Category Literature
Review: the Miniaturist, Jessie Burton
On an autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman knocks at the door of a grand house in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. She has come from the country to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt, but instead she is met by his sharp-tongued sister, Marin. Only later […]
Review: Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
I’m starting to become quite the Hardy fan now, having read and loved The Return of the Native and Tess of the D’Urbervilles in the last year or so. I’m going to pretend, however, that my desire to read this particular book wasn’t fuelled by a certain upcoming film adaptation starring Carey Mulligan, and a particular penchant for all […]
Review: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë
I read this book for a number of very random reasons: a) it was free on my Kindle (sickening, I know). b) I kind of felt a little sorry for poor old Anne being continually overshadowed by her older sisters, and c) I simply felt the urge to read a good old old-fashioned classic. I’ve […]
Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?: (And Other Concerns), Mindy Kaling
I probably shouldn’t have read this on public transport so much; I definitely got a few strange looks at my stifled giggles and silent laughs. I’ve been a fan of Mindy Kaling for a while and have religiously watched The Mindy Project through all of its low parts, because the highs are just so clever […]
Review: The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
“I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others […]
Review: Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
“Who are you? What have we done to each other? These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy’s friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it […]
Review: The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton
“It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and […]
Review: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
Boy, did it take me a long time to finish this one. I really knew absolutely nothing about this book, or Hemingway, before I picked it up and it subsequently took me a while to get into Hemingway’s style of war narrative, including frequent phrases and sentences kept in untranslated Spanish. Set during the Spanish […]
Graduating and Other Grown Up Things
Hello! Where have I been? You may be wondering. Probably not actually. Rather than indulge myself with thoughts of teary-eyed readers weeping at my lack of online presence, the happenings of my shall hereby be recorded in this post for cathartic purposes only. Things what I did after I had to read a lot of books. […]
I Got a Kindle and Then I Read Paper Towns by John Green
So I think that the title really sums up what I’m about to say… I was very fortunate to receive a Kindle as an early graduation present, and in my literary-induced excitement, I bought the first book I could think of: Paper Towns by John Green. I then proceeded to read said book, partially because […]
Bethany Wren 