I did it. I’m done. I completed all 30 items to the best I could (two are sort-of freebies/to-be-continued), but I’m counting them. If there was one I thought I might back out on it was getting a tattoo, but I knew three options I wanted: one was a quote, the second is what I got and the third was a back up in case they couldn’t do the one I got small enough. My sister and I are driving home for the holidays and we took a minor detour to stop over and visit my oldest friend and I decided that was when I was getting my tattoo and I did. That’s a photo of it and it’s on my chest – kind of where your fingers are when you pledge allegiance in the US.
Tag: Art
30 x 30: #19 – Finish visiting the entire MFA with Caroline
I’m calling this one. And with that I’m down to eight remaining on my 30×30 list. I told you I’d be moving through quite a few this week! After almost four hours at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Caroline and I were exhausted. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen 99% of it and what we haven’t seen I’m sure we will. Below is just a taste of what we saw today and if you’ve followed this blog for a while you know I’ve been to the MFA many times. You can see some of my related posts by clicking here or on the Museum of Fine Arts tab at the bottom of this post or by using the search bar!
We’ve been quite a few times together, but the last time we went we saw specific exhibits and I knew that there were still large portions of the museum I hadn’t visited and figured I might as well drag her along with me 🙂 Our main goals today were the Art of the Ancient World and Art of Asia, Oceana and Africa wings of the museum, as we’d previously viewed the Art of the Americas, the Contemporary Art and most of the European wings.
Book 298: L’America – Martha McPhee
Honestly, I’m sad I didn’t like this as much as I thought I would. Seriously, I’ve given it the lowest rating of the year so far. I bought it in one of my bulk buys at the 2011 Boston Book festival and haven’t thought of it since. It came up on my list when I used random.org to select my next book.
Even though I finished it, I just could not invest in this book, and that’s never a good sign. It started off slow, and thankfully did pick up a good bit, but still finished slow. Seriously go read the paragraph long sentence that was the final sentence of the novel. Not fun.
I think where I struggled to enjoy the book and where the author struggled to write the book was in converting an excellent idea into a manageable and digestible amount. Thankfully, the book wasn’t longer, but it really struggled through the first half. Beth felt like a whiny idiot (she was a teenager) and Cesare just felt frigid and unapproachable. This definitely changed toward the end, but it didn’t change fast enough or thoroughly enough to make me want to bump up my rating.
Book 294: The Art Restorer (Enrique Alonso #2) – Julián Sánchez
I’m always happy when I discover an author new to me. As I said on Monday in my response to The Antiquarian, I stumbled across Sánchez’s work on NetGalley and requested a copy of this novel. I received a copy of The Art Restorer from the publisher and received no compensation for my honest opinion.
Whereas in the first novel of this series, The Antiquarian, Sánchez completely sold me on his writing and story telling, this novel fell a little short. The story was still fascinating and excellently written, how the story was told bordered a bit too much on the Hollywood/Dan Brown scale. However, I can’t decide if this is a part of Sánchez’s writing style for the story within this story, or if it is something that happened in his own processes.
Book 293: The Antiquarian (Enrique Alonso #1) – Julián Sánchez
I stumbled across Sánchez’s work on NetGalley when I requested The Art Restorer, reviewed later this week. The publisher was incredibly accommodating and provided a galley of this for me to review as well! (Damn me and my completion-ist tendencies!) I received no compensation in return for my honest response to the novel.
Although it started off a bit slow, maybe as a result of the translation?, I quickly fell into the book and ended up loving it! The closest thing I can find to compare it to is Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon series (I’ve reviewed the two most recent The Lost Symbol and Inferno)! I won’t spend too much time comparing the two works/authors, because I want to give Sánchez his due, but suffice to say this novel (and what I’ve read of The Art Restorer) are SO much better.