Review "Attachments"

Some information

Title: Attachments

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Pages: 368

Published: February 2012

Publisher: Orion

My Scource: Standaard Boekhandel

My Score on Goodreads: 5 stars

Blurb

"Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . "

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.

What would he say . . . ?

Review

Wow, I loved this book! I didn't know Rainbow Rowell, but since I'm a new addict to Booktube, I discoverd her while watching booktubers raving about her books. For me the story started a little slow, but after a while I couldn't put it down anymore. You get to know the characters Jennifer, Beth and Lincoln pretty good through the e-mails of both women and the thoughts of Lincoln. You know I like good characters, especially when I can relate to them and this is a reason why I started liking this book an awful lot. 

In "Attachments" we meet Jennifer and Beth, two women working for the same newspaper in 1999. The Internet is fairly new at their office so they use it to the maximum and send each other a lot of e-mails concerning their private life. Because the bosses don't trust this new Internet hype, they hire Lincoln. An 28 y.o. man with a lot of majors who thought he would be chasing hackers and building firewalls as the new Internet Security Officer. Too bad for him he just gets to read e-mails between co-workers and has to check them for inappropriate content. I said "too bad", but maybe this stupid job (at night!) is the best thing that ever happened to Lincoln. He doesn't realise it at the beginning, but by reading other peoples e-mails he gets to know some of them pretty well. In this case he gets to know Jennifer and Beth because sometimes they tend to talk about "inappropriate stuff" with each other. Lincoln doesn't turn them in though... Just because he likes these women and starts to feel like they're his friends at work. In the end they ARE charing personal information with him... isn't it?

In this book we see Lincoln struggle with feelings of love, guilt and disorientation. Is this the job for him? Is this the life for him? Is this the "wife" for him? He just doesn't know it anymore and his mother isn't really helping. It's a book that keeps you hoping there will be a good ending to it, but it keeps putting you on the wrong track too. I loved it!

Review "Een schitterend gebrek"

Some information

Title: Een schitterend gebrek

Author: Arthur Japin

Pages: 239

Published: 2003

Publisher: Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers

My Source: My neighbour (thank you!)

My Score on Goodreads: 5 stars (would give it 6 if I could)

Blurb (in Dutch)

Lucia en Casanova leren elkaar kennen op een feest nabij Venetië, worden verliefd en beloven elkaar eeuwige trouw. Maar kort daarna verdwijnt Lucia plotseling uit Casanova's leven. Vele jaren later ontmoeten ze elkaar in een Amsterdamse schouwburg bij toeval opnieuw. Hij heeft er geen weet van dat zij het is omdat ze haar gezicht onder een sluier verbergt, en hij probeert haar te veroveren op de van hem bekende wijze.

Voor Lucia is de schokkende confrontatie aanleiding tot een reconstructie: haar jeugd in de Veneto, haar kortstondige maar heftige liefde voor Casanova, de verwoestende ziekte die haar trof, haar vlucht naar Amsterdam en haar werk als hoer. Langzaam wordt duidelijk dat haar verdwijning geen verraad was, maar een daad van liefde.

Review

I didn't plan on reading this book. I hadn't heard about it or about the author AT ALL. Shame on me! But then there was my lovely neighbour who asked me if I had ever read this book. When I told her "Nope", she lent it to me, after which I read it in one day. AND I TOTALLY LOVED IT! 

At first I was I little reserved. Would I be able to like a book about Casanova? I don't have a thing with this man and I hate the fact he is known as a womanizer. Juk! But then, I started reading... and reading. And I kept on reading without being able to put the book down. I liked the way the whole story is told from the perspective of Lucia, the first and only real love of Casanova. She tells everything in first person and switches between the present and the past. In this pendulum we get to know who the real Casanova was before he was disappointed in love and started to court every single woman he met. It made me like this man even though I started the book standing aloof. 

Lucia is a great character. She was only fourteen years old when she met Casanova(while he was a guest)at the mansion where she and her parents worked for a rich lady. She loved him right away and it seemed to be mutual. When Casanova leaves the house to make a career and promises her to come back, this means the world to Lucia. She hopes he can be whatever he wants to be and she certainly hopes she will stand near him for the rest of their lives. Too bad all these hopes were in vain. Lucia is hit by a terrible and dangerous disease while Casanova it away. Luckily she survives, but she is different afterwards. So different she fears to face her great love and runs away without letting him know why. 

Many years later Lucia meets an interesting man. She now lives in Amsterdam and has made her live work even though it wasn't easy at all. This interesting man reminds her of her only and first love, Casanova... Could it be him?

Oooh, I'd love to read some more books by Arthur Japin and I hope they will be as good as this one. I obviously recommend this book to anyone!

Review "Loving Mr. Darcy"

Some information

Title: Loving Mr. Darcy

Author: Sharon Lathan

Pages: 448 (aaargh)

Published: September 2009

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

My Scource: Boekenfestijn Gent

My Score on Goodreads: 2 stars

Blurb

Darcy and Lizzy venture away from Pemberley to journey through England, finding friends, relatives, fun, love, and an even deeper and more sacred bond along the way.

Having embarked on the greatest adventure of all, marriage and the start of a new life together, now the Darcys take the reader on a journey through a time of prosperity, enjoyment, and security. They experience all the adventures of travel, with friends

and relatives providing both companionship and complications, and with fun as their focus.

The sights and sounds, tastes and flavors of Regency England come alive. Through it all, Darcy and Lizzy continue to build a marriage filled with romance, sensuality, and the beauty of a deep, abiding love.

Review

I have to admit something. Every single time I pass by something related to Jane Austen, even in the smallest way, I have to go back, hug it a little and eventually buy it. Sometimes though this "love at first sight" turns out to be a little disappointing. That was the case with this book. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it too. Maybe it was the fact that there didn't happen a thing in this book that made me feel this way. I love to read love stories, but there has to happen something in them. This book just went on and on about the ever lasting love between Elizabeth and Darcy. Only a few chapters away from the end there happens something with these characters. For the rest of the time they say "I love you" a thousand times, buy a lot of things and think about all the things they still have to do. Tiresome!

March Book Haul

Last month has been crazy! I didn't even have the time to read a lot... Two books... In a whole month... I am ashamed of myself! You already have my review of "Vic Mongol" and currently I'm reading "Loving mr. Darcy" by Sharon Lathan. I hope I'll finish this book before the end of this week. It's like a super slow read! Aaargh! 

This lack of time didn't hold me back from buying books though. Luckily! I stille have a huge TBR pile in my room after I went to a Book Outlet a few months ago, but I'm going to ignore that for a while. I'll show those outlet books to you later. I promise!

Because I'm currently into Booktube (I LOVE IT), you'll probably recognize the books I've bought and ordered this month. They're books everybody on Youtube is raving about, so they made me a little curious. Some of these books should have been on my shelves long before now, but I finally bought them. 

Here they are (I'm super excited about all of them!) 


1. John Green - The fault in our stars (couldn't stay behind!)
2. Rachel Gibson - Run to you
3. Markus Zusak - The Book Thief
3. Rainbow Rowell - Fangirl (ordered, still waiting for it)
4. Rainbow Rowell - Attachments (ordered, still waiting for it)

I have to say I really hate this cover of "Run to you"... I have another one (it isn't pretty either, but it's better than this one). The cover of "The Book Thief" isn't my favorite one either, but they only had this copy in my bookstore and I didn't wan't to wait for another one.

I'm looking forward to read all these books, but I have to read some others first. Finally I can start my two weeks of freedom! READING!

Review "Vic Mongol"

Some information

Title: Vic Mongol

Author: Jerry Gill

Pages: 162

Published: January 2014

Publisher: Ann\Darrow#company

My Scource: author (thank you!)

My Score on Goodreads: 2 stars 

Blurb

Since man has been man, those called wise in every generation and culture have declared that true love never dies. There must be a reason they keep saying this. 

A merciless, agonizing memory can sometimes break a person and render them incapable of facing even the commonplace without being unnerved. Then sometimes it will forge a person into something more than human, a figure of near super human ability who can take action in even the most savage of circumstances.

Victoria Custer remembered how she and the one to whom she vowed her eternal love were buried by mountains and swallowed by the sea. That painful, frightening memory from a thousand generations past has forged her into something more than she was and has emboldened her with unrelenting purpose. Now, as Vic Challenger, she will confront even the grimmest peril and will venture into situations so horrible they make the bravest of men cower and weep for their mother. Vic has embarked against all odds on an epic quest that may last a lifetime and on any day could bring violent death. She has learned from her mysterious avatar Nat-ul, even when you face the gravest of threats, you need not be brave, you just need to do what needs done, for no matter how dire the circumstances, “It’s not hard. It’s just living.”

Nothing short of death will stop Vic. And even death itself seems to have failed at least once.

It’s the Fall of 1920 and Vic Challenger and her friend Lin Li have gone to Mongolia. They thought they were prepared for anything but doom begins to hound them, in the form of Hung-hu-tzes, White Russians, and hellish creatures that stalk them from underground. This is Lin's first trip with Vic but will it also be her last? They both have to wonder how this trip will end...

Review

Writing a book isn't easy, neither is writing a review about it. Sometimes you just don't know what to think about something you've read. For me that's the case with this book "Vic Mongol". I didn't know what to expect after reading the text on the cover. I also was a little scared because it's the second book about this main character, Vic, and I haven't read the first one. Always dangerous... I read the book nevertheless and now I'm sitting here and I don't know what to write about it.

The main thing that confuses me is the fact there seem to be many little unimportant stories in this book. We have a main character who's on a sort of quest in her life. We see her leaving for a trip to the other side of the world, hoping to find the person she's looking for. The one who can make her life complete. The curiosity is that this quest always seems to be put in the second place. Vic always gets in big trouble and instead of dealing with those things as quickly as possible, she always ends up putting these trouble central in her life. Where has her quest gone? Why doesn't she put more effort in finding that important person? Her whole life is dedicated to that mysterious person, but it seems to be easy to forget about him and end up looking for the murderer of an old lady she doesn't know of getting involved in political matters in Mongolia. Most of the time this just didn't make sense to me.

Who is this "Vic"? Victoria Custer, a.k.a. Vic Challenger, is a young reporter. She loves to travel around the world, take pictures of the amazing things around her and write controversial articles about them. Vic looks like a normal girl, a girly girl even, but she's everything but that. Vic has some sort of alter ego, Nat-ul. In her dreams Vic can communicate with this girl who lived more than a thousand years ago. Everything makes her believe she once was that person and is now reincarnated in a new human being. Nat-ul was in love with Nu, the son of Nu. A great warrior who returned her love and killed the biggest wild cat in the world to show her his love. Sadly Nu was killed after a giant earthquake. The cave he hid in, collapsed and he died. Nat-ul didn't survive this earthquake either but her soul keeps on searching her lover. Her soul which lives on in Vic Challenger.

Apart from Vic we also have some other characters in the book, but we don't get to know them very well. This is one of the things I didn't like about this story. Sometimes all of our characters and the crazy situations they were in, just became a big blur. Also the frequent hunting on animals, the unbelieveable situations and the supernatural creatures made me sigh more than once. Further there were a lot of indistinct descriptions of crazy situations. 

All these things set apart, this could be a good book for people who like this writing style, this genre and this kind of stories. 

Review "The Trouble with Valentine's Day"

Some information

Title: The Trouble with Valentine's Day

Author: Rachel Gibson

Pages: 368

Published: January 2005

Publisher: Avon

My Scource: gift

My score on Goodreads: 5 stars

Covertext

Dumped by her boyfriend, stressed out by her job, Kate Hamilton needs to regroup and get back some self-esteem. She moves from the bright lights of Las Vegas to the wilderness of Gospel, Idaho for some small-town fun. But when her first attempted seduction of a hunky stranger is completely rejected, she wonders what else could possibly go wrong?

Well, for starters she quickly realizes that the Mountain Mama Crafters Original Poetry reading is about as good as it gets on a Friday night. Then she comes face to face with Rob Sutter, former ice hockey madman, owner of Sutter's Sports—and the hunky stranger who told her to get lost!

Rob's been more than burned by love—but then he and Kate find themselves in an ultra-compromising position in the M & S Market after-hours, giveing the phrase "clean-up in aisle five" a whole new meaning, and cause a whole lot of gossip in Gospel...

My short review

I don't know if this book is my favorite written by Rachel Gibson, but I liked it a lot! The characters in "The troube with Valentine's Day" are really great and very credible. The story is written in a way you keep on wondering what will happen even though you secretly know how it will all end. I never get tired of reading Gibsons books. In every single one of them the same things happen againts a slightly different background, but that doesn't matter. She knows how to keep her readers entertained and that's all I need in a chick lit book. Loved it and hope you'll love it too. I can't wait to start the other books in this series...

Review "Playing the Part"

Some information

Title: Playing the Part

Author: Darcy Daniel

Pages: 179

Published: February 2013

Publisher: Carina Press

My scource: The author (thank you!)

My score on Goodreads: 5 stars!

Covertext

Anthea Cane is a successful actress—well, action star. Her films are mostly about how hot she looks silhouetted by fiery explosions. But Anthea is determined to prove she's more than just a body. With the role of a lifetime up for grabs—a serious adaptation of her favorite novel—Anthea sets off to her small hometown in the name of research.

Cole Daniel is a blind farmer with no patience for divas, especially one who mercilessly teased him as a young boy. When Anthea shows up using a fake name and pestering him into letting her stay, he can't pass up the opportunity to torment her just a little.

But Anthea won't let the stubborn farmer deter her from her goal, even if he is hotter than any man she's ever met. Cole finds his form of payback less than satisfying when Anthea keeps turning the tables on him, proving her mettle and gaining his respect. Will Anthea's research land her a man, as well as the part?

My review

When I pick up a chick lit book I always hope to find another kind of story. Something I didn't already read in four different books with different characters in the same situation. Darcy Daniel did a great job writing "Playing the Part". She managed to offer her readers a beautiful and sweet story without repeating one. Her characters were very real to me and I really loved them though they weren't always shining and on their best behaviour.

In this book we meet Anthea, a movie star without big roles behind her name. She's only asked for action movies where her looks can be used. For a long time she just didn't care about this, but when she wants a role in a movie adaptation of her (passed away) mothers favorite book and nobody believes she can do it, she starts to reconsider her career. Is this everything her life will ever be? Are people only "liking" her because of how she looks? Don't they believe she has some kind of depth? Apparantly not and this bothers Anthea above anything. 

She decides to demand an audition for the role and to do some research. The movie she wants to play in "The Farmers wife" is set in the country. Where would she do her research best? In Mayfield, the town she lived in when she was younger. 

In this town she meets Cole, a handsome, blind farmer she bullied in school. Thing is Anthea needs him to do her research. He's a farmer and she needs to know what it feels like to be a farmers wife... Would be great if she could use him or euhm "work together" with him... Because she knows Cole wouldn't welcome her with open arms, she invents a fake name and lies to him... Luckily these lies can't keep her from falling in love with him... madly... 

In this book you see the evolution of two people who dislike each other a lot to two people who want to care for and love each other 'till eternity... Darcy Daniel describes the feelings of these characters very very well and gives you the feeling you're out there in the field too. I also liked the sometimes detailed descriptions of little things in life. This made me connect even more with Cole. For this blind man, details are very important. Even the once superficial Anthea starts to get this and she learns to appreciate the little things in life. She completely transforms from a selfish star to a loving and caring woman who puts Cole in the first place. 

This really is a story that makes you smile. For me it might have been a little longer ;) I read it in one day and regretted that it came to an end...