Flawed - Cecilia Ahern

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Publication Date: April 5, 2016
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Genre: YA
Pages: 368 pages
Goodreads

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. This in no way influenced my opinion of the book.

I was beyond excited when I saw Flawed on Netgalley. Cecilia Ahern is a romantic contemporary fiction queen and I never fully regained my heart after P.S. I Love You. So when I saw that Cecilia Ahern is now writing YA, the only thing I could do is request the book. As soon as possible.

And here we get my eternal reviewing flaw: I didn't really read the synopsis. I was so excited by the author and the cover that I just wanted it. However, early on in the book I found out that the story just isn't really for me. At all. Flawed is a dystopian book, where people are branded with a letter F for any flawed characteristics they showcase. So, you can't lie, make unwise decisions,... Already, I wasn't really a fan of this world. I get that dystopia is one possible view of the world, but I just didn't think it was that realistic. Branding a letter on someone? In the future? And not just on anyone, but mostly on the most powerful people in the world, businessmen, rulers of countries,.... I don't think that's going to happen.

Added to that, I disliked the main character, Celestine, a lot. She's perfect when we meet her and once she becomes involved in an anti-flawed movement, she is perfect with a hint of Katniss. How can she fight people when she is flawless herself? How can she goes against everything she believes in, even when she finds out that everyone around her thinks the flawed system sucks? I figured she's be okay with it pretty quickly, especially with what happens to her, but apparently she needs the whole first book to wrap her flawed little brain around it.

The make her even more like Katniss, my ultimate pet-peeve was thrown in, a generic and useless love triangle. On the one hand, a flawless boyfriend, on the other a flawed stranger with mysterious eyes who just draws her in.
WHY?
WHY?
WHY?
Celestine goes through some of the most traumatic life events anyone has ever gone through, yet she's thinking about those boys. I get that she's a teenager and that your love life is a priority at that age, but really? Boys over your own life? I doubt it - especially when one of them is so clearly a *bad word* that doesn't care about her at all.

While the writing itself is easy to read, Flawed was just too cliché for me. All the generic YA tropes are thrown in there and they just don't make any sense. The Hunger Games was an amazing hit and I understand authors being inspired by it, but it's been done - and done amazingly - so I want something new. Love triangles? Hero who doesn't want to be one? Typically good looking cast? Not for me anymore. 

Series I Need To Finish

Oh boy, where to begin here? I'm the queen of not finishing book series and to give myself a little kick up the butt, I figured this list would be a good way to help me start these series again. Since most book series are YA series, this list consists pretty exclusively of that genre.

Here we go....

1. Harry Potter

Why don't I just start off with the most offensive one of the list? While I have some vague memory as an early teen reading Harry Potter, I'm not sure if I ever read all of them. So I decided a re-read was in order.... in 2014. I bought the fancy new copies and told everyone that I was finally going to experience Harry Potter in its full glory. I loved book one, was annoyed by the similarity of book two, LOVED book three, was slightly bored with book four because I already knew what would happen (I knew it with the other books too, but book four is such an action driven story that I couldn't enjoy it) and wanted to punch Harry in the face in the beginning of book five. So I stopped.

While I enjoy the amazing world building of J.K. Rowling, Harry is a brat throughout the whole story and when he hit his teenage peak in book five, it meant I couldn't handle anymore. I want to finish this series, because all the other characters are amazing - Hermione is wonderful, Ron is funny, the twins are amazing,... If only someone else was the chosen one!

 

2. Percy Jackson

Another offensive listing, but one that's on here because I love it so much. You've read that correctly, I haven't finished the Percy Jackson series because I love the books so much and don't want it to end. I'm currently on book four of The Heroes of Olympus series - a series that has five books, so I'm almost finished.

However, Percy has been such an amazing character and I love reading the books so much, that I want to savour them. Between reading for the blog and a neverending reading pile for uni, there never seems to be a good time to just sit down and fully focus on Percy for a few days. Until I have that luxury, I won't be finishing this series - though I'm dying to know how it ends!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Throne of Glass

A more recent YA favourite that has a lot of readers really excited. The reason why I read book one of this series, A Throne of Glass, was simply because people were excited about it. I'm not into fantasy, the covers don't appeal to me and the synopsis of the books sounds too video game like for me to enjoy. But I want to know what other people love and why they love it, so I was excited when I started reading this.

The reason this series is not finished is because I'm not that motivated to finish it. While the first book was an enjoyable read and better than I expected, it just didn't strike a cord with me. I understand why so many people love these books, but with another 50 unread books just lying around, this series is at the bottom of my list. Sorry, Sarah J. Maas fans!

 

 

 

 

 

4. His Fair Assassin  

And the wildcard - the series that is inexplicably on this list and which I am even surprised I haven't finished yet: His Fair Assassin. I read book one, Grave Mercy, and was OBSESSED. These books are basically like one of my favourite tv-shows, Reign, and I loved reading every single page.

However, when I finished book one, I didn't have book two yet. I needed to buy it, which meant it would be a few days before I could start reading it. That's when I made the ultimate mistake: I picked up another book. And by the time the second book in the series arrived, I was already in another world with other characters. I even brought this book to my trip to Boston, figuring it was the perfect plane read, and stranded after 20 pages. I'm out of it. I lost the world. And it's all my damn fault. But these books are perfection, and I can't wait to lose myself in them once again.

So what series are you not finishing and why? Any of my list on it? 

Cress - Marissa Meyer

Rating: ★★★★★

Publication Date: February 4, 2014
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Genre: YA
Pages: 550 pages
Goodreads

My obsession with the Lunar Chronicles continues with the third book in the series and the one I was most excited to read based on the gorgeous cover. (my reviews of Cinder and Scarlet) And once again, Marissa Meyer didn't disappoint me at all.

Cress starts off right after we left the characters in Scarlet, with the major difference being, as expected, the introduction of Cress (Rapunzel) as a main character. While this isolated tech-savvy girl was introduced before, we now finally find out why she is locked away and how she is connected to Lunar. I can't go too much into her role without giving away the plots of Cinder and Scarlet, but trust me, it's good.

Once again, Marissa Meyer creates not only a new, well-rounded character, but is also able to incorporate all the characters we have seen before. By now the main casts consists of around 6 characters and throughout the book I was impressed with how well their point of views are alternated and how not one voice gets lost. Most importantly, all the characters are vastly different from each other and I think every single reader will find someone who they will enjoy.

Personally, Cress is one of my favourite characters. She's almost a combination of Disney's Rapunzel and Ariel. She's excited to explore the world, a little naive, often underestimated and yet delivers when she needs to. She's not as logical as Cinder is, nor as passionate as Scarlet, but she is able to learn everything about earth very quickly (a place she had never been before the book starts) and to use all her skills to her advantage. I can't wait to see how she develops in the next book and how she'll respond to the Lunar people who have kept her captive her whole life.

Overall, Cress is an amazing addition to the Lunar Chronicles series. Once again, a new kickass female character is introduced and I fell in love with her. This is by far my favourite book in the series, since I didn't need any time to get into the story - we're dropped right in the middle of the action where we left off with Scarlett and there's no time to think, only to enjoy the story and the amazing cast of characters.

Tender Is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald

RATING: ★★★★★

Publication Date: 1934 (First edition)
Publisher: Scribner
Genre: Classics
Pages: 317 pages
Goodreads

When I was in high school, I read The Great Gatsby and fell deeply and madly in love with F. Scott Fitzgerald - in a way that, looking back, resembles very much the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby. I barely knew anything about Fitzgerald, but I knew he was one of the greatest authors alive and that I would always love his stories. Now, I'm an adult embarking on reading Tender Is the Night and I'm quickly discovering that loving F. Scott Fitzgerald's work is not that easy. Tender Is the Night is a job to read, one that eventually is very rewarding, but can be off putting at first. 

Not only is it a job to read, it was a decade of work to write. Tender Is the Night is famously the follow up novel of The Great Gatsby that took Fitzgerald nine years to get exactly right. And you can tell - the plot is so intricate and the writing so typically decadent Fitzgerald while also not having an useless word in there. Some novels read like they were the easiest thing to write, this one reads like a lot of love and heartache went into it.

At the core, it's the story of the marriage between Dick and Nicole Diver. In the original version of the book, we meet the couple after they're married for a few years and are in the South of France vacationing with their friends when they meet Rosemary. Rosemary shows them some ugly truths about their marriage and Fitzgerald then takes you back in time to discover how Dick and Nicole fell in love in the first place. This is not the only version in existence; later on, mostly due to the lukewarm reception of the book that dealt with issues that post-depression America wasn't interested in, Fitzgerald changed around the chapters so that the reader chronologically reads from the Diver's first meeting to Rosemary's role to eventually the end of the story. (This process, including the many versions Fitzgerald wrote before the book was even released, is chronicled in The Composition of Tender Is the Night by Matthew Bruccoli, which is an academic, but fascinating read) 

I've read the original version, as I feel this best represents what Fitzgerald wanted before he got influenced by other people's opinions, but I can understand why he changed it around later. The beginning of the novel is hard. As in usual Fitzgerald fashion, we are thrown right into the action with no explanation of who anyone is or what exactly they are doing. The novel is a rollercoaster and quite honestly exhausting to read. I gave up, left the book for weeks, and came back and realised that is the beauty of the book. The lives of the characters are a rollercoaster and exhausting. They're all miserable, tired, unhappy,... And somehow through the writing, Fitzgerald makes you feel the same way. Their lives are crazy and there's no way anyone can constantly live, or read, like that - you feel the dooming decay on these characters more and more with each page. 

And then book two starts and we find out how Dick and Nicole met. And it's calm, beautiful reading that reminds us that those characters once had an easier and happier life. This is where Fitzgerald shines and really introduces you to the most beautiful sentences in literature. That's exactly what modern reviewers have discovered after Fitzgerald's death, Tender Is the Night is not as accessible as The Great Gatsby, but once you break through, it's also more beautiful. The story of a couple having and losing love is heartbreaking and Fitzgerald masters the language as no one else to tell this story.

Would I recommend this book as a beach read? Never. I think the first half really requires your completely focus and thought and being in an empty house in a cosy chair sounds much more suitable for this story, especially since the second half doesn't require your completely focus, but you won't be able to stop giving it your all. It's beautiful and all I wish for anyone is to have the time to really explore this novel and fall more deeply in love with Fitzgerald - even with his more complicated layers.

Not If I See You First - Eric Lindstrom

RATING: ★★★★☆

Publication Date: December 31, 2015
Publisher: Harper Collin's UK
Genre: YA
Pages: 310 pages
Goodreads

Not If I See You First is one of the most talked about YA novels of this year. The main character, Parker, has a disability that doesn't define who she is - not because it's a small disability (she is blind )-  but because she refuses to let it define her. She is also struggling with the dead of her father, when suddenly her school merges with another high school and she is confronted with an ex-boyfriend that broke all her rules.

What is so great about this novel is Parker. Plain and simple. She's an amazing main character, who is constantly struggling between who she feels she is supposed to be and who people expect her to be. She obviously goes through some tough things and while she doesn't just brush them off (which would be ridiculously unrealistic), she's actively trying to minimise them so that she can continue living the way she is. Besides that, Parker is funny as hell. She's sarcastic, at times mean, and knows exactly how the deal with people who only see her as "the blind girl". She runs by herself, does all her schoolwork, and basically sees people better than others can.

But somehow, I found something missing in this book. It's hard to pinpoint, but for me it was all just a little bit too easy. We start off with Parker in a really difficult situation (blind, parentless, heartbroken, bitter,...) and all these issues are mostly resolved by the end of the book. While I would expect some serious therapy, friends and crying session seem to be all Parker needs. This is a great idea, and I love the group of female friends that are always there to support her and each other, I just expected a little bit more. In some ways, it seems too much like a Disney movie at times. This can be enjoyable - I really wanted everything to work out for Parker - but also a little bit predictable at times.

However, I still thoroughly enjoyed Not If I See You First. I know very little about not being able to see and this book really gave me insight about the little things people can struggle with and the demeaning attitude we can have towards them. Parker is stronger than most characters in the book and it doesn't make any sense when anyone babies her. The reader learns this in an enjoyable way and the book reads really quickly and easily. But like I said, it's just not perfect for me, so I'll have to give it four out of five stars.

Blog changes

Hello everyone!

For those of you who are reading the blog regularly, you might have noticed some of the things I'll talk about already. However, since more and more people are finding me every day (THANK YOU for that!), I figured I had to post a little explanation.

As you might know, The Beauty of Literature used to be a YA blog. I only read YA books and that meant that all the reviews I posted were of the genre. Towards the end of last year, I started to spread out and read different things. This made blogging uncomfortable for me: what do I do with this YA platform that I created? Some people suggested a second blog, other suggested a revamp,... I knew I didn't have enough time to run two blogs and that I didn't want to lose the readers of this blog.

So things slowly started to change. While I'm still lost at what to do with my YouTube channel, I started posting reviews of all the books I read on here. As you can tell, that's a lot of Lost Generation currently. This reflects not only my thesis topic, but my personal passion right now. I'm in love with stories of the roaring twenties and I love exploring my feelings about them. This is nothing new - the quote on the banner of my blog comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald, a writer I always admired.

However, it has turned my blog in a bit of a mix of stuff. There's Rainbow Rowell right next to Hemingway - something I wasn't sure people would enjoy. I decided to just give it a go and the last few months have been better for the blog than ever. I get more visitors and I can tell that, though there seem to be different audiences for YA and classics, it doesn't seem to put off either group that there's diversity on here.

Still I felt like this blog could be more organised now that so many genres are mashed together - some people only want YA and some people only want contemporary books. Hence the new layout. All my posts will be on the main page (basically the one you're on right now), but they will also be categorised from now on. When you click on "Reviews" at the top, you'll see there are several options. You can pick the newest reviews, YA or Contemporary reviews. This means you see what you want to see. If you only want my YA posts, click on that and that's all you get. The Lost Generation heading will combine all my posts about that topic. This way it's easier for everyone to navigate the blog.

As I close, I want to say that I still love YA and think some of the best stories are found in the genre. This is no bashing at all of Young Adult and though I read it less, it just shows me that YA books are just as good as any other story. I will always post about YA, because the books that relax me the most are those books. However, this new mixture of genres reflects more of who I am and will make blogging more fun for me - and hopefully more enjoyable for you too!

Thank you for everything and for being on my blog,
 

Emma

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

RATING: ★★★★☆

Publication Date: 1926 (First edition)
Publisher: Scribner
Genre: Classics
Pages: 256 pages
Goodreads

The Sun Also Rises is Ernest Hemingway's first novel, written in Paris in the 1920s, showing the live of the now famous Lost Generation as they tried to find themselves. It is one of those novels that is a must-read for many people. The Guardian placed in on number 53 in their top 100 books and praise it as Hemingway's finest work, while the Independent disagrees and sees it as a clear work in progress of a writer's development. Since it's only my second Hemingway novel, I did quite a lot of internet research about the story and meaning of the book. I included this in my review, since I thought it might be helpful for other people and put my opinions in a better context.

The Sun Also Rises is the story of Jake Barnes, who lives in Paris and is friends with writers. We start the story by seeing his day to day in Paris and how the appearance of Lady Ashley interferes with it. It is clear Jake has some history with her and though most of it is left unsaid, the reader gets a good sense on their relationship. Then the whole group decides to travel to Spain to go fishing and to see a bullfighting event. Once they're away from Paris, the whole group starts to fall apart and the term 'Lost Generation' seems to be shouted from every action of every character.

Hemingway was a journalist with only short story experience before this novel, and that's something that is immediately clear from this book. While the New York Times calls his narrative "lean, hard, athletic narrative prose that puts more literary English to shame," I often felt like I was reading a really long news article. There's an immense amount of detail in the story about the environment, most specifically the bars and beverages drank in said bars, but very little on the emotions of people. What does Jake feel? What does Lady Ashley want? It's all for the reader to interpret (- or to look at the version of the book that connects earlier drafts together and which does give a full picture of the story).

This means that though on the surface a quick read, this novel is quite hard work. The sentences are short and easy to understand, but the reader constantly has to look behind the words to see what Hemingway really means. I struggled with this because I always thought Hemingway was easy and not a modernist writer at all. Straight-forward, manly language with a lot of details. Easy. Only after about 100 pages in did I realise this book requires more thought to be fully appreciated. I'm sure seasoned Hemingway readers will know this, but it's an adjustment for someone like me. 

This also means that it's hard to relate to the characters, since we get so little real information about them. I'm always iffy to say whether a work of fiction is autobiographical for an author, but The Sun Also Rises is easier to read if we do make that leap. I think that's why so many people do see it as Hemingway's most autobiographical work - the timeline matches, the places are places he had been and the little information we do know about Jake does seem to match Hemingway. While I used it to make it easier for myself while reading, I'm still cautious to jump to big conclusions about Jake and Hemingway. Mainly I just wish I knew more about Jake so I didn't have to bring in elements of the author.

Overall, this book is fascinating to read. It is the first major book writing by a Lost Generation author during the 1920s in Paris and the story is also set in Paris. It gives us great insight into their day to day activities, though we do often have to piece their thoughts and ideas together ourselves, since Hemingway won't give us very much explicitly. I didn't love this book, but I enjoyed it a lot more than For Whom the Bell Tolls and thought Hemingway's journalistic narrative worked better in this story. Would I have preferred more insight into the characters and less in the environment? Yes. But I think this book also showcases how Hemingway became the famous writer he did - and it made me very eager to travel to Paris some time soon!