also read Matched, by Ally Condie. It's a teen novel set in a dystopian universe, which is one of my favorite genres. It's also got a very guilty pleasure premise.
The summary: Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate ... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.
I was meh about this book. It's not written very well; the writing is immature and unsophisticated (like Stephenie Meyer, but not quite that boring). I thought it was written by a teenager, someone like Veronica Roth or Kody Keplinger, who are like 19. But Ally Condie is an adult. In fact, I think she used to be an English teacher (which is kind of scary). In any case, I like the characters and the story OK, except the universe and everything in it could be so much better, richer, more interesting. I'm reading the sequel right now, Crossed, and I'm at a point where I'm almost bored enough to stop. The Hunger Games is still the best teen dystopia novel I've read. Veronica Roth's Divergent was fairly good too -- not as good as HG, but better than Matched. I'm also in the middle of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, which is better written than both Divergent and Matched, but whose heroine I don't like much so I've been "in the middle" of the book like forever.
Any other teen dystopia novels you've read and liked? Or just plain dystopian novels you've liked, period? I always worry that I'm missing out on a good one. ;)
Round two of the homemade bacon experiment was a rousing success. I can't stop thinking about it and it's making me really, really hungry. More details and pictures later.
Talis's eye is looking better and better. His procedure is scheduled for Thursday, but now I'm wondering if it's really necessary. I would hate to spend that kind of money and have him go through that kind of pain/stress (he'd have to be sedated and anesthetized) if he's actually getting better on his own. The eye doc said that if he hasn't fully healed on his own by now, he probably won't -- except that, like I said, the eye's actually been looking really good these last couple of days. I may just push the procedure out so I have a few more days to look at the eye and make a decision. I also don't want to jeopardize his eye healing the best it can just so that I can save that money. It's really the fact that spending the money AND doing a procedure on an almost healed eye makes no sense.
Played Pandemic with K on Sat. and she really enjoyed it. We were waiting for D but he didn't come home until like midnight, at which time I had to leave. K and I played 4 or 5 games, and we won 1 (which is better than my and
adelagia's playing sometimes, though to be fair T and I play on a higher difficulty level). The weirdest thing is that we did not repeat ONE ROLE! We had different roles for all the games! Not just between ourselves, but even including the other! Sometimes I shuffled, sometimes she did. I mean, what are the chances for that to happen, when there's only like 13 roles total? That's never happened when I've played with others -- at least one role shows up again (usually T being the epidemiologist lolz). It was cool because it helped introduce nearly all the different roles to K.I've started watching Ringer. It's kind of nonsensical, but I'm enjoying it so far. I was already pleased with Ioan Gruffudd on the show, but now Jason Dohring's shown up and I'm even more pleased. :D
