Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Graphic Novel by Ransom Riggs (Please this title!)
Tintenherz by Cornelia Funke
Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
So without further ado, let's get into these books.
I'd heard a lot of good things about Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, so naturally I added it to my TBR. Then, one day, I was casually strolling past the school library and the dream of every Dutch kid who reads English books was plastered onto the door: More English Books! I went in immediately, and stalled out on the beautiful table was the graphic novel of Ransom Riggs' best seller.
I got it on a whim, just to see what it was like and I was pretty excited to read a graphic novel.
Frankly, I don't know if it's my thing. It's easy to read and judging from what I saw and read, this was a good story for it. The drawings are stunning and I understood it all perfectly, but I missed the detail, the descriptions, and even the time investment of a real book. It's so focussed on the physical action than on the emotions. With a traditional book, you can read about the observations and emotions of the main character. I just missed something and I felt it was more of an additional read than something that can replace the actual story. I might get to Hollow City and Library of Souls at some point, but it's not a priority.
Tintenherz also came from my school library, but now from the German Section. If you didn't know (which you didn't), German is one of my chosen subjects, so I have to read three books a year for it. Because I'm me, I was drawn to the fat book at first sight. Once I realized that MY CHRISTIAN HARRY-POTTER-BANNING SCHOOL had a Fantasy book that wasn't JRR Tolkien or CS Lewis on its shelves, I just had to read it. Obviously, when the summary compared it to HP, I was sold. I'd have probably picked it up even to congratulate my school librarians.
The book itself... Meh. It was just your average contemporary fantasy read. The magic is cool and unique, but it isn't really magic magic but more of a special ability non-kick-ass magic. Which was a bit of a downfall for me. On the other hand, it does explain why it's in my school library. My main complaint is that the book's too long. I can handle a fat book, but only if you genuinely have something to tell me. You can keep it short if you don't.
The third book is Finding Audrey (My mistake I actually read this even before Animal Farm Oops) by Sophie Kinsella (I love this woman's surname and I don't know why.). Getting to the point, this is a nice little book about Audrey, who is recovering from a social anxiety disorder. Even though I enjoyed this book overall, I still had some issues with it that I'd like to briefly discuss.
First of all, the overall concept of girl-meets-boy-boy-mends-girl. It's not just that my radical feminist alarms beep when I read those synopsises. It's really not about that. It's the way that once the boy's there and kissy and we get all teenager-y, the problem seems to just gradually evaporate. Yeah, hilarious. Not that this book didn't focus on the jaggy line of life and up-down-up-down and things like that. It's that this plot line of disorder fixed by romance is getting on my nerves.
And you know why? (You're going to think I'm a whiny little thing after this.) Because some problems can't be fixed by pretty little boys that guide you on the yellow brick road to recovery. Some problems just aren't going to go away and the people who have them will need to live with them FOREVER and you, popular YA literature, are ignoring this whole group of young people dealing with those problems. It's either death or recovery as far as I've noticed, and that just inevitably bugs me. So if you know any nice YA books about sisters dealing with the incurable problems of their younger siblings, let me know, because I'm dying to read one.
Back to the book in question, it's good but it's a bit discount John Green with its witty way of dealing with serious issue plot line. But I think it's still worth the read.
I'd heard a lot of good things about Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, so naturally I added it to my TBR. Then, one day, I was casually strolling past the school library and the dream of every Dutch kid who reads English books was plastered onto the door: More English Books! I went in immediately, and stalled out on the beautiful table was the graphic novel of Ransom Riggs' best seller.
I got it on a whim, just to see what it was like and I was pretty excited to read a graphic novel.
Frankly, I don't know if it's my thing. It's easy to read and judging from what I saw and read, this was a good story for it. The drawings are stunning and I understood it all perfectly, but I missed the detail, the descriptions, and even the time investment of a real book. It's so focussed on the physical action than on the emotions. With a traditional book, you can read about the observations and emotions of the main character. I just missed something and I felt it was more of an additional read than something that can replace the actual story. I might get to Hollow City and Library of Souls at some point, but it's not a priority.
Tintenherz also came from my school library, but now from the German Section. If you didn't know (which you didn't), German is one of my chosen subjects, so I have to read three books a year for it. Because I'm me, I was drawn to the fat book at first sight. Once I realized that MY CHRISTIAN HARRY-POTTER-BANNING SCHOOL had a Fantasy book that wasn't JRR Tolkien or CS Lewis on its shelves, I just had to read it. Obviously, when the summary compared it to HP, I was sold. I'd have probably picked it up even to congratulate my school librarians.
The book itself... Meh. It was just your average contemporary fantasy read. The magic is cool and unique, but it isn't really magic magic but more of a special ability non-kick-ass magic. Which was a bit of a downfall for me. On the other hand, it does explain why it's in my school library. My main complaint is that the book's too long. I can handle a fat book, but only if you genuinely have something to tell me. You can keep it short if you don't.
The third book is Finding Audrey (My mistake I actually read this even before Animal Farm Oops) by Sophie Kinsella (I love this woman's surname and I don't know why.). Getting to the point, this is a nice little book about Audrey, who is recovering from a social anxiety disorder. Even though I enjoyed this book overall, I still had some issues with it that I'd like to briefly discuss.
First of all, the overall concept of girl-meets-boy-boy-mends-girl. It's not just that my radical feminist alarms beep when I read those synopsises. It's really not about that. It's the way that once the boy's there and kissy and we get all teenager-y, the problem seems to just gradually evaporate. Yeah, hilarious. Not that this book didn't focus on the jaggy line of life and up-down-up-down and things like that. It's that this plot line of disorder fixed by romance is getting on my nerves.
And you know why? (You're going to think I'm a whiny little thing after this.) Because some problems can't be fixed by pretty little boys that guide you on the yellow brick road to recovery. Some problems just aren't going to go away and the people who have them will need to live with them FOREVER and you, popular YA literature, are ignoring this whole group of young people dealing with those problems. It's either death or recovery as far as I've noticed, and that just inevitably bugs me. So if you know any nice YA books about sisters dealing with the incurable problems of their younger siblings, let me know, because I'm dying to read one.
Back to the book in question, it's good but it's a bit discount John Green with its witty way of dealing with serious issue plot line. But I think it's still worth the read.
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