I know it's been a while. I've since finished two books and started a third.
The first is The Shadow of the Wind
, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. My version is a translation. It was a beautiful book. There's almost no words to describe it. I teared up at the last page, it was that good. There were a few improbably things that happened in it but they didn't really detract from the story.
The second is North and South (Wordsworth Classics)
, by Elizabeth Gaskell. I'd previously seen the show (I think there are two out there? I saw the one that is on netflix) and loved it. I was excited to try out the book. And now that I have I'm going to have to re-watch the show so I can do a better comparison! I saw the show last spring, I think. The show is about as true and untrue to the book as you'd expect, no complaints either way, except that the show really didn't need the whole "boucher smoking in the mill" scene, it wasn't in the book and didn't add a whole lot to the show except to make Margaret out to be less smart than she is. The book was hard to get into at the start, it took quite a while before I could read it easily. She also jumps viewpoints mid-paragraph a lot, which doesn't really bother me because I struggle with that very thing. Sometimes you just want to tell the start of a scene from one point of view and the end in another, sometimes it just works out best that way. So, while it didn't bother me, I don't know how others feel about that.
My current book is Mirror Sight: Book Five of Green Rider
, by Kristen Britain. I have been reading the Green Rider series since I was 13. She only puts out a book every so many years so this is only the 5th one. But I very much enjoy them. Except book 4 was awful. Book 5 is her chance at redemption for me. Book 4 ended in a cliff hanger and the jacket of book 5 tells you nothing except a recap of the last 4 books. So I went into reading this with absolutely no idea what I was going to be reading, which was kinda fun! The rest of this has spoilers, which I think are mostly minor. I'm 49 pages in and so far I've gone back and forth on whether or not I'm ok with what's going on. I have this to say, if Karigan gets back to her own time (she's time traveled) and she can get Zachery away from Estora I'll be ok with this. Even if she can't get Zachery and we have chapters and chapters of angst if she winds up finding someone she can be with who helps her get over Zachery I'd be ok. But what Estora has done is unforgivable and I can not be ok with Karigan getting back to her own time and not having anyone and Estora just wandering the castle all shoving it in Karigan's face. We've been waiting for Karigan/Zachery for 14 years. It's been getting more intense with each book. There needs to be a resolution. And she needs to give up the stupid staff and get back to swords, she spent 3 books becoming a swordsmaster only to abandon it to take up a staff? But right now I'm still trying to keep an open mind and find out how things are going in the weird Nazi-fied Victorian world she's found herself in. It is interesting, at any rate, and I'm really not that far into it yet. btw, what is up with the sea kings and the awesome zorro-like cousin of Zachery who abandoned his lifestyle to run to sea? Book 4 really had a lot of problems. I really expected for book 5 to start with whatshisname, Agemon? the keeper of the dead, I expected him to hear Karigan pounding on the tomb and open it up and be all surprised. I expected the time line Karigan had jumped to is one where she died in book 3 or beginning of book 4 and gets a do-over. I was wrong, but I do hope she, the author, justifies book 4 somehow or I may not buy book 6 if there is one.
