Drama-Lovers Book Club

 Selma:

I consider it THE original blueprint for EVERY enemies-to-lovers story written ever since this one was first published 200 years ago. Literally, a timeless classic! I read it or watch any of the versions, when I need some serious pick me up or when dramas/books are a disappointment! I know that this one will never let me down! I still have to find another story featuring the same trope that can be just as good (impossible to be better!)! Do you know of any?

I wish there was something as good as this, but there isn't and most probably never will be...

I found this book in the sales bin of my local bookshop and since I'd heard a lot of positive things about it I decided to finally read it. I had no idea what it was all about: I thought it was a YA fantasy sci-fi novel, with magic and monsters...that was the vibe the cover image and the title were giving me!

Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was a BL novel about a couple of teens growing up in Texas in 1987. 

Well, I ended up reading it all in one evening and, halfway through I was getting really bored.  I know I am not the target audience for this book. This is definitely a book for the 21st century kids, who are growing up stuck to screens and with ever diminishing attention span: the chapters and the phrases are short. On the other hand, I think that the author managed perfectly well to write the first person account in the language of a 15 yr old. I did not like the ending though: I wish that Ari came to conclusion all by himself. 

I would have preferred this book to be less superficial but since it was told from the point of view of a teen I guess I should not expect more!

And I think I found there is a word missing in one sentence. Right?

Mistborn Era 2:  Mistborn's always been fun to me but it's never gone beyond that. The finale of this quartet changed that. . When nods were given to the previous era, I found myself wistful in nostalgia or sinking with goosebumps with no in-between, making evident that I cared for the series more than I believed. When cosmere connections were bolder than they've ever been,  love I had for other stories translated to Mistborn for though always so, it truly became a sequential part of them. Finally but most importantly, when Wax and Wayne's arc reached its conclusion . . . it was a beautiful one and has been (unwillingly) on my mind since.

Flame in the Mist:  A reread.  One I did because I've suspected I should unhaul the duology for some time now and needed confirmation. I was right.  I don't want to talk about it T^T 

I also didn't get through my April book in April - just finished it a couple weeks ago.  War Trash, by Ha Jin.

So this was super interesting, though the writing style (written as a memoir of one of the characters, so in his voice/from his POV) was kind of flat, I thought (though it makes total sense in the context of the story).  Subject matter-wise, though, this was one of those books that makes me feel so woefully uneducated about certain corners of history.  It covers the later years of the Korean War, but takes place almost entirely in POW camps in South Korea, where Chinese troops (from still relatively newly established Communist China) were held by South Korean and US forces.  So, very based in fact but obviously fictional.  A lot of the book is really about the conflicts between different factions of Chinese troops, reflecting Chinese politics at the time, rather than conflicts between POWs and their captors (though there's some of that too).  Not something I had ever thought about at all, really.  So I can't say this was a fun read, but it was well-written and definitely educational.

My May book, which I will also not be finishing in time, is Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger.  Non-fiction book about a football-crazy Texas town in the late 1980's is pretty much the opposite of what I just read.  I'm about 1/3 through, good so far, even though I am not a football person (at all).  (But I have seen the movie adaptation, and I absolutely loved the TV adaptation of this book, so I'm probably primed to like it to some extent.)