Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneggar

I first heard about this book was after I finished reading “The Time Traveller’s Wife” because they are both written by the same author: Audrey Niffenegger When I started reading the first few pages, I was a bit put off because I wasn’t sure if the storyline was going to be viable: if it was a bit too abstract but the way Niffenegger goes about describing Elispeth’s plight and struggle to regain her consciousness, gives the story a realistic twist which makes it not so incomprehensible.

As the story goes on, you begin to understand the twins different personalities more, which seems to hit on the real-life problems that twins face: that they are not the same person even though they are identical, especially mirror-twins.

Without trying to give to much away, I feel the ending of the book was a bit rushed and left open a lot of questions which rather then leave us to our own imaginations to decide what happened, would have been better if Niffenegger explained a bit of what happened to us: what happened to Valentina? Julia? Elspeth? Also I believe Martin should have had a more active role in what was happening, his story-line felt a tad unnecessary, like he was only put there to add depth to the characters and hit on a social problem of reality. 

Overall, I thought this was an interesting book to read, I liked how Niffenegger lead us through different characters lives and how they all intermingled into each other. It was an insightful book to read for people that like books which are based on realistic lives with a bit of the unexplained thrown in. 

Ravaged by David Wellington

This book was one of them I just couldn't put down. I don't know whether it was the story of the book and how it describes the feelings of the wolfs inside the humans or if it was the fact that it was one of the easiest books to read that I have read in awhile. It's one of them that you don't really have to think about and it flows from one chapter to the other seamlessly.

Ravaged is actually a follow on from a previous book of Wellington's called "Cursed" which I haven't actually read but I don't think it's really needed to be read (even though I'm one of them people which have to read the first books first before they will read the second) because I didn't realise until the book started referencing a past storyline but I didn't feel as if I was missing anything too much because it pretty much gets explains in the context of this book.

This is definitely an easy to read, almost, holiday book which you can put down and come back to or just read cover to cover and will be enjoyed by a range of readers that don't necessarily read a lot.

From Rory With Love

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I have always been interested in the story of Dorian Gray and since seeing the film (2009 edition), I was just aching to read the book which my dad was so conveniently reading.

This book is typical of it's age and I believe many people with little reading experience will find this a bore or maybe get a bit lost in it's lexical usage. I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I loved the intrinsic descriptions and how Oscar Wilde obviously put a lot of thought into how one would develop a picture in their heads of Dorian and what is happening socially around him.

What I found really interesting was reading the introduction and the history behind Oscar Wilde and how this book came about. It states how at first this book was meant to be a short story published in a magazine in 1980 which Wilde later revised and developed into more chapters and published as a book in 1981. Apparently, Wilde made several changes to the book to make it more appealing to the public's narrow-mindedness since they were appalled by Wilde's frankness to Dorian Gray's homosexuality which was used in a court conviction as a reflection on Wilde's sexuality, which was of course illegal back then.  

All in all, this book was an excellent read which I would suggest to people who have the time to read through a book clearly to truly appreciate the exquisite detail and to people who have a love for classic literature.


From Rory With Love

In the beginning...

I wanted to start this blog to share my ideas about the books that I have read and to advise whether I reckon it would be a good buy for you or just don't bother.
Not many people I know have the time to read books or are too simple minded to.

I read mostly fiction, I love the thought of being somewhere completely different with it's own rules. I read to take me out of this world and live the life of someone else via the books and expand my ideas and feelings about what's occurring in my life and how others have dealt with it, albeit in very different scenarios.

From Rory With Love