The Book Hour

November was such a good reading month for me - not only did I manage to get to a lot of books, but over half of them were 4 or 5 star reads!
❇ No. of books read:10❇ Pages read: 3356❇ Genres: 1 magical realism, 2 sci-fi, 2 fantasy, 2 contemporary, 2 historical fiction, 1 classic

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan★★★1/2

Even though 3.5 stars is a decent rating, I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t love this more. This is a very moving story that deals heavily with the topic of suicide/depression, which I thought the author handled with great care and the way she crafted her characters and their emotions felt incredibly authentic. Drawing the reader into Dory’s mental state, we get a raw, unflinching look into what it’s like to live with mental illness and the repercussions this has on those who live with you. Leigh was such a flawed, realistic character, trying desperately to make sense of her own half-cast identity and Taiwanese heritage, a complicated relationship wit…

This is going to be an ongoing branch of research that I will continually update :)

How did the work of Nietzsche influence the Nazi regime in the Third Reich?
Recently I've become obsessed with listening to the TSL podcast (Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Moon) and one that particularly peaked my interest the other day was with biographer Sue Prideaux discussing the life and work of 19th century German philosopher and cultural critic Friedrich Nietzsche and how his ideas came to be associated with Nazi Germany. Despite having never even heard of Nietzsche before, my avid interest in absolutely anything to do with Hitler and the Nazi state drew me to this episode immediately - and I was enthralled.

One of the things that Sue Prideaux mentioned that stood out to me was that, had Nietzsche lived to see the rise of Nazism in his home country, all evidence suggests he would have absolutely opposed almost everything it stood for, been disgusted by the Fuhrer’s fascist ideology - so why …

It's the month of Halloween and I truly did my part as a bibliophile to celebrate by reading an abundance of spooky, atmospheric books. Generally I seemed to either really love or really hate what I read, so without further ado here is my October wrap up!

❇ No. of books read:8❇ Pages read: 2956❇ Genres: 2 fantasy, 1 contemporary, 3 horror/paranormal historical fiction, 1 YA mystery, 1 poetry collection



The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
★★

I was so ready to love this book. I was all set to be whisked away into a world of gothic mansions and cobwebs and cults and witchy grandmothers in creaky rocking chairs writing dark fairy tales in leather-bound notebooks. Unfortunately, the truly stunning cover did not live up to the story it packages.
For me, not only was this book incredibly boring but I also feel it’s mismarketed as a YA fantasy. It takes us almost 250 out of 360 pages to even get into the fantasy aspect, by which time my expectations had been so betrayed and I honestly couldn’t h…