New (and Old) Book Loot

Does anyone else think "Everyday Is Fully Booked Day" is dangerous? Lol. I mean, I'd love a new book a day but I'm not sure my budget will agree. And I'm not sure I'd stop at only one book. Lol. Anyhoo, so much for not buying new books unless I've read half of what I already have. Bought a few new titles last week. 

Wednesday, I got: 

1) The Coffee Shop Book Club which is a collection of short stories from various authors. This was published by the Orion Publishing Group in association with Woman&Home. Apparently buying a copy means donating £1 to Breast Cancer Care. 

2) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt! This 700+ pager is Ms Tartt's contribution to literary fiction this decade. Heh. I didn't think I'd see this right away in Manila but glad I did. Or Anj did. Lol. I'm saving this for when I can read in an slow pace since I'm 14 books away from my goal this year.

I went back Friday and got a few more even if I haven't started on any of the stuff I got Wednesday. See what I mean about "everyday" being a dangerous thing? Lol.

 Friday I got:

1) Room by Emma Donoghue: I saw this Wednesday too but couldn't find a plastic wrapped copy. I know it's the bookstore people that wraps them but I like to fool myself into thinking I get a better deal that way LOL. 

 2) Fyre (Septimus Heap Book Seven): Finally got me a copy and I'm reading this now. This is the final installment of the Septimus Heap series. I haven't posted the reviews on the other books but I have them on Goodreads. 

 3) Dodger by Terry Pratchett: Nuff said.

 4) The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera: That blurb ... LOL!

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I've also been doing an inventory of books I have and found fairy books from those days I was obsessed with fairies! Haha! One is a mythologies book for kids (Fairies by John Malam), the other one a children's story book (Alice the Fairy by David Shannon) and the other is a Disney Fairies' Fashionable Fairies paper doll book I bought on impulse. Lol!

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

I know this has nothing to do with corpses and vampires and the victorian era and their dark lolita fashion sense or any of those other romanticized stereotypes but shouldn't this book be filed under goth? Because it's so ... morose (look who's stereotyping). The aura it exudes is so ... I don't know ... <insert-morose-synonym-here?>. It's just so sulky and disturbing. 

Makes me feel normal to know I wasn't the only kid who ever thought about this dystopian fantasy lol

This is one of the most disturbing books I've ever read and not even in a morbid way because Donna Tartt's prose is far from that. It's mostly because the story and emotions the book stirs is morally complex. And I think that's the best kind of disturbing. Like, here's a kid who wants justice for his brother's tragic death so she goes around town investigating and somehow firmly believes she's found the culprit. Only, this person is not it. Now she sets off to make his life miserable (more than it already is) so since then, every major misfortune that happens to his family is related to what this girl did ... no matter how remotely because her plans don't exactly work the way she wanted them to. BUT we feel sorry for the kid and not the family (it was that way for me up to a certain point, anyway). Maybe because she's a kid? Maybe because the Ratliff's are a bunch of hoodlums? Look how at how Harriet reacts to Odum's kids. Like they're way beneath her.

But here's the thing. Notice that the differences between the Dufresnes's and the Ratliff's also made them similar. The Ratliff brothers were "lucky" they had a "doting" grandmother but then her "words of wisdom" aren't exactly words of wisdom. Their dad beat them and made them grow tough and thick skinned. Now, Harriet and Allison practically grew up unsupervised. Their mother has issues and left them to the maid who only really cleans and makes them meals. And not even proper ones. Sure the maid's a fixture in the house for both kids but that's because their mother is, most of the time, alone inside her head. This made them, in a way, tough and able to fend for themselves. So, clearly, both of them has dysfunctional families. Harriet just came from a society respected family tree whereas Danny was from the slums. Maybe this is me reading between the lines but I think that is the genius of The Little Friend. It discussed so many wrong things about the society without the reader realizing it. Not until we really look into it.

Finally, I get why some people say this is the biggest cock tease of a book. It didn't give us answers. The blurb at the back of the book makes it seem like a kid's adventure and it a way it is. But this is adult fiction. And it never promised a happy ending.

Harriet got her closure ... so should you

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Turns out you don't have to be ... highly versed in the mythologies to be able to appreciate this book fully. There's a lot of reference to it and other classic literature though, and some of it, although not unheard of, I had to Google to make sure I follow the exchange of dialogue but that wasn't so bad. 

What's disappointing is the experience of reading the book. I'm not sure if it's because a) I have read a lot of positive reviews about The Secret History; b) the book is in a lot of to-read lists (to-read-before-you-leave-your-20s, top-100-books-to-read-before-you-die, etc); or c) it was referred to me by someone I hold in high regard when it comes to literature and the arts that made me expect a lot from this book. I guess all of it and that made it bad because from the very beginning I kept thinking "okay, this book will blow my brains out ... any  minute now ... just a bit more ..." You get the drift.

That's not saying I didn't enjoy reading the book. I did. See the four stars? The story is full of intrigue and drama and the prose is simple. It didn't seem pretentious or snobbish which is how I find some mythology/psychology/philosophy-based fiction. I find some writers (and readers!) are so into the genre that they think in the following manner: i-so-love-[insert genre here]-so-im-so-going-to-love-this-book-and-anyone-who-doesn't-is-below-my-intelligence-level. I think at times a book can make a reader think "I'm not worthy of this book". That's not the case with this one. It did not make my tiny brain inferior. Lol. That's a plus for me. 

As for the story, there is so much to talk about but the thing that stuck out for me is the relationship between the main characters. If anyone is worthy of the status "it's complicated" on Facebook, it's these people. I mean, what do you think of the relationship between Henry and Camilla? Between Camilla and Charles? Between Charles and Francis? I think it's disturbing and almost taboo yet it seems perfectly natural. It wasn't shocking. Maybe I was looking for shock value but then again I can't expect to be shocked because the writer pegged the main characters to be obscure from the very beginning. 

I will have to get back to this book to re-read. Sometime in the future. It's one of those stories one needs to re-analyze and see if you still feel the same.
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UPDATE: Apparently I already read this book back in 2004 and I just didn't know the title. It was an old old copy with no covers or anything and apparently, I REALLY liked this book back then hahaha! I guess that was why I only gave it four stars, it sounded like I've read it somewhere before. Derp!