The Novelle: letstalk

18:00

March In Review

When I say I've had a lot of time to read this month, I mean a lot. This has been my first month "working" on a farm, and the reason that I put the word working in inverted commas is because I've been here for almost a month now and I've only worked 3 times. So, as you can tell I've had a lot of free time on my hands to get through some of the books I've been wanting to read for a long time as well as keeping up to date with writing on my blog.

I decided to sign up for Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service this month as well which will give me the chance to finish the Harry Potter and Mortal Instruments series - finally! I haven't had any problems with it thus far, but I have noticed that there isn't an abundance of good titles on the service. I did a bit of research myself, and found out that a lot of big publisher names have opted out of this idea leaving the big titles out the game. I'm sure you'll find a hidden treasure in there somewhere, but the majority of the books on there aren't enough to persuade me to carry on once I've finished the aforementioned series.

Pages Read: 1736

Books Read

★★★★☆ Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban - JK Rowling

★★★★☆ A Tale For The Time Being - Ruth Ozeki

★★☆☆☆ City Of Lost Souls - Cassandra Clare

★★★★☆ The Duff - Kody Keplinger

I've been pretty impressed with all of the books I've read this month except one. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban was as good as always and from what I remember, after the third book is when it starts getting into the nitty gritty of the series, so I'm really excited to carry on until the end (finally!).

For some reason I didn't expect to like A Tale For The Time Being* as the synopsis didn't really pull me in - I'll be honest, I decided to read this because of the different amazing covers I've seen (guilty as charged). However, I was pleasantly surprised to absolutely adore this book and found it to be similar to another Asian author, Haruki Murakami in it's style and simple but effective story.

City Of Lost Souls was a burden to get through. This series seems to be getting progressively worse as it goes off on a tangent for the majority of the book to write about the love story. It majorly affects the story and makes the characters naive and ridiculiusly stupid in their decisions. I've decided I hate Clary and think she's the dumbest character I have ever read. The thing is, is that the story is actually quite intriguing if you take away the romance, and I don't see why Cassandra Clare can't just focus on that.

After the last book, The Duff* was such a relief and such a brilliant end to the month. It is plain and simply what a YA book should be comprised of; life lessons, morals as well as the every day life of an every day teenager. I think Kody Keplinger rounded off all these points perfectly in one book and I was left thinking about my own life after finishing this wonderful book.

*Link to review

21:00

Let's talk: Illustrations

It is almost an unspoken rule that illustrated books are for children and for children only. If you find yourself in your adult life reading book with illustrations, then you run the risk of being looked down upon as a juvenile individual who probably can’t handle reading anything substantial.

I sometimes find myself on public transport reading an illustrated book and feeling embarrassed by it; if people see the pictures, will they think I’m childish? I often try reading very discreetly or not at all when I’m reading these books in public, and something about that does not feel right.

No matter what book you are reading, you are reading, and if it happens to contain pictures, it doesn’t make you any less of a person than one with facts and figures.

Illustrations are the perfect way of enhancing your reader’s knowledge of the world that you are creating. It adds another level to the story, and sometimes when things are hard to imagine, it pushes the reader in the right direction. Sometimes it works the other way around; the reader imagines the world in their own way and takes a look at the illustrations to see a physical interpretation of the scene. It’s often interesting to see the differences in imagination, and this shouldn’t be looked down on, as everyone has their own personal takes on every book they have ever read.

Illustrative books such as graphic novels have a big popularity among older people, especially seeing as a lot of the scenes in them are meant for the older reader. I don’t think a lot of people see these as illustrated picture books, as they tend to define them as two separate entities; but with all that said they are what they are, books with pictures in them. People don’t tend to judge graphic novels as much as they do to other books with illustrations, and I’m curious as to why.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld has the most beautiful illustrations created by Keith Thompson. Thompson’s images are deep, dark and haunting, and they assist the writing in creating a mood and setting the scene. The pictures were, in a way, what encouraged me to continue reading as I was looking forward to seeing what scene the illustrator would show us next, and if it could get any more fabulous than the last. I can definitely say that I was never disappointed. These drawings should be seen as an alternative insight, not a childish fantasy.

Over the years, I have learnt not to care what people think with regards to what I am reading, as I believe reading to be quite personal. The illustrations in these books are an added aspect that doesn’t take anything away from the writing as a whole. To say that illustrations are childish is probably more of an insult to the writer than it is to the reader.