Category: Book Reviews

Book Review | Perfume by Patrick Süskind

Posted September 27, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Perfume by Patrick Süskind

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind’s classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club


The Reason

It was my in-person bookclub’s September BOTM. This is a reread for me and I remember enjoying it very much the first time too.

The Quotes

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”

“He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.”

“He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent.”

“And because people are stupid and use their noses only for blowing, but believe absolutely anything they see with their eyes, they will say it is because this is a girl with beauty and grace and charm.”

The Narrator(s)

Nigel Patterson. No complaints! I enjoyed listening to the narration.

My Thoughts

I remember the first time I read this book; I was in my “scentology” phase and I was fascinated with the sense of smell. I’d been reading a few other books on smell as well, one I remember is The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz. Obviously unlike The Scent of Desire, this book is fiction, but they were both very interesting.

I also really enjoyed the movie based on this book even if I don’t remember much of it anymore. I might watch it again soon! Our BOTM theme for September is Banned Books, and I have a feeling that the movie version I watched might have been edited as well, especially since I watched it in the cinema when I was living in Malaysia.

Rereading it this time, once again I loved how beautiful the writing is. I love how immersed in smells we get. The description of the scents, all the different ways to evoke them in our imagination; the book was written so well! Even though we were reading about a really creepy murderer, it was still so fascinating to see his journey from his birth, his perfumery apprenticeship, his obsession with possessing scents and using them in very interesting ways, until the very end. Some parts of the story seem a little bit fantastical but they are still very entertaining to read about, and at the end of the day, I just love how smell-y the book is! So worth reading!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , , ,


Book Review | Cujo by Stephen King

Posted September 21, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Cujo by Stephen King

Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

The #1 national bestseller for Stephen King’s rabid fans, Cujo “hits the jugular” (The New York Times) with the story of a friendly Saint Bernard that is bitten by a sick bat. Get ready to meet the most hideous menace ever to savage the flesh and devour the mind.

Outside a peaceful town in central Maine, a monster is waiting. Cujo is a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day, Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats and emerges as something new altogether.

Meanwhile, Vic and Donna Trenton, and their young son Tad, move to Maine. They are seeking peace and quiet, but life in this small town is not what it seems. As Tad tries to fend off the terror that comes to him at night from his bedroom closet, and as Vic and Donna face their own nightmare of a marriage on the rocks, there is no way they can know that a monster, infinitely sinister, waits in the daylight.

What happens to Cujo, how he becomes a horrifying vortex inescapably drawing in all the people around him, makes for one of the most heart-stopping novels Stephen King has ever written. “A genuine page-turner that grabs you and holds you and won’t let go” (Chattanooga Times), Cujo will forever change how you view man’s best friend.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Stephen King Constant Reader Challenge


The Reason

I guess I’m making my way through Stephen King’s catalog faster than usual now that there are buddy reads happening. I love Stephen King and I would read him anyway, but it’s so much more fun when you can discuss the books with other Stephen King fans.

The Quotes

“It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.”

“When there was nothing left but survival, when you were right down to the strings and nap and ticking of yourself, you survived or you died and that seemed perfectly all right.”

“The two of them had discovered it was all right to open the closets…as long as you didn’t poke too far back in them. Because things might still be lurking there, ready to bite.”

“A woman doesn’t necessarily mind being looked at. It’s being mentally undressed that makes you nervous.”

The Narrator(s)

Lorna Raver. It was a good listening experience. Lorna Raver did some pretty decent voices and the sound engineering was good too.

My Thoughts

This is a reread and it’s funny because most of what I remembered most about the story was the scary dog, of course, but rereading it now I see that it’s so much more than that.

We get a lot of background story with the characters – there are several notable characters – and we start to care about them very much. They are all flawed in some way; we find out about their marital problems, career problems, car problems, kids problems, life-in-general problems. Even their (very young) kids have problems!

The characters here are so multi-faceted and humanly flawed, and it’s interesting to see how their individual thoughts and behaviors created a butterfly effect that led them down this road to Cujo. It’s an intense read, and so heartwrenching.

I’m also paying more attention now to the crossovers between his books and that enhances the reading experience even more. It’s been a while since I read The Dead Zone, but I remember Frank Dodd and I like how his story was incorporated here. I also just read You Like It Darker earlier this year, and I like that one of the characters here continues his story there in Rattlesnakes.

Also, poor Cujo. He’s the monster portrayed in this book, but he’s not the real monster if you really think about it. This is just an incredible book, so well-written, and I think it’s up there as one of my favorite King books (but there are so many of them!).

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , ,


Book Review | Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

The memoir of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
2024 Diversity Reading Challenge
2024 Audiobook Challenge


The Reason

I really like Trevor Noah and I’ve heard such great things about this book, especially the audiobook as narrated by him!

The Quotes

“The first thing I learned about having money was that it gives you choices. People don’t want to be rich. They want to be able to choose. The richer you are, the more choices you have. That is the freedom of money.”

“Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.”

“Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”

“You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad. Where you either hate them or love them. But that’s not how people are.”

The Narrator(s)

Trevor Noah, the author himself. I love listening to him, I wish there was more!

My Thoughts

I watched some of Trevor Noah’s clips on the Daily Show and his comedy shows and I really enjoy them! He comes across as really self-aware and a great person overall, but I don’t know very much about him. There’ve been so much praise about this book, and I’ve been so curious about him and the book, but I held off reading for a while because I wanted to listen to him narrate it on audiobook, and it was so worth the wait.

I love the way he tells his stories, the different languages that he incorporates into the story, his expressive style, his amazing sense of humor, and the way he handles sensitive topics. He talks about difficult things; his own life growing up poor, in an apartheid regime, with an abusive stepfather, but he still manages to retain his humor and gratitude. I love the way he adores his mother, and the way he appreciates his relationship with his biological father. It’s such a privilege getting this glimpse into his life.

I was already a fan, but I think I’m a bigger fan now after reading his book!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , , ,


Book Review | I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

“As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker.”

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered… if indeed there were crimes.

The youngest of forty—a child with no name and no past—she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden—in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights—she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.

Then everything changes… and nothing changes.

A young woman who has never known men—a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints—must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been… and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.


The Reason

This was my online bookclub’s BOTM and one of the other bookclub members said it was really good so I got curious and excited!

The Quotes

“If you do something that is forbidden, it is the action that is the target. If you do something that isn’t forbidden, and they intervene, then it’s not the activity that’s attracting the attention, it is you yourself.”

“By remaining silent, they were creating a girl who didn’t know and who would regard them as the custodians of a treasure. Did they only keep me in ignorance so they could pretend they weren’t entirely powerless?”

“I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror.”

“Sometimes, you can use what you know, but that’s not what counts most. I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it’s any use, but purely for the pleasure of knowing, and now I demand that you teach me everything you know, even if I’ll never be able to use it.”

My Thoughts

I loved this book! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to talk about what I loved most about it without giving away spoilers, but I’ll try.

This book is written without chapter breaks, and yet somehow it felt interesting enough that I kept reading, on print, without feeling bored or needed to take breaks. The lack of chapter breaks also corresponds to the story itself because the women’s imprisonment not being marked by any sort of time-keeping felt parallel to the story not being marked by chapters. There were also some other parallels to later parts of the story about not having markers. I loved that!

It’s a very thought-provoking read and I love that it had so much fodder for speculation and uncertainty. Definitely worth reading!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , ,


Book Review | The Girl From Rawblood by Catriona Ward

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

The Girl From Rawblood by Catriona Ward

In 1910, eleven year old Iris Villarca lives with her father at Rawblood, a lonely house on Dartmoor. Iris and her father are the last of their name. The Villarcas always die young, bloodily. Iris knows it’s because of a congenital disease which means she must be strictly isolated. Papa told her so. Forbidden to speak to other children or the servants, denied her one friend, Iris grows up in solitude. But she reads books. And one sunlit autumn day, beside her mother’s grave, she forces the truth from her father. The disease is biologically impossible. A lie, to cover a darker secret.

The Villarcas are haunted, through the generations, by her. She is white, skeletal, covered with scars. Her origins are a mystery but her purpose is clear. When a Villarca marries, when they love, when they have a child – she comes and death follows.

Iris makes her father a promise: to remain alone all her life. But when she’s fifteen, she breaks it. The consequences of her choice are immediate and horrific.

Iris’s story is interwoven with the past, the voices of the dead – Villarcas, taken by her. Iris’s grandmother sets sail from Dover to Italy with a hired companion, to spend her final years in the sun before consumption takes her. Instead she meets betrayal, and a fate worse than death. Iris’s father, his medical career in ruins, conducts unconscionable experiments, to discover how she travels in the Villarca blood. Iris’s mother, pregnant, walks the halls of Rawblood whispering to her, coaxing her to come. As the narratives converge, Iris seeks her out in a confrontation which shatters her past and her reality, revealing the chasm in Iris’s own, fractured identity. Who is she? What does she desire? The answer is more terrible and stranger than Iris could have imagined.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge


The Reason

I’ve heard good things about Catriona Ward but have never read her books. This was a buddy read so I thought it might be a good opportunity to try one.

The Narrator(s)

Liz Pearce, Steven Crossley, John Keating, Elizabeth Sastre, Jenny Sterlin. This was painful to listen to on audio. The narrators were fine, but the sound engineering was so bad and it really detracted from my listening experience. The volumes between chapters were inconsistent, and there was one chapter where the volume varied so much I had to keep turning it higher and lower as I was listening to it! The soft parts were so difficult to hear and the loud parts were sudden and hurt my ears. I didn’t enjoy listening to this on audiobook at all!

My Thoughts

I feel like I missed a lot of details and the nuances of the story because of the audiobook production, and it made me doubt my listening comprehension of the book. This book is told in multiple POVs, across multiple timelines, and it jumps about a bit. There were many times when the story jumps to something that wasn’t mentioned in previous chapters and I had to wonder if I missed something or if it was a stylistic choice. I enjoy time jumps and missing pieces of the puzzle as stylistic choices, but I couldn’t be sure that was what was happening here while listening to it. I had to repeat entire chapters of the book because I was so confused.

Having said that, I love the vibes of the book and the writing style. It feels very gothic and is reminiscent of Frankenstein, which is one of my favorite books. The vibes and writing style is enough to make me want more, but I think next time I’ll try a print version of Catriona Ward’s books.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , ,


Book Review | Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club


The Reason

I’d been wanting to read more classics, hence the reason I joined The Classics Club, and I’d been wanting to read Dostoevsky, and this happened to be one of the buddy reads in my online bookclub, so it all worked out and made me read a book I would’ve otherwise kept putting off.

The Quotes

“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”

“Existence alone had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was only from the force of his desires that he had regarded himself as a man to whom more was permitted than to others.”

“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”

“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”

The Narrator(s)

Will Poulter. I was very pleasantly surprised by his narration. I loved that his narration was so clear and easily understandable, and I was surprised with his voices for the characters. It was really easy to listen to because of his narration. And I say this after sampling a couple of other narrators for this book.

My Thoughts

I had been intimidated by this book for ages and thought it would be difficult to get through, but it’s surprisingly easy – maybe because I listened on audiobook with Will Poulter narrating, but whatever helps is good, right? I did get confused with the names and nicknames, as is normal for Russian literature and fantasy novels with made-up names and places, but I was mostly able to follow along with the story and characters. I did have to refer occasionally to the physical book to clear some of the confusion though.

As for the story itself, I have to say that I don’t really connect to the characters and their motivations. A lot of it didn’t make sense to me; why they do the things they did, why they talked so much and did so little, a lot of things happened in their head and in conversations. There were a lot of thinking, and wondering, and existential crises.

However, there were discussions in the buddy read for this book that helped me understand some things better in regards to how the story relates to the beliefs and values of the time and place, and while I’m still not sure that I like the book, I can absolutely see why it’s considered a masterpiece. I also intend to reread this book again because I’m sure that I’ll get more out of it every time I read it, so maybe I’ll have more to say next time.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars. 4 stars because I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook, participating in the discussions for the book, and because I think it’s really well-written despite my disconnect to the characters.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , ,


Book Review | Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Posted September 6, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.

Since then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben’s innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother’s? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?

She begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day… especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.

Who did massacre the Day family?


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Reading Challenge


The Reason

It’s a buddy read and I enjoyed Gillian Flynn’s other books!

The Quotes

“I was not a lovable child, and I’d grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs.”

“You think you know the answer, you’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? You think after what happened there’s any peace for you, sweetheart? How about this. Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened.”

“Don’t be discouraged – every relationship you have is a failure, until you find the right one.”

“I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. I can’t do it, but I can applaud it in others.”

The Narrator(s)

Rebecca Lowman, Cassandra Campbell, Mark Deakins, Robertson Dean. They were all great, I loved listening to the audiobook!

My Thoughts

Funny story; apparently I read this book before in 2016 and forgot that I read it. I forgot pretty much everything about it, to the point that the final reveal at the end didn’t even occur to me and surprised me all over again! Which is pretty great, tbh, because I got to experience it all over again for a second time.

This was another buddy read and as always, I loved the experience of reading it with other readers and reading their comments about the book. One of the things I love most about Gillian Flynn is her ability to write flawed and unlikeable characters and yet make you root for them, understand them, put yourself in their shoes.

Libby is very flawed, but I love that she’s also very self-aware about her flaws. She’s not as self-aware about her strengths but that’s a lot of us. She’s relatable that way. Once things started getting into motion, I felt her compulsion to find out more about what happened to her family. I would feel the same way too. I would need answers. It’s such a painful thing to have happened at all, and I get that having answers don’t erase that bad things happened, but it does help to have questions answered.

Completely worth reading/rereading!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , ,


Book Review | Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

Posted September 6, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.

Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.


The Reason

This has been on my TBR forever! I’ve heard so much about it and it intrigued me because the plot sounds a little like an old favorite book of mine, The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike. I finally read it because it was a buddy read and that gives me motivation!

The Quotes

“I used to think there was such a thing as emptiness, that there were places in the world one could go and be alone. This, I think, is still true, but the error in my reasoning was to assume that alone was somewhere you could go, rather than somewhere you had to be left.”

“I want to explain her in a way that would make you love her, but the problem with this is that loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes.”

“To know the ocean, I have always felt, is to recognize the teeth it keeps half hidden.”

“When something bad is actually happening, it’s easy to underreact, because a part of you is wired to assume it isn’t real. When you stop underreacting, the horror is unique because it is, unfortunately, endless.”

My Thoughts

This is a gorgeous book with so many quotable quotes. It’s beautifully written, so lyrical and emotional. It’s not what I initially expected, but I did end up loving it, especially since it was a buddy read and reading everyone else’s thoughts added a lot to my own reading experience.

It’s listed as horror and I expected some tangible sea monster kind of story, but some of the other readers mentioned the horror of losing a loved one, or watching as bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it. I loved that take on it. I also love that the book was divided into sections corresponding to the zones of the ocean, and the deeper you go into the zones, the deeper you go into uncharted territory of the mind as well.

It’s so haunting and beautiful, and I’m glad I finally read it.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , ,


Book Review | After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Posted September 6, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.

Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for?

This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do is the story of a couple caught up in an old game—and searching for a new road to happily ever after.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Reading Challenge


The Reason

It’s Taylor Jenkins Reid! And it’s Julia Whelan narrating! I don’t need any other reasons.

The Quotes

“Isn’t it nice … once you’ve outgrown the ideas of what life should be and you just enjoy what it is.”

“Here is what I can tell you. All that matters in this life is that you try. All that matters is that you open your heart, give everything you have, and keep trying.”

“I know it will be OK because everything is OK in the end. And if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.”

“I’ve come to realize that resentment is malignant. That it starts small and festers. That it grows wild and unfettered inside of you until it’s so expansive that it has worked its way into the furthest, deepest parts of you and holds on for dear life.”

The Narrator(s)

Julia Whelan. She’s the GOAT!

My Thoughts

TJR is so good at writing about relationships and family. While reading this book, I kept thinking that she really knew how to capture the essence of relationships, the everyday things that make up a life together, and it’s just so relatable. I don’t necessarily agree with some of her take on relationships, but I do feel that she definitely captures them well.

This book isn’t my favorite from TJR, but I did like it and it made me appreciate my own relationship with my husband very much. We’ve got our own ups and downs, but I think the one thing we do right is that we are always interested in each other. We talk all the time and it never gets boring, we play together, we listen to each other and never take the other for granted. Don’t get me wrong, we have disagreements and bad days too, but it’s always us against the problem.

One of the things I love most about reading is that it make me think and reflect on my own life, and I think this one did a great job of it. I’m not the biggest fan of the story and the MCs themselves, but it was fascinating to see how their marriage worked.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,


Book Review | Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery

Posted August 30, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Anne’s House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery

Anne’s own true love, Gilbert Blythe, is finally a doctor, and in the sunshine of the old orchard, among their dearest friends, they are about to speak their vows. Soon the happy couple will be bound for a new life together and their own dream house, on the misty purple shores of Four Winds Harbor.

A new life means fresh problems to solve, fresh surprises. Anne and Gilbert will make new friends and meet their neighbors: Captain Jim, the lighthouse attendant, with his sad stories of the sea; Miss Cornelia Bryant, the lady who speaks from the heart—and speaks her mind; and the tragically beautiful Leslie Moore, into whose dark life Anne shines a brilliant light.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club


The Reason

I started Anne of Green Gables and loved it and just had to continue with the series!

The Quotes

“The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only — a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels.”

“Even when I’m alone I have real good company — dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I like to be alone now and then, just to think over things and taste them. But I love friendships — and nice, jolly little times with people.”

“But pearls are for tears, the old legend says,” Gilbert had objected.
“I’m not afraid of that. And tears can be happy as well as sad. My very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes—when Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables—when Matthew gave me the first pretty dress I ever had—when I heard that you were going to recover from the fever. So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert, and I’ll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy.”

“Thank goodness, we can choose our friends. We have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful…”

The Narrator(s)

Beth Kesler. Loving the narration!

My Thoughts

For some reason, the Anne of Green Gables audio collection I bought skips the fourth book right to the fifth. That’s okay though, it doesn’t look like we miss much in terms of Anne and Gilbert’s life together. We see Anne’s House of Dreams here, and we meet Leslie Moore and Captain Jim. I love both these characters so much!

I love seeing Anne and Gilbert making a life together, but I also got so invested in Leslie’s story. I think even with how light and whimsical all the Anne of Green Gables books are, there’s always some important life lesson to be learned. And at the end of the day, life is meant to be lived with joy and happiness. I just saw that the last time I read these books was almost a decade ago! That’s way too long. I need constant reminders of Anne and her joy!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

Tags: , , , , , , ,