Books

Book 491: The Carnivorous Carnival (A Series of Unfortunate Events #9) – Lemony Snicket

Not to set the standards to high, but this may be the darkest of the books, which is saying something after The Wide Window and the kids being offered up by their guardian for death instead of the guardian. I’m not sure if it has to do with this book hitting the closest home to our current state of affairs in the US, or if it just hit home to me.

As I keep saying, and as is to be expected, the story and the characters are continuing to evolve and become more complex. The Baudelaire’s took charge at the end of the last novel and took their own fate into their hands and ended up following Count Olaf and his troop of evil-doers this time rather than the other way around. But what I took from this story wasn’t even the moving forward of the series, it finally clicked why we are reading this series this year after Trump’s election.

This book takes place in a carnival, shocking detail right, and the big focus is on the freak show of the carnival, but when it comes down to it it’s not really a freak show, it’s a prejudice show. And with the way we talk about anyone and everyone in today’s media and everyday conversation it sort of hit me that Snicket was just amplifying what was actually happening in the U.S. to idiotic proportions and yet that’s where we are now. When I read,  Continue reading “Book 491: The Carnivorous Carnival (A Series of Unfortunate Events #9) – Lemony Snicket”

Books

Book 490: The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events #8) – Lemony Snicket

Now we’re going places!

I know I said this with the last book, but things are definitely starting to pick up with the Baudelaire orphans and I’m thoroughly enjoying the series now. I’m not sure if it’s because Snicket appears to be writing more to include the adults who probably read these to younger children or if there is something more to it.

In this novel he lists a few of Virginia Woolf’s iconic characters (Orlando and Clarissa Dalloway) and he even randomly name checks two of arguably the most famous non-English authors out there Mikhail Bulgakov and Haruki Murakami as patients in the hospital.

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Books

Book 488: Blood Persuasion (Immortal Jane Austen, #2) – Janet Mullany

Of course after finishing Jane and the Damned, we all knew I was going to go right into its sequel Blood Persuasion. Why slog through a novel that has issues when you can read paranormal Jane Austen fan fiction?! All you readers out there should be happy I’m only half serious about this. If I weren’t this would basically just be a Jane Austen fan-fiction love fest all the time.

Whereas Jane and the Damned was full of action and adventure, this one was a let down. I didn’t know this was a let down until I just now started writing this post and started to compare it to the first novel in the duology. That’s sad to think about, but not really surprising when so many sophomore novels and/or middle books in trilogies wind up disappointing.

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Books

Book 487: Jane and the Damned (Immortal Jane Austen #1) – Janet Mullany

Only a very small part of me wishes I could say this was the first Jane Austen/Vampire fiction mash-up I’ve read. I can’t even lie and say this is the second. I read the Jane Fairfax trilogy by Michael Thomas Ford (Jane Bites BackJane Goes Batty, and Jane Vows Vengeance) back in 2015, so I guess in my weird little world I was overdue. Strangely enough, the trilogy Ford wrote could easily be a continuation of this trilogy if the two books end with Jane staying a vampire, and that would be hilarious, to me at least.

Jane and the Damned has been on my shelf for almost SIX years. I didn’t realize that until I just searched the blog to see if it was on here already. I ended up blazing through it this past weekend because we went to the park to enjoy the weather for a few hours. I needed something quick and either a physical book or on my Kindle because the galley I’m reading is on my iPad and those are not great to read outside.

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Book Group, Books

Book 486: The Vile Village (A Series of Unfortunate Events #7) – Lemony Snicket

It will come as NO shock that the next installment of our book group was Lemony Snicket’s The Vile Village. That’s the fun thing about reading a series, you already know what you’re going to read and you just have to space them out so you don’t read them too fast. That being said, I have the next four already on my kindle ready to read!!!

The series, as I said in my response to The Ersatz Elevator, appears to be picking up pace. The Baudelaire orphans seem to be taking on more responsibility for their own well being/future (or as much as they can) with the incompetent adults around them doing nothing. I’m glad to say the rest of book group agrees that it’s starting to pick up the pace.

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