#Sara Hultqvist

[jannickej]

Socialt arbete i äldreomsorg. Professionell handläggning i teori och praktik Magdalena Elmersjö, Sara Hultqvist och Stina Johansson (red.) Gleerups

[inknerd]

April Wrap-Up 2019

In regards to reading, I feel like April started out really well and then kept rolling on just fine until the last week of the month; that’s when I had an exam to do and I also started my five-weeks practice at a school where I currently have a ton of things to plan and fix, aaaaaaaaahhh. Still I managed to read 11 books in April, which is fun.

ARCHENEMIES by MARISSA MEYER ★★★★☆ | 474 pages | 7 days to read | Published 2018

I have this thing with this series where I start the book and is like meh and gets annoyed at insignificant things just because and then it kicks into a higher gear and then I’m LIVING for it. I don’t know why I do this. + I like Nova as a character a lot. She has such interesting inner conflicts and argues with herself what the right thing to do is, and with the added Agent N in this book the discussion of who’s right, the Renegades or the Anarchist, becomes way more interesting than in the first book. - I still don’t like Adrian. Can’t explain it. I just don’t. I also can’t believe that more people haven’t figured out some stuff yet... 

THE COLD IS IN HER BONES by PETERNELLE VAN ARSDALE ★★★☆☆ | 288 pages | 5 days to read | Published 2019

This was a book I desperatly wanted to like. Because Medusa-inspired! That cover! Yeah, I thought I’d love this book to no end. Sadly, it didn’t really live up to my expectations, but was still a fine read. + The cover, the cover, the cover. This book is also inspired by the tale of Medusa but is set in a more Nordic setting (I recognised a lot of Swedish words okay, I’m obliged to like it). The story also has it beautiful and investing parts, and the book in general has a very nice message to it including knowledge, forgiveness, understanding etc. - I can’t say the characters were that interesting and while this book was short it felt like it dragged a bit, at the same time the ending was over very quick and felt anti-climatic.

GOODBYE, PERFECT by SARA BARNARD ★★★☆☆ | 300 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2018

+ This book dives into an interesting and disturbing subject, and it was very interesting to read while being... - ...somewhat frustrating? It feels somewhat wrong to say it but some decisions the characters did just made me annoyed rather than feel for them. In the end, this book was interesting but not really my cup of tea.

RED DOC> by ANNE CARSON ★★☆☆☆ | 171 pages | 2 days to read | Published 2013

This was another book I’d won rather than bought myself, and while I’m still interested in reading some more of Carson’s poetry, this book completely flew over my head. This was apparently a sequel to Autobiography of Red, which I haven’t read, but it’s supposed to be a standalone sequel. + I liked all the references to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, despite not having read those books yet....lol, there’s also many references to greek mythology in general, so that’s nice. Several parts were also very beautiful. - As I mentioned... I didn’t quite get what was going on most of the time, and even when I think I got it I didn’t really like/understand it.

MIRAGE by SOMAIYA DAUD ★★★☆☆ | 311 pages | 2 days to read | Published 2018

I didn’t review this one directly after I’d read it, and while I remember liking it I have a hard time remembering it now... + I liked the worldbuilding just fine, but can’t wait to see it more realised. This book seems to spark with colour and definitely has an interesting premise. The different perspectives on a culture you can have depending on how you were raised to perceive said culture was also one of the more interesting sub-plots of this book. - There was this insta-romance that I did not care for at all, and I feel like there were different directions the plot could have taken to make it more exciting in the long run. The characters were meh.

VI ÄR ROMER by CECILIA KÖLJING & SOFIA HULTQVIST ★★★★☆ | 272 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2014

The 8th of April I went to the library to return a book and while there I found a smaller shelf they’d put up to celebrate the International Romani Day, this book being one they’d included. + It had so many nice pictures and life-stories, all of them centerering around Romani peoples’ experience in Sweden together with some general information about Romani history, culture etc. It was very educational, interesting and heartbreaking at the same time.

EDUCATED by TARA WESTOVER ★★★★☆ | 357 pages | 4 days to read | Published 2018

+ Very thought-provoking- well-written, and interesting read. It made me frustrated and sad and it was an overall emotional experience, you could say.  - It’s a bit hard to review memoirs, I think, but at times it felt very... dense? Like, it felt like I made no progress in reading it.

KRIS by KARIN BOYE ★★☆☆☆ | 214 pages | 6 days to read | Published 2012/1934

I’ve wanted to read one of Boye’s novels ever since reading and falling in love with her poetry, this book’s premise also sounded creepily appliable to yours truly; a 20-year-old studying to become a teacher in crisis? Yikes. Sadly, it didn’t live up to what I’d read of her before. + Parts of it were very beautiful and thought-provoking, and it was really interesting to see perspectives on mental illness and homosexuality in 30′s Sweden. - While thought-provoking, I didn’t really understand the full message behind it. It felt like it was digging for something and I just wasn’t getting it. Large parts of it were quite boring to read, actually.

THE WINTER OF THE WITCH by KATHERINE ARDEN ★★★★☆ | 384 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2019

The finale to the Winternight Trilogy! Nothing can really compare to the first book, The Bear and the Nightingale, even though the later two books in the series are very entertaining in their own right. + The characters, the romance, the magic...I am still completely in love with this world. - The third book definitely took some turns I wasn’t expecting, and while some of them were good there were others I wasn’t as invested in. Surprisingly, I wasn’t really interested in the more obvious blend of real russian history and this fantasy story; it felt a little clunky.

A CURSE SO DARK AND LONELY by BRIGID KEMMERER ★★★★☆ | 496 pages | 2 days to read | Published 2019

I’d heard both praise and kind of meh feelings about this book, but I was pleasantly surprised! While not having the most interesting plot I quickly got sucked in and couldn’t stop reading. Close to 500 pages just flew by. + The characters were fun and engaging and the romance had it’s charm, and while I thought the plot took some strange turns sometimes it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of this book much. - As mentioned, while somewhat investing I sometimes doubted the necessity of certain plot-points or twists, while not wanting to frown at them too hard since they might come more into play in the sequel. 

TO BEST THE BOYS by MARY WEBER ★★★☆☆ | 352 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2019

This book managed to surprise me, yet not necessarily in an entire good way? + The characters are somewhat interesting and this story really sucks you in and is pretty easy to read. It also has its twists and turn and manage to make me feel invested enough in them. - The characters, while somewhat fun to read about, feel like every-book stereotypes. Most confunding is that the maze the characters are supposed to get through are almost sidelined by everything else that is going on. I think it took like half the book before they even entered the competition? To me the scenes in the maze felt like the ones most boring and predictable in this book.