It is in a box somewhere. I forgot I even started it. I will come back to it when the library is packed up.

I started on an e-book format. but I really can’t enjoy it that way. I’ll take it up again when I can get a printed version.

I think I may have been too distracted by outside stuff to get as absorbed as I would liked by this book. I liked the plot and the adventure aspects, but the present-tense writing, which usually gets on my nerves, didn’t help me as a reader, though I can see where it was used for atmosphere.

This was so good! I’ll have a review up on my blog in a few days. But in short, let me say, so much of it was honest and true.

I started reading this on the day my boyfriend and I broke up (I had gotten it in the mail the night before). It hit too close to home and I had to put it down for a few days, though it’s really good so far. It’s about a couple who have a very unstable relationship and have a list of things they want to do before they break up for good. The woman, Isabel, is so afraid of never leaving an imprint on Al’s heart, of just disappearing and ceasing to exist for him after the final parting. It’s something I can fully relate to. I started it again today at work, when I came to this passage, I had to put it down again:

“Now she pressed up against him, dabbing his shoulder with the one tear on her face, the one she’d missed, hoping he might absorb something of her. Hoping, somehow, to leave part of her inside.”

I started tearing up. I’ll need to restart it when I’m at home.

Not worth it at ALL! Not this time, at least.

It’s so freakin’ good! It’s every adventure and fight against evil and coming of age story all rolled into one. It’s redemptive and suspenseful and triumphant. Read it!

It’s so lush and visually spectacular, and not just in the futuristic scenes. I’ve seen ‘In the Mood for Love’ twice, and saw the connections between the two movies. I can’t wait to see ‘Days of Being Wild’.

Who writes a 100 page epilogue? Who ends a 1400 page novel with a 50 page treatise on military theory and existentialism, never again referring back to the story or its characters? Well, it seems Tolstoy does. I do not know enough about Russian literature to know whether or not that is a common device, but I found it redundant on many points. That said, I did like the dynamic characters and I learned a lot about the era in which they lived. I think Tolstoy could have been a little less ‘obvious’ in expressing his feelings for Napoleon, and that he could have let the story illustrate his philosophy instead of beating us over the head with it in the conclusion of the work.

This is a mixture of erotica, retold fairy tales, and graphic novel. It was a gift from my boyfriend, who knows me better than he thinks he does. I’ve only just begun it, and it’s beautiful, naughty, and literate.