Reading wise, it’s been a slow quarter… work has caught up with me, and struggling to keep up with my reading targets. Sadly, only managed to read about 5 books over the last 3 months… way behind my usual standards… oh well.
On the plus side, I recently joined Netgalley, a site where you get to read advanced copies of books, since I’ve been branded an “influential reader” (awesome!!). So, let’s put my influential reader status to good use and review a couple of recent books I’ve read.

The First Fifteen Lifes of Harry August – Claire North

This was an incredibly fun read, and extremely happy to have come across it. The story itself might ring a bell to those who have read Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. Basically, the main character gets to live his life over and over again, but each time he’s reborn, he remembers everything of his previous lives. As such, we get to ride along on his adventures as Harry August revisits the 20th century again and again. The story lacks a linear structure, one chapter we are on his sixth life, the next on the twelfth, which demands a lot of attention from the reader, and makes the book much better because of it. Overall, a highly enjoyable read, perhaps so far my favourite book of the year (it’s still early), and strongly recommended. 5 stars!

 

The Quick – Lauren Owen

This has been a hard book for me to review, as comparisons to “The Night Circus” and “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell” raised my expectations considerably. And though “The Quick” was a good read, can’t say it was great. I had not read much about the plot, which was a good thing, as the actual theme took me by surprise. The author did a great job in setting up the story and the atmosphere, and the book had some great moments. However, the pace felt a bit off: too much details on bits that felt unimportant, other sections rushed, without much development. It was a solid debut (I wish if I ever do write a novel, it would come close to this effort), but just did not do it for me. Shame, because I really really wanted to like this book, and perhaps because of those high expectations, it felt a bit flat to me. Nonetheless, will be keeping an eye out for further work from Lauren Owen. Let’s give it 3.5 stars.

Tune in for more reviews… although at my current speed of reading, might be a while… <deep sigh>