Musing Monday 1/15/18

January 15, 2018 - Ambrosia 1 Comment

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

I’m currently reading…
Up next I think I’ll read…
I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
I can’t wait to get a copy of…
I wish I could read ___, but…
I blogged about ____ this past week…

Random Question: Have you ever stolen insults from books and used them in real life situations?

This seemed like a fun and different muse to try out this week. I get a lot of very amusing insults in the historical fictions I read and The Dresden files tend to have ones that make me laugh out loud. The other day I found myself actually using one from the Dresden files so I had to ask if anyone else ever used a book insult. I don’t insult people often, really it isn’t polite but sometimes when you are joking around or maybe working out at a Renaissance fair….can always use a good insult to banter with there! I hope I am not he only one who has done this lol, but I accept that I am a bit weird haha.

Book Review: NW by Zadie Smith

January 14, 2018October 21, 2018 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

Set in northwest London, Zadie Smith’s brilliant tragicomic novel follows four locals—Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan—as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. In private houses and public parks, at work and at play, these Londoners inhabit a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end. Depicting the modern urban zone—familiar to city-dwellers everywhere—NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself

Going in I really wanted to like this book more than I ended up liking it. I knew it would be edgy and I knew it would be uncomfortable and it was all of those things, but man oh man this book is just, yikes. It is hard to come up with the right words to say about this one but yikes is. The style of this book is impossible, I have not seen it before and I really hope I don’t see it again because it is really hard to deal with. There are so many characters, so many situations and really nothing gets resolved. This book just leaves you (well me for sure) feeling very just empty and confused. Books should have a beginning, a middle and an end and for me this book really doesn’t.

There are some moments that made it interesting and that is why there are two gems (stars) rewarded. The moment when a character is knifed (I won’t say who so I don’t spoil it too much) is shocking, and it is supposed to be. Watching it unfold in the movie that was made based on the book as well made it even more shocking and jaw dropping. Of course it is supposed to be, the image of someone dying at all but especially for such a pointless reason is not comfortable and never should be.

I guess I can understand why some people love this book, but I just couldn’t really connect at all with it. I might try another book by this author, but if it is the same style I will probably have to give it a pass. Bottom line I really wouldn’t recommend this one.

My Gemstone Rating:

Teaser Tuesday 1/9/18

January 9, 2018 - Ambrosia 20 Comments

Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, the weekly Meme that wants you to add books to your TBR, or just share what you are currently reading. It is very easy to play along:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! Everyone loves Teaser Tuesday.

“Alors, Bess you know very well–”
“No, I don’t know, ” she says icily, “I don’t know anything about his feelings for you, or yours for him, or your so-called magic, your so-called charm, your famous beauty. I don’t know why he cannot say no to you, why he squanders his wealth on you, even my own fortune on you. I don’t know why he has risked everything to try to set you free. Why he has not guarded you more closely, kept you to your rooms, cut down your court. But he cannot do it anymore. You will have to resign yourself. You can try your charms on the Earl of Huntingdon and see how well they work on him.” ~ The Other Queen by Phillipa Gregory

Musing Monday 1/8/18

January 8, 2018 - Ambrosia 1 Comment

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

Random Question: Have you ever read a book where a character reminds you of yourself? How did that make you feel?

I came across a character not to long ago in a book I was reading that really I felt could have been me. I don’t often think like that but I literally ended up only seeing this character as myself. It was a little surprising but I didn’t mind it really, the character wasn’t perfect but she was pretty cool. I find characters that are like friends and family fairly often and it always makes me smile a little bit. Have you ever had this happen and if you do what do you think when it happens?

Book Review: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

January 5, 2018October 21, 2018 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

‘Let him feel that he is one of us; once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief, and he’s ours, – ours for his life!’

The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was first published. Dickens’s tale of childhood innocence beset by evil depicts the dark criminal underworld of a London peopled by vivid and memorable characters — the arch-villain Fagin, the artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, in Oliver Twist Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.

This is the first critical edition to use the serial text of 1837-9, presenting Oliver Twist as it appeared to its earliest readers. It includes Dickens’s 1841 introduction and 1850 preface, the original illustrations and a glossary of contemporary slang.

Ah Oliver Twist is truly one of the classics and for me it was a fun re-read. I really enjoyed this book when I read it for school and when I read it a few years ago and I enjoyed it again when I read it this time. It always takes a little bit of time to get into it, classics are written so differently but after the first chapter or 2 I always settle in and really enjoy it.

Dickens wrote so vividly and when you read his work, getting into it you can really get a full sense of what it must have been like to live and be in that time. The conditions were so horrible and what people had to go through just to live. Of course if one looks around society today it is not hard to see a lot of the gaps starting to widen again and we may be headed towards another version of this, that is scary too. All we need is the work houses.

There isn’t much to give away on this one it is a classic and has movies and musicals and all the rest done about it so everyone seems to know about Oliver Twist. If you like classics you will probably like Oliver Twist, if you don’t you probably won’t.

My Gemstone Rating:

Teaser Tuesday 1/2/18

January 2, 2018January 1, 2018 - Ambrosia 16 Comments

Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, the weekly Meme that wants you to add books to your TBR, or just share what you are currently reading. It is very easy to play along:

Welcome to 2018…

“When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again. ~ The Other Queen by Phillipa Gregory

Book Review: The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

January 1, 2018October 21, 2018 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

Stephen Lewis, a successful writer of children’s books, is confronted with the unthinkable: his only child, three-year-old Kate, is snatched from him in a supermarket. In one horrifying moment that replays itself over the years that follow, Stephen realizes his daughter is gone.With extraordinary tenderness and insight, Booker Prize–winning author Ian McEwan takes us into the dark territory of a marriage devastated by the loss of a child. Kate’s absence sets Stephen and his wife, Julie, on diverging paths as they each struggle with a grief that only seems to intensify with the passage of time. Eloquent and passionate, the novel concludes in a triumphant scene of love and hope that gives full rein to the author’s remarkable gifts. The winner of the Whitbread Prize, The Child in Time is an astonishing novel by one of the finest writers of his generation.

Read this book in preparation for the made for TV movie with Benedict Cumberbatch. It is a great book but it is not one that is going to be for everyone. There are parts of it that are very slow and parts of it that are fast. It is one of those books that you really have to pay attention to while you read it. Also the bottom line of why many people don’t like this book is that you don’t get resolution with what happened to the daughter. The book isn’t meant to be about that, its about what Stephen goes through.

I don’t want to give away the entire book as usual I tend to ramble on a bit to much about complex books like this one and get some stank eye for it (no really I do, lol) but this book really is about the journey and heartache that Stephen takes when his daughter is taken. It is literally every parents worst nightmare and you go along with him through the process. It is a horrible and heart wrenching thing and that makes this book really really uncomfortable and that is also what makes this book really good. If you can handle the heart wrenching nature of the book and don’t mind a book that you really have to pay attention to detail with, this is going to be a read that you enjoy. You will feel like you went through the ringer when you finish, at least I did but it is a really good book.

My Gemstone Rating:

Musing Monday 1/1/18

January 1, 2018 - Ambrosia 1 Comment

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

Random Question: Do you take part in any book challenges? If you do you find yourself keeping up and making the posts on the other blogs?

There is something really fun about 2018 starting on a Monday, I am not usually a Monday person but I like the idea of the new year and the “clean slate” starting on the first day of the week, the clean slate of the week day Monday. So here we are the first Musing Monday of the New year!

I do of course take part in challenges, even if I have struggled in recent years with them. My attention being pulled so many ways. I still try and I am going to keep on trying because I really do enjoy the challenges. I am behind at the moment in all my wrap up stuff for 2017 but as my previous post said that’s okay. Not going to beat myself up about it. Happy New year!

2018…is coming.

December 31, 2017December 31, 2017 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

I feel like it has snuck up on me, but of course it hasn’t 2018 was always going to come. I am behind on my usual things, like selecting challenges and other items. I have been really busy, but the good news is I am not going to beat myself about it. I am going to set myself the goal of having all of my 2017 reviews caught up by the end of January and I will have my 2018 challenges picked out by then as well.

Of course I will keep running Musing Monday & Teaser Tuesday for as long as everyone want’s to see it! I hope everyone will keep coming and that 2018 will be a fantastic year for everyone! 2017 was a mixed bag for me I am hoping that 2018 will be more on the side of the up then the down. I know much of it will be adjusting for me, the first new year in 17 of them without my Dutchy girl.

Book Review: Sorry I Barfed on Your Bed: by Jeremy Greenberg

December 31, 2017 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

The cat’s answer to Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe, Sorry I Barfed on Your Bed is a hilarious collection of full-color photos and letters of excuses and suggestions from cats to the people who love them—no matter what bad thing they’ve done! Inside Sorry I Barfed on Your Bed, writer and comedian Jeremy Greenberg presents a collection of laugh-out-loud letters and photographs that offer a cat’s eye view on common feline vs. human cohabitation conundrums. It’s the perfect gift for crazy cat lovers and anyone who appreciates hilarious (and so true!) insights into cat—and human—nature, including:

Your cat sits on your laptop not just for warmth or attention, but to prevent you from interacting with the outside world. After all, isn’t the main reason to have a cat so you don’t have to waste time developing normal human relationships? If you spent a third of your life licking yourself, you too would occasionally forget to stick your tongue back in your face. Eating grass has medicinal purposes, and most cats believe grass should be legalized. The cat feels bad about barfing on your bed…because now it must get to up to go sleep on your clean laundry instead.

A little bit of Irony…cat puked on my copy of this book not long after I read it. I am going to buy myself another copy as soon as I have a chance. This is a great and fun book. There is not of course much plot to this it is just a fun little book about cats with cat stories. I love it. I have always given a voice to my cats and this book well sounds like some of the voices I give them. If you want to have a fun and fast laugh this is a book for you. If you love cats this is also a book for you. Bottom line just it’s fun, everyone should read it. This is going to be a go to for me to improve my mood once I get my copy back.

My Gemstone Rating:

The Purple Booker

Reading is…Bigger on the inside

Musing Monday 1/15/18

Book Review: NW by Zadie Smith

Teaser Tuesday 1/9/18

Musing Monday 1/8/18

Book Review: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Teaser Tuesday 1/2/18

Book Review: The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

Musing Monday 1/1/18

2018…is coming.

Book Review: Sorry I Barfed on Your Bed: by Jeremy Greenberg