Read for college 

'Before the Coffee Gets Cold' isn't a  particularly bad collection of stories but with all the hype surrounding it, I was honestly expecting so much more....

I have always really enjoyed time travel stories and I love the coffee shop setting. As a concept, I find tthe idea of a person being allowed to return to the past to have a conversation but only being allowed to stay until the coffee gets cold absolutely fascinating. It honestly could have been downright genius, but was just executed so badly here with not enough depth😭 

 The final story, with the mother and child, was definitely the strongest of the four. If it had  been fleshed out into a longer story or published on its own with a bunch of completely different magical realism-type stories, I would have been moved by it a lot more. The repetition really kills it for me and, because you have already read the first three stories, the ending isn't as poignant as it could have been. 

I was also expecting a bit more from the writing style which wasn't terrible but wasn't particularly memorable either. 

I really enjoyed this. No one strings half a dozen subplots together quite like George RR Martin. I'm so intruiged to see where the story goes from here on out. 

So far the characters I enjoy reading about most are; Sansa, Jon, Bran and Daenerys. Theon drives me a bit mad...I always cringe to myself a bit starting one of his chapters. 

Loses points for really feeling like a middle book  

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more"

That's exactly how I feel about this book ❤️

Emma Woodhouse is, without a doubt, one of my favourite heroines of all time. Complex and multifaceted, she is a snobby b*tch with an absolute heart of gold. 

I read this book really quickly, not because it was particularly good but because it was an easy read and i was bored on the train. The People's Princess doesn't add much to the Diana narrative but I did learn a bit about Princess Charlotte so I guess that was nice. Aside from the surface level parallels between the two women's lives, I think both stories could have been better served by being split into two separate books. 

To be honest, although both count as fluffy light reading, I thought Flora Harding's other book 'Before the Crown' was a lot better. Harding's portrayl of the young Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip seemed a lot more  two dimensional than how she chose to write Diana and Charlotte here. This kinda fell too much on the side of YA historical fiction for my taste.  

First of all, I really hadn't expected to enjoy this at all. I've somehow never seen even an episode of the GOT show and haven't read a proper fantasy novel since Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Narnia and The Inheritance Cycle more than ten years ago. 

But I thought the first book in ASoIaF was fantastic!! While it was a LOT more mature and political than any fantasy I had read as a kid, I was completely reminded why I used to love fantasy so much. The world building is so intricate. The history of Westeros seems so realistic and multidimensional. The various families really do feel like powerful dynasties that have been around in positions of power and influence for hundreds of years. The characters were great. I particularly loved the Starks (including Jon) and was truly rooting for all of them. Their struggle between duty to the realm and familial loyalty was 👌 

I was also really intruiged by the Targareans as a dynasty and am looking forward to see how Dani's story goes from here on out. The whole lost princess scenario gives me major Anastasia Romanov vibes. 

So looking forward to checking out the new HBO spinoff, House of the Dragon 🐉 

''Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.''

I really really enjoyed this book. Its the perfect dark academia/contemporary gothic inspired read. Really atmospheric and beautifully written...almost in a way that attempts to (intentionally) distract and misdirect the reader from all the crazy dark sh*t going on. The characters are all incredibly pretentious, truly horrible and really f*cked up in one way or another, but somehow you're still pulled in by them. The decision to have Richard be this unreliable narrator who sees his fellow Classics students through rose tinted glasses really shows how someone could be drawn into such an insular world---romanticising foreign civilisations and speaking dead languages, blindly following his peers even when their actions become more and more questionable. 

Their teacher, Julian, I found particularly interesting...especially considering Richard's musing on him towards the end; why he selects the students that he does, completely isolating them from the rest of the university and whether his actions really are benevolent in nature, rooted in vanity or in something more sinister.

 
Donna Tartt also explores the concept of class, privilege, and class entitlement in a really interesting way, a way in which many books and films have tried to achieve but haven't quite as well as this one. 

First of all, I think that both the American Psycho film and the musical are easily five stars. 

As a satire, I think American Psycho is a really interesting exploration of hyper consumerism, narcissism, toxic masculinity and the emptiness of post modern life. I also think that aspects of the story are every bit as timely now as they were in the 80s e.g, the performative humanitarism of the characters, the tendency of people to desensitise themselves to the horrors around them using media etc.

 However, I think this story works so much better as a film and a musical than it does as a book. This reads like the diary of Patrick Bateman and goes between being overly  gratuitous with insanely detailed descriptions of violent acts (some of which I didn't have the stomach for and had to skip over) and long descriptions of luxury clothing and branded items. I get that that's the point...but it made the reading experience drag. 

In short, unless you have time to kill, I would skip this and watch the film! 

This book has wit by the bucket like all of Nancy's novels but it isn't  my favourite. Really enjoyed reading her taking the piss on her fascist Nazi sympathising sisters though!!