theelliad's Reviews (291)

Ella doing assigned reading, no way… Can safely say this is the strangest book i’ve had to read for uni so far, and despite it turning out to be extremely fucked up I actually really enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down. 

The majority of the story feels reminiscent of Mrs Dalloway with a much less likeable and yet simultaneously empathy inducing protagonist, and being only 100 pages long this was the perfect little read for before work (other than the slightly traumatising nature of it). 
Parts of the narrative also seemed to flit uncomfortably between attempting to be feminist and overtly discriminatory. Definitely read the trigger warnings but overall pretty good! 

Safe to say that I’ve been missing this for a while, and I couldn’t be happier at starting my hobbit journey! This is one of the most wholesome reads I’ve had in a while and Tolkien possesses an unmatched ability to manipulate and create the most picturesque environments through description I felt very immersed into the surroundings. I’m usually not a fan of 3rd person perspectives for fantasy and while this did remain engaging I definitely felt there was a certain distance from the characters because of the chosen pov, also im not entirely sure how this book becomes three films?! That said I thoroughly enjoyed this and Im excited to read more from this universe :) 

Wow, where do i even begin. This was perhaps one of my most anticipated reads of the year and it surpassed all expectations, I literally couldn’t put it down hence finishing it in a day. 

Perhaps my mind is still plagued from my weekend but this book felt like a hozier song and a madeline miller books elegant child. The references, the articulation, the length, the love story told through letters, I cannot begin to explain how heavenly this was I would like to inject it into my bloodstream please. I will say that the plot is hard to follow in places, but since that didn’t distract from the reading experience I won’t criticise it too harshly… I highly recommend this to you all :) 

finally coming to the end of this book, i felt reminded of a quote from the great gatsby “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything.” 

my expectations for this read were unreasonably high and, while i loved it very much, i can’t help feeling slightly disappointed in its inability to live up to my hopes 

that said, this is still an incredible book, the references are immaculate and having studied some of the texts mentioned it served to boost my ego massively, im also always a huge fan of morally grey characters and themes of death so it was a big hit in that sense 

nothing however and i truly mean NOTHING excuses those chapter lengths, no chapter has any business being 200 pages donna i stg 

overall i loved the dark academia side but felt the plot got somewhat lost in tartts desperation to appear scholarly, which granted is the entire purpose of the novel. to consider tartt a genius in exploring academic elitism, moral greyness and the loss of the self in an attempt to please others would be an understatement, and while the overly romanticised recommending of this book under the dark academia aesthetic made it tumble short, the purpose is something yet to be matched by any other book 

this was so beautiful to read and so eye opening to read a history, raw and realistic though fictional, so ignored by the western curriculum. mapping these events to pop culture moments and more recognisable (to western readers) events gives the story such a followable timeline despite it spanning such a wide time period 

the writing style of this is so beautiful and emotional and hosseini approaches such difficult themes in such a gentle and humane way, overall a very beautiful read 

this is very oscar wilde; overly descriptive in nature and somewhat a mess of a plot full of morally corrupt characters, however it was a fun short little read (50 pages only) 

not much more to say on this one really, wasn’t anything super special

this took me a while to get into, but oh boy is it beautifully written- never have i loved and hated shakespeare so simultaneously and maggie o’farrell merges the factual and fictional so incredibly well. 

my only complaint is the choice to stop using chapters in the second part, while i do understand why she did it, it just made it difficult to read as i like to take breaks occasionally 😅

other than that i think this is such a unique form of insight into shakey and definitely worth checking out