The Hobbit

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

I know that this one was not on yesterday's list, but it just came to my mind and I wanted to do it.

Everyone is familiar with the story, but in case you are not here are some clues: It's the story of Bilbo before the events in The Lord of the rings trilogy. (Great synopsis, indeed) So, The Hobbit begins with the meeting of Gandalf the grey and Bilbo Baggins. Gandalf invites Bilbo to an adventure and from that moment on, his life changes quite drastically. 

 As you may know, Tolkien wrote this book for his children and then it became so famous that even 75 years later, we are still reading, watching, and reviewing The Hobbit. Why?  well, here's my opinion.

First of all, the story is so simple it's impossible not to fell in love with it: A hobbit is invited by a group of dwarves to get back their land and win lots of gold. That's it, that's what the Hobbit is, and yet, you are trapped with the way Tolkien explores Middle Earth, you want to be there, you want to meet Gandalf (at least, I want to meet Gandalf), some fall in love with Bilbo (specially after watching the film adaptation) or some fell in love with some of the dwarves (Fili and Kili? What an amazing duo they are!)

Now, It is true that Tolkien's way of writing is somewhat difficult, but the man was a hell of a writer and he knew what he was doing, imagine miss Meyer writing the Hobbit? No? I thought so.

So, moving on from that. There's a lot of characters in this book, true. But there's something in every single one of them that makes you feel related to (maybe not Smaug). The scenery of Middle Earth is just amazing, how did that man came up with all this? I'm pretty sure that New Zeland was the best place in the world to bring that great world to life.

I really have no bad things to say about the book, it has everything one could wish for: great characters, a great world setting, a great story… That, and much more, makes The Hobbit a reference to "Children's fantasy book", a distinction that is very much deserved.

MadHatterSays: Read it!

                               4.5/5

Lists

Hello, I am going to post a quick list of books and films that I will probably be reviewing so you can have a quick idea:

Books: (young adult)
The Hunger Games trilogy
Harry Potter
Insurgent (Divergent #2)

Other: (I feel like including classics)
Some Jane Austen, and Shakespeare
Les Misérables 
The Reader, by Bernard Schlink
Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates
The shadow of the wind
Jurassic Park

Some films:
Any book-film adaptation from the books above and many, many more

If you have any suggestion, please tell me, this is something I felt like doing. Thanks!

The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society

The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society by Marie Ann Shaffer

This book is not particularly famous but it is one of the best ones I've read lately and perhaps the one I've enjoyed the most of last year.

This book tells the story of Juliet Ashton, a writer who gets in contact with someone from Guernsey, telling her about a secret literary society held by the neighbours of the Island to gather together secretly at the times of Nazi invaded Guernsey.

The whole story is told by letters, there is no line in the book that does not belong to a letter and that makes the story very interesting, because you get to know people by their writing rather than the actions they do. It's just amazing to see how well the story flows during the whole book. The characters are great, I fell in love with most of them during the reading, and the story is so full of life you don't want it to end. I have never been to Guernsey, nor I will ever be, probably, but with this book you really get the feeling that you are there, you can feel it, see it even, and that's not very usual in books these days, so yes, this is an amazing book. And to those of you who love romance… well, pick this up right away, you will not be disappointed at all.

Are there any negative things about it? sure, I bet they are, but there are much more good things that, eventually, it's all that matters.

MadHatterSays: Read it!

                               4.5/5

Divergent

Divergent by Veronica Roth

I don't know how familiar you are with this book so I'm going to make a small introduction to the story.

Divergent is set in a sort of "post apocalyptic" future in which society is divided into factions. Everyone must choose a faction when they turn 16 and that choice is forever and they can either remain with their families or move factions and become someone else. That's basically an introduction to the world that the book is set in, I won't tell much about the story in case I drop some spoilers.

I didn't expect much of the book, but lately I've been reading about it and everyone seemed to love it so much so I eventually bought it. I knew that it was being compared to the Hunger Games trilogy (which I will probably review in the future) so that was pretty interesting to me. I also knew that the story wasn't still finished so I was actually hoping to enjoy the book so much so I could experience again what it feels like to be first in line on the release date. Unfortunately, even though I have enjoyed the book (I read it in less than two days), I am not much in love with it as I was with The Hunger Games. Still, the story is pretty interesting and it's very entertaining. The main problem to me was that at some points I kept thinking that the story was a mess and nothing didn't make much sense, and now that I've finished I'm not really sure that I got the whole thing right, but make no mistake, I have enjoyed many aspects of the book: the main character (Beatrice / Tris) being one of them, because of her evolution and actions. 

There are some surprising moments in the story (which I appreciated) and the relations (either with friends, enemies or love interests) were quite well developed.

Even though my expectations weren't much high I still think that I am quite disappointed, because this I feel was a story that could have made an amazing book, and I only found it highly entertaining.

Now, the movie adaptation is in the works and if the blog is still on by its release (the blog, not the challenge) I will probably make a "Book to screen review". I have high hopes for the adaptation and I hope not to be disappointed.

I will read Insurgent as soon as I can, because I do want to know what happens next (which proves the effect of enjoying Divergent).

MadHatterSays: Entertain yourself… read it.

                               3/5

Coming up DIVERGENT #1

I'm just about to finish reading the first book in the Divergent trilogy, I'll be reviewing it today!!

The Host

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

 

I became interested in the book when I found out that Saoirse Ronan was going to be in the film adaptation. A couple of months ago I got it and read it and I still have not had the chance to talk about it much.

First of all, I must say the book's idea sound pretty interesting and at the beginning it turns out to be a delightful surprise. If you are not familiar with the story, it's about a "post-apocalyptic" world in which an alien spices has taken over humanity and the few humans remaining fight desperately to remain humans. Now, that is quite interesting isn't it? So I thought.

I started reading and I got to page 150 very fast but from that on, for some reason, the author decided that a "twilish" romance was much more interesting that the world she had created within those few chapters, in my opinion, not a good choice. The interest in the story went down quickly enough to put the book aside for a couple of months. I got back to it and finished in about a week, still thinking that the whole point of the alien invasion should have been the main focus of the story and not just some sort of background.

The characters in the story are quite interesting, except some of them who make only appearances now and then and don't do/say much. The main role (Wanda/Melanie) is perhaps the most interesting thing of the whole book, they are two different characters, very different actually, living in the same body. But that too falls to impress once the love story starts to become the main focus of the story.

Overall, The Host is a book that could have been if not very book, very interesting, but unfortunately it's only vivid enough to keep you reading. Obviously, if you are looking for a big Meyer romance, this is your book, if not, maybe you should try something else.

I will be posting a review of the film once it hits theatres.

MadHatterSays: Meh…Read it but only if you really, really feel like it.

2'5/5

               

Review Challenge

So I've been thinking and after coming up with some stupid ideas I found one that looked quite interesting. For the next year i will post a review every day, improvement comes with effort! so, here we go!!

P.S. Reviews will be from either books or films, since i will have literally no time to read enough books to keep reviewing one every day, but I'll do my best.

The Challenge? : 365 days, 365 reviews.

Whish me luck!