Busy summer season is always one of my least favorite moments of the year. I'm going to be 40 this year and it feels that, as with each new year behind me, my tolerance for heat waves and long hot days is getting smaller and smaller. I don't like a lot of cold but I hate this heat.
Anyway, these busy summer months, mostly due to work, can sometimes be tricky for my reading too!
Thus, a mini-comments post with my most recent reads, of which I don't have much to say...
Anyway, these busy summer months, mostly due to work, can sometimes be tricky for my reading too!
Thus, a mini-comments post with my most recent reads, of which I don't have much to say...
The Perfect Stranger by Anne Gracie is the third installment in her Merridew Sisters series. This time the focus is on twin sister Faith, whom we saw falling in love with a musician in the previous book, believing him to be "her destined one". Well, of course it wasn't so and when this story begins, Faith is somewhat lost on what she can do somewhere in France and is helped by Nicholas Blacklock. Nick is traveling with two friends through France and Spain so he can think of what he aims to do when he reaches his destiny. He decides to help Faith out of chivalry but their connection is strong and he proposes a marriage of convenience, to save her reputation when she goes back home...
I did like this story and it was very easy to read and finish. Faith is a bit livelier than what I remember from he other books, but she is sweet and resilient and I liked the group's adventures. I think the story lost points at the end, by the way the author thought on how to solve the plot's biggest problem. Surely, there would have been a better way... still, it was entertaining, cute and I'm eager to read the last installment.
Grade: 7/10
I did like this story and it was very easy to read and finish. Faith is a bit livelier than what I remember from he other books, but she is sweet and resilient and I liked the group's adventures. I think the story lost points at the end, by the way the author thought on how to solve the plot's biggest problem. Surely, there would have been a better way... still, it was entertaining, cute and I'm eager to read the last installment.
Grade: 7/10
Os Loucos da Rua Mazur by João Pinto Coelho could be literally translated into "the crazed of Mazur street" and is a fictional tale based on true facts. In Poland, during WWII, many Catholic people in certain places/villages were as terrifying to their Jewish neighbors as the Nazis in the the type of atrocities committed. In this story, the author used this idea to explore how things might have happened and how what seems one thing at one time, might turn into another with the right "setting",
This is the third book I read by this Portuguese author (actually born in England) and the one I liked less. The positive aspects in the other books were completely missing here and I struggled to follow the narrative and the amount of characters. My biggest problem was understanding who was who, so much that sometimes I had to go back and try to find where a specific character had been introduced.
I also disliked the writing style here. It felt a little patronizing with so many fancy words and descriptions. I can't be certain but this didn't feel so obvious in the other books. I was also easily distracted by other things and not even the terrible last pages were enough to move me. I've turned the last page happily and the only reason why this doesn't have a lower grade from it is due to the theme, as always, quite well developed and researched by the author.
Grade: 5/10
This is the third book I read by this Portuguese author (actually born in England) and the one I liked less. The positive aspects in the other books were completely missing here and I struggled to follow the narrative and the amount of characters. My biggest problem was understanding who was who, so much that sometimes I had to go back and try to find where a specific character had been introduced.
I also disliked the writing style here. It felt a little patronizing with so many fancy words and descriptions. I can't be certain but this didn't feel so obvious in the other books. I was also easily distracted by other things and not even the terrible last pages were enough to move me. I've turned the last page happily and the only reason why this doesn't have a lower grade from it is due to the theme, as always, quite well developed and researched by the author.
Grade: 5/10
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