#didn't he also propose to the 'lady' mary and she was like lol...no? or is that leti/ strickland? icr

[fideidefenswhore]

it is funny that everytime you get to the thomas seymour part of any tudor biography every author is invariably is like oooo, thomas was so handsome and charming, all women found him sooooooo irresistible........meanwhile, real ones know that he proposed to mary howard fitzroy thrice and she rejected him...thrice <3

[misireads]

Vilpittömästi sinun (Cold Courage) by Pekka Hiltunen

[ physical book, read in finnish ]

the story of lia, a finnish woman living a sterile career woman's life in london. one day she has a chance meeting with another finnish woman, mari, who seems to have a borderline supernatural sherlock holmes-like skill to read people and their thoughts and intentions. mari introduces a whole new world of excitement to lia by showing off her company, a troupe of four super talented people who pretty much do whatever mari wants, usually stunts that are just barely legal (or not at all).

at the same time, there's a grotesque case of someone having brutally murdered a woman and left the mushed remains in the middle of london, and lia becomes obsessed with the case. lia wants to solve the murder and proposes the case to mari, and mari agrees with one condition: lia in turn needs to help with their on-going case of trying to bring down a trump-esque right wing character who's trying to take his white supremacist party to the parliament.

🇬🇧🏢🔎

➕ there's a lot of layers here, it's a hard one to summarise concisely. this is a very Female Empowerment kind of novel, the two main characters are women and everything they do throughout the story is for other women, there are a couple of male characters helping them out but it's the women who are in charge, and all the bad guys are men. i can't say i've read many crime novels with this big of a female focus -- and it's written by a man, actually.

➕ i thought the premise of finns living in london was fun. this author clearly really really loves london and flexing with london trivia.

➕ i also like novels where the premise is laypeople solving crimes.

➕ i like lia… mostly. there are aspects of her that i relate to in uncanny ways, specifically when she gets so obsessed with the country of latvia that she immediately wants to google everything about it for knowledge lol. she was not a believable character in the slightest otherwise, the whole story relies on her accidentally stumbling on the right information and everyone loving and respecting her on sight, except the evil latvian gangster men of course

➕ i like the way hiltunen writes, it's straightforward and pleasant to read without being too simplistic or anything, and he's very good at creating these small moments that stick with you. when i started reading this, i was momentarily super excited about the writing and how it took off with the mushed remains of the murdered person and all, so initially i was thinking this is the kind of novel where i can just immediately tell i like it. or that i like how it's written, at least. because a lot of time i don't get that feeling

➖ well… that feeling didn't exactly last. the plot is alright, and i wasn't thinking of dropping the book out of boredom at any point, but i kind of lost that initial spark of interest when mari's company the studio was introduced. it felt really… like, a band of super talented superhumans working under this superhuman lady in an office building in london and doing whatever they want.. it feels like something i would have come up with when i was 15, except the characters would have all been teenagers then but anyway. something about the premise is a bit childish. then later on i found myself less and less interested with all the latvians introduced and whatever, i truly just didn't care about them and all the detail put into lia befriending them. some parts of the plot also had gaping holes, which doesn't help with the credibility exactly. for example, [spoiler] you're telling me that these perfect studio superpeople would screw up with such an elementary thing as not checking they have all the latvian women with them when they did the rescue mission?? lol? so stupid. and why did lia not start screaming or smth when fried hit her and she was lying on the floor in the hotel room, the guard would have come catch his ass immediately. in both cases it feels like it just needed to go this way for the plot to work. bad bad plotting.

➖ mari is my worst nightmare, i don't think i like her. or in a way i do, because she's a boss lady with grey morals and gets shit done in her own unique ways. but she first of all has a horribly tiny part in the plot for being supposedly such a crucial element of it, AND i would absolutely fucking hate someone like her existing in real life because i do not want to be perceived. her miraculous riches are a huge deus ex machina for every single plot point of the story, like, the reason anything can even happen here is that mari has endless pockets. again not very credible.

➖ a big part of the plot deals with mafia gangsters and their prostitutes from latvia. i'm not a big fan of this kind of rep for eastern europe. ESPECIALLY because the two main women are from finland and there's this kind of perverted comparison of finnish women being super independent, super talented, fantastic and beautiful, need no man superhumans, while eastern european women don't have any other prospectives than becoming whores for a living. i vomited a little in my mouth when i read the back cover and its title is "DO NOT MESS WITH FINNISH WOMEN". uugh…. yeah.

➖ this is more just my queer ass reading a very heteronormie not-queer book but this would have been so much better if there was romantic and/or sexual tension between lia and mari. instead this does this very Man Writing Women kind of thing where it's unnecessarily dropped here and there how both have one night stands with men like the Independent Strong Wumyn they are. if i'm asked, the only practical reason to have those sex scenes (AND them both pining for the same man, apparently) implied is because lia is trying to fill the lesbian yearning for mari in her heart by sleeping around with men, ugh GET A CLUE! what wasted potential

⭐ score: 3+ -- this is neither plus nor minus, but this book is from 2011 and feels like a relic from the past. it's pre-brexit and pre-2016 and among other things relies heavily on the idea that it would be ludicrous for a white supremacist rightwinger who's been charged for sexual assault to ever have a successful political career. haha. hahahahaha. hehhe! i guess on one hand i could give this credit for predicting the political scene so accurately.

[nerdishfeels]

Jane Austen April Wrap Up! 🌸🍁

@mercy0121 @hklunethewriter @shadowtearling

So this month, I wanted to read The Invasion of the Tearling but unfortunately I didn't get enough time (I know, I am failing badly at buddy reading lol). However, I did finish two Jane Austen novels for uni, which were Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. I thought it would be cool to review them here! Spoilers below!

Pride and Prejudice:

Rating- 5*

I have to admit, my uni is getting me more into classics, which i'm loving!

At first, I was a bit worried I would find it difficult to understand the archaic language in these books (although I had read Jane Eyre when I was younger and I enjoyed the writing and the victorian setting so I had high hopes of enjoying it). And I was pleasantly surprised when the words started to flow easily. I even got the gist of some words I didn't know.

I loved reading from Elizabeth's point of view. I found it really refreshing, having a heroine questioning the need for women to marry men purely for their fortune.

This was exactly what I wanted in a romantic book, to see the emotional connection between two people (I.e Elizabeth and Darcy) and how they make each other better.

I thought it was cute when Darcy would randomly walk with her, without saying a word 😉

I liked the range of relationships that were shown and how they contrasted with the main couple.

My favourite scene (excluding the romantic ones) had to be the one where Lady Catherine and Elizabeth have a dispute. I loved how Elizabeth countered everything Lady Catherine said and how sassy she was. For example, when she says that even though there isn't an official engagement between herself and Darcy, if Darcy did propose to her, she wouldn't refuse. Elizabeth literally shuts Lady Catherine down nicely.

There were times when not much happened, but those were very short moments.

I loved how close Elizabeth was with her sister, Jane and her father, Mr Bennet (like how he told Elizabeth he would never forgive her if she did marry Mr Collins 😂). I always love seeing sweet family dynamics in books.

Mr Collins is a pretentious jerk. That is all.

What I also liked is how it related to my culture, with the idea of arranged marriages. At the time of Orientalism, there's always been this notion that the west think they're superior and not "barbaric" like the east. But the funny thing is that the West and the east are very similar, especially in the sense of marrying men who are rich. Ironic, huh?

Persuasion:

Rating: 5*

I thoroughly enjoyed this book too!

I felt I could relate a lot to Anne as a character, with her being relied on to solve everyone's problems and her lack of self-esteem. It was really nice seeing her develop and grow more confident with her abilities and feelings.

Even though Anne rejected Wentworth first out of duty, I felt like it was because she knew how obsessed her family were with money and status so she thought if she let him build his status, he would be more favoured by her family (which does happen).

I liked Wentworth as a character. I understood how hurt he must have been when she rejected him. Even though he tried to ignore Anne, I was at least glad he wasn't mean to her in any way (obviously because he still loved her and he was kidding himself by acting otherwise 😂).

Again, I liked seeing different relationships, especially admiral Croft and his wife. It was sweet to see how close they were and how they travelled a lot.

Unlike pride and prejudice, I felt sad that her family practically ignored her. Her father was such a judgemental guy (I have never seen a guy so obsessed with appearances), Elizabeth was meh and Mary was very annoying (yeah, there were times when she was alright with Anne but come on, she isn't exactly the "best" sister. Even at the end, she was like, if Wentworth earns as much as her father, she would stop associating with Anne, like what??).

I enjoyed reading about the navy and how they earned prize money after the napoleon wars (pretty cool!).

I loved the scene when Wentworth gives Anne his letter ("I am half hope, half agony". How romantic is that??).

I felt like the novel just ended, you know? I wanted to read more!

I'm really glad I had a chance to read Jane Austen's novels! I'm definitely gonna check more of her works. Let me know what you think of these books. Which Jane Austen book should I read next? 😁