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<i>I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.</i>

Written about a young girl by a young girl, <i>Trying To Float</i> is the amusing, witty story of Nicolaia Rips’ life thus far. About to graduate from LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in New York City, Nicolaia talks the reader through her life from birth, through preschool and elementary school, before coming to rest at the end of her middle school experiences.

As the strap line <i>Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel</i> indicates, Nicolaia has lived in the Chelsea Hotel in New York for her entire life. Her unconventional father and travel obsessed mother decided to settle there after the birth of their only child, resulting in an unusual upbringing surrounded by avant-garde writers, artists and musicians, as well as the plethora of drug addicts, alcoholics and eccentrics.

Although Nicolaia’s lifestyle caused her to be the worldliest wise of five year olds, she was completely alien to the knowledge of friendships, hard work and the generally accepted behaviour of children. This resulted in numerous, often awkward, situations throughout her schooling which, although must have been soul destroying at the time, Nicolaia writes in a highly amusing tone.

<i>Trying to Float</i> reminded me of a television programme aired on the BBC last year: <i>The Kennedys</i> – a story of the daughter of highly peculiar and embarrassing parents, who was constantly surrounded by a mass of oddball characters. I could not help but see similarities even though there is absolutely no correlation between the two stories.

While Nicolaia has based this book on a journal she kept during her childhood, there are many scenes that have been warped by exaggeration and imagination to add comedic effect. Due to this, her original writing has been worked over so much in order for it to flow like a story, that it is more fiction than biographical.

It is not completely clear who the target audience is. Naturally a story about a child’s experiences at school would relate more to young adults, however the coarse language used by the inhabitants of the hotel make it more appropriate for adults. Whatever your age and background, you are likely to relate to something in this gem of a book. Nicolaia makes light of her experiences, but deep down it is a very heart-wrenching story.
  
Grave Mercy
Grave Mercy
Robin LaFevers | 2012 | Children
8
9.2 (5 Ratings)
Book Rating
*I received this copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I'd had this on my "to read" shelf on here for a while and then removed it, thinking that since I very rarely read historical books that I might not enjoy it after all.

What a load of rubbish that was!

The synopsis made me think it would be like the <i>Throne of Glass</i> series and in a way it was; assassin, a bit of romance, but it was also not. This was based on true events and there was a lot of different things happening in relation to the duchy.

I have to admit that the first 10-15% was a bit hard for me to get into. There wasn't too much detail about her time at the abbey and as much as I was interested in what she was learning there that bit started to bore me after a while.

It was only with the arrival of Duval and the sparks they ignited that I really started to get into this. I could tell straight away that something was going to happen there and since I'm a romance reader I was happy that there was the possibility of romance. It was nice reading the slow progression of their relationship as it changed.

As for everyone else; Anne, Isabeau, Beast etc. I grew to really like them. They all added great things to the story.

In relationship to Beast, I would really like to know what happened to him, and I'm hoping I will find the answers to that in the next book in the series.

If you like stories of assassins and romance then you'll more than likely like this.
  
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Karina Longworth recommended Kitty Foyle (1940) in Movies (curated)

 
Kitty Foyle (1940)
Kitty Foyle (1940)
1940 | Classics, Drama, Romance
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Next would be Kitty Foyle, which is the movie that Ginger Rogers won her Oscar for. She is obviously mostly remembered for a singing and dancing star from the Astaire and Rogers musicals, but this is a melodrama – there was no singing or dancing. It basically tells the story of a girl who grows up on the wrong side of the tracks and falls in love with a wealthy heir to a big Philadelphia fortune, and has to navigate romance and class and all of these different issues. It’s a very conservative film and it’s very didactic. It’s extremely problematic in a lot of ways, but I find it fascinating. The performance that she gives, though… I think a lot of times, some of these great stars, they win an Oscar for a movie that’s not their best work, or it’s sort of given as a consolation prize for them not winning for something that is a classic. I think people think that about Kitty Foyle because nobody watches it any more, and people only remember Ginger Rogers as a dancer, but her performance in this movie is stunning. The character she’s playing has to sort of take on different personas over the course of her life and with different people in her life. The way that Ginger Rogers performs those unique and distinct versions of the same person is just really incredible. Obviously, there’s a huge degree of difficulty to a career based on singing and dancing. I wrote about this in my book, but there’s that old line about Ginger Rogers that “She had to do everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels.” The whole idea of her stardom is about how much harder it is for a woman to do the same things that a man does. But all of that said, I think there’s a degree of difficulty to this performance that is the kind of thing that is really, true great acting and great stardom, but it’s the kind of thing where the labor doesn’t show, and so people don’t talk about it in that way."

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