mixmastermac

An Ode to Bilbo Baggins

7:43 pm 5 December 2013

Bilbo's Adventures in Middle Earth

I have been trying to read the hobbit for the past few months, I think since at least September, but for some reason I just could not finish it even though I absolutely loved the plot and the characters.
I started to listen to the audiobook version and that made the experience even better, to hear the voices of the dwarves and the songs being sung.
All in all I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars because I loved it that much, I think I love almost anything Tolkien writes. Next on my list the Adventures of Tom Bombadil *my favourite character in any story ever* and Letters to Father Christmas.

One of my 2014 goals is to read the entire Lord of the Ring series, I have already "read" The Fellowship of The Ring for a class, basically I skimmed through it as fast as possible to be ready for the essay about it. The whole world of Middle Earth very much intrigues me for some reason and I want to read as much as possible about it.
I also want to live in a hobbit hole because I strongly identify with the hobbits.

9:00 pm 25 August 2013

Greek gods have always been an area I've been interested in and it wasn't until my friend who hardly ever reads told me how much she loved this series that I decided to give it a go. Really solid read, exciting and adventurous, relatable characters with a little history lessons thrown around throughout this book.
Only reason why this is not a five out of five book is I felt the character of Percy at times got very annoying and had too much of a negative attitude. Will continue on with the series and will probably end up enjoying Percy's character growth.

9:00 pm 23 June 2013

The Penelopiad: the Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (Myths Series) - Margaret Atwood

As this was my first ever Margaret Atwood novel, I do have to say that it was a fairly quick, easy and enjoyable one. I do plan on reading more of her work, as I probably will get the chance doing a English/Gender Studies double major.
As someone who had never read Homer's The Odyssey, all of the information given in the novel was new to me. I do however feel that my perception of the book would be different if I had already read The Odyssey (though, now I have very immediate plans to do so)
I felt that the writing style was similar to Kissing The Witch by Emma Donoghue, it was easy to follow and not complicated. I will say that the final few chapters of this novel were my favourites, I found that the chapters written from the maids perspective were my favourite to read, I enjoyed how The Maids chapters (also known as the Chorus) were done in a true chorus manner.
I honestly don't think I have a negative thing to say about this novel, I plan to re-read it after I read The Odyssey to see if that changes my thoughts on this book.

9:00 pm 5 April 2013

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling

For the second book in the Harry Potter series, it was actually the only book that I haven't seen the movie for. I had seen the almost ending but for some reason I have never watched it the entire way through. So the general plot line of this story was completely new to me. Even though,throughout the novel I was constantly wondering what was going to happen/if there was enough pages left for everything to happen and I was so excited to find out what would happen next, for some reason it took me a very long time to finish this book. It took much longer than I had originally expected, I don't know the exact reason for this but I have a feeling that it was due to the fact that I was finishing my second year of university and just did not have time to sit down and read like I had with the first one.

9:00 pm 11 March 2013

Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins - Emma Donoghue

This book would have gotten 5 out of 5 but there were one or two stories that I just could not fully understand.

9:00 pm 10 February 2013

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré

This is my first time ever reading the Harry Potter series, at the age of 19, and I did not want to put this book down and really do not want to reach the end of the series because then it will be over.

9:00 pm 6 February 2013

This novel was so close to being a five out of five. Only one thing stood in the way, I felt as if there were too many references that I was unable to understand, which is not the authors or the plot lines fault. Other than that; it was quick paced, action packed and hard to put down.

9:00 pm 26 November 2012

The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien

This was a required reading for a Fantastic Literature course, it was used for my final paper. That being said, though I enjoyed the book very much the fact that I was required to read it and rushed to read it made it less enjoyable than I would have wanted it.
I did have trouble getting through the final two chapters, as I felt bored and incredibly tired (which happens when you pull an all nighter to finish a book)
The characters in this novel were great, my favourites would have to be Tom Bombadil (still sad he wasn't in the film) and Sam. I felt that the relationships between all of the characters were very well written, the imagery and the scenery were absolutely amazing. I am really looking forward to the rest of the novels in the series and also some other stories by J.R.R. Tolkien

9:00 pm 13 October 2012

Though I did not like the character of Sam Spade, the book did become very captivating in the middle which then made it become a quick read

9:00 pm 20 August 2012

This was the first "detective fiction" I have read and I was very pleased with it. It has definitely made me want to read further into this genre.

9:00 pm 6 August 2012

Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare

As someone whose passion for reading started with a Shakespeare play, I have to say that this was not my favorite. In no way was it bad or unreadable, I just did not connect with the story line as much as I thought I would.
This was the first Shakespeare play that I had trouble following and understanding.

9:00 pm 21 July 2012

This was a novel that I needed to read for an summer course at my university, I was pretty excited to read it because this was my first Jane Austen novel.
The overall novel, I feel was very well written. I loved Jane Austen's remarks about other novels and how she was telling the story but also talking to the reader. It was very easy to get through and very easy to understand and in a sense very funny, not only because it's kind of parody.
My one issue with this novel, and let's be honest here it's a big one, I hated the character of Catherine Morland. I felt that she was too naive, and though the other characters and Jane Austen mocked her for this, it was too much naivety for me to handle I was getting very frustrated with Catherine very fast. I wanted to like her, I wanted to ignore the naivety but I could not see past it.

9:00 pm 28 June 2012

This was actually a reread for me, I read about three chapters then recalled that I already read Flawless in eighth grade. And I can honestly say that I enjoyed it much more now, when I first read this novel it scared me so much that I actually had nightmare (I read the first two books back to back) I felt that I did need to read this book the second time because I had missed small details the first time that I may need to continue this series. Overall, I really do enjoy this novel, the series and also the television series. I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a quick but intense read, I couldn't put it down because I needed to know what happened next.
Also, throughout the entire novel I was trying to guess about who "A" was and I was trying to solve the mysteries.

9:00 pm 9 June 2012

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore

At first, I did not like this book. Honestly, I could not get into it and I was really sad because a lot of other people said that this book would be great. I almost gave up, until about 150-200 pages in where it got really interesting for me.
I did not like the character of Josh (Jesus) until he became quite older in the book, I felt like he was very whiny and "woe is me" during the first half, but after he did his training he became a much more enjoyable character.

I recommend this book because I feel like it is a different way of looking at the life of Jesus and how be became what he was, even though it is just a story.

9:00 pm 19 April 2012

This book was a very fast read, it took me less than 48 hours to finish. I liked it for the most part, but to me Bliss (the main character) was a very "stereotypical" girl with teenage angst, as if the character was trying very hard to be different than the rest of the pack.
One thing I loved was the Roller Derby parts of the novel, it inspired me in certain ways and I would love to see more of the women's roller derby lifestyle and world.
One thing I disliked about the novel was that we did not see much of the "end" of Bliss/Oliver. We did not see a reaction to what Bliss had found out, Bliss did not even mention what she found in the pictures. I wish there was more of a conversation there. Honestly, I wanted Oliver to beg for forgiveness and for Bliss to just look at him and say "Fuck You, I want my shirt back"

9:00 pm 31 March 2012

I was extremely pleased with this book. I knew from other people that Lemony Snicket had a sort of dark humour and I really enjoyed his writing style. I hope that the rest of the books in this series are as fun as the first one.

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An Ode to Bilbo Baggins

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