The Oxford English Literary History: Volume V: 1645-1714: The Later Seventeenth Century
Book
The Oxford English Literary History is the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse...
The Oxford Handbook of Shakespearean Tragedy
Michael Neill and David Schalkwyk
Book
The Oxford Handbook of Shakespearean Tragedy is a collection of fifty-four essays by a range of...
Vienna: A Cultural and Literary History
Book
From border garrison of the Roman Empire to magnificent Baroque seat of the Habsburgs, Vienna's...
Salamander Sun and Other Poems
Book
Pia Tafdrup is one of Denmark's leading poets. She has received the Nordic Literature Prize -...
The Jungle Book (Illustrated with Interactive Elements): (Illustrated with Interactive Elements)
Rudyard Kipling and Minalima Ltd.
Book
For fans of all ages, legendary British writer Rudyard Kipling's complete collection of enchanting...
The Refugees
9.4
Rate It
Book
From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2016 'A powerful antidote to all the...
Geographies of Sexualities 'Down Under': Gay and Lesbian Geographies in Australia
Book
Australia is both postcolonial and multicultural, comprised of diverse settler (Anglo-Australian),...
Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men
Book
Ozzie and Harriet, move over. A new couple is moving into the neighborhood. In the postmodern era,...
Eleanor Luhar (47 KP) rated Billy and Me in Books
Jun 24, 2019
Despite the gooey topics, this book was easy to sit and read through. The writing was good, though some of the speech didn't feel particularly authentic. My main problem was how cliche this was. A young woman who loves classic literature andworks in a tea shop meets a movie star without realising who he is and falls in love... Yeah, it's kind of a stereotypical romance. I hate this sort of thing. It's tacky and just ugh. But there was more to it than just the romance, which was very good. Sophie had her own issues to deal with, stemming from childhood grief and caring for her mother. It even had a really tragic moment toward the end, that didn't involve the actor - Billy - much at all.
As I mentioned above, the language wasn't always particularly fluid. It sometimes felt like Fletcher was trying too hard to make it more romantic and emotional. Billy was pretty much 'perfect' and extremely romantic, probably extremely unrealistically so. He was likeable, still, just not very realistic.
Sophie herself was a bit... not annoying, but she's not my favourite protagonist ever. She was trying too hard to be unique and strong and independent and it just irritated me. I get what Fletcher was going for (I think) but I just didn't love Sophie that much at all.
Like most other contemporary novels (not that I've actually read many of them), Sophie's life comes together perfectly at the end. Well, not quite perfectly, but the ending was sickly sweet. But I'm a bit of a cynic. You might like this more than me.
Despite the genre and gross cutesy lovey stuff, I think this deserves 3.5 stars. The writing was good and I did actually enjoy reading it.
Becs (244 KP) rated Animal Farm in Books
Oct 2, 2019
Genre: Classic, Fantasy, Fiction, Science-Fiction, Literature, Dystopia
Audience: High School
Reading level: Advanced Fluent
Interests: Classics, Dystopia, Science-Fiction
Style: Advanced Fluent
Point of view: Third Person
Difficulty reading: It was only difficult in the spots that were lacking plot.
Promise: Promise of history related read, it delivers
Quality: Good.
Insights: Animal Farm is a very well-written book and if you like a history-related book along with any literary classic books, you’ll love this book! I, myself, have never really been a huge history buff so to me Animal Farm was lacking an interesting plot. If I broke the book down into two sections, there would be half of the book as interesting and half being monotonous.
Ah-Ha Moment: When the animals overtook the farm and the pigs started to act like the humans.
Favorite quote: “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.” – I really like this because it’s a great representation of humans and earth. How we lack with caring for the planet we live on and that isn’t right.
Aesthetics: The copy that I received had an awesome cartoony cover of the animals which I found quite adorable.
“Four legs good, two legs bad.”