Hi guys! Just wanted to let everyone know that all my posts will now be here :)
Title: The Story of Hong Gildong
Author: Unknown (Trans. Minsoo Kang)
Year: ?? (ed. 2016)
Pages: 77
Date Read: April 3, 2017
Format: Paperback
Genres: legend/folklore
Rating: 3/5
Note: Minsoo Kang, who translated the text, states that, although the story mentions that it is during the reign of Seonjong, it could either be a misspelling of Sejong or a fictionalized king. King Sejong created Hangul, the Korean alphabet, and the country was fairly peaceful during his reign. It is possible that the story takes place during this time, but it was most likely written later. As the real author is unknown, there is only conjecture as to the exact time of its writing.
Review: This was okay. As with many old, classic but short texts, I feel like I sometimes go in expecting greatness and come out a little disappointed. The book is very simple, which is fine. I suspect this simplicity is because it would be more accessible for the common people, especially considering that they scholars of the time had to read the Five Classics and everything. My problem, however, is that there is hardly any characterization. It's a very simplistic story, and, although there is some element of adventure in it, there isn't a feeling of adventure. It's mostly, "Gildong did this, and then this happened. These people were corrupt, and Gildong punished them." It's unfortunate that I didn't find the book very engaging, but it is an important classic of Korean literature.
All in all, I have to say that this is certainly an important book, given the influence it still has on the Korean Peninsula. The closest thing we have in the West to Hong Gildong is Robin Hood. I haven't actually read any texts concerning Robin Hood, so I can't say if they read similarly. But I do think that we have some good TV adaptations of both. There is a currently airing Korean drama (or sageuk, a historical drama) called Rebel: Thief of the People (also called Rebel Hong Gil Dong), which follows the basic premise of the text but adds to it. I definitely think the added layers of characterization and settings benefit the story greatly. You can watch it on DramaFever or Viki, if it's available in your country.
There's also a great BBC series called Robin Hood that I highly recommend. Really. It's so great that I've watched it twice and want to watch it again. It's currently on Hulu, so I may do just that soon. Here's someone's fanmade music video for it:
You can read more about it and find similar books on Goodreads.
Title: The Turncoat
Author: Donna Thorland
Year: 2013
Pages: 394
Dates Read: March 27 - April 1, 2017
Format: Kindle
Genres: historical fiction, Revolutionary War, romance
Rating: 4/5
Summary: A young Quaker woman, Kate Grey, becomes unexpectedly entangled with the espionage of the American War for Independence and, to her even greater surprise, the enemy.Favorite Quotes:
"Nothing was beyond the grasp of an intelligent woman."
"They formed an intimate still life, her ornaments lying beside his regalia."
"It was not important to her, where she had come from. Only what she had become."
Note: Being the little Hamilton fangirl, that I am, I couldn't help but squeal in delight when I read this line: "Beside him [General Washington], a slender, fair-haired youth sat copying orders." That's our good old bastard, orphan, and son of a whore.
Review: So I watched the first episode of Turn last week (Honestly, it's a shame I'd never watched it before. I mean, some parts of it are literally filmed less than an hour from my house, for Pete's sake!). But anyway, that inspired me to find some fiction set during this time, which proved to be more difficult than it should be, as this is a very intriguing and important time in history. This book was a happy little find, and I intend to continue with the Renegades of the Revolution series in the near future.
Who doesn't love a good star-crossed romance? I have to say that this book delivers. What I especially loved about this couple, Kate Grey and Peter Tremayne, is that, while they care for each other, they also understand each other. They do not blame one another for helping their respective sides in the war: Kate on the American side, Peter on the British. They don't stop each other from doing their duties, either. Peter certainly does not start out as a likable character, but he earns his place as one. Kate doesn't always make the best decisions, but you can at least understand them. These are both good characterizations in my opinion.
Other than that, I don't have many thoughts to express about this book, beyond the general "I liked it" and the fact that I put aside nearly everything else to read it. I do, however, want to address an issue I've seen in quite a few others' reviews of the novel.
I've read some reviews in which people say that Kate's transformation from a sweet Quaker girl to a "hussy" is unbelievable. First off, calling her a "hussy" discredits the argument, especially when the men in the novel aren't exactly what you could call "chaste." Secondly, I grew up in a highly religious, fundamentalist school. I did not turn out the same way that many of my friends at school did. Not only do outside influences affect how we turn out as individuals, but, as Virginia Woolf put it, "there is no denying the wild horse in us." I believe that we are inherently ourselves; that is, while our environments and situations definitely influence who we become, there are certain aspects of ourselves as individuals that are just us. For instance, I obviously love books. But I can't point to anyone or anything that led to this. I don't recall the books my parents read to me as a child. I don't remember any of my teachers' having a particular impact on my reading. It just happened. I reached for books myself. I believe it is the same way with Kate. She put on a façade in order to spy for the Americans. She put on a performance. And, by the way, nearly everything in life is a kind of performance. We act differently when we are with our friends versus when we are with our bosses at work, for example. Also, to say that Kate could not have taken on this role simply because she was raised as a Quaker is a narrow view because it implies that she could not be an individual person with her own thoughts and opinions about the world, despite whatever she was taught. Thorland did a good job displaying Kate's inner battle between her limited view of the world as a Quaker and her newfound role in the dangerous game of espionage in war.
Another Note: Some people seem to think that there is some historical inaccuracy in the novel when one of the characters shoots a gun. For some reason, a few readers thought that it was a repeating pistol, meaning that you could shoot it more than once without reloading. But they are just wrong. Not only have I read the scene, which disproved this claim to me, but I actually had a conversation on Twitter with the author, and she assured me that this is not the case.
(Side note: How wild is it that she actually replied to my tweet?! But I'm glad she did because I was feeling uncertain of starting the novel beforehand, and what an unfortunate loss that would have been.)
You can find this in print at The Book Depository and on Kindle at Amazon.
You can read more about it and find similar books on Goodreads.
Title: Ru
Author: Kim Thúy
Year: 2009 (trans. 2012)
Pages: 141
Dates Read: March 1-30, 2017
Format: Paperback/Kindle
Genres: historical fiction, immigrants/refugees, semi-autobiography
Rating: 4/5
Summary: Nguyễn An Tịnh immigrates to Canada with her family as a child, following the Tet Offensive in 1968.
Favorite Quotes:
"When I meet young girls in Montréal or elsewhere who injure their bodies intentionally, deliberately, who want permanent scars to be drawn on their skin, I can't help secretly wishing they could meet other young girls whose permanent scars are so deep they're invisible to the naked eye. I would like to seat them face to face and hear them make comparisons between a wanted scar and an inflicted scar, one that's paid for, the other that pays off, one visible, the other impenetrable, one inordinately sensitive, the other unfathomable, one drawn, the other misshapen."
"He had only to run his finger over my immodestly exhibited scar, however, and take my finger in his other hand and run it over the back of his dragon and immediately we experienced a moment of complicity, of communion."
"Without writing, he wouldn’t have heard the snow melting or leaves growing or clouds sailing through the sky. Nor would he have seen the dead end of a thought, the remains of a star or the texture of a comma."
Review: Oof. At just 141 pages, this book was tough to get through. It was hard work to read even a few of the page-length chapters. The weight of the text and the emotions that run through it seep into your lungs and leave you almost breathless. As a privileged, middle-class, white woman, I can't relate to about 99% of the things in this book. I won't say that reading it made me feel as if I went through these experiences myself. Words alone can't do that—at least not to that extent. But I could definitely feel the emotions and pain presented in the text.
You can find this in print at The Book Depository and on Kindle at Amazon.
You can read more about it and find similar books on Goodreads.
Summary: Nguyễn An Tịnh immigrates to Canada with her family as a child, following the Tet Offensive in 1968.
Favorite Quotes:
"When I meet young girls in Montréal or elsewhere who injure their bodies intentionally, deliberately, who want permanent scars to be drawn on their skin, I can't help secretly wishing they could meet other young girls whose permanent scars are so deep they're invisible to the naked eye. I would like to seat them face to face and hear them make comparisons between a wanted scar and an inflicted scar, one that's paid for, the other that pays off, one visible, the other impenetrable, one inordinately sensitive, the other unfathomable, one drawn, the other misshapen."
"He had only to run his finger over my immodestly exhibited scar, however, and take my finger in his other hand and run it over the back of his dragon and immediately we experienced a moment of complicity, of communion."
"Without writing, he wouldn’t have heard the snow melting or leaves growing or clouds sailing through the sky. Nor would he have seen the dead end of a thought, the remains of a star or the texture of a comma."
Review: Oof. At just 141 pages, this book was tough to get through. It was hard work to read even a few of the page-length chapters. The weight of the text and the emotions that run through it seep into your lungs and leave you almost breathless. As a privileged, middle-class, white woman, I can't relate to about 99% of the things in this book. I won't say that reading it made me feel as if I went through these experiences myself. Words alone can't do that—at least not to that extent. But I could definitely feel the emotions and pain presented in the text.
The book is written as a series of semi-autobiographical vignettes. I think that, perhaps because of the brevity of the work, Thúy's words carry more weight than they would were this written as a standard plot-driven novel. We don't get pages upon pages of details that add up to create an image of a character; instead, we get little bits and pieces, small parts of a much larger whole. But it doesn't matter. The characters' experiences should still affect us because of how poignant and universal they are.
The current refugee situations across the globe made this book more painful for me to read. The work isn't totally a biography, but it's not exactly fiction either. To think that there are people going through similar experiences right now is both depressing and infuriating, and there are more than a few people I can name whom I would want to read this book, even though I know they wouldn't. Books like these should be required reading in schools. They are also the kinds of books that would be challenged, which is all the more reason for them to be more widely read.
You can read more about it and find similar books on Goodreads.
Title: Little Anodynes: Poems
Author: Jon Pineda
Year: 2015
Pages: 72
Date Read: March 25, 2017
Format: Paperback
Genres: poetry
Rating: 4/5
Summary: A collection of poems covering biracial identity, loss, and fatherhood.
Favorite Poems: "Umpteenth," "Kundiman," "Ellipses," and "Little Anodynes"
Review: This book of poetry was a happy, little, unexpected find for me. Our library recently got a copy of it, and I recognized the name because Pineda currently teaches at my alma mater. I was like, "Oh, look at that! I have to read it!" So I read it today during my lunch break at work.
Contemporary poetry can be a bit tricky for me. I tend to read mostly older poetry: typically modern (1900-1945-ish), Victorian, and Romantic. But luckily, I really liked this one!
I find it interesting to try to figure out how poets decide on the length of lines in free verse. I've written some poetry myself, but I'm not the best at it. Since the text of the poems in this book are justified, rather than centered or left-aligned, I wonder if there ever was any distinction in the lines, or if it was always meant just to flow off the tongue almost ceaselessly.
I like it when poetry makes me stop and compose myself after reading it. These poems did that.
You can find this in print at The Book Depository and on Kindle at Amazon.
You can read more about it and find similar books on Goodreads.
You can read more about Jon Pineda here.
Summary: A collection of poems covering biracial identity, loss, and fatherhood.
Favorite Poems: "Umpteenth," "Kundiman," "Ellipses," and "Little Anodynes"
Review: This book of poetry was a happy, little, unexpected find for me. Our library recently got a copy of it, and I recognized the name because Pineda currently teaches at my alma mater. I was like, "Oh, look at that! I have to read it!" So I read it today during my lunch break at work.
Contemporary poetry can be a bit tricky for me. I tend to read mostly older poetry: typically modern (1900-1945-ish), Victorian, and Romantic. But luckily, I really liked this one!
I like it when poetry makes me stop and compose myself after reading it. These poems did that.
You can find this in print at The Book Depository and on Kindle at Amazon.
You can read more about it and find similar books on Goodreads.
You can read more about Jon Pineda here.
Title: Anne of the Island
Series: Anne of Green Gables #3
Author: L.M. Montgomery
Year: 1915 (ed. 1983)
Pages: 272
Dates Read: March 17-24, 2017
Format: Paperback
Genres: bildungsroman, romance, school/college, youth
Rating: 3/5
Note: Slightly spoilery. If you haven't read the first two books or seen any adaptation of these novels, you may not want to read this review, but there's nothing in here that could ruin them for you.
Summary: The novel follows Anne Shirley on her academic journey at Redmond College, where she makes new friends, while keeping and losing some old ones, and develops into young adulthood. And, if she were to be asked about the matter, there may be a few too many proposals for Anne's liking.
Favorite Quote: "She felt very old and mature and wise—which showed how young she was."
A note before we begin: Anne is very important to me. Perhaps the most important character in all of literature in my heart. This is because of the time I discovered her. I first encountered Anne when I was eleven years old, in sixth grade. My friends had the movies on VHS, and I borrowed them. Inevitably, I fell in love. I related to that bright, spirited little girl so much. No, I'm not an orphan. I'm not Canadian. I don't even have red hair. But still, in Anne there is such a love of literature, writing, and education that seeped down into the depths of my being. I had always done well in school, but for some reason there was this stigma that doing well, or being nerdy, was not the thing to do. "Reading books is boring," my friends and classmates would tell me. I was unfortunately influenced by this mentality. I cut back on my recreational reading and played video games more than I even thought about books. I don't have anything against video games in particular, but they can never compare to books in my heart. When I listened to Anne reciting Tennyson, something stirred in me that had been dormant for far too long. I saw in this little orphan girl a connection—a kindred spirit, if you will. I started reading for fun again. When we went on field trips, I took books with me and even bought them in gift shops. In middle and high school, I wrote poetry for an annual competition between schools in our area and sometimes won. In my senior year of high school, I took an English test in the same competition and won, both regional and state. Later, in college, I wrote a short story that was published in our art and literary magazine. Now I have a bachelor's degree in English literature and work in a library. Perhaps I would have accomplished all of these things anyway, without Anne. But I doubt it. Sometimes, you encounter a story or a character and know, without a doubt, that nothing and no one could ever replace them. Anne can never be replaced.
Review: For me, even though I love the story and the elements that make it up, this book was a little disappointing. I already love the story because of the 1980s movies, but this book just felt slow to me. There were quite a few parts where I just skipped forward a bit because I didn't care about the characters involved. It's funny, though, because this is my favorite part of the story so far, when Anne and Gilbert finally (officially) get together. That final scene plays over and over in my mind even now.
So, despite being disappointed in how slowly the novel read for me, I still quite enjoyed it. There are, of course, places and characters who never even get a mention in the films, so they were new and interesting to me, which made this a more enjoyable read. Just thinking about it makes me want to start rewatching them right now.
I look forward to reading the five remaining books in the series, although I will take my time with them. I approach this story and these characters when I'm ready and in the right mood for them, lest I spoil the reading experience.
You can read more about it and find similar books on Goodreads.
Author: Daisy Goodwin
Year: 2016
Pages: 404
Dates Read: March 15-20, 2017
Format: Kindle (and Audible)
Genres: historical fiction, history, romance
Rating: 4/5
Summary: A coming-of-age story focusing on Queen Victoria's beginning as one of the longest-ruling monarchs of Great Britain.
Favorite Quote: "How was it possible that her body should react so violently to someone she found so difficult?"
Review: Having seen the television series prior to my reading, I already knew what to expect going into this novel. Both versions line up pretty much exactly the same, which I didn't mind because I enjoyed the show. The show does go further into the story, however. I don't know if that's because of the format or the timing of the writing. I would have preferred it if the book had gone more into the story, as well. The series is set to have another season, but I do not know if there will be another book. Because the two versions match up so well, I think this story is accessible to more people--some people will prefer to watch, while others may want to read instead. Of course, some might want to do both, like me.
I know a lot of people like to pair Victoria with Lord Melbourne; however, knowing the history, it was hard for me to see it. I found myself waiting for Albert to show up constantly throughout the novel. Once his and Victoria's romance finally started to bloom, it felt a bit short. This is one distinct place where to show goes into more detail, and I wish it were reflected in the book. The book only goes up to the proposal, whereas the show goes beyond it.
I generally prefer to read the book first, but that didn't happen this time. One thing I do like about seeing the series first is that I can picture the actors as the characters. Luckily, Jenna Coleman, Tom Hughes, and Rufus Sewell played their roles excellently, and that become even more apparent after reading their characters in the novel.
The writing is wonderful. Some books are written to be devoured, and this is certainly one of them. Whether I was reading or listening (Anna Wilson-Jones's narration is one of the best I've ever heard--I highly recommend listening to the audio version of this novel), the story just seemed to fly by. It's a comfortable and enjoyable read, and one that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.
You can find this in print at The Book Depository, on the Kindle at Amazon, and on Audible.
You can read more about it and find similar books on Goodreads.
