#rg2u

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Book to screen: The Umbrella Academy

It is usually said that books are better than their cinema or TV adaptations. Details missing, changes in the plot, characters are changed or are just not there... If you really love the book chances are you will be disappointed by its adaptation. 

This may be true in most cases, but not this one. While The Umbrella Academy comics are original, interesting and entertaining, the Netflix adaptation is certainly a hit. Not only it is pretty accurate compared to the comics, they took it further and gave us more plot and more depth of the characters. 

You are probably more familiar with the TV show than with the comics, anyway. So was I. But I liked it so much I decided to give the comics a chance. There are three volumes of The Umbrella Academy comics, and I’m pretty sure there are more on the way. And, of course, there are differences between them. 

If you are curious about the differences between the comics and the show or you want to read the comics and want to know what to expect, keep reading. If you haven't seen the show, though, be careful, you may find spoilers. 

First, and what surprised me the most, season 1 of The Umbrella Academy is not the adaptation of just volume one, it is actually a mix of the first two volumes. The comics are actually quite short and they go straight to the action, so just one volume would not be enough for a whole season as it is. As far as I can tell, those are the only volumes they used to create the show, I have seen no reference to volume three so far. 

Actually, when I started reading I was quite confused because, having watched the show, there were just too many things missing. It took me reading the second volume to understand that half the plot of season one actually comes from volume two. For example, Chi Chi and Hazel are pretty important characters in the show but they do not appear until the second volume in the comics (and still they do not last long in it). For this reason I think it would make more sense to read the comics before watching the show and not the other way, like I did. Everything will just make more sense. 

Another thing that surprised me was how the characters are portrayed. The main characters are mostly the same in terms of personality, but the physical appearance does change a lot from the comics to the show (maybe Luther is the exception). Also in the show you get to see them interact a lot with one another. That doesn't really happen in the comics. For example, Vanya becomes a villain in the comics pretty early on in the first volume so you don't really get to know her or see her interact with her family like you do on the show. 

Ben is also mentioned but doesn't really appear until volume three (just barely), while in the show he's present in most of the episodes thanks to Klaus. I love Ben so that was a bit of a letdown. Also, now that I mention Klaus, I think the Klaus from the TV is so much better. The Klaus from the comics is darker and not nearly as interesting. The Klaus from the show is so funny and captivating and extravagant, he really is one of the best parts of the show. Though I may not be entirely objective, I do have a soft spot for Robert Sheehan.  

In terms of the plot, while most adaptations usually leave things out, this one actually gives us more context and more depth. The story in the comics is a bit too rushed in my opinion and there's just so much going on that it's a bit confusing at times, especially considering the plot in the comics is a bit weirder (the Eiffel Tower actually being a spaceship kind of weirder). The show fixes that, connecting the dots and giving us more backstory but, at the same time, keeping many details from the comics that are just delightful to see. 

Personally I prefer the show over the comics. The adaptation gives it a more realistic tone that is sometimes hard to find in graphic novels. But if you like the story and/or the characters give the comics a chance, you may enjoy them a lot too. Now, what to expect from season 2? I actually have no idea. Based on the trailers, it seems that this season is going to be mostly inspired by volume 2. However, many elements of it were already used in season 1 so I am not sure what they are going to do. If you've seen season 1 and want to read the comics, go ahead. You probably won't see any spoilers. If you haven’t seen the show yet and want to read the comics before doing so, please do. You will probably enjoy both a lot.

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

The Devil All the Time; The Darkness Within

It's always tricky to adapt a book. They have so much information about characters, places, context, etc. and movies just can't include everything. Unless the movie in question is several hours long but who would watch that? Honestly, I think book adaptations should come with a 'proceed with caution' warning sign, just to avoid hurting some people's sensibilities. Wait here for a second while I send an email to Netflix…

Back on track, I always recommend reading the book before watching the movie, for different reasons. The most important one, and this is my personal experience, is that if I watch the movie first I will just not find the motivation to read the book. And it’d be such a shame if I missed a great book just cause I was okay with just watching the movie.

So, having read the book and then having watched the movie after, let me tell you this. This movie needs no warning whatsoever.

I have very rarely found a movie that is so accurate to the original book like this one. Of course there are some elements missing, but that’s just what anyone would expect. Overall, not only I have not one complaint, but I have to praise whoever adapted it because they did an excellent job.

The Devil All the Time is a dark thriller based mostly in post-World War II America and the 60s in Midwestern America. It’s a crime book about the darkness that can be found inside people, even (or especially) in the more religious, well-mannered ones. It explores this inner darkness and how it manifests in different types of people from a very religious point of view, one where you may become capable of anything if you don’t have a strong connection to God. From cold-blooded murder to bullying, manipulation, vengeance, etc. You can follow a catalogue of sin where no one is safe.

In terms of the movie, it has to be said, the cast is incredible. Most of them are well-known actors and they just do a great job of showing this inherent evil in the characters. Tom Holland plays Arvin Russell and he's presented as the main character but, if you're watching the movie because of him, don't be disappointed if he's not there most of the time. Both book and movie don't focus on just one character; they fluctuate between all of them and eventually show how they are all connected.

(Other amazing actors in this movie are Bill Skarsgård, Sebastian Stan, Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska  or Harry Melling [I think he does a really good job]).

One element I really loved is that the movie has a narrator that is none other than Donald Ray Pollock, the author of the novel. If the author approves the movie and also does the voiceover for the narrator, that’s as good a sign as you can find.

Personal opinion: if you are not into this kind of dark, crime novels (not everyone would like to read about animal sacrifices or a couple murdering hitchhikers) watching the movie is a great alternative. It is a very interesting story and it is portrayed so accurately that I was able to recognize many dialogues lines of the book in the same exact context. Book or movie, I definitely recommend The Devil All the Time.

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Folie a Trois: a group read of... More Than Maybe by Erin Hahn

The supporting characters

Ariadna: From Zack to Meg, Phil to Marcus... I really liked that the supporting characters had background and depth... for a YA romance novel, that it is. Ok, they are not the deepest, most exceptional characters –they are a little bit stereotyped, and everything is sooo rose-coloured tinted–, but I appreciate how the relationships between them are depicted and how every one of them has their own unique quirks and background story. Nevertheless, I must add... I think Hahn’s attempt to make all the characters these goody-two-shoes has made some characters sort of a decaf version of what they should realistically be, see Charlie Greenly, Phil Josephs, Cullen... At times they were so soft they became even boring to me. I understand Hahn’s religious views, but honestly, no one is that good.

Alicia: I liked the supporting characters quite a lot, actually, all of them. In many young adult novels you find rather flat secondary characters that only exist to complement the main characters, but not in this one. All of them were complex, with their own defined personalities and their own stories. There were a few moments when I got a bit irritated by someone's actions, Cullen uploading Luke's song behind his back, for example. But real people are flawed and make mistakes so it's only fair that fictional characters do, too. 

Marina: First off, I have to say I loved all the secondary characters. I have to agree with Ariadna though, they are not overly deep but they get you right on the feels. I especially enjoyed seeing the different relationships between them –Zach and Cullen <3–. To be honest I found it a bit frustrating that they all kept telling Vada how amazing she is and how well she’s doing but it takes Luke, a person whom she’s officially met recently, to stand up to her dead-beat father. Talking about fathers, Phil is an amazing father figure and I’m really glad he at least encouraged Vada to follow her dreams. On a side note, can I just say that the first time I read about Cullen and Zach I pictured a more lanky version of Emmett Cullen dating Zeke (from high School Musical)? And that’s why I found it hilariously amusing when they started talking about Teen Wolf. Whatever happened to those DVDs?!

The ‘Bad Apple’ club aka Charlie Greenly

Ariadna: We all grasp to certain extent how business —corporate, big-money businesses— work, and it is understandable Charlie’s nasty partners took advantage of a teen’s rage burst, but, oh, man, how it bothered me when they tried to ruin poor Phil’s fund-raiser... What bothered me the most, though, is how Charlie Greenly was that blind, how he couldn’t see, beyond his own interests, how important the Loud Lizard was for Luke, his friends and for Ann Arbor, or to what extent the whole ‘Break for You’ issue bothered his own son. I honestly think his heroic act at the end doesn’t quite redeem him of the harm he has done. Besides, Charlie was supposed to be a Punk-rock star... What’s really left of that personality? Has her wife and kids completely transformed him into a dull wimp? Not quite believable, this character is. 

Alicia: Charlie made me so mad at him that sometimes I wanted to throw the book across the room. I understand parents always think they know best, it's in their parent DNA. But it was really frustrating and irritating how he kept trying to get Luke to do whatever he wanted, without considering what his son actually wanted. He kept trying to convince Luke to do something he had stated time and time he didn't want to do and was not going to do. He used him for his own interests and treated him kinda badly just cause he didn't fit with his own expectations for him. Realistic as it could be for most people, it's still shitty. It's almost cathartic how he redeems himself at the end by quitting Bad Apple to support his son but that doesn't change his shitty behavior towards Luke during most of the novel. 

Marina: I mean Charlie didn’t seem the brightest of the Greenly family, to be honest. I think he should probably listen to his sons more (and his wife). I find it hard to believe he didn’t know what he was getting into. He was a famous punk-rocker at a time where you had to be clever and sharp-witted, like, is he smart enough to stay away from hard drugs and keep his career afloat (and later become an accomplished music producer) but not know how to choose business partners? Apparently. And talking about his previous life as a punk-star… Can he stop trying to live his life through Luke? It finally dawned on him in the end, yes, but throughout the book Luke (and later Cullen) explicitly told him he didn’t want to be famous, it doesn’t excuse his behaviour!

Soundtrack

Ariadna: While some of the tracks on this book’s OST are not my cup of tea (see Demi and Taylor), I must confess: I’ve been listening to TøP the whole week. Hahn got me at Car Radio *shrugs*. Working in the book industry, I’ve always felt books, when possible, should offer something extra. I really love that this book, even more considering it is addressed to teens and YA, offers this little something to connect it to the readers’ real world, to make the story even more realistic. I think it is a loss that the book itself doesn’t include a QR code or a link to a playlist itself, but it is an easy search away in Spotify, thanks to some nice reader that has already put it up!

Alicia: I just had this one little issue with the music/artists mentioned in the novel: Vada hates Stevie Nicks and consequently I hate Vada. There won't be any hate towards Stevie Nicks in my presence. She is an excellent artist and I will not hear otherwise. Other than that I actually loved how important music in general is in the novel and how many real actual songs are shared along the story. I expected to find mostly alternative/indie bands so there was no surprise there. And music can tell a lot about someone so it was interesting to see the music Luke and Vada listen to, to understand them better. Also it was really nice to get so many songs in so many different styles to actually discover new songs myself. I'm really happy about how music really does play an important part in the book. 

Marina: I’ve mentioned I like it when authors add their little soundtracks to the books but this one goes far beyond that. You get to listen to the songs throughout the characters’ actions and feelings and the music is not only an add-on but it becomes part of the plot. Which, granted, it’s a book about a girl who writes reviews about bands and a boy that writes songs, how can music not be part of the book? But it goes beyond the “here’s a song that inspired this chapter/book/scene” to a basic subplot. Coincidentally, we all looked up different songs on Spotify because we hadn’t heard them before and we found a playlist made by a reader, we hope you enjoy it too!

Vada and Luke’s relationship

Ariadna: It is interesting to read a YA romance novel in which the main action doesn’t revolve 100% around the romance. It is way healthier than most: both Vada and Luke have clear goals and motivations that are not biased by their relationship, they motivate and encourage each other, there is no narcissistic chauvinist - submissive flower dynamics going on —thank the gods–, and they are supercute and honest with themselves. However —I always have one of these–, it is still a naive teen relationship, mostly in terms of the plotting and the writing. Surprisingly —see the irony— they both have had crushes on each other for years, but they haven’t acted upon it until now. They NEVER fail, get mad, do any bad deeds... ANYTHING. Are they even teenagers? Honestly, I hate when the characters in a book are these holier-than-thou perfection vessels. Added to the not-really-that-big-of-a-deal problems (what happened with the instagram issue? What about Vada’s funds for college? They don’t even really get *really* mad because of the Bad Apple thingy...), they feel kind of bland and not too realistic for my tastes. 

Alicia: At the beginning I thought it was a bit rushed, how quickly they trusted each other considering they had barely interacted before. Even if they had a crush on the other that doesn't mean they actually knew that person, not really. As they spent more time together and got to know each other, their relationship evolved pretty organically and naturally, to a point when it just made sense. It was really cute to see how they got closer through awkward encounters and how their passion for music helped them connect and relate to the other. Having read many young adult romances, it gets old very fast. The stories get kinda predictable and hard to believe. This one also had some predictable moments, almost all of them do, but overall it was a really nice love story, one I could actually believe. 

Marina: To be honest, I expected this book to be less about the music and more about the relationship between Luke and Vada. I think what Erin Hahn accomplished in this book is to show a much more mature relationship than I expected. I thought this would be your typical YA-Romance with a lot of drama and kissing, but instead I got a slow-burn story (so slow, it felt like moving through molasses) with depth, insecurities and, yes, drama. I think both these characters are more mature than expected on a YA romance novel and it was surprisingly refreshing. You still get some teenage-y sub-plots, i.e. the prom or even the 15-minutes of fame; but it doesn’t take away from the blossoming relationship between Luke and Vada.

The Grass is Greenly and Behind the Music 

Ariadna: I must be growing too old for this s**t, but I don’t get the whole podcast/blog thing. I get it, social networking does this kind of thing: turning a nobody into an internet sensation in a matter of days, but... I agree with Alicia, it is too much of a coincidence (one of the deus-ex-machina I so much hate) that both the main characters are internet-known... in a blog, nonetheless! Maybe Hahn could have used precisely this internet presence to make Vada and Luke meet each other, instead of the too-worn-out high-school cliché. And Marina has made me think... maybe some interludes as Cullen’s podcasts, letting us know some behind-the-scenes gossip (The Lindsay issue, Luke and Vada’s first kiss becoming viral, and so on...), would have spiced up the novel a bit more.

Alicia: Okay here's the part I just didn't believe and kind of threw me off a bit. What are the chances of a music blog and a podcast, both run by teenagers of the same age in the same city in the same bar, becoming really popular and actually viral. Who even reads blogs anymore anyway? (Says while writing in a blog). It was just quite hard to believe so many people read Behind the Music that even ROLLING STONE became interested. Yeah sure this extremely known successful music magazine wants a fresh out of high school blogger to work for them. And then the podcast. What could two teens have to say to have a podcast so popular that when Cullen uploads Luke's song it literally gets millions of reproductions and attracts attention everywhere. And both of them being run by two people working in the same place, going to the same high school… the world is not actually that small. Sorry it's just kind of extremely unrealistic and didn't particularly like that part. 

Marina: Seeing the “behind-the-scenes” of the day to day of a podcast was very interesting. I guess it would have been better if Cullen told the story as he is the one that does most of the work. Also, how did they get that famous? Is it just because of their dad? I don’t really get it. On the other side, I find it incredibly unbelievable that a teenage girl has that much input on a music blog that isn’t even hers and gets to go to concerts and stuff like that. I get that Phil is a cool guy but how come the blog is so famous and he doesn’t really care about it or mentions it much during the book besides sending Vada places? I just don’t understand that.

Overall

Ariadna: Honestly, I’m not one for YA romance novels, I think I’ve outgrown them by far, and they usually bore me. That said, this book has surprised me for good. It is a light read, doesn’t follow the genre clichés, it doesn’t make everything revolve around the main characters’ love interest, the supporting characters have personalities of their own and it has a wide-ranged well-put playlist, which I think is great for teens and young adults to read. I particularly didn’t like the religious issues coming up from time to time, but, overall, this is the best written book of the three we’ve already read for Folie a Trois, and that’s a lot to say! 

Alicia: Overall it was a really cute book. Initially it took me a while to get into it cause the plot wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, that was a tad disappointing. But then once you begin knowing the characters and they begin to know each other as well it's quite captivating and easy and quick to read. I really enjoyed the love story, I loved how diverse the characters are and how they interacted. I really like how the plot develops, too. If you're looking for a soft, cute, easy enjoyable read I definitely recommend this one. 

Marina: As most YA books that I read, it was entertaining but it didn't change my life. I really did like Vada and Luke's relationship, as I said I find it more mature for this genre; the music was a big highlight and the drama wasn't overwhelmingly dumb (as is the case in some other books). Overall a good book for summer and a light read for any other season ;)

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall  

Release date: July 7th

Two words: fake dating. I love this trope, even though it makes the story kind of pretty predictable in most cases. But ah the thrill of two people who don’t like each other pretending to be a couple, pretending to be affectionate, and maybe ‘pretending’ to kiss… and somehow, some way, along the way, they fall in love. There is no chance I’m not going to like this. Also, if Christina Lauren approved it, yeah, I’m gonna love it for sure. I’ve had this book in my to-read list for a long time, I’m really excited about this one.

Or What You Will by Jo Walton

Release date: July 7th

Although I didn’t especially like the cover and didn’t know Jo Walton, the Hugo and Nebula awards are more than credit enough to give this book a second look. And thanks I did, because the argument I found… *chef’s kiss*. It is a meta-linguistic fantasy about a character inside a writer’s mind that has to find a way for her master and himself to survive death. I feel drawn to this book by how un-chichéd the fantasy is and how adult the argument seems to be. It is the kind of genre book I would like to be able to recommend non-fantasy readers to read!

The Princess Will Save You by Sarah Henning

Release date: July 7th

Why I want to read this book: Because this wouldn’t be a New Releases post without one of us fangirling over the GORGEOUS cover design by Charlie Bowater. And also because I’m here for any book that has a female hero that looks like a badass and doesn’t take s*** from her male counterpart.

Peace Talks (The Dresden Files #16) by Jim Butcher

Release date: 16th July

I confess: this series is one of my guilty pleasures. Clichéd characters in very similar story lines throughout the series, maybe, yes… But these funny bastards grow on you since book one. They are all-in-one page-turners: roller coasters of tension falls and hilarious twists and moving chapters and scary battles, and when you finish them, you feel exactly like you stepped down a Six Flags attraction. So yes, this book had to be here for me!

More Than Maybe by Erin Hahn

Release date: July 21st

Why I want to read this book: I might not know a lot about music but I love to read about the “behind-the-scenes” shenanigans. It seems that you get to see that in different points of view, as the main characters come from two unique backgrounds. –Marina

I’m always interested in books that have music involved somehow, it’s a two for one. And for some reason I feel I’m really going to like these characters, maybe the cover has something to do with it. Whatever it is, something about this book seems really appealing to me. –Alicia

Lately, I’ve been reading some ense literature, and I’m in need of a light breeze of a book as this one. It reminds me of my teen years, when I had crushes on famous singers and I daydreamt of writing letters to them and getting to know them in person and so on. I think this read is gonna be entertaining and easy-peasy! –Ariadna

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

Release date: July 23rd

Why I want to read this book: Ireland was a second home to me for a little while and I always like reading about the country. You don’t see very many Irish authors on the media, so the fact that Emma Donoghue has carved a little niche for herself with books like ROOM and The Wonder, makes me really happy.

Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Release date: July 28th

Rivals who must spend time together and then they realize that maybe they did not hate each other after all. Another overused trope I fall for time and time again. I love me a good cliché, there’s nothing I can do about it. Also apparently there’s some linguistics involved and I’m ready to nerd out about it. And, to be honest, I was a bit intrigued by the title and cover. Yes, I do judge a book by its cover, don’t we all?

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

What comes to mind when you hear “time travel”?  Some may think of futuristic kevlar-armoured suits and quantum-powered machines, others picture romance in the Highlands from two or three centuries ago, travels to medieval times filled with magic, or changing —or protecting— major history events. Sure, everybody has heard of the Outlander series, Wells’ The Time Machine and A Wrinkle in Time, but here are some of my time-travel reads through the years.

All Our Wrong Todays, by Elan Mastai

First novel of TV writer and producer Elan Mastai —name may ring a bell from This Is Us—, it depicts Tom, an unhappy man in an utopian future who is accidentally time-stranded in our 2016. I won’t spoil you any more of the plot, but let me say I wasn’t expecting this good of a book. I picked it up —bright colors and shiny spiral— at the publisher I was working at the time and though I expected something lighter, funnier, it captivated me from the first pages.

The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley **currently reading**

This has been one of my women writer choices for this October and, as with Mastari’s book, it has captivated me from chapter one. Let me note here that I’m reading it in my native language and, since the cover rocks, I’m unapologetically putting it here —c’mon, you have to admit it’s better than the original!. Seeing the cover, one may think, too, that this is a sci-fi, light time-travel book. Well, let me stop you there. It starts hard, like a punch on the face, but I love how insightful it is, how inconspicuously reflects the best and worst of humanity in a far future that, space travel apart, is not that different from our reality. If you can, give it a try, because I think it truly deserves it.

Paper Girls, by B.K. Vaughman, C. Chiang, M. Wilson, J.K. Fletcher

Great writer meets great art team in a time-traveling graphic-novel series with 80s vibe and aliens! The paper girls, a group of young teens who deliver the local newspaper on bikes, find themselves in a somewhat Orson-Welles-ian world. People disappear, strange creatures attack classmates and, at some point… they start time-traveling and meeting their future and past selves! Aaaaand I won’t be spoiling any more of the plot, feel free to read it if you wanna know more!

Old Magic, by Marianne Curley

Precedent YA novel from the early 2000, depicts a romance between two students who, unknowingly, are connected through magic, a magic that’s going to send them through time to find their powers… and their love. Very light and cute on the romance, I read it when I was 12 or maybe 13 during a family weekend trip to the mountains and I couldn’t put it down. I still remember when I finished it, I was left feeling that melancholy of a good book, that leaves you wanting more.

All Souls Trilogy, by Deborah Harkness

Back when Twilight was still a thing, there was a wave of romance novels with vampires and other magical creatures involved for all ages. I remember coming across this massive hardback novel on April 23rd (here in Barcelona, Saint George’s is a big day) and completely falling for it. I took it with me on summer vacation and I read it all day long… Even in the car! Although the first book is all set in modern day, the second book takes the main characters, a witch and a vampire, to the Elizabethan period, in an intrigue-filled narrative with guest appearances such as Shakespeare or Marlowe.

The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

Last but not least, our last Fa3 book from last month. Ok, I know what you’re thinking, I roasted it on the review… But mental health issues aside, it poses quite an interesting time-travel slash alternate reality dilemma, and though the idea is not the newest, most surprising take, it is nice to see time travel applied to other, not-that-typical genres. In the end, who wouldn’t want to get a second —or third, or fiftieth— try at their lives?

These are some of the thousands and thousands of books on time-travel… Which is your favourite? Join us in the debate!

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

The Kingkiller Chronicle’s mad post of theories

As fans of Rothfuss’ writing may have heard, there has been some turmoil lately regarding the publishing of the third book, from Pat’s publisher, Betsy Wollheim’s statement («I’ve never seen a word of book three»), and the suspicious Doors of Stone leakage that turned out to be a joke (ending in «It’s way worse than that. I am an author who has tricked you...»). But we will not dwell on the writing or lack thereof, on Rothfuss personal issues, the drama between author and publisher or the readers that selfishly feel entitled to insult a writer for not delivering as per their wishes (no more toxicity, please!). We are here to enjoy the books, and we have come to discuss one of Pat’s favorites: THEORIES.

It is widely known among fans of Kvothe’s story that Pat Rothfuss describes himself as a trickster with words, and has bragged since the publishing of The Wise Man’s Fear that he wrote the ending of the trilogy in book one... Fans have been theorising for years, now, and have come with more or less plausible, more or less bizarre theories. We —and with that I mean ‘I’, for I’m the KKC-obsessed one of the group— have collected some of them and summed them up here. DISCLAIMER: these are *a few* of them; please, don’t bite me, eager Rothfuss fan-haters!

The Doors of Stone The title of the third book entrails some mystery per se. The most obvious theory is that it has something to do with the door Kvothe finds in the library at the university, the one with the four plates. Maybe Auri (see below) has the key to that door? Is it related to the Amyr in any way? Or is it just a red herring? On TNOTW, Skarpi mentions Lanre «[setting the beast, his enemy] beyond the Doors of Stone». In TWMF, when Felurian explains the theft of the moon, she refers to the shaper of the moon as being trapped behind Doors of Stone (Coincidence? I don’t think so), and she refuses to speak his name, which leads us to...

The Chandrian ...Haliax, the leader of the Chandrian, the enemy of the Amyr. It is somewhat implied in Felurian’s words that the shaper must be (if not themself) related to the Chandrian. And, may Haliax be the beast Lanre trapped behind the Doors of Stone? Or is Haliax another name for Jax/Iax, the stealer of the moon? Very suspiciously similar names, aren’t they? Maybe he is both! And Cinder, our dear Cinder. It is curious, to say the least, how coincidentally...

Denna’s master ...Denna’s master is called «Master Ash», which could refer to the tree, but also... To cinder! Could Denna be related to the Chandrian via her master, then? Or is it with the Amyr? His master could also be Bredon, as they seem to disappear both at the same time... (Keyboard is gonna hate me for writing «coincidence» too many times today.)

Bredon So, could Bredon be both Denna’s Master and Cinder? It is obvious he hides something. Is he a Chandrian? Maybe an Amyr? What were his true goals, why did he befriend Kvothe, to make him do something he shouldn't, like help the Maer Marry Meluan Lackless?...

The Lackless ...who, apart from being (almost canon by now) Kvothe’s aunt via her sister Netalia (Arliden sings about her wife, K’s mother: «It’s worth my life to take my wife not tally a lot less...», now read it out loud ;D), and apparently loosely related to the Chronicler himself, Devan Lochees, it is also rumoured to be Bredon’s daughter! In that case, Bredon would be Aucleus Lackless, aka, Kvothe’s grandfather! And, of course, the owner of...

The thrice-locked chest ...the chest that Meluan Lackless presents to, among others, Kvothe, which is said to smell somewhat ashy, burned and citric, just like the Cthaeh. It is said that precisely its words brought Kvothe to his own downfall. May the chest that...

Kote ...has in his chambers in the Waystone Inn be the same chest Meluan Lackless had shown him? What does it lock? Theories Kvothe’s Shaed, his lute, Saicere... the true identity of Taborlin the Great, and even Iax’s moon! The most plausible, though, is that it keeps Kvothe’s name locked, his true nature... It’s not coincidentally that Kilvin says that disaster hits every seven years, «Chan vaen dan Kote», Kote meaning disaster... We still have to unveil what disaster did Kvothe bring upon himself to end up in the Waystone Inn...

Kvothe Reading carefully, one cannot overlook how Kvothe’s eyes change colour according to his feelings. He seems to be too good at whatever he does, as if being struck by some sort of otherworldly luck, if you know what I mean.. Could Kvothe be, in fact, son of a Fae? May he have something to do with the real...

Amyr These hunters of the Chandrian, the Holy Order of the Aturan Empire that have supposedly been dismantled for centuries may be, in fact, closer to Kvothe than he seems to notice. Are they controlling the politics (and therefore, meddled in Meluan’s marriage to the Maer or even Kvothe’s acceptance in the University)? Apart from Bredon, some theories point to Master Lorren, Master Elodin and even...

Auri, the blonde girl who is rumored to be Princess Ariel, the one Kvothe saves from Sleeping Barrow Kings. There even is a rumour that relates her to Laurian, Kvothe’s mother, because of their names (Laurian). In their many encounters (including TSROSL), Auri gives many gifts to Kvothe, including a key (maybe to the library door?), a candle and a coin... the magical objects in possession of Taborlin the Great. Auri is also frequently compared and related to the moon... May she have something to do with the moon, Iax and, ultimately, with the Fae?

Bast ... prince of whom is Bast, Kote’s apprentice and most-fangirled bastard in the series. It is still a mystery how he came to meet Kvothe and why are they together. Is his and Felurian’s son? It is to be understood that they met or that Bast himself came to his encounter in the mortal world, since if Kvothe had entered the Fae realm, Felurian wouldn’t have been too keen on letting him go for a second time. Besides, we all kind of freaked out at the ending of TWMF... What is he trying to do with the Chronicler? What are his intentions in making his master remember? What should Kvothe go back to that is so crucial to Bast? What we know for sure, though, is that Bast will never finish reading Celum Tinture. It’s a fact.

There are thousands of other theories, too many to include in this post (and you probably wouldn’t have made it to the end of it), but we would love to know yours! And, who knows, maybe we can update it upon the release of Doors of Stone! Meanwhile, we will still enjoy rereading TNOTW and TWMF for the hundredth time and fantasizing of Kvothe’s red hair and sweet voice playing Tintatatornin in the Eolian once more.

Ariadna

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

The Guest List, by Lucy Folley

More P.O.V.’s = more reliable narrator(s)? 

Alicia: For me, part of the appeal of a thriller or crime novel lies in having an unreliable narrator. The less the reader knows about the characters the better, especially to create suspense and have them wondering who could be the killer until the very end. In this novel, we receive too much information right from the get go. That almost makes this novel a drama more than a thriller per se, cause there is very little room for thrill or surprise with that many points of view. And there's a reason why thrillers don't usually have many narrators: it doesn't work. 

Marina: What I usually enjoy most about suspense/mystery novels is actually not knowing anything about the different characters that come into play when there’s a murder. I think by giving the reader different points of view throughout the novel Folley changes the theme: it is no longer a mystery it’s become a family drama. I admit it still got me with the different secrets (see below) but it didn’t feel like a mystery, which is what I was expecting when we picked this book.

Ari: I agree with Marina here, it was exactly what I was thinking for the first half of the book: ‘This is a family drama’. I don’t like how Foley jumps from character to character: it is messy and some chapters don’t even move the plot forward at all. Besides, it felt the narrative was too much on Jules’ side (bride, bridesmaid, and wife of her best friend), even though in the end it isn’t, and all the feminine characters sound so much the same I even kept confusing Hannah and Olivia’s chapters. Metaphorically speaking, reading this book felt like watching an Alexander Calder sculpture, different shapes and colors spinning without much of a sense until you look at the big picture.

Stereotypes

Alicia: I don't mind a stereotype here and there but this book has maybe one too many. The whole haunted castle/mansion thing is a bit overdone but okay, I'll take it. Then there's a graveyard. And a mysterious dangerous cave. Lore about death. Fog. A storm. A power cut. Even a 'ghost' at some point! I thought it was too much and too shoehorned and even a tad too obvious. If the story is good and it's well written, you don't need to add so many extra elements of suspense. The actual plot should be enough. 

Marina: Oh my God! So many stereotypes! To be honest it got boring by page… I don’t know 20? Same thing as before, I enjoy discovering the little secrets on my own as I read the novel so having the symbology be described by the different narrators felt forced. “Oh, look, a cormoran! Those forebond murder you know!” Like, no s*** Sherlock. Or the whole spiel with the churches being haunted, it just wasn’t for me.

Ari: I have almost twenty notes (kid you not) marking things I found way too straightforward for a novel of this genre. The birds, the graveyard, the church in which they marry being in ruins... Even characters thinking ‘This place has made me think of death” a day before the wedding even happens. Come on, are you kidding me? Are readers of thrillers so dull and narrowminded that the writer needs to make these “mysterious hints” so bloody obvious? Even the style in writing was too obvious and direct that it felt there was almost no real mystery whatsoever, being everything so unambiguous.

Secrets/motives

Alicia: While it does make sense that you need many different motives for the 'everyone wanted to kill him but who did it' concept to work, these seem incredibly forced. There are just so many coincidences I am willing to accept. There's Johnno who discovers he basically fucked him over, which is an acceptable excuse. Charlie had a traumatic experience because of him, alright. Then it starts to get messy when you find out he's the guy that Olivia had a 'relationship' with for a while before he disappeared once she told him she got pregnant. I mean, dating and marrying Jules after dating her sister is sketchy enough already. Then turns out that he's also the one responsible for the suicide of Hannah's sister? And the boy that died because of him is Aoife's brother? It got to a point where these motives were too random and too exact at the same time that it got almost too ridiculous to be taken seriously and I lost all interest I had left. 

Marina: I have to admit I didn’t really think about who was going to be murdered because I kept expecting the “past” scenes to be over and  thought there would be a longer “now” narrative (spoiler: there wasn’t). That being said, Wouldn’t it have been way more dramatic if there had been, i don’t know, clues or something more tangible to tie everything up together? I guess I always imagine a detective character figuring everything out, I really like to follow their train of thought and how they get to the final suspects/motives. In the end, the reveal of the murderess wasn’t even that shocking, we all knew who had killed him, we all wanted Will dead, big f***ing deal. I usually really enjoy being surprised by the different plot twists but, even though I didn’t expect them, I looked forward to them because otherwise it was a bit boring.

Ari: It was clear to me who was going to be murdered from the first chapters. It was not until the second half of the book that the secrets and motives came to light (once you detangled one, the others came rather easily) and they seemed far too “coincidentally” aligned to be believable. The one I did not expect, though, was the most crucial, that I have to give to the book. But it kind of annoyed me that, having had all the drama develop so slowly and erratically during the first half of the book, this particular secret motive wasn’t even explained at all, like a Deus-ex-machina-ed subplot to catch the reader by surprise (pst, not worth it!).

Plotholes

Alicia: I try to overlook plot holes in every book I read, especially if they're details that are kind of insignificant to the story. I understand that it's not easy to create a complex story out of thin air and many novels have plot holes, it's okay, I can look the other way. This book is no exception. The difference is there are too many plot holes for me to ignore all of them. Did seriously no one recognize Freddy? What happens after Will's body is found? It's literally his wedding, his family and friends are there but we barely see a reaction. What's the point of the seaweed in the bed? Charlie, Hannah, Olivia and Jules don't really get closure, we don't get to see much of them after the wedding or what we see is pointless. Does Johnno come forward about what he has and hasn't done? What about the rest of the guests? There are many questions I don't get answers to and it kind of annoys me.

Marina: My biggest concern with the whole plot is that it kept going back and forward to explain the connection between the characters and at times it felt very forced. In the end, this turned out to be some petty revenge novel to kill someone who was indeed very cruel and self-centered. But if you want me to read it tell me that on the first place, I would rather read a book about a would-be-murderess and how she’s going to kill a guy that has ruined so many people’s lives than what I actually read. 

Ari: How the hell did Will not realise who Olivia was? Even though she didn’t introduce him to Jules at the party, they must have been there long enough to at least see Jules from afar. And he may have realised at some early point that Jules’ flat was where he met ‘Belle’... And how come the Trevellyan gang did not recognise Fatfuck? Not even the headmaster!

The ‘disappointing’ end 

Alicia: The biggest issue for me with the end is that the build-up until the murder is enormous, the actual murder is not interesting or elaborate enough and then the conclusion is very short and insufficient. 300 pages for the different backstories, 5 pages for the murder and 10 pages for a resolution. If you give us 5 or 6 characters' backstories with complex issues and then completely ignore these characters once the murder has happened, this is just not enough and not okay. The climax happens too late and it's barely a climax and the aftermath is almost nonexistent. Feels rushed and poorly executed. I was seriously underwhelmed.

Marina: Look I’m going to give Folley a little bit of a leeway. If what she wrote as the “murder” (I’m sorry I can’t even call it murder) was, say, in the middle of the action, the reader would have gotten the experience of at least going through a bit of the aftermath of that death. Instead we get a rushed 10-15 pages about the different characters which, to be completely honest, was underwhelming to say the least.

Ari: As I said before, I didn’t much like the unexpected ending, as it seemed pulled out of thin air, and all the building up of the previous 300 or so pages was somehow worthless in the solving of the mystery. Therefore, all of the sub-plots regarding other characters were left unresolved, but not in a good “let the reader reflect on them” manner, but as in “I have to finish the book and I don’t have enough pages”. What about Olivia’s abortion? Jules doesn’t even know about it. How is Jules going to react to the murder, the night of her wedding? What happens between Hannah and Charlie? It surely has put Hanna’s life upside down, to have discovered the why’s of her sister’s death. Does Johnno get blamed for everything, without any defence, as a pay-up for the death of Loner? And more important, what about Frank and Aoife, did they marry just because of their past? Did Aoife bargain the wedding just as a way to get revenge? Too many plot holes in this fast-paced wrap-up. 

Unmet expectations

Alicia: I had very high expectations about this book, I was truly really excited about it. It has good ratings, an apparently really interesting plot, it has been listed in some great book clubs... It looked very promising. Until I started reading. There are many reasons why this book was disappointing, explained in the different topics above. For me it's simple. It's almost inconceivable that a book that's marketed as a crime novel about a murder in a wedding won't actually tell you that there has been a murder and who has died until almost 300 pages in, with close to no real resolution afterwards. It's bordering false advertising.

Marina: I kept expecting for the murder to happen and every time I thought “here we go!” it was just another scene from the wedding, which to be honest wasn’t even that interesting. If you think about this book being a wedding retelling it might be a bit more accurate than actually saying it’s a mystery. I wanted to be kept at the edge of my seat by what was going to happen next! I just don’t get how this book got so hyped up for the mystery part!

Ari: We chose this book from the June releases because all of us thought a good thriller would spice up our readings, and it was chosen as the book of the month in Reese’s book club, which made me think it had to be especially good. I read reviews comparing Foley’s writing to Agatha Christie’s and, as much as I can see the parallels between The Guest List and Christie’s novels like The Orient Express (many characters having motive to kill ONE other very-mean character) or And then there were none (character murdering many for their offences to them… on a deserted island), I don’t think it is even slightly fair to compare the writing of the two. And here speaking someone who was disappointed by The Orient Express’ way too much ‘divine intervention’ solving.

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

Beach Reads

When we reviewed Beach Read (by Emily Henry) we were highly disappointed by the little reading that was done at the beach, thus we thought to recommend our own favorites. Whether you read them at the beach, on a bus or sitting at your local coffee shop, we hope you enjoy them!

The Hating Game, by Sally Thorne

Alicia: Personally, one of the tropes I enjoy the most is 'enemies to lovers'. I find it so thrilling, I just can't get enough of it. If you're like me, this book may be for you. Sweet and sexy and perfect to take your mind off things. (Also, apparently there’s a movie adaptation in the making starring Lucy Hale and Robbie Amell, and I really hope it's not going to end up being cancelled because I’m really excited about it now)

Tweet Cute, by Emma Lord

Alicia: This one is more on the teen side, but it's still such a good option if you want something to read that won't make you use your brain too much. It's a really fresh and enjoyable story full of funny tweet wars and an 'enemies to friends to lovers' plot that is so cute and adorable. It's so light and quick to read and if you give it a chance, it may surprise you.

Did I Mention I Love You, by Estelle Maskame 

Alicia: This one is somewhat controversial. The main characters are step siblings (no blood relation whatsoever), and some people don't feel comfortable with that, so it's definitely not for everyone. If that's not a problem for you, you may enjoy this series a lot. It's so quick to read and almost addictive. There are three books and a 4th one with a different point of view, so you have a bunch of books to binge-read if you want something light.

 The rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson

Ariadna: If you are a fantasy reader, you sure have heard the name Sanderson at least once. He is one of the masters of the genre, known for his prolific, intertwined worlds and complex magic systems (they make such sense that sometimes you wonder how come they are not real). He usually writes long, rich books, but this one in particular, being directed to a younger audience, is supereasy, superfun to read. In a world where the chosen ones can invoke magic through chalk drawings, Joel, who knows everything that needs to be known about the Rithmatism but has no magic ability whatsoever, and Melody, a terrible Rithmatist student, to win a competition and solve some bigger mysteries. A must-read if you love a good fantasy novel with impeccable worldbuilding.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman

Ariadna: Eleanor Oliphant follows the same exact routine everyday, the same sandwich for lunch, the same cup with the same tea, the same phone call from her mother ever Wednesday... She is so organised and thorough it is borderline sociopathic. But her life will turn upside down the moment she meets Raymond, her work colleague, an unapologetic opposite to her.

This novel is a ray of hope for those who feel weird and mildly left behind in society. I bought it without much expectations, and it surprised me how much you could empathise with such an eccentric character who, in the end, suffers as any of us do. It is full of delicate moments, daydreaming, kindness, pain and unconditional love — a fuzzy and heart-warming novel of self-discovery and overcoming of the past traumas which will leave you feeling optimistic and, somehow, sheltered.

If Only It Were True 1 and 2, by Marc Levy 

Ariadna: Lauren is a pretty and successful medical resident working in the Emergency Room of San Francisco Memorial Hospital who suffers a car accident. Arthur, a single, thirty-something architect rents a flat in San Francisco to the family of a girl who is in a coma... And starts seeing her! You may have guessed right, the ghost is none other than Lauren, and together they will go to unimaginable lengths to help Lauren go back to life.

This plot may ring a bell to some. Yes, the movie «Just like Heaven», starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo, is based on the first book of this series, so I won’t spoil you the sequel. If you don’t feel like reading a book of a movie you have already seen, I recommend you to read any other book by Marc Levy —a French romance writer whose short novels are full of light-hearted, optimistic relationships and wondrous journeys (both literally and figuratively) to self-discovery. I personally enjoyed The first day and The first night as well as The strange journey of Mr. Daldry.

The Martian, by Andy Weir

Marina: If there’s something I enjoy doing at the beach more than escaping the scorching heat, it’s reading. The Martian is one of those books I could read a hundred times. It has science facts explained for us lesser humans that know nothing about space; whitty and dry humour that makes you put your book down because you’re laughing so hard; and a trip to Mars, what’s there not to like? This astronaut’s diary is the perfect companion for a day of reading at the beach.

If you think this reminds you of something that’s because there’s a movie adaptation starring Matt Damon, Sebastian Stan, Kate Mara and Jessica Chastain (it even has a little cameo but I’m not going to spoil who it is) that’s also very entertaining. Though, folks, this is another one for team “The book was better than the movie”.

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, by Joël Dicker

Marina: If you’d prefer a mystery for the ages with flashbacks to the time of the crime, here’s a book for you. Dicker’s debut novel, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, takes place in New Hampshire when a novell author takes refuge after a (too) long writer’s block to seek inspiration and visit his old mentor. Who so happens to be the main suspect of an old murder case that took place in 1975. A well crafted and fast-paced thriller you can enjoy while tanning ;)

What’s even better, after the success of his first book, Dicker has published more thrillers that have been very well received among fans of the genre. 

Stars of Fortune (The Guardians Trilogy #1), by Nora Roberts

Marina: Now, I know what you’re thinking: Nora Roberts only writes romance books, wrong! He has a couple of amazing urban-fantasy sagas that are amazing. One of them is The Guardians trilogy. It takes place in the Mediterranean (this first book begins in Greece) and Ireland. Six people are brought together by the stars to Corfu to find and protect the stars of fortune from evil. 

I have to warn you though, this is a Nora Roberts book and there is romance involved. Each book revolves around one of the couples (what, you thought destiny brought together six adults and they wouldn’t end up dating each other?) and their roles in the group.

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

Stereotypes Galore 

The Best Laid Plans, by Cameron Lund

First published: April 7th by Razorbill.

Summary: Keely is the last virgin in her group of friends. She thinks in order to date (and have sex with) her hot new co-worker, she has to have experience and enlists her best friend Andrew for the task.

Things this book is kinda good at: the friends to lovers theme. Things this book could do without: toxic relationships, misogynistic messages, and girls being super mean to each other for no other reason than there needs to be a mean girl and “oh she’s my friend I can be mean to her”, is that the message you want young girls to get?

I’m reading this from the point of view of maturity and adulthood, I know what High School is like and this should not be the takeaway. I think if I had read this while I was a teenager it would have made me (much more) insecure about my choices. And even though the ending kind of fixes it, it doesn’t help that throughout the book you get messages like: “it’s ok if the boy I like tells me not to hang out with my friends”, or “I can’t tell the guy I’m kind of seeing (not really because even that wasn’t discussed seriously) that I’m a virgin because he won’t like me anymore”, “I have to have sex to be a proper, grown woman.

These are messages that young girls (and boys!) should not be reading about. They should know it’s crucial to discuss these things with a potential partner, if you’re embarassed about being a virgin should you even be thinking about having sex? There’s nothing to be embarassed about. And even though, the author tried to get that message through with the ending it reads as Keely being pressured to loose her virginity either way. It should be about the love between these two friends not about the sex. Losing their virginity to each other should be a special and beautiful experience if they love each other, right? They almost had sex in a hotel closet!

Also.. Do you really think being a virgin excuses Andrew’s behaviour of being all “Party Andrew”? You get toxic masculinity throughout the book excused by “oh, it’s High School in a small town, wait until we get to the big city” or “boys will be boys”… Excuse you, there’s the same amount of b***s*** in and out of small towns, being in a city has nothing to do with this. I think the author should have tried to show that even though they live in a small town it doesn’t make it ok for guys to be assholes and for girls to bully each other.

I couldn’t really even see if Andrew and Keely loved each other. What I like about the friends-to-lovers theme is that you can see that evolution, you can see the characters grow. I didn’t see that in this book and it was kind of annoying taking into account it was the whole point. I’m sorry but I’m just so disappointed.

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

A UNIVERSE OF WHAT-IFS: or what overthinking can do to a person.

Again Again by E. Lockhart

First published June 2nd, 2020 by Delacorte Press

Summary: Adelaide is a girl with a very discouraging summer ahead of her. Her boyfriend just broke up with her and she's heartbroken, her relationship with her brother is delicate, her studies are going downhill, and all she has is her summer job walking dogs in campus. Then she meets Jack and everything changes, in many ways, in many different universes.

My personal opinion: Lockhart has a very personal style of writing, a style that makes her stories completely recognizable as hers but that, at times, can be a tad confusing for the reader. She mixes present and past in a very subtle way that allows you to paint a more complete mental picture of the story. In this book it goes ever further, as we have not only present and past, but also the present of other alternate universes.

I think this is a very clever representation of overthinking. We can see all throughout the story how doubt and overthinking can affect the outcome of our actions. The more Adelaide ponders about what to do or what to say, the worse it gets for her. This is even more evident by the end, when we get to see an alternate universe in which she acts without doubting herself. Even if it's not a happy ending as such, we see how she ends up happier than in any other universe, with better relationships with friends and family and a reencountered confidence. This is such an intersecting way of portraying a life lesson for the reader.

Another thing Lockhart does very well is creating characters with dimension, flawed and real, as well as relatable stories, full of twists and endings that are not necessarily fairytale happy endings. In this book you never know what you are going to get. Alternate universes aside, there are many elements in this story you just don't expect and that's what makes it so captivating as well as confusing. For me, that's the magic of it and the appeal of Lockhart's writing style. In real life you also get surprised, positively and negatively alike, by people, circumstances, turns of events... sometimes things don't turn out as you wanted them to. She manages to really show that arbitrariness of life in her stories.

Rating: ★ 3.75/5

Related to this book: Another great book I recommend from E. Lockhart is We Were Liars.

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

The Book of Regrets

Ariadna: I love how the author puts them down on paper —or on video, considering Hugo’s version of the library. Regretting past decisions is part of our human nature, and most of us live in societies that, even though improving, do not give much space for vulnerability and emotional talking. I found it very interesting how writing them down and reflecting —or acting, as Nora does— on them may help us improve, be more gentle and understanding with ourselves and, in turn, with others around us. I think it is a great symbol of how our regrets weigh us down and how we can deal with them in order to raise above them and grow.

Alicia: If I had in front of me a book of everything I regret and I had the chance to change things, would I? Yes. Hundred percent yes. Cause I am a very regretful person and I have done bad things, treated people badly and just fucked up in many many ways. So if I could I would change about a million things, no doubt. However, I don't have that book. And I can't change things from the past. I can only make sure I don't make the same mistakes in the future. Having regrets is natural but also a royal pain in the ass, pardon my French. I have had sleepless nights cause I remembered that one time I embarrassed myself in front of a guy I had a crush on when I was twelve. It sucks. And I'm slowly but steadily trying to come to an agreement with myself that everyone has done things they regret and it's okay, and I just have to move on. Hopefully one day I will fully embrace this thought.

Marina: I’d like to think everybody has a Book of Regrets, be it a literal book or an imaginary one. We all have made choices that we may regret later on in life even though we thought they were the right ones at the time. The fact that Nora sees them all in writing is, comprehensively, overwhelming; I too would feel pain if I were shown all my regrets in one sitting! But otherwise, it’s a way to show the character (as time goes on in the narrative) that she can overcome them, they were the choices that made her Nora, not Nora the swimmer, not Nora the singer, just Nora. And that’s what I take away from the book: life is not pretty and we may regret some choices, but in the end it’s what makes us real and how we got to this point in our lives, even if it’s not the best of times, we will endure.

The library/videoclub store/restaurant, etc (or why it changes from person to person)

Ariadna: At first, it seemed weird that there existed other versions of the «library». Don’t get me wrong; it seems very organic to me to start reading a book or a movie and being transferred to that particular life, I understand how that plain of existence shapes itself according to the psyche of the individual to accommodate them, make them feel secure, calm, at home, in a way. It just didn’t make sense that you ate spaghetti bolognese and were transported into a life in which you’ve moved to a small village in Tuscany and worked as a photographer in a vineyard state, for the lack of a better example.

Alicia: I think it was such a smart move to have different people go through the same thing but with a different setting to fit each individual's life. It made so much sense to me. Everyone goes through different experiences and feels attached to different things, so the most logical thing would be to have a specific setting for each person according to what they feel the most connected to. I like the library the most, especially because the idea of each life being a different book for you to read is fascinating. But I couldn't help imagining an infinite Blockbuster full of movies of your other lives and I love the concept as well. Now that I think about it, mine would probably be some kind of online streaming service. An afterlife Netflix of sorts.

Marina: I found this part very beautiful. The fact that it changes from person to person to best fit their personalities. I thought about what this in-between place would look like for me but I honestly couldn’t come up with anything! There’s not a place that I associate with complete and utter happiness. I have been happy in many places and sad in many others, so to choose just one is very difficult for me. 

The ending (it cuts abruptly)

Ariadna: Suffering mental illnesses myself, the ending pissed me off. It is predictable, clichéed and plainly boring. Too “feel-good” for me. I think Matt Haig, having suffered depression too himself, could have taken the opportunity to dwell on real ways to deal with this kind of mental illnesses, instead of creating an imaginary place after commiting suicide where you are given a magical second chance (or third, or fourth, or twentieth). This is straightforwardly triggering and naive and does not give much other message than “you just wait, some day you’ll reach rock bottom and suddenly, if you don’t die, you will be awarded a magical 180 degree turn in your life and everything will be better in a split second”. I get it, he wants to highlight how seeing things from different perspectives may help, but that’s not the way to do it, not at all. I think you already got how pissed I am, so I’m leaving it here.

Alicia: The ending was pretty predictable, some parts of it. For me, at least. But still I liked it. Being a person suffering from anxiety and a bit of depression I know it's not that easy and nice and cute. But, at the end, it's a book and it's fiction and I'm not going to try to solve my life with it. What I took from all the lives and the ending is that there are always going to be regrets, no life is perfect, thinking about what could have happened doesn't help anything. Nora realizes what she wants in her life, what she misses, what she did wrong and works to fix that and be nicer to the people around her. I think it's a nice take. Realistic? Probably not. Depression is not gonna just leave. But I think it's quite optimistic and hopeful and that's not always a bad thing.

Marina: To be completely honest I expected how the book would end from pretty much the beginning. So the fact that it ends where and when it does did not surprise me much. I think Matt Haig  could have done a better job. Talking about it with Ariadna and Alicia we have come to the same conclusion: how does Nora deal with her depression? Does she all of a sudden get cured? Or does she still have mental health problems from time to time? It would have been a better ending if it addressed some of those issues but overall it was expected that it wouldn’t.

Mrs. Elm

Ariadna: We all tend to idealise people who do us good or help us in hard times, specially as children. If we are to recall them, we remember them wiser, warmer, prettier... Imho, the library version of Mrs. Elm is an idealisation of the real Mrs. Elm. Being the only supporting adult in her childhood, more specifically, when her father died, Nora considered her a reference, an idol, if you want, so her mind has idealised her like some sort of a gurú or wisewoman. I would have loved to see how, meeting her again in real life, Nora could pinpoint the differences between them and acknowledge that even her young days’ idol has flaws and is a human being like any other. In the end, we tend to love people more because they’re flawed that we would if they were perfect.

Alicia: I think we all have met someone at some point that we looked up to. That person doesn't have to be perfect, or the smartest, or the best person out there. Probably we don't even know that person fully well. But for some reason we find comfort in them, we feel safe. The Mrs Elm from the library and the real Mrs Elm are not the same person. Sometimes we create a mental picture of people that doesn't 100% match with reality, but that doesn't mean it's not true for us. Real Mrs Elm said she was a bad wife and not a good mother, she maybe wasn't the person Nora thought she was, but she was still kind to her and took care of her when she needed it the most. Everyone can make mistakes sometimes but some things can't be faked, like true kindness. Maybe it's a bit naive of me, but I think mistakes can be forgiven if the person really is pure of heart. I think these kinda people are rare. At least, I haven't found many. (Truth be told I tend to easily see the bad in people so I am not the greatest example here). I think that in my library I would find a literature professor I had in my freshman year of college. I rarely talked to him outside of class, and if I did it was barely greeting in hallways, but I admired him so much and I felt at peace when I listened to him speak. I think he would be my Mrs Elm.

Marina: The differences for me are obvious: Mrs Elm in real life is a person, just another normal human being with problems and regrets. Her library counterpart, however, is just an entity that guided Nora through her regrets and helped her “overcome” them. So, in a way, we could theorize that the Mrs Elm in the library is really Nora’s own conscience trying to help her through her mental state.

Quantum theory or the multiverse

Ariadna: I love the idea of the multiverses (who doesn’t, after the whole MCU multiverse, timeline altering mumbo jumbo), of how a single minor decision can change your life drastically. I found it somehow inspiring and terrifying at the same time. It is scary to consider the power every little decision has in your life, how it can turn your life upside down but, at the same time, it offers billions of possibilities, it encourages you to try, to get past the infamous Book of Regrets, for you never know if a «bad decision» could have turned otherwise even more awful than what you think is your life now. It’s all about perspective.

Alicia: I am completely enthralled by the concept of the multiverse and also confused as heck. I am not one for science so really specific explanations just sound like gibberish in my mind, but the idea of an infinite number of universes existing simultaneously blows my mind. I keep seeing it in movies and TV shows and I fall for it every single time. At the same time, it stresses me out a little bit. It makes me wonder what I am doing differently in those other universes, am I happier? Am I successful? What if in one universe I worked harder or wasn't as picky and I managed to get a job I truly enjoy? What if I moved to a different city like I have always wanted to? What if I wasn't as afraid of living...

Marina: I geeked out a bit, not gonna lie, when Hugo explained the whole quantum theory of the multiverse. I’d like to think there’s one Marina out there that, for example, knows how to speak perfect Chinese; or runs marathons every year  (though that would be very hard!); or dresses like a hipster or a million other things. I do believe that every choice we make turns into a different reality; but, just the same as it creates a new universe, it makes me who I am. It makes me the woman that writes about books for fun, that likes to have dinner with her friends and get a little tipsy on one cocktail or too shy to talk to anyone but will power through a public talk because she is also a bit of a badass (if I do say so myself ;P). And even though I get sad sometimes because I regret some choices I made, in the end, it brought me here and I have to believe it’s where I am meant to be. I sound way more chipper about it than I actually am sometimes… I mean, I do try to look on the bright side as often as I can!

Nora’s “perfect” life and why she didn’t choose it

Ariadna: Maybe you’ll call me spoilsport, but I think nobody gets their real “perfect” life, that it does not truly exist, because then accomplished turns out to be underwhelming. I think that’s what happened to Nora, why she couldn’t stay in that fairytale version of her life: because she was, in some way, bored. She had everything she ever wanted, therefore, she had nothing to really fight for, nothing to make her life motivating and interesting. I think, in the end, life is just the not-so-perfectly balanced mix of good and bad times, successes and failures. If all we did was win, we would end up not valuing the successes and living a bland, boring life. I think one of the main morals of this book is precisely to learn how to value good and bad times equally, to learn to find the good in the seemingly awful and the bad in the seemingly perfect to find the right in between.

Alicia: I knew quite early on that she'd end up going back to her original life, I think it was quite predictable and expected. However, that didn't stop me wishing she decided to stay in her 'perfect life' with Molly and Ash. Mostly cause I was rooting for her and that happy ending she seemed so desperate to find, and this seemed to be it. She could finally be with someone good who loved her, have a loving family, a good relationship with her brother, have a nice career in philosophy... it was just perfect, but it wasn't hers. And being honest, I also wouldn't want to live another life that wasn't mine. Even if it belongs to myself from another universe, it is still not mine to live. I rather have a life in which everything I have, I earned.

Marina: We all would love to have that “perfect” life, or what we think is a perfect life, right? To have a bigger house, a nicer car, a sexier body, or whatever you think “perfect” means. But not many people can say they actually live their perfect life. Nora gets that choice and, as I think many of us would realize,  it’s not altogether what she imagined. Yes, she gets the guy; yes, she gets a great daughter that loves her, but is she happier there than she was in her crappy apartment with her crappy job and her cat? In a way, I guess, but ultimately no. She is aware that this is not the life she created for herself, nor the life she will get to live. I feel like this would happen to all of us if we had the opportunity to live our “perfect” lives, we would get everything we wanted but at what cost? What did we sacrifice to get there? Would it be a price worth paying? As the Stones say: “You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes, well, you might find / You get what you need”.

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

The Modern Modern Prometheus

Frankkissstein: A Love Story, By Jeannette Winterson

First published May 28th 2019 by Vintage Books. Read in Catalan, published November 2019 by Edicions del Periscopi

Summary

Mary Shelley is confronted to the meaning of live, death, love and other major philosophical questions in bringing to life her famous Frankenstein and his abominable creation. His descendant, the transgender doctor Ry Shelley, is equally troubled by these same questions in the awakening era of the AI.

My Personal Opinion

This book caught my eye because it was defined as a «queer sci-fi retelling of Frankenstein» and it sounded too good to be true. Besides, the catalan cover is super appealing, so it was the first of the five books I got for my birthday that I read. Little did I know that it would take me a full 5 months to finish it. 

I guess it has been labeled as LGBT sci-fi because part of it is set in the (near) future, because it discusses sex robots and the possibility of elongating life through technology, and because the main character is trans. Honestly, as these topics do appear in the book, they act as the stage and the fuel for the characters to question their ephemeral lives and eventual deaths, the society they live in (both in Mary’s past and Ry’s future), religion, love and relationships... Ry’s transgenderism is just a mere sexual curiosity, like a freak in the technological society circus that the book displays. Ron Lord’s sexual bots are just an excuse for his misogynistic attitude to be criticised. And Victor... Victor’s an a******e that keeps putting the other characters’ ethics between a rock and a hard place just for his intellectual entertainment and curiosity. The book is a series of events strategically placed to provoke philosophical discussions between characters and without much real action **spoiler: except the very last pages**. I like, however, that Mary is depicted as a strong female in an outdated aristocratic society, even though it deflates along the novel.

Don’t get me wrong... This is one of those books that is bound to become a classic of the contemporary literature. It checks all the boxes: good writing and control of the narrative, intricate characters, grandiloquent dissertations around big philosophical questions and combination of fiction, real history and even a tad of fantasy. I for one, however, am not much of a fan of pretentious literature as such.

Rating: ★ 3/5

Related to this book: **other sci-fi/dystopian books with moral and philosophical questioning**

George Orwell - 1984

Isaac Asimov - I, Robot

Albert Sánchez Piñol - Cold Skin

Ray Loriga - Surrender

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Beach Read, by Emily Henry

Beach Read was a ridiculously well written view on the tragedy of losing one’s father and dealing with a very well-kept secret.

Cover-content

Alicia: Okay, so let’s start with the name. How delusional of me was it to expect an actual beach and people reading in it? Also, the cover does not help at all to make you think you’ve got another thing coming. I don’t think this cover fully represents the concept of the book, to be honest. I mean, spoiler alert, they do read in a beach. At the very last chapter! If you have to read the whole book for the cover to make sense, maybe it’s not the right cover.

Ariadna: I found it quite misleading. I expected sand, sunscreen and ice lollies, but it turned out to be… a lake. A bit underwhelming (the cover, not the book). A romance novel coming out in May, expected to be a Beach Read. Ok, marketing team, we see what you did there!

Marina: I expected a summer romance on a beach in, say, Florida and got an enemies-to-lovers on a lake. I get that they live right on the beach (lake-shore more like) but they barely spend any time (reading or otherwise) there except for the last chapter when they read each other’s books. I guess they must have chosen it because of the title.

Past- vs. Present-January

Alicia: In my opinion, past January was a bit too naive for her own good. She sees the world through rose-colored glasses and that’s okay while you’re young, but at some point you have to grow up and see that life is not that simple. Happy endings don’t just happen to everyone. Not everyone has the luck to have good supportive parents, a career in something you love, loving partners or friends… people are a spectrum and sometimes you just lie there in the grey middle and that’s just how it is. Now, I think the change in January’s ‘personality’, or just her way of interacting with the world, is simply the consequence of life hitting you with the worse it’s got. She has not only lost two of the most pivotal people in her life, she has also found out that she has kind of been living a lie, and also she’s stuck in her career and money is starting to run low. That changes you whether you like it or not. And even though I would not wish that suffering and pain to anyone, I think she really needed it to finally grow and find herself.

Ariadna: Me being a single, unemployed, 28yo romantic booknerd born in January whose father died a bit more than a year ago, January’s description in the first chapter felt almost like a personal attack. Overcoming her emotional turmoil post her father’s death, all the doubts, the anger, the sadness… Imho, all that makes the new January much more plausible character-wise than the “rose-colored glasses” Janie from before. I really liked her evolving through the chapters into a less naive, more realistic and emotionally intelligent adult.

Marina: Even January says it during those first few chapters: she was living in her head, a life that could be but never was. I can only imagine what it would have been like had she not lost her father or never discovered his affair. Then again, she was wound to find out eventually as he writes in one of his letters. This “new January”, as she keeps calling herself, to me is a medium point between the January that believed her life to be a romance novel and the January that knows her life is not perfect and that’s ok. Throughout the book January explores herself, the character development is there, though subtle.

The families

Alicia: It was a bit hard for me to relate to January’s family issues. The same way I don’t believe in perfect love stories, I also don’t believe in perfect families, so the fact that January’s family is represented as such a perfect unit just makes it a bit too unreal for me. And I don’t need a cheating husband, which felt a bit too shoehorned in the story, to know that it just couldn’t be that good. It’s definitely a ‘too perfect to be true’ kind of situation that only really happens in novels. And I know romance novels are labeled as ‘fiction’, and this is not supposed to be an accurate depiction of any real family. But still this kind of perfect people with perfect relationships makes me not connect as much to the story or characters, ’cause I don’t believe in perfect anything. Gus’ family, on the other hand, seems painfully real, damaged, abusive,… which is not nice. But family is not always nice.

Ariadna: Even though both Janie’s and Gus’ family stories are crucial to the plot, both “alive” families seemed too artificial to me, put there by the author just to help move the plot forward, as could have been any other character. I felt the relationship between January and her mother could have been explored a great deal more, and it would have helped her make sense of her father’s secret without the deus-ex-machina in shape of letters. Gus’ aunt and her wife felt a bit neglected to me too. I understand the journey of mutual understanding and openness between the two main characters, but I think Pete’s big mouth could have been a greater catalyst for the big fight… which actually wasn’t either. Too random, too vanilla for my taste.

Marina: Can I just start by saying I think it would have been way more realistic if the author had introduced more interactions between January and her mother and Gus and his aunts. The reader barely gets any context on what’s going on with January’s mother. She is also a grieving person and I feel like the author centers too much attention on January’s feelings about being betrayed by her mother and too little time exploring how to deal with those emotions, or how THEY dealt with those emotions.

The romance

Alicia: I’m about 0 percent romantic. I don’t like romance. I don’t believe in it. I believe in love but not fairytale romance. So I am always a bit dubious when I read romance novels ’cause it just doesn’t seem realistic to me. And this was a beautiful love story, there’s no denying that. And I’m a sucker for an enemies-to-lovers story. But this one in particular felt, maybe, too cliché? Maybe. For starters, what was the chance of her moving next door to her college enemy? This is the US we’re talking about. Over 300 million people. My scepticism was too strong for this. Cliché #1. Then, turns out, he loved her basically from the get go. She thought he hated her so she ‘hated’ him as well but they had been ‘thirsty’ for each other the whole time.. The ‘I look at them all the time but they never looks back at me’ type of thing. #2. Then little clichés all over the place. Confessions and kissing in the pouring rain. Notes through the window Taylor Swift style (I did love this a lot to be honest). Letting her go because she is too pure for this world and he doesn’t deserve her… Anyway, this book kind of failed at making me believe in romance, but still made me root for them and their love story which is a lot.

Ariadna: Maybe I’m a bit cynical –which I am, why lie– but I found the romance between January and Gus to be a bit forced, for the sake of the plot. Nemesis turned lovers, both writers, both living next to each other, both developing feelings the second they see each other… I think it would have been nice to use the family stories, the secrets and subplots, to make them connect more, and not fall in love because they already fancied each other but because they really came to understand the other in depth and fell in love with that “new” version of them.

Marina: Not going to complain about this, enemies-to-lovers is one of my favourite tropes in romance fiction. Though at times it felt like reading YA, not Adult Romance because January acts a bit like a teenager at times. For example, when she hides from Gus at the bookstore. And ALL THE DRAMA, by God, the drama! That reads YA through and through. But, oh well, if there weren’t drama it wouldn’t be a romantic novel, would it? Even though the romance is a bit weird, to be honest. The reader knows from the beginning that January is halfway in love with Gus and that’s not really an enemies-to-lover theme, is it? I would have liked it more if January actually despised the guy and then, slowly, came to the realization that “oh, this guy is not so bad!”.

Light & dark personalities

Alicia: There is this part of the novel that especially resonated with me, in which Gus describes his parents as a black hole and a bright light. It took me a moment to digest this ‘scene’. First ’cause I think the concepts of black hole and bright light as types of personality are really good metaphors and I was a bit wowed. Second because I sometimes see me as a black hole myself, and this hit too close to home. It made me reconsider some aspects of myself I do not like very much. I have doubted myself and my relationships with other people one too many times because of this. And seeing a character go through the same process and describe himself in a way I can see myself in, it was hard. I have bright lights in my life and day after day I think ‘one day they’ll get tired of me, one day their light will outshine me forever’. This book, in some way, made me feel seen and understood. And somehow that made me feel better. Gus sees himself as a black hole, but I could definitely see the light in him. January is a bright light but I could definitely see the darkness in her. This book gave me hope that it is possible to find someone that sees my darkness and doesn’t reject me for it, but finds light in it. I’ll hold onto it.

Ariadna: At first, I identified with January because of all she was going through. But as soon as I saw her “real” personality, all rosy and bubbly and outgoing, I fell out of love with the character (see above). However, it hit right in the heart when Gus opened up about his feelings, specially about how he felt about himself. I’ve personally felt like a black hole so many times in my life that, well, I literally cried while reading that. I think that passage is what really made me root for the love story and specifically for Gus. It made him much more realistic than “early-thirties-crisis” Janie, and I love how Emily worked their story and developed both characters to the point where they realise that “bright light” and “black hole” coexist in a person, but don’t actually define them, as a sign of emotional maturity and a glimpse of hope for those who feel lost and broken. Repeat after me, those feelings do not define us!

Marina: When January first started telling her story I saw her anger. Not just towards her parents but the world she had had to survive in. Those first chapters shaped her to be almost embarrassed to have felt that way. I think growing up and seeing how much her parents loved each other and then to suddenly discover that her dad had been cheating on her mother the whole time must have been a huge shake to her world-view. Emily Henry made a wonderful job describing the reticence of losing that last part of your loved ones, the last thing you have that belonged to them. Meanwhile, there’s Gus: a morally grey character who failed at showing his emotions towards January when they were younger because of the way he was brought up. And this brings me back to what I was saying about the families: there’s not a whole lot of background even if at the same time you get parts of their lives before they met.

Overall

Alicia: It is a pretty good novel. It was definitely enjoyable, relatable, funny, dorky… It’s not a novel you have to take seriously word by word. But at the same time it does touch some dark topics and it can be a bit painful to read at times. It surely was a bit overwhelming to me at some points. But I think the tougher themes and the lighter ones are well balanced, and these darker topics give the story a depth that many romance novels do not have. I liked it quite a lot.

Ariadna: At first, I identified with January because of all she was going through. But as soon as I saw her “real” personality, all rosy and bubbly and outgoing, I fell out of love with the character (see above). However, it hit right in the heart when Gus opened up about his feelings, specially about how he felt about himself. I’ve personally felt like a black hole so many times in my life that, well, I literally cried while reading that. I think that passage is what really made me root for the love story and specifically for Gus. It made him much more realistic than “early-thirties-crisis” Janie, and I love how Emily worked their story and developed both characters to the point where they realise that “bright light” and “black hole” coexist in a person, but don’t actually define them, as a sign of emotional maturity and a glimpse of hope for those who feel lost and broken. Repeat after me, those feelings do not define us!

Marina: Would recommend exactly for what the title says: as a beach read. It’s funny, it’s light and you can easily read it in a couple of days while sunbathing and/or drinking your favorite cocktail!

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

Real Men Knit, by Kwana Jackson

First published May 19th, 2020 by Berkley Books.

Summary Four adoptive brothers have to figure out a way to carry on their mother’s business after her death. Jesse, the youngest, has a reputation for sleeping around and that makes good-girl Kerry want to run for the hills. But when the two are thrown together to make this little family-owned Harlem business the best it can be… will they be able to stay away from each other?

My personal opinion The past few weeks have been hard for the black community and this is our little homage to all those families struggling to make a better future for the next generation. We have tried to inform ourselves about the problems they face and how we, as their allies, can help. For us, that means reading books by black authors.

The Strong’s are a band of found brothers that were adopted by Mama Joy. Damian, Noah, Lucas and Jesse suddenly find themselves without the only person that has ever given them a chance to be who they really are, without judging them for their backgrounds: Mama Joy. She seemed to be an incredibly important figure in the neighborhood and her shop was a safe haven for the community. It was disappointing that she was dead from the beginning, I would have loved to see how she interacted with the kids and the OKG (Old Knitting Gang). I bet she was a spitfire!

Kerry was one of the kids that found her place in “Strong Knits”. I really liked that she came out of her shell and decided to take what she wanted from Jesse. And I have to give it to Ms. Jackson, I really liked Kerry. She wasn’t ‘saved’ by a strong man, like Gabriel; she didn’t change a thing about herself to appeal more to Jesse. She did what she thought would honor Mama Joy’s memory, got a great job at the community center AND got a relationship to top it all off.

Talking about the romance part. I mean sure, there was the part where Jesse and Kerry had basically been in love their whole lives but hadn’t admitted it to each other. But that’s it, this is more of a family fiction than a romance novel.

That being said, I think Kwana Jackson did a fairly good job of showing how life in a predominantly black neighborhood feels like. Obviously I can really talk about that much because I have never lived in one. But the relationship between the brothers and Kerry and their community was heartwarming and I hope more people would support each other the way they do.

Rating: ★ 3.5/5

Related to this book: the most important thing to do right now is to inform ourselves, here are some of our recommendations.