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Pinocchio: The Tale of a Puppet

Umberto Eco, Carlo Collodi and Geoffrey Brock

7.7 (3 Ratings) Rate It

Book

There was once upon a time a piece of wood in the shop of an old carpenter named Master Antonio....

Melanie Caldicott (6 KP) rated The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake in Books

Apr 29, 2021

I loved the concept of this books and as soon as I heard about it I was intrigued and wanted to read it. I read The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake in a couple of days, which with 3 children rarely happens, so I continued to find it intriguing and compelling throughout.

However, I found the narrative elusive and shadowy which was often frustrating. Whilst I understand that Bender was creating a narrative largely written from the perspective of a child, from whom many things were hidden and secret, I still found that as a reader you were constantly trying to grasp what she was describing and failing. I found this made the book less plausible and destroyed the intrigue turning it into annoying gameplay.

I have read other novels with narratives from the perspective of a child such as The Earth Hums in B Flat, The Book Thief, Mister Pip, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Room etc and found these all to be written far more skillfully than Bender manages here. It is an art to realistically write through the eyes of a child but reveal things to an adult reader through the child's naive perspective of the world. If this is failed to be achieved it can leave the reader feeling frustrated and disillusioned through being led on a journey that is over-constructed and inauthentic.

Kudos

Leanne Crabtree (480 KP) rated Shadow Thief (Flirting with Monsters, #1) in Books

Jan 24, 2021

DNF @ 56%

Contains spoilers, click to show

This starts with Sorsha breaking into a big house where she knows the owner has a collection of creatures in his exhibition room. Shadow creatures that need dark to escape but are kept under blinding lights. Sorsha breaks them all out and is shocked the next morning to find three of them waiting in her kitchen wanting to do her a favour back for freeing them. They also seek her help in freeing their boss from the band of humans who took him - and possibly the same group who tried to take Sorcha's "aunt" many years ago.

I did struggle a little with this one right from the start. I never really got into the storyline but I decided to carry on, thinking the action at the start might continue throughout but it was few and far between.

The description had me intrigued and I don't mind reverse harem books but up to the point i got to (56%) Sorsha had only slept with one of the three demons - the incubus - and was secretly lusting after the other two while trying to hunt down the people who had taken the demons' boss but it was going so slowly... I was bored. I was finding other things to do; buying other kindle books, watching tv instead of being engrossed in this. It just wasn't working for me.