Month: February 2013

Kissing the Witch – Emma Donoghue

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Kissing the Witch

This review at Iris on Books caught my eye a few months ago and the book was added to my wish list straight away.

I read Kissing the Witch in two sittings because, although it’s a collection of short stories, I found it hard to put down. Reading this chain of stories is like opening a Russian doll. The further in you get, the more surprises you find. Each tale is connected to the one before, with the secondary character from the first telling her own story, and then passing on the pen to the next woman. The readers are kept interested because they want to learn more about the character and understand why they have become a witch, a fairy Godmother or how they came to live a secluded life in a cave. Continue reading →

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

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Great ExpectationsI feel as though I have known the story of Pip for most of my life. I have vague memories of listening to audio books and watching adaptations. Maybe that is why I have never felt a real need to pick up the actual book and read it.

The beginning is pretty much exactly how I expected it to be. All the characters seemed to be just as I had seen them before; the scary convict, the kindly Joe Gargery, the nasty sister, stuck up Estella and timid little Pip. Even Miss Havisham didn’t seem any different to how she has been portrayed. It’s not until half way through that I began to feel as though I was coming to the story for the first time. Possibly I’ve not paid as much attention to that part of the story when watching adaptations? Continue reading →

A Feast for Crows – George R. R. Martin

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Try as I might, I find it hard to stay away from this series for long. It’s especially difficult not to move on to A Dance with Dragons after A Feast for Crows because many questions have been left unanswered! (NOTE: If you have not finished A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm if Swords Part 1: Steel and Snow or A Storm of Swords Part 2: Blood and Gold you will find some spoilers in this post).

I spent much of A Feast for Crows going between two feelings; frustration and excitement. With the huge cliffhanger at the end of the previous book; Littlefinger pushing his new wife out of the moon door, I was desperate to jump right back into Sansa’s storyline. Continue reading →