Here are the things I noticed:

1. All men are assholes (apart from the ones in the end of the story)

While female characters can be multilayered, male characters are there with one trait only, they are mean. They often don’t have any grounds for that apart from being men.

Those cardboard wrong-doers are already enough to ruin a story but what really infuriates me is that in the end of the story the same asshole or some newcomer becomes a knight in shining armour and rescues the woman to her happily-ever-after. Seriously?! You just created a whole story where a woman suffered because of a man but the final message of the book is find yourself a better man?!

2. Pregnancies

It seems that just like “Chekhov’s gun” is supposed to shoot in a good story, a woman is supposed to produce a baby. It either happens during the story or before its onset, but regardless of its relevance to the plot the physiological details will be provided to you with the accuracy of an anatomy textbook.

I’m still not sure if this obsession is coming from the excitement of being able to describe something that male authors have no first-hand experience of, or it’s an attempt to speak about things that people around could not listen to.

3. Society vs women

Struggling stay-at-home moms, women facing harassment at work, women treated like cattle, these all are acute issues, but as it usually happens, once a message gets overstated it stops being noticed. And that’s exactly what I’ve been witnessing in modern books. Although, maybe conveying a message is not their main aim? Maybe it’s simply done to sell the books to certain audiences?

Obviously, I’m talking about my personal observations. I’ve read some books that do not orbit around those mentioned topics but include some other themes too. If you also know such books, please, let me know

What’s a blogging slump?

A slump is a slowdown in an activity. I always imagined a blogging slump to be that cosy, lazy process when you simply don’t want to focus on your blog and choose to focus on something else. Turns out, it’s not always true. I simply had to do other things, but I was really missing my blog and the community. So hi guys, how are you?

The other end of the tunnel

Now when I’m back I thought I’d turn this experience into a positive one summing up those things I noticed while trying to return. I’ll also ask you some questions and if you want to reply to any of them, please, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. My hope is that both the post and the comments will be helpful to other people who are going through similar situations.

Here is how it was for me

I dreaded returning to a project that remained untouched for so long

I think it was one of the main obstacles that kept me away for longer. I felt as if I’d been neglecting a hungry monster and it could now eat me up when I’d finally turn up at the doors. Luckily, it was a mistake. No monsters behind the doors, just dear old blog and lots of familiar people in the comments and Twitter replies.

Replying to comments and messages

This has been my main priority because it’s the people I’m here for. They did help me get back on track.

Something super exciting happened while I was away

I’ve been featured in an article called The 19 Best Book Blogs to Read in 2019 by Scribendi!!!

Of course, I’m over the moon about it, and it also encouraged me to come back here sooner.

My genius plan on how to avoid such long breaks in the future

I’ll try to schedule several posts ahead so that if the trouble does happen again I will be able to still stay connected with everybody while not having to spend time on writing new posts.

Questions to you

• What’s your experience with blog slumps or any other long breaks in your projects?
• Do you dread returning to a project after you have stayed away for some time?
• What is the thing you try to address first once you do return?
• Has anything exciting ever happened to the project while you were away? Did it help you return?
• Do you think there’s a way to avoid slumps?

Hope to hear back from you! Wishing you inspiration and enough time to do what you love doing!

If you want to chat more, here’s my first post with blogsitential questions.

What the book is about

It’s about a book store owner who lost his wife and then lost one valuable item from his store, but he has found something else instead. It’s also about a few other people in his life.

What I liked about the story

Reading list

Claudia McGill found the list of books mentioned in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. Thank you for the link Claudia! Just look at this list! A whole library has fit into the book!

When a new character was introduced

I won’t say who it was so as not to spoil it for you, but I found it very unexpected and almost surreal. That’s when I resolved to keep reading the book. I also found the character very charming.

The actual story

It’s pleasant, kind and peaceful but it doesn’t get overly simplistic. It is light, but not silly.

Of course, people had felt sorry for him then, but they had felt too sorry for him.

They held their breath as they walked past the store, like it was a cemetery.

…a theft is an acceptable social loss while a death is an isolating one.

It’s very bookish

It’s a book about books, and about people who live books and breathe books. It feels like the book bloggers and reviewers are actually the target audience of the story.

They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books?

Infinite Jest is an endurance contest. You manage to get through it and you have no choice but to say you like it.

Who are these people who think a book comes with a guarantee that they will like it?

The protagonist is a long distance runner

Just like yours truly. This detail doesn’t get too much focus but it’s always nice to relate to something in a book, isn’t it?

There are many challenges to long-distance running, but one of the greatest is the question of where to put one’s house keys.

What I found strange about the book

The writing

It feels very distant, as if someone is reciting contents of newspaper clippings. It is especially noticeable when something dramatic or tragic happens.

The shifting point of view

There is no stable point of view. Sometimes you get a bit of a story from one character, then you get another story from someone else. It’s always unpredictable and feels quite chaotic.

Redundant subplots and characters

There are a few characters who seem to be survivors from the first draft. It looks like their roles had got redundant but by the time it became obvious, they turned into close friends and family members, and so it was unethical to get rid of them for the sake of a more structured plot.

Would I recommend this book?

Yes, definitely. If you are looking for a quick and light read that will lead you to more books, you will likely enjoy this book.

A wishlist is, basically, just another digital shelf. I simply add a book there and then go back to reading whatever I was reading, because, as we all know, the wish to get a book are the wish to read a book are two different wishes. Most of purchased books continue their undisturbed lives on shelves, some of them eternally.

Here are the books from my wishlist

Have you read any of them? Would you recommend them?

1. House of Glass by Susan Fletcher

The book has everything I love: a gothic story, an old stone house, an eerie mystery. That’s about as much as I know because, I stay away from descriptions in order not to accidentally spoil a book for myself.

2. The Parentations by Kate Mayfield

Sarah, a fellow book blogger, suggested this book to me. She said it’s really beautiful and magical, but for some reason not many people read it yet. So its place is secured on my wishlist.

3. The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir

It’s a modern story about a fictional reality show, and the characters dealing with an unexpected situation while trying to carry on with the show. I want to get a physical copy of the book because of the shiny font on the cover (I’m a bookish magpie).

4. Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates

It’s a short story collection with quite an intriguing description about lovers, vengeful wives and some murders.

I first saw the book when Bookish chat posted the photo on Twitter. I hope to get a physical copy of the book because I like the cover, even though the woman seems slightly clumsily photoshopped into the armchair. I’m also worried by the book’s unflattering rating of 3.33 stars on Goodreads.

These are all the books I have on my wishlist so far. Do you have wishlists too?

1. Lunch. BBC Radio 4 comedy drama

Time: 4 hrs and 35 mins.

Lunch is an audio show about two characters, Bill and Bella. They used to be friends at college but then they went separate ways. Now, years later, they meet again and decide to rekindle their friendship. They start meeting once a month for lunch to talk about their lives.

Bill and Bella are very different. Bill is married and has a kid. He’s pragmatic, sceptical and sometimes cynical. Bella has recently broken up with her partner. She’s a free spirit who loves yoga and travelling to exotic places. They rarely share the same views, and so it’s interesting to see how they react to various life situations. It’s a thought-provoking show that lets you see things from different perspectives.

I really enjoyed the show. It was never boring. I loved the narrators’ voices, accents and style. The topics are fun too. I only wish the whole show was longer. I was told there are 5 seasons. Audible provides only 4, but it still feels like a complete show.

2. Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets

Time: 7 hrs and 33 mins.

This show was a treat!

In this show Stephen Fry takes you on a journey to Victorian times, exploring everything from their darkest secrets to something as practical as the construction of toilets. You’ll learn about serial killers, asylums, medicine, cosmetics, the life of gay people. You will even learn something new about Sherlock Holmes! It’s not just a gripping show, it’s actually a very thorough historical work, beautifully presented by different actors and historians.

It’s incredible how much information was placed into just 7.5 hours. I wish the show was longer, but only because it was so good.

If you listened to any similar series, or know any other interesting audio shows, podcasts or audiobooks, please, let me know!

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is indeed a very entertaining read. There’s really no place in a book where you’d want to take a break and do something else instead of reading. You just want to read the whole book in one sitting even though it’s too long for that.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a story about an ageing Hollywood actress who’s finally revealing her secrets.

Evelyn herself is absolutely amazing. She’s so charming. She makes you smile. She makes you like her. Even though she’s a character, she acts and sounds alive and real. Her dresses are always gorgeous. If there’s ever a movie adaptation I will watch it just to see all this beauty again on the screen.

There are a few moments I didn’t like though. It feels awkward to be criticising something I actually enjoyed but I can’t pretend those moments didn’t happen. So here they are.

The strongest side of Evelyn Hugo

Evelyn has so much potential. She’s witty, wise and talented. Nevertheless, according to the book her main assets are her boobs.  I almost feel offended on her behalf.

Communication glitches of Evelyn Hugo

Some interactions between characters are plainly implausible. I don’t mean impossible. The are unrealistic. Here’s an example to illustrate what I mean. A couple is discussing their possible divorce while watching their beloved daughter play. They mention the implications a divorce would have on their work, their public image, other practicalities. Not once do they mention how it will affect their beloved daughter (who’s playing in front of them!) How is this possible? Either the daughter is a piece of furniture (which the book insists is not the case) or something doesn’t work with the storytelling. In fact, if you remove the adored daughter from the book completely, nothing at all will change in the plot.

Timeframes in the book

The time frames are simply announced by a character every time. There’s no feeling of the time passing by. You just read about a few scenes and then you are informed that actually 15 years passed while you were reading them.

Terminology

It’s a minor thing, but it was repeated several times so it is noticeable that a character calls her grief “the devastating luxury of panic”. To me it doesn’t sound like an extravagant or sophisticated choice of words but rather like the character doesn’t know proper words for her feelings.

On a positive note

I did love the end of the book! I was preparing myself for something way more simple than that. There was a great twist and an awesome finale as a result. 

I’m giving the book four stars and I will be recommending it to people because it’s beautiful and fast-paced, and it entertains really well.

I have not disappeared. Quite the contrary, I am present in the book world so much that you haven’t seen me here for three days. The three days felt like eons to me, though. I flashed through the universes, times and lives. I’m on my fourth book right now since the last time we talked.

Partially, that’s why I’m posting now. I’m embarking on a literary Livingstone journey. I’m starting to read a saga that’s set in Africa. It starts with Livingstone, and just as Africa was initially unknown to him, The Old Drift seems to be unknown to readers now. It hasn’t been discovered yet. The Old Drift is a book from the future. By the time it appears for the world, the northern hemisphere will be heading towards the middle of spring.

I can hardly find any traces of this book online. There are only two ratings on Goodreads and no reviews at all. There are no reviews or ratings on Amazon either, but there’s a cover. Let’s marvel at it for some time.

Isn’t it stunning?

That was the cover that attracted me first, and then it was the description. The book is immense not only by its size but by its ambition. It intends to tell a story about three generations of three different families starting from the year 1903.

I understand now why pioneers kept journals. It gives you the feeling of company. Hence, here is my post. I’m reaching out to your from the shores of the Zambezi river, showing you the fragments of where I am, and now I’m going back.

My review of the book will appear in spring, when the winter has passed, the warmth returns and you can order your copy.

Otherwise, see you soon in other posts.

Subscribe to stay in touch.

Reading mediocre books is like being around toxic people. They are never too bad to be dropped straight away. By the time you realise they will never change, you already have lost too much time and energy.

That’s what happened when I was reading A River or Stars by Vanessa Hua. The book is not that bad. It actually introduced me to more aspects of a culture than it probably intended to. I don’t mean straightforward information like the facts about the life of Chinese people in rural areas, or the fact that Chinese people born in rural areas are not allowed to work or study in the cities (is it really so?!) There are other, more subtle cultural aspects noticeable in the book. For example, a man is still considered a good father figure even though he calls his previous children by ordinal numbers. He doesn’t care enough to refer to them by names because they are female.

A River of Stars promised to be way more dynamic than it actually was. Pregnant women on a run in a foreign country sounded like a story with possible adventures. The adventures never happened. The book does start with several fast-paced events but it soon falls apart into many irrelevant flashbacks from different characters which, while exposing the characters, still leave them looking flat and underdeveloped, probably because the characters themselves rarely do anything. They float around the book like oil stains on water, flashing their memories and tweaking their existence until everything arrives to a culmination that would have happened anyway even if they had remained absolutely still. One character’s life is parallel to the plot. The character is not really knitted into the plot but not dropped from it either. Another character’s behavior puzzles both readers and characters but is never explained.

The writing is decent. The sentences don’t look like written by a graduate from ‘How to be a popular writer’ course. The style is genuine and flowing. The phrases are nicely built. They just don’t have a structure to convey. There are tons of details and descriptions scattered across the book but they never play any role. They are sort of Chekhov’s guns gone wrong. The events with a potential to some salience are described distantly and monotonously as if the author herself is bored with telling them. The backward, flashback-based storytelling makes the book sound like those long detailed monologues of people who you can’t escape from because of some social situation. As soon as you allow yourself to skip a paragraph, it turns out you missed some important information, so you have to return and go through the boring part again.

I wouldn’t suggest A River of Stars to anybody. Even though it’s not a bad book, it still takes time that could be spent on a really good one.

There have been fifteen titles altogether! The reviews of all of them except one are already in the blog. Five of the titles are actual books and ten of them are audiobooks. I’ve never done so much concentrated work with books before. I love the process! Writing book posts is one of the most rewarding activities I have ever done. I always loved analysing books but the possibility to share what I think is even more thrilling.

The review I like the most on my blog is probably about Trevor Noah’s book because it has lots of outdoor photos.

The best book I read this month is The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles. I’m still missing the characters.

Other books that I consider definitely worthy of attention are A Man Called Ove, Everything Under and Born a Crime. The books that I would have easily done without are all the thrillers I listened to. They are in falling stars and thrillers categories in my blog.

My favourite non-review post is about Kindle vs print. I feel like this topic should be explored even deeper.

Right now the blog has 64 followers. I’ve had conversations with some of them. I love staying in touch with an amazing artist, my friend from many epochs, the author of Neowatercolor blog. Her paintings are unique, beautiful and emotional. Thanks to my blog I was introduced to another awesome blog called Same Scene Different Story. It has an idea I’ve never met before. Several writers compose their stories based on the same photo. I find it very inspirational. I loved staying in touch with Nsfordwriter, Ova and Umut. Nsfordwriter is also a new blog. Its author reviews books and sometimes posts examples of her own writing. Ova and Umut always have great book suggestions. It’s priceless to know people who can suggest good books to you.

That’s a short summary of the first month. I’m looking forward to the next month, new books and more interesting people to meet.

Happy Birthday dear Blog!  

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