Drama-Lovers Book Club

 Marina:

One of us is lying by Karen McManus

The cheerleaders  by Kara Thomas

The name of the star by Maureen Johnson

The secret history by Donna Tartt

The broken girls by Simone St. James

Thanks!! 

 Mila Kim:

Hi all. I haven't posted my intro here yet cause I was in kind of a reading slump. I used to read more, but nowadays I am just watching a lot of dramas instead. Can't focus when you have multiple hobbies right? 

Don't we all? Dramas ruined my reading habits for more than a decade...

 ginkgo_leaves:

I was going through previous posts, was looking for some small size books.  Will wait for few more days, then will google.

You can try "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly" by Hwang Sun Mi - a wonderful, touching little book full of love and inspiration :)

 ginkgo_leaves:

I will share one, I have made small notebook where I write names of main characters and I have to hit the pause button now n then n refer those names at least for first 2-3 episodes.

Many a times I don’t get to see the faces of the lead characters also when they are continuously speaking, as my eyesight would be focused upon bottom zone of tv screen ….. reading n reading…

I do this when reading books with heavy worldbuilding! Or complicated casts of characters haha. I remember when I was reading the Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum within the first five pages of the book I had at least 8 pages set up for each character and notes for the world hahaha It was just so much going on! Totally worth it though. Honestly it's kind of fun right? To have to take notes? Its like the writer is forcing you to pay attention and it gets me very absorbed in the story. 

I'm currently doing so with The Langya List and Black Leopard Red Wolf as well. For the Langya List it's just a ton of characters with complicated relationships, so I write down who is related to who and how. There are probably guides somewhere online, but I like writing it down too. For Black Leopard Red Wolf they have their own character list, but I was still confused when they were introducing the protagonist's actual family situation to me so I had to reread the paragraphs a few times to sort it out and ended up writing it out to help me. In terms of notetaking though, the Unraveling was the most fun because it required it more. 

Honestly most of the time I can watch a drama while reading quickly and scanning the screen. Sometimes my reading is more like skimming. It's super helpful when they talk slowly or when the subber leaves up the subs way longer than they need to right? Makes it easier to pay atttention to subs and acting. Sometimes I'll rewind a scene to see the acting if I really like an actor and ignore the subs the second time around, but these days its pretty rare for me to be that engrossed in an actor's reactions. I had the bliss of that with my most recent drama and It just made me feel soooooo good ^_^

Hello friends, happy May!

Last month I managed to read 3 books. One was a miss for me, but I really liked the other two.

★★★★☆

★★☆☆☆

★★★★☆

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin - It's about a bitter man who owns a bookstore on an island. Then one day a sudden turn of events makes his life change.  Without giving too much away, this book is absolutely for book lovers. I really enjoyed it. ML might be a grumpy widower in the beginning, but somehow the story becomes very heartwarming tale that's filled with literary references.

The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk - If the name sounds familiar, it's because the drama adaptation got added to Netflix recently and has been trending under top 10 global shows.  I think this was a decent thriller. I just couldn't get into the writing at times and all this political conspiracy stuff seems kind of repetitive and familiar at some point. Maybe I needed to be in a certain mood for this novel and I just wasn't. It felt like a chore to get through.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - I absolutely loved this book.  It is told from multiple perspectives, but the main one is from the perspective of an octopus that lives inside an aquarium.  The rest of the characters either live in the same town or work at the aquarium. I know that probably doesn't sound that interesting, but it all comes together wonderfully in the end. The octopus is one of my favorite characters.

 Misunderst0_od:

Creepy, yet gorgeous at the same time.

Honestly, accurate description of the book itself lol

 Misunderst0_od:

The octopus is one of my favorite characters.

This sounds like a really cute read :')

For april I read 3 novels

I started with "The Paymaster" by Yannick Haenel, it talks about how a certain Georges Bataille becomes a banker who wants to spend everything. I liked the idea and found it quite original, but I didn't manage to really get excited, neither for the story of this banker whose sentimental reversals I had a little trouble understanding, nor for the secondary characters that I found not so original. I quite agree with a critic who said that even if the novelist wrote well he watched himself write and wanted to dictate our impressions too much.

Then I read "the sacred night" by Tahar Ben Jelloun because I try to discover a little Moroccan writers. This is the story of Ahmed who was actually born a girl, but his father immediately said he was a boy because he absolutely wanted to have one. She will then escape from home upon the death of her father and experience a rebirth as a woman.
I read it very easily and there are many aspects of the story that I found interesting but I admit that I was not totally convinced by its mixture of poetry, realism and I sometimes dropped out.

Then I read the first volume of the series "My Struggle" by the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgard. I bought this novel because many youtubers recommended it and I understand now why. In his work, Karl Ove Knausgard is 40 years old and partly attempts to resurrect his past, using the type of autobiographical novel. Frankly I completely understand the success of these novels, it is a very rich work that is also the representation of a whole generation. In this collection in particular,  the novelist talks about his early life, his relationship with his tyrannical father and the death of the latter but also about his relationship to writing. I thought it was a very strong work with great psychological depth. I would like to read the other 5 volumes when I have more time.