Elena D

#Ickaborg It got to me. J. Rowling is great. And Harry Porter, despite becoming dark and not very child friendly tale makes a lot of sense. However, when someone claims, that  (quote JR) this was fairy tale her tale children loved when they were little, I personally start doubting both the sanity of someone who can actually enjoy it. even with 50 pages of heroic hogwash at the end.  "This book is to cheer children in covid lockdowns around the world" - i wonder how excactly it meant to cheer anyone up (except for the project 'drawings' for its illustrations) - its darker then any Brothers Grimm fairytale, with child eating old witches and frozen children.  Someone deliberately writing a fairytale where evil guy takes power and children suffer from starvation and loss 'to cheer children up' is sick on the head and every page is full of misery, death, starvation... should have left it at Harry Porter. Now haters can hate me, but I actually read a lot, in 3 languages, so am entitled to my opinion.

In any genre you either write your own story or not write at all. Books are influenced by books like everything else, however, when the descriptions repeat an already established classic and names are just slightly changed (e.g. Tolin va ToRin) ... if you don't have your own imagination, do not write. Tolkien has already finished the story, there was no need to retell it in a different way...

#booksiread Donna Tratt "The goldfinch" (not lost in translation) This one was listened to (in Russian, for a simple reason I could not possibly listen to that monotonous reading in English from audible, lucky for me, my favourite Russian reader happened to have read this one too!) too many pages to read to be honest, for my life style and commitments... Very sad 1/4 of the way, poignant... sad about Theo losing his mum, especially the way it happened, the emotions are so almost visually raw that I did cry a few times...Very well thought out secondary characters - that fit perfectly into life stages of the main character... Great narrative, very detailed descriptions, but at certain point it all turns into ramblings of a lost soul- turned to be an (ex) drag addict/(ex)alchogolic and his musings about pointedless of life and it all, art, antiques and how it all fit into the world perception. There is nothing wrong with that but its waaaaaaaay to looooooong for no particular reason. Too many death in the book along the way... He is a 'victim of circumstances' - if Mum has not died....But there are also way too many repeats, (in different words, but still...), too many 'philosophical' musings that are actually just empty words...Too many negative thoughts about life (again), parts 3-5 were rather hard to endure.... And then, all of a sudden we find out its a diary...a diary that was kept by Theo since 13... And then we listen to about 30 minutes of how the actual (real) painting came to be and how it mirrors with Theo... Beautifully worded philosophic ending of the lost soul, but really, we did not need 784 pages or around 30h of audio for it all. P.s. apparently it is the winner of Pulitzer prize, honestly, I have no regrets about hearing this story, it was good at times and a bit tedious at other, overall the lost soul feel which is quite well narrated... but I don't see why it got the prize.

Very average book, don't know what the fuss was about, plenty of similar fish in the book world. Wasted few hours.