Drama-Lovers Book Club

I've been reading Anne Lamott off and on since her breakthrough Bird By Bird.  This is not my favorite but it was enjoyable.  She has raised a child by herself, overcome alcoholism, become a successful writer and speaker, and at the age of 66 married for the first time.  As always, she was funny, reverent, irreverent, and inspiring.  How could I not love anyone who's daily prayer is, "Help me to not be an @sshole."  XD

I've started and stopped/dropped 4 other books.  Have finally found one that fits my groove right now.  Will continue with it, I'm about halfway done.

So the only book I was able to finish this month was the one I mentioned before which is Red white Royal blue by Casey McQuiston . I did started 1984 by George Orwell like I stated before but I couldn't finish it. Still let me tell y'all my thoughts about them in a more detailed way! Beware tho, long thing ahead, I'm not sure what's the word limit here, I kinda go too much into it and and rambling . 

Red white Royal blue 

This is based on an ideal world of present time where USA has its first female president running the country and many more ideal things happen in this book. It's basically an idealistic book to read it for escapism whenever you're too stressed in life cuz it's super sweet and comforting and not only that but like I said it's shows a world we want to be a part of. I mean it has politicians that actually cares about common people so like you get what I mean haha . Anyways, the politics stuff is it's second genre more lika a theme. It's first genre is definitely romance and comedy and you might be wondering that how can a book mixed with a romance and comedy and poltics could go well cuz they usually end up failing but this one blended it all so well. 

Oh wait, i forgot to get to the main story lmao. So it's about the first son of USA Falling in love with the prince of UK which is a pretty interesting concept don't you think ? This concept alone made me so excited that I started reading it ASAP even though I had expectations low because with rom-coms my expectations are set low as default due to past bad experiences haha but this one definitely didn't dissapointed! It executed the brilliant concept very well! 

My biggest complaint in most rom-coms is that you don't get it why the couple falls in love with each other. Like I know love is blind and has no reason and blah blah blah but I want to know what holds them together. You don't need to tell me directly but i should feel the connection between them, the spiritual, the soulful connection not the physical one and this novel dod that SO well. Both of the main characters are greatly written even as individuals, both of them are witty, smart, hardworking, empathetic, has their fair share of flaws and super nerdy ( this is the reason why they fell in love, the author confirmed it herself lol ) and when they are together you just love their dynamic, it's just absolutely entertaining to see them insult each other lol. As a person who's "love language" is insulting and making fun of and with people I love / am close to , I really loved and related with their dynamic cuz I'm the same with the people I'm close to haha. 

Their romance might seem cliché at first since it's hate to take friends to actually freinds ( ?) To lovers kinda relationship but it's actually so much more than a cliche story. I mean it is indeed cliche overall but it's the type of cliche you enjoy and that's coming from a person who hates clichés 90% of the time. This is the 10% lol 

Another aspect I loved about their romance was how the author made the characters modes of communication through sharing love letters like emails,in which, at the end, they both used to qoute a romantic line from any famous historic person's love letters. I'm totally a sucker forbthat old school love letter thing so this aspect really touched my heart. Another thing I loved about it was how well they represented the confusion a bisexual feels when they're trying to figure their sexuality out . There was a whole chapter dedicated to it and i relate so much with that process so plus marks for good representation. 

My only critisism for this would be that it's too idealistic ? Like I meant it's enjoyable for the most part but sometimes I couldn't help but thinking at some moments that "that's impossible" . So many problems happens but they get solved without doing much . It's like the sad moments happened just for the sake of it. I would've preferred it if it was romantic and funny all the way through not becuase the sad and angsty moments made me sad but because they felt...forced. The author also didn't knew much about the British politics , I mean I'm not a British citizens but I do have minimum amount of knowledge about their constitutional monarchy and she got a few rules wrong about it or more like she knew but she pretended that they didn't existed just for the sake of the story. Anyways, these flaws didn't affected my reading experience much but I think they were worth mentioning here. Just read it if you want a comforting story , when you want to escape from your stressful life, this is the best book for it. 

9/10 

Oh also, My favourite qoutes from it : 

"That's the choice. I love him, with all that, because of all that. On purpose. I love him on purpose."

"Straight people, he thinks, probably don't spend this much time convincing themselves that they're straight."

"Should I tell you that when we're apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see you, the dip of your waist, the freckle above your hip, and when I wake up in the morning, it feels like I've just been with you, the phantom touch of your hand on the back of my neck fresh and not imagined? That I can feel your skin against mine, and it makes every bone in my body ache? That, for a few moments, I can hold my breath and be back there with you, in a dream, in a thousand rooms, nowhere at all?"

"The next slide is titled: 'Exploring your sexuality: Healthy, but does it have to be with the Prince of England?' She apologizes for not having time to come up with better titles. Alex actively wishes for the sweet release of death."

"The phrase 'see attached bibliography' is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me."

"He called Henry the North Star once. That wasn’t bright enough"

"The moment you first called me a prick, my fate was sealed. O, fathers of my bloodline! O, ye kings of olde! Take this crown from me, bury me in my ancestral soil. If only you had known the mighty work of thine loins would be undone by a gay heir who likes it when American boys with chin dimples are mean to him."

"God, I want to fight everyone who's ever hurt you, but it was me too, wasn't it? All that time."

"When Alex was a kid, before anyone knew his name, he dreamed of love like it was a fairy tale, as if it would come sweeping into his life on the back of a dragon one day. When he got older, he learned about love as a strange thing that could fall apart no matter how badly you wanted it, a choice you make anyway. He never imagined it’d turn out he was right both times."

1984 

 I'm still on its 7th chapter but I like it so far . This is the exact opposite from my previous book btw. This is about an imaginary world we really don't want to live in lol  I'll tell y'all my overall thoughts when I finish it, probably next month. My plan was to finish it by this month actually but I got busy lol

Do y'all count mangas as books btw ? Cuz I do and I'm reading Oyasumi punpun and really enjoying it. I haven't finished this one either, still on chapter 48 but still love it. Nothing much happens in the story since it's a slice of life but it's so good. It's hard to describe it actually. It has this sinister feeling to it despite being slice of life. Like It's showcases the kind of life that you never want to witness yourself and it feels so real becuase this type of stuff actually happens and that's just somehow disturbing. Like I really love it so far haha . 

So yeah that's it for November wrap up from me . I'm sorry I wrote a novel here as in this post itself XD 

 penel:

Guess what? Your wish has already become true:
https://mydramalist.com/3925-the-professors-beloved-equation

I read the book many years ago and loved it!
I watched the movie last year and, surprisingly, loved it too!

Ahhh, I know what I'm watching this weekend!

All you overachievers and your book reading ;)

I'm still (yes, still) reading Infinite Jest, btw.  I had last week off for Thanksgiving and got through like 150 pages, but I still have like 250 left to go, lol.  On something like page 750/1000 currently.  Onward!  It's chaos in book form but the pieces are slowly coming together.

Happy December / Christmas month, everyone!

Book Update for November-December:

November was a very demanding month at work, so my reading progress was almost non-existent.
I hope during the holidays I can spare some time for some comfort reading :)

So, last month I only finished reading Michael Connelly's book The Burning Room, which I started during October. Nothing memorable tbh...

For December, I will try to finish The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood which I started last week - not a title I would choose, but it was a recommendation from my daughter, so it's a must read! 

Then, I plan to start The Emperor, C'est Moi by Hugo Horiot, an autobiography from a writer and artist with Asperger's syndrome - both my daughters are interested in this, so let's see who reads it first XD

Happy reading, dear drama-book family!

 fiflydramalover:

Wow! That's a lot of pages! Can't wait to read what you think of it ^_^ 

Yeah, "book a month" isn't working out for this one, lol.  I'll update when I finally finish, though!

In November I read 3 novels that have nothing to do with them, "Villette" by Charlotte Brontë, "En guerre" by François de Bégaudeau and "Cosmos" by Witold Gombrovitcz.

"Villette" takes place during the Victorian era, Lucy Snow, a young English orphan, is destined for teaching and embarks alone, while she does not speak a word of French, for Villette, in Belgium. In Mrs. Beck's boarding school for young girls, she will experience loneliness and despair, but also dreams, friendship and love through the return of the seductive Graham Bretton, and cohabitation with the choleric and sensitive Mr. Paul. Villette is the writer's last novel, inspired by Charlotte's experiences as a teacher in Belgium. This novel that takes place in a dark and gothic atmosphere is the work of Charlotte Brontë that I love the most, we feel all the despair and exaltation of Lucy who had such a cruel destiny and remains a passionate, rebellious and free woman.

En guerre is a novel by François Bégaudeau, a contemporary French author, the book tells how in a fractured France, two beings that everything opposes meet. Louisa Makhloufi, a worker in an Amazon warehouse, is abandoned by her companion who is depressed after his dismissal, she then meets in disco Romain Praisse, a young boho from the great neighborhoods of the capital, who works in culture, and both become lovers.
I really liked this novel which seemed to me so current and relevant and sometimes very funny. He tells how difficult it is for two people from such a different social background to find and understand each other, and despite economic violence and personal tragedies, there is always hope. He is an author that I know a little and who through his sociological analyses so fine, reachs me every time.

Cosmos is a really strange book, I didn't expect this, I am rather used to reading classic stories, but it has been a long time since I had to read Gombrovitcz on the advice of a Polish friend. In fact Cosmos which originally means "harmony", looks a bit like a detective novel, it is the sickly investigation of characters a little crazy on a dead bird and on mouths, it's a story where we draw a meaning from the chaos and which ends up giving something absurd and logical. It was really interesting discover this world so rickety.