Title: Leoniderne (Spektrum #1)
Author: Nanna Foss
Genre: YA, fantasy
Rating: 3/5
# pages: Audiobook ~14hrs
Date read: February 2020

When did it start?
When the old lady accused us to bring about the end of the world?
When I dreamt of the glowing hands?
When the compass burned out hands?
Or long before?

15-year-old Emilie draws a boy with turquoise eyes and a mysterious necklace. The next day that boy turns up in her class.
Before she knows what's going on, Emilie has triangle scars in her palms and her classmates have weird abilities... or is she just imagining it all? The lines between dream and reality are fluid, and Emilie is desperately trying to stay out of the chaos.


... I can't quite make up my mind what I thought of this. I liked the beginning and the end, but the middle was a drag. It was very obviously a set-up to the rest of the series - to the point that it felt like the main plot didn't start until we were 75% of the way through the book. Which meant that I was still considering just giving up on it until very late in the book... which suddenly everything happened at once, and now I'm slightly curious as to what will happen in the next book after all! Might just find a detailed synopsis instead.

I liked Emilie and Alban, but felt the other main characters were too 2-dimensional. They might be fleshed out more in the sequels though. I was less than impressed by the huge amount of swearing that went on, but have a feeling that might have been more blatant because I heard it as an audiobook, whereas I would have been more inclined to just skim by it and not really notice it, if I had read it myself.

Title: I Was Here
Author: Gayle Forman
Genre: YA
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 270
Date read: December, 2015

Cody and Meg were inseparable.
Two peas in a pod.
Until... they weren't anymore.

When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything... so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg's college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there's a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, who broke Meg's heart. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can't open... until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend's death gets thrown into question.


Extremely well-written like all other books I've read by Gayle Forman so far. Very dark though, and I found myself having to take breaks in order for things not to get too bleak.

I'm actually slightly surprised that I liked this book as much as I did - I usually have a huge problem with suicides in books and movies. I think it helped that the suicide itself happened "off-screen" - so to speak - and that the book focused more on the aftermath - coping with having a friend/relative commit suicide and the desire to have somebody to blame - rather than the suicide itself. I was furious with All_BS and wish he could have been brought to justice more fully, but I actually think Cody's comment got to him more than anything else would have.

I liked seeing the relationships develop as Cody allowed herself to come out from behind her defences, and especially appreciated seeing Tricia stand up and take notice.

In no way a feel-good book, but well-written and a fascinating and thought-provoking read.

Title: If I Stay
Author: Gayle Forman
Genre: YA
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 260
Date read: January, 2012

In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces - to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make.

This book ought to come with a warning: "Tear-jerker ahead!", because unlike most books that have made me cry in recent times (e.g. the last book in the "Tomorrow, When the War Began" series), it's not just one passage that triggers the tears - but pretty much the entire book.

Despite this, it's actually not a depressing book - sad, yes; depressing, no. You quickly get to care and feel sympathy for Mia, and for once the outcome is not necessarily given in advance.

Gayle Forman has written a sequel, "Where She Went", but I'm not entirely sure I want to read that one. "If I Stay" is such a powerful stand-alone novel, and I'm afraid a sequel might just cheapen it.

Title: World Without End
Author: Ken Follett
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 1237
Date read: September, 2010

World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas - about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race - the Black Death.

Pillars of the Earth was great, but a difficult read, so though I've had this for almost a year, I've been reluctant to pick it up.

With good reason, it turned out. Though just as excellent a book as PotE, World Without End was almost as unpleasant a read. I was fascinated by Ken Follett's descriptions of the time and environment, but became more and more uncomfortable by the obvious unfairness and biasedness (yes, it's a word ;) ) that existed at the time. I don't doubt that it's historically accurate, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant to read about, and it did become a tad annoying to see the main characters meet one draw-back after the other. Thankfully their lives did slowly improve over the duration of the book, so it wasn't completely horrible to read about, but it did occasionally make me put down the book and reach for some lighter reading.

That said, putting down the book didn't happen too often though, because it was definitely a page-turner, and I stayed up far too late on more than one occasion to read just a few more chapters. I also appreciated that there weren't as many completely hideous characters with NO redeeming qualities whatsoever in this one as in PotE. It made certain scenes slightly easier to stomach.

Definitely a worthy follow up to an epic novel (in every sense of the word), and I think I might even like this one a tiny bit better, though it in NO way is an easy read.

Title: The Pillars of the Earth
Author: Ken Follett
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: 9/10
# pages: 1076
Date read: March, 2009

Summary: Set in 12th-century England, the narrative concerns the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. The ambitions of three men merge, conflict and collide through four decades during which social and political upheaval and the internal politics of the church affect the progress of the cathedral and the fortunes of the protagonists.

Review: I'll admit it - I was utterly blown away by this book. Despite its length, it managed to capture my attention completely. I was immensely interested in the characters - especially Jack and Aliena.

The general complaint about the book is that there are many long descriptive passages. This is true, but I never actually felt it was too long, and appreciated the practical explanations. My biggest problem was that many of the characters were quite one-dimensional - the bad guys were thoroughly bad and had no redeeming qualities at all. It seemed a bit exaggerated that ALL their actions were despicable, and that they had no goodness in them whatsoever. I like a good villain as much as anybody, but it has to be somebody I can love to hate (like Count Fosco in "The Woman in White"), not somebody I hate to hate (like Umbridge in "Order of the Phoenix).

Historical fiction is one of my favourite genres, and "The Pillars of the Earth" most definitely lived up to my expectations. It's one of those books I couldn't put down, but hated to see finish. I'll have to see if "World Without End" is as good :-)

Book List

Title: Celebration of Discipline Author: Richard J. Foster Genre: Christian non-fiction Rating: 3,5 # pages: 200 Date read: April 2008, March 2016

When Richard Foster began writing Celebration of Discipline more than 20 years ago, an older writer gave him a bit of advice: "Be sure that every chapter forces the reader into the next chapter." Foster took the advice to heart; as a result, his book presents one of the most compelling and readable visions of Christian spirituality published in the past few decades. In succinct, urgent, and sometimes humorous chapters, Foster defines a broad range of classic spiritual disciplines in terms that are lucid without being too limiting and offers advice that's practical without being overly prescriptive. For instance, after describing meditation as a combination of "intense intimacy and awful reverence," he settles into such down-to-earth topics as how to choose a place and a posture in which to meditate.


Reread in 2016: Exceedingly weird... my opinion of this book keeps changing!

I read this in 2004 and absolutely adored it. Back then I'd have rated it 5+/5 because of how much it touched me.

I reread it in 2008 and was slightly disappointed that it couldn't live up to my expectations. I downgraded the rating to 4/5, as I thought it still started out really good and I learned a lot from the inward disciplines (prayer, meditation, study, fasting) but the outward (simplicity, solitude, serving and submission) and the corporate disciplines (confession, worship, guidance and celebration) seemed less important and less poignant to me than I felt they ought.

Then I reread it again this year, figuring that with lower expectations, it wouldn't disappoint me yet again... but that's exactly what it did. The contents of the book is still fine, but the writer's voice annoyed me exceedingly and I did think he made some arguments I didn't feel there was suitable reasoning behind.

Probably not a book I'll revisit - a shame, as I loved it SO much back when I first read it.