Lari lari, lari lari lari.

I usually don't make comparisons between book and movie. I appreciate that they are different works even if they stem from the same original story (from a book, usually) and I don't hold them up and point the things that are made different. There is beautiful stuff out there that completely twisted up their original story (like How To Train Your Dragon or Howl's Moving Castle) and still made great films.

But I couldn't help myself with this one. I mean, they did screw up. They re-wrote a story that was pitch perfect ready-made for the big screen, seriously, one can read that book planning movie scenes (much like the last Harry Potter) but they went and made it into a silly fireworks show with nothing to give for. And why would you change the end of a story if you plan to produce the sequels!? *rips hair off* It makes no sense at all. It was just sad.

What? What? Whaaat?

I can't pick something like that. It's too hard.

I can make certain points of what certain authors mean to me but I can't pin a favorite. Just not possible.

So I'll give my academy award speech and say thanks:

J. K. Rowling was important to me growing up because I started reading Harry Potter at 11 and thought I was silly and different because I read books and liked thinking of different worlds and it felt like she was on my side. Plus, the HP fandom gave me brilliant friends, I have a lot to thank her for.

J. R. R. Tolkien made me look smart in front of my college professors, thank you.

Thanks Balzac for making me feel like I had to study more history.

Eoin Colfer made me want to know more about everything. Thanks for turning me into a odd knowledge encyclopedia.

And to the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer for making me dream of more romance than I should hope for in real life.

And thanks Roald Dahl for leading me down this path.

“I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.”

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

I love it, but I hate it. I love the intention but I hate the preachiness, I love the spirit but I hate the slowness, I love Jo, but I hate Amy.

And I hate the end. I think a lot of people hate the end. Is it supposed to be hateful or are we all products of the modern days that we don't like not getting our way?

I don't know. Still hate it.

Still love it too.

This was so good I can't even think straight.
Reading historical romance for me has gotten so common that I usually think through the end before I even read the next paragraph, I think too much of it and enjoy little of the unfolding simply because I felt like I've read that before. And most of the times I have.
But this was different. This was wonderful. I laughed, I cried, my heart constricted and I felt like I got kicked in the arse and fell back asking for more. Yes I know it sounds ridiculous but truth is truth.
This book has shot straight up to my top 3 favorite HR reads and Courtney Milan is in first place to my next "kindle raid all those books by that author" trip.

I hated this book. I bought it because the cover was so pretty (yes I do that) and the author had won a nobel literature prize or something and thought it'd be good.

It wasn't. I don't really remember why I hated it so much but it felt like a waste of time, completely useless to me. I was really aggravated by the end of it.

A couple years ago my best friend was browsing my shelves and asked me to borrow it and I said "sure, but I hated it, don't think you'll enjoy it" (she has similar tastes to mine). 3 months later she finally gave it back saying "why did you let me do this?"

At least I'm not alone in this.

“All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others.”

The Silmarillion - J. R. R. Tolkien

The Silmarillion reminds me of home not because of its story but because a paragraph of my story was built around it.

When I was around 12 I lived in a big house with two buildings and between them there was a veranda, a pool and a court. In this veranda I had my own piece of solitude: a yellow hammock (made of an actually pretty itchy cloth, not very good but I was used to it) with a huge black and gold pillow inside. And that's where I spent most of my afternoons after school: in the hammock with a book and food. I read many books there but the top option was The Silmarillion, shame on me and I'll only say it once, I read it  there when I wanted to nap because it made me sleepy. That memory always stuck with me. If I think The Silmarillion I think hammock, pillow and cookie crumbs and well, home.

It's been a long time since that happened and I moved and a lot has happened, but in college I made Tolkien my work study and got back to it. I have so many books about him and his work lining my shelves that I suppose in one way or another, Arda is always gonna be my home.

“There you go... let it all slide out. Unhappiness can't stick in a person's soul when it's slick with tears.”

Princess Academy - Shannon Hale

Oh my, look at Shannon Hale in my challenge again. I might have to do a full run homage to her. To be honest, there aren't many books I read that I don't expect to like because I usually research it previously and if the first 1/3 of it doesn't catch me I just don't finish it. There are too many books out there to get stuck to some I don't really want to read.

I read this book not long after I read The Book of a Thousand Days even though I had it for much longer. In 2008/09 I was reading a lot of mature/philosophy/technical literature, Sartre, Eco and shiz and well, I had become sorta cinic towards tween/ya fiction. It's like at 20 I had regressed to being a snotty 15 year old thinking so highly of myself and not being really open about the things I loved so much before.

Thank goodness for Hale and her magic. I have so much to thank her for, her books rescued me from my bratty self and I started to enjoy reading lightness again. Phew.

I had thought Princess Academy would be sort of like Princess Diaries in a rustic background (and by that I mean vain and self-centered lost teens without much purpose) so I expected nothing good at first, but because I had liked Book of a Thousand Days so much I went for it anyway. And absolutely adored it. Smiled through the whole thing and it was light and delicious and I already said too much.

Now excuse me while I go re-read it.

This was the only Coelho book I managed to swallow whole. I've tried so hard and so many and it just didn't work. As a brazilian, having this writer as our international little literary star makes me wince.

His work is incomprehensible, boring and over the top. He wants to be Khalil Gibran with excessive drama, flair and no context whatsoever, then giving the readers speeches that his books have less literary content and more background philosophy and so they might be misunderstood.

I call BS.

“I’m reading Miss Truesdale and the Silent Gentleman right now.”
“Silent?” Harry echoed.
“There is a noticeable lack of dialogue,” Sebastian confirmed.

What Happens In London - Julia Quinn

This book is pure fluff and silliness and funny quips. It doesn't give the tingles that other Julia Quinn's book give me but it never fails to make me laugh, and I think I've read it some 5 times.

I particularly love Sebastian here, much more than in his own book, he's a priceless character and I'd pay a lot to get my hands on a Miss Butterworth And The Mad Baron narrated by him.

“How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.” 

Atonement - Ian McEwan

Do I need to comment? No, I don't think so.

“Mama used to say, you have to know someone a thousand days before you can glimpse her soul.”

The Book of a Thousand Days - Shannon Hale

The first time I read this book my cheeks were sore for hours from too much smiling. This is not an exaggeration. I experienced pretty much the same thing with Hale's Princess Academy (the name fooled me I thought it would be too MegCabot-y but after reading this one I had to do it) and it's a very odd reaction for me because I'm a person that smiles and laughs a lot, my cheeks should be used to it. Well, apparently this experience was overkill.

This book is an adorable tale, equal parts fairy and simplicity and I still turn to it if I need something to lift me up.

“Tell them stories. They need the truth you must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories.”

The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass in my favorite. Because it ends and it's heartbreaking and lovely and bittersweet and all those things us girlies like suffering from.

That's probably why I don't read many sad endings anymore. (Spoiler? Oops.)

“People are too complicated to have simple labels.”

The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials #3) - Philip Pullman

I realize I don't have much to say today. I just really like this series and I do accept that a lot of it's moralizing is a bit over the top and there are a lot of plot holes and disposable story elements but I still think it's fantastic.

I think if I had to pick a book with characters that are more human than any others it would be this. Everbody really is flawed and not in abnormal things, but in things that you and me and my mother are too, except we're not in a huge magical adventure in a parallel universe and our flaws won't destroy or save the world. And I gotta say in a lot of teen literature, flaws turn out awkward and easily forgotten for more heroic subterfuges (sorry Snape), but here it is believable and disliked and graceful and remembered but for a cause. And that has got to mean something, right?

Plus, I did name my cat Lyra.

“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.” 

Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare

I'm a big big big re-reader. I re-read more than I read first timers and I already do that a lot so yea... lots of books I've read more than 3 times, too many to pick from. So I raised it up to 15 times :x oh o.   

Much Ado About Nothing has always been my favorite Shakespeare (when I was younger my mother gave me her beautiful 70s leatherbound collection so I've read them many times just for the pleasure of holding a leatherbound book but now they give me bad sneezes) and back in college when I had free periods on the first semester I used to go to the library and pick that up. I thought I'd randomize it with others but Much Ado was pretty much the only one never on loan (whyyyy? it's awesome, dudes) so it sorta became a tradition to read it at least a month til the end of my third year, so I know it pretty much by heart.

This book has given me great delusions that I'd find a perfect man that would banter with me as eloquently as Benedick and I'd be as cool as Beatrice.

Oh, the good years.

"So, Turner Buckminster III," she asked, "when you look through the number at the end of your name, does it seem like you're looking through prison bars?"

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy - Gary D. Schmidt

I'm not sure at all how this book ended up on my kindle. It was suddenly on my recent list and, without looking it up at all, I thought "it looks small enough, will be a quick light read". Well, to be honest it wasn't either. I couldn't just gulp it down in one go it felt too intense for that, definitely not light.

This book is filled with emotion and excellent writing. It pulls you under completely and when you find yourself again you want to have people like Lizzie and Turner around you and light out for the territories yourself.

Highly recommend it.

Sounds like a good exercise in making choices (lol, the choices of best books always bring me down) so I'm gonna join in as well.