Almost two years ago, I wrote a post about wanting to get back into reading books more often. What I meant by this was non-comic books without pictures. Since I’m nearly 8 months pregnant now, I find it really hard to sit up at my desk to play games, so I’ve been reading books as a hobby more often. I started at the beginning of October and by the end of the month, I was able to finish 3 books. The first one was The Shining by Stephen King, then Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, and the final one was Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas.
The Shining
This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for a very long time. Most people know about The Shining. It’s one of Stephen King’s most popular books and it’s probably the most beloved movie based on any of his books. I’ve seen the movie millions of times over the years and I was interested to see what the differences between the book and movie would be. The book goes into greater detail about the different ghosts in the hotel, such as the twins in the hallway and what happened in room 237. Stephen King, as always, paints a very gruesome portrait of these characters that just can’t be translated to screen. I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars. I would have probably rated it 5 out of 5 had I not seen the movie so many times before. Having Stanley Kubrick as a director and Jack Nicholson as the main actor makes the book hard to beat the movie.
Outlander
I watched the first episode of this series while I was recovering from surgery a few months ago and I decided it was good enough to read the book instead and come back to the show later. At 560 pages, this book occupied the majority of October for me. This is a timey-wimey historical romance novel and I couldn’t help but hope for the Doctor to show up and explain the science behind this book. The book takes place towards the end of World War II where a field nurse (Claire) and her husband are reuniting in Scotland after having been apart for 6 years. They stumble upon some villagers performing an ancient druid ritual one night. The next day, Claire decides to investigate the circle of stones where the ritual took place and is instead transported to 1700’s Scotland in the middle of a skirmish between the British and the McKenzie clan. She meets the wounded Jamie and patches him back up. The McKenzie clan is so impressed with her “healing” powers (which is really just modern medical knowledge) that they take her in. This book was a little hard to stomach at times because I went into it thinking this was going to be a generic romance novel. When you break down the characters, they are very realistic. I was disappointed by their actions quite often, which made me put down the book a lot. Then I realized this is how real people are – unpredictable. Once I started reading Outlander with that in mind, I got really into the book. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. My biggest complaint is that the time travel part is never really explained. Perhaps I’m just too spoiled by Doctor Who.
Throne of Glass
This book is all over Instagram, so I figured I would give it a try. This is a young adult fantasy and contrasts greatly to Outlander in that all the characters are fairly consistent in their actions and you don’t really see much character growth. However, I think the book was worth a read. Throne of Glass immerses you in a fantasy world and makes you forget your real life. For someone like me, that is invaluable. The book follows Celaena, an assassin paying her penance in salt mines and is selected to battle it out with other trained assassins to become the King’s champion – hopefully winning her freedom in the end. Like all young adult novels, there is a love triangle. Prince Dorian is her sponsor and Chaol is the captain of the royal guard and also her trainer. Of course they are best friends going after the same girl. Of course. Even though these types of stories have been overdone, I still enjoyed reading the book. The fight scenes are highly well written and almost make you think you are reading Game of Thrones. I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars, mainly because it was a book you could get lost in. I also plan on reading the other 3 books in the series.
R2D2 Cupcake 