Nose in a Book

I'm a 27 year old reader and dreamer working in the publishing industry. I live in Toronto with my cat and some books.
bookoasis: “ by Nekopie ”

bookoasis

by Nekopie

5 years ago 1,761 notes Source
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List of Book Blogs 2.0

Last week I made a list of book blogs on tumblr. You can see the list here.

It was not working temporarily, but it’s back and I added a fair bit to it. Since I’ve gotten a few requests to see it again, I thought I’d repost it. This list is very short compared to all the blogs that mainly focus on books, so if you are not on the list and should be write in my ask. If you ever want to look at this and can’t find it, there’s a link in my FAQ.
books   reading   lit   book blogs  
7 years ago 21 notes
Book Review: The Mysterious Howling (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place) by Maryrose Wood When Miss Penelope Lumley graduates from Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, she immediately applies for a position as a governess at Ashton...

Book Review: The Mysterious Howling (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place) by Maryrose Wood

When Miss Penelope Lumley graduates from Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, she immediately applies for a position as a governess at Ashton Place. When the advertisement specifies that “experience with animals is strongly preferred,” Penelope assumes that the children have ponies, or another sort of animal. Instead, she is greeted by the three children that Lord Ashton found in the forest. The children appear to have been raised by wolves, and are now the Ashton foster children. Named Alexander, Beowulf and Cassiopeia Incorrigible, the children enjoy chasing squirrels, baying at the moon and climbing trees. Though Miss Lumley knows she has her work set out for her, she sets out at once to teach the children language, poetry, etiquette and mathematics. After considerable improvement, the children must prepare for Lady Constance’s Christmas dinner party. How will children who act like animals be able to act maturely at a respectable gathering? As Miss Lumley attempts to raise the three Incorrigible children, she also tries to understand the many mysteries of Ashton Place.

What a perfectly wonderful book! I find it strange that this book hasn’t been getting a lot of hype, as far as I know. I had never even heard of it before I saw it in the bookstore, but I was drawn to the cover and to the title. I pretty much loved this book from page one. The first thing that stood out was the writing. I’ll often hear books being compared to The Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, and I’m always disappointed when the novel doesn’t live up to that. The Mysterious Howling was dubbed the next Series of Unfortunate Events, and I’d say that that’s a very fair comparison. The style definitely reminded me of Lemony Snicket, with the explanations of words and phrases, although Wood’s style was subtler. Despite these similarities, the writing style still felt very unique. The Mysterious Howling is told in an old fashioned manner, with asides referencing the modern world. The explanations were often humorous and never made it feel like the author was talking down to the reader. Although this book is for children, it is narrated from the perspective of Penelope, who is fifteen but an adult in Victorian times. This worked much better than you’d expect, especially since Penelope was such a wonderful character. When Penelope first encountered the children, I had an idea in my head of how she would react. Who wouldn’t be upset to learn that they had been deceived, and were going to be the governess of three animal-like children? Instead, Penelope met her situation with optimism and conviction. I enjoyed her frequent recollections of Agatha Swanburne’s sayings, which I interpreted as the author mocking the didactic literature of the period. I loved Penelope for treating the children lovingly and for always believing in them.

Who would have guessed children that were raised by wolves could be so charming? Their progression wasn’t realistic, but I didn’t think it should be. I think of The Mysterious Howling as a fantasy book, so I was able to suspend my disbelief. The Incorrigibles were sweeter than many children I know who had a more ‘traditional’ upbringing. I even liked the spoiled and snobbish Lady Constance at times. The plot was fairly simple: a young governess tries to ‘tame’ her animal like charges, while peculiar things happen around her. The author turned this intriguing premise into a captivating and entertaining novel. There were some humorous parts and overall it was a very enjoyable read. I liked how there were many unanswered questions at the novel’s end, and I will definitely be checking out the next in the series. The Mysterious Howling had that special magic that I love to see in children’s books.

5/5

“In this way Penelope’s happy and sad feelings got all mixed up together, until they were not unlike one of those delicious cookies they have nowadays, the ones with a flat circle of sugary cream sandwiched between two chocolate-flavored wafers. In her heart she felt a soft, hidden core of sweet melancholy nestled inside crisp outer layers of joy, and if that is not the very sensation most people feel at some point or other during the holidays, then one would be hard pressed to say what is.”

book review   children's lit  
7 years ago 41 notes
Book Review: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides The year is 1982 and Madeleine is about to graduate from Brown University with a degree in English Literature. Unfortunately, she’s just broken up with her boyfriend Leonard, and seems to be without...

Book Review: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

The year is 1982 and Madeleine is about to graduate from Brown University with a degree in English Literature. Unfortunately, she’s just broken up with her boyfriend Leonard, and seems to be without a place to live once she leaves Brown. Graduation day is a crossroads for most seniors, and with the recession in full swing things are more difficult than usual. Her friend, Mitchell, is going to attempt to wait out the recession by going to Europe and then India. A Religion major, Mitchell is in love with Madeleine and believes that they will end up together. Madeleine wrote her thesis on the marriage plot in Eliot and Austen’s novels, in which the heroine has to choose between two suitors. Although the marriage plot is dead, the similarities between Madeleine’s life after college and the marriage plot are still clear. With divorce and the many changes in relationships in the last few hundred years, can there still be true romance?

I recently read The Virgin Suicides and liked the writing enough to be interested in Jeffrey Eugenides newest book, The Marriage Plot. In a way, this book is relevant to my life at present since I just graduated from university (although no one would call my life a marriage plot.) This book ended up being less like The Virgin Suicides and more like The Art of Fielding. The story follows three college graduates, Madeline, Mitchell and Leonard, who majored in English, Religion and Science, respectively. Just twenty-two, they try to figure out how they want their lives to turn out and who they want to be. Mitchell is delving into religion, while Madeleine is devoted to Leonard, who was recently hospitalized for Manic Depression. In my review for The Virgin Suicides, I mentioned how the reader knows so little about all the characters. While I still feel the same, in a way we get to see more of the what’s at the heart of the joint male narrators than we do from Madeleine in The Marriage Plot. I suppose you could say she was a superficial character, although we do know a lot about her. I never really saw the complexity that Mitchell claims to see. The character I related to most was Mitchell, who repeats Salinger’s Franny’s prayer to himself as a mantra. After graduation, Mitchell and his roommate leave the US for Europe, and travel for months before heading to India. I found Mitchell’s self-discovery as he travelled the most interesting. While Eugenides wrote well from the perspective of Leonard, I felt like his one section dragged on. I was never charmed by Leonard, as Madeleine is, so perhaps that’s why I didn’t enjoy the chapter from his point of view. The premise, centring around the marriage plot, was interesting and I was happy with how it was carried out. The plot was a bit slow moving, especially during flashbacks. I had heard that the ending was a big disappointment, and I spent the whole time dreading what would happen when I got to the final pages. I was surprised to find that I liked the ending and how it related to the themes of the book. The Marriage Plot is thoughtful without being difficult or too pretentious. While it was different from The Virgin Suicides in many ways, both books share Eugenides’ artful prose.

3.5/5

“In Madeleine’s face was a stupidity Mitchell had never seen before. It was the stupidity of all normal people. It was the stupidity of the fortunate and the beautiful, of everybody who got what they wanted in life and so remained unremarkable.”

book review  
6 years ago 12 notes

Day 2: Least Favourite Books

Some of my least favourites I had to read for school, so that might be why I disliked them so much. I had to read The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan for Children’s Lit, and I barely finished it.
I read Breaking Dawn on my own time, and I couldn’t stand it. I’m not going to go to into it, since a lot of what I think has been said a million times, but if vampires do not age at all and humans age at a normal rate, why would a half vampire/half human age so quickly? Am I just being dense and missing something?
Anyways, those are two books I will never reread.

30 day book challenge   book challenge   books   reading  
7 years ago 19 notes