The first ever giveaway on Two Sisters Reading!

I’m pretty sure I might have mentioned at some stage that I’ve been selected as a giver for World Book Night next week (23 April).  If I haven’t, well now you know and I’M SO EXCITED!

What is World Book Night, you ask?

World Book Night is a celebration of reading and books which sees tens of thousands of passionate volunteers gift specially chosen and printed WBN books in their communities to share their love of reading.

Each year we recruit 20,000 volunteers to hand out 20 copies of their favourite book from our list to members of their community who don’t regularly read.  By enlisting thousands of passionate book lovers around the country World Book Night reaches out to the millions of people in the UK who have yet to fall in love with reading in the hope that we can start them on their reading journey. In addition World Book Night distributes half a million books directly to the hardest to reach potential readers in prisons, care homes, hospitals, sheltered, supported and social housing, the homeless and through partner charities working throughout the UK. World Book Night is about giving books and encouraging reading in those who don’t regularly do so.  But it is also about more than that: it’s about people, communities and connections, about reaching out to others and touching lives in the simplest of ways, through the sharing of stories. (via the World Book Night website).

So you can see why I’m so excited.  I’m a huge advocate of literacy programmes and reading and I can’t think of a better way to spread the joy of reading than through  handing out a free book to 20 strangers.  Hopefully I’ll make someone’s day–I know mine would be made if I got a free, unexpected book on the street!

The book I’ve been selected to hand out is Patrick Ness’s The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Here’s a synopsis of the book, but I’ve gotta say it doesn’t do it justice…

Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee — whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not — stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden — a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?

It’s such a good book and there’s so much more to it than that… It was one of my favourite reads of 2012 if that’s any indication for you!

That brings me to my giveaway here on The London Diaries.  I have 20 gorgeous copies of the The Knife of Never Letting Go, complete with special edition World Book Night cover art–and you could win a copy!

What do you need to do?  Simple–either click the “like” button for this post or leave me a comment.  That’s it!  On World Book Night, I’ll be at the Southbank Centre’s World Book Night celebration and I will be live tweeting the winner then.  You’ve got until 5pm on Tuesday to like or comment to win.  In the spirit of World Book Night, it’s important to note that I’ll also be shipping internationally, so where you are doesn’t matter.

Good Luck!

March Read - Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend - Matthew Dicks
Synopsis (as taken [and edited for accuracy] from Goodreads):  

Budo is Max's imaginary friend. But though only Max can see him, he is real. He and the other imaginary friends watch over their children until the day comes that the child stops imagining them. And then they're gone. Budo has lasted a lot longer than most imaginary friends--five years--because Max needs him more. Max is perfectly happy if everything is just kept the way it is, and nothing out of the ordinary happens. Unfortunately, something out of the ordinary is going to happen--and then he'll need Budo more than ever.

S’s Rating:  ❤❤❤❤ 1/2 (out of five hearts)

D’s Rating:  ❤❤❤❤ 1/2 (out of five hearts)


S’s Thoughts:
My younger sister, L, had an imaginary friend as a child.  She called her "Amy" and Amy was responsible for pretty much everything L did to get into trouble.  Amy obviously dumped the toys out everywhere, not L.  Amy hit me, not L.  Was it L who ripped the pages out of a book?  Nope.  Amy, obviously.  And then one day in the car, and I remember this so vividly, our mother asked L about Amy... I think it had been a while since Amy had last made an appearance.  L, who was maybe 6 years old at the most, replied matter-of-factly that Amy was gone.  She'd died in a fire.

Needless to say, we were pretty creeped out.  So that was the end of Amy--killed off soap opera style in a fire.

I don't remember ever having an imaginary friend of my own... though I guess that's one of the points of Dick's novel.  Once you forget about your imaginary friend, stop needing them, they're gone for good. 

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend was a sweet little book with some seriously sinister and sad undertones.  Max is a lonely little boy who suffers from a form of autism.  We're not actually told this but his nuances, triggers and personality make it quite clear from the get-go.  Max doesn't have any friends except for Budo, his imaginary and very perceptive companion.  It is Budo who narrates the novel--an interesting idea to have an invisible character narrate the story without making him omnipotent.

I really enjoyed Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend; it was a quick and addictive read and I'd recommend it to just about anyone... especially those who had imaginary friends themselves!


Standout Quotes:
"The world can be so complicated for Max.  Even when he gets something right, it can still go wrong."

"Jo-Jo leans closer to me.  'Does that mean we aren't real?' 'No,' I say.  'It just means that we are a different kind of real.  It's a kind of real that adults don't understand, so they just assume that we're imaginary.'"

"You have to be the bravest person in the world to go out every day being yourself when no on likes who you are.  I could never be as brave as Max."

Album to listen to while reading this book: Not sure why but The Beatles come to mind for this one... one of their older (less psychedelic!) albums for sure.


D’s Thoughts:
When I was younger, I did not so much have an imaginary friend, but rather an entire "school" of ones. I'm pretty sure it was modeled off of the early Harry Potter movies I loved so dearly, but otherwise I don't remember them much.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, having been written from the point of view of an autistic third-grader's "friend", appears to at first be meant for the late elementary school age range. However, rest assured that any adult who reads will find it impossible to put the book down once the exposition and explanation of situation are complete. As S stated, there are many sinister qualities to this book as well.

Speaking of situation, Matthew Dicks did an excellent job in consideration of the qualities of imaginary friends. For example, it is continually mentioned throughout the book that some "friends" are not imagined fully, and that many are missing ears and eyebrows simply because their young creators forgot. Such detail supports that the author was incredibly invested in his story, and the outstanding product as a whole proves it.

I suppose I love this story because it includes many things--like the eyebrow-less imaginary friends and the reasoning behind the antagonist's deeds--I never personally would have thought of myself. It was more than worth staying up late to finish...proceeded by bawling my eyes out as though I was no older than 6 when it was over. 

Yes, I cried. I'm not ashamed.

Standout Quotes:

"I sometimes think that neat and organized people spend too much time planning and not enough time doing. I don't trust neat and organized people."  

"Monsters are bad things, but monsters that do not walk and talk like monsters are the worst."

 Album to listen to while reading this book: I honestly have no idea, but to keep with the kid theme, I'm gonna stick with Saint-Saens' The Carnival of the Animals. Each movement is rather short and innocent, much like the life of most imaginary friends.

 
April’s book is D’s choice and is Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess.

See you soon! S & D

Women's Prize for Fiction - The Longlist

The Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize For Fiction) is probably my favourite literary award out there.  It's not stuffy and pretentious like the Man Booker Prize (oh my GOD how I hate that one) and it's a bit more serious than the Costa Book Award (can't take an award named after a coffee chain seriously, no matter how nice their coffee is).  The Women's Prize for Fiction is like the Goldilocks of book prizes--not too boring and stuck up it's own butt but not full of fluff.

And since it's International Women's Month (Really?! You don't say!) I thought I'd just throw the longlist up on here and just say how excited I am about it:

Kitty Aldridge - A Trick I Learned From Dead Men (Jonathan Cape)
Kate Atkinson - Life After Life (Doubleday)
Ros Barber - The Marlowe Papers (Sceptre)
Shani Boianjiu - The People of Forever are Not Afraid (Hogarth)
Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Sheila Heti - How Should A Person Be? (Harvill Secker)
A M Homes - May We Be Forgiven (Granta)
Barbara Kingsolver - Flight Behaviour (Faber)
Deborah Copaken Kogan - The Red Book (Virago)
Hilary Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)
Bonnie Nadzam - Lamb (Hutchinson)
Emily Perkins - The Forrests (Bloomsbury Circus)
Michèle Roberts - Ignorance (Bloomsbury)
Francesca Segal - The Innocents (Chatto & Windus)
Maria Semple - Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Elif Shafak - Honour (Viking)
Zadie Smith - NW (Hamish Hamilton)
M L Stedman - The Light Between Oceans (Doubleday)
Carrie Tiffany - Mateship with Birds (Picador)
G. Willow Wilson - Alif the Unseen (Corvus Books)

I'll be the first to say I've only read one title off of this list but I'd recommend Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl to just about anyone.  Actually, I'm going to try and get my hands on more of Flynn's stuff soonish!  I pretty much groaned out loud when I saw Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies on yet another prize list... I mean, snore.  I'm sure Matel's work is enjoyable for some people but I'm not one of them.  And besides... she's won enough already this year... let someone else have a go!

I'm really excited about Shafak's Honour and Kingsolver's Flight Behaviour, so much so that I bought the Kindle versions this morning.  Also I'm seeing Kingsolver in April/May and I'm pretty stoked about that too.  I'm very curious about Boianjiu's The People of Forever are Not Afraid... It looks really interesting!

My goodness, my "to read" list is growing by leaps and bounds!  Are any of you guys excited by any of these books or are there some missing from the list that you think should be there?  Have you read any of them already?

X
S

February Read - Shatter Me

Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi

Synopsis (as taken from Goodreads):  

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

D’s Rating:  ❤❤❤❤  (out of five hearts)

S’s Rating: ❤❤❤ 3/4  (out of five hearts)


D’s Thoughts:
I chose Shatter Me for two reasons that absolutely never affect my reading:

1. It was the one book on the shelves of my local Wal-Mart that didn't want to make me vomit or bash my own head.
2. I really liked the cover art. And it's not at all my style.

For whatever reason, I could never put the book down. I spent many moments confused, which only fed my desire to read more. The writing style? Gorgeous, with so much imagery. I fell in love with it.

I'm very much a hit-or-miss person with dystopian novels. I loved Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Anderson's Feed, but I haven't enjoyed many others until Shatter Me. Additionally, I was surprised to find myself connecting to Juliette and her inability to be touched, though I'm pretty sure my touch isn't lethal. There were some moments, in her lamenting about her loneliness, that I caught myself thinking, this is exactly how it feels to be lonely, she hit it spot-on. Miss Tahereh Mafi, if a word of it came from your own experiences, my heart goes out to you.

While the book did not change me forever, I give it a solid four hearts. I will be sure to read the sequel! 

Standout Quotes:
I wonder about raindrops. I wonder about how they're always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble...It's like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn't seem to care where the contents fall, doesn't seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground...that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.
I am a raindrop.

My lips will stay stitched shut with the secrets of this morning forever but my heart is so full of confidence and wonder and peace and possibility that it's about to burst and I wonder if it will rip [my] dress.

"We are fed lies because believing them makes us weak, vulnerable, malleable. We depend on others for our food, health, sustenance. This cripples us. Creates cowards of our people. Slaves of our children. It's time for us to fight back."


Album to listen to while reading this book: (before you judge me, this is generally not my taste in music, but I do have an appreciation for it) The Wall by Pink Floyd


S’s Thoughts:
I'll be honest.  I was perilously close to giving this book a solid four stars.  I'll also be double honest and say that I'm not sure WHY I couldn't give it a full four stars (five stars are rare from me so just hang that up right there) but I just couldn't.  Shatter Me wasn't a bad book--I enjoyed it.  But I also spent the first 70-80 pages totally confused out my skull.  And then when I wasn't confused and was understanding what was going on? Things changed.  And then I was confused again.  Maybe I'm into backstory and knowing what the frig is going on way too much.  Maybe.  But I had no clue why the world was in such disarray, why there were all of a sudden people with powers running around.

I finished the book as I started it.  Confused.

That being said, I liked Mafi's writing style: short, punchy but full of amazing imagery.  One too many times I felt myself thinking about Francesca Lia Block's writing style and how close the two were  (Damn.  I haven't read a FLB book in ages).  Both writers love including natural elements in their descriptions and what you get from that is some really beautiful language.

Standout Quotes:

"Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never ever sleeps, is what I don't tell him.  I'll never be okay."

"I can shoot a hundred numbers through the chest and watch them bleed decimal points in the palm of my hand.  I can rip the numbers off a clock and watch the hour hand tick tick tick its final tock just before I fall asleep.  I can suffocate sounds just by holding my breath.  I've been murdering minutes for hours and no one seems to mind."

"I am too poor to afford the luxury of hysteria right now."

 Album to listen to while reading this book: "Happiness... Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch" by Our Lady Peace. Brilliant dystopian sounding album.

 
March’s book is S’s choice and is "Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend" by Matthew Dicks.

See you soon! S & D

D's January Review...in February. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children!

Synopsis (as taken from Goodreads):
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here - one of whom was his own grandfather - were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow - impossible though it seems - they may still be alive.

Rating: ❤❤❤❤❤ out of 5 hearts

They say that the best things in life are worth waiting for. As most of you have realized, I get a majority of my books from the city library, though I do my best to support great authors by buying their books when possible. As was expected, Miss Peregrine's had a long hold list. How long, you ask? When I joined the list in early October, I was number 42, which more than triples the last "biggest wait list" I've been on: for TFioS back in July. I didn't get the book until January! Worth it? Undoubtedly so!

It's hard to know where to start, and it's hard to talk about the most wonderful things about this book without a bunch of spoilers, but I'll do my best. For starters, as opposed to the main character in our last sister read, Jacob Portman was relatable, despite being rather dissimilar to me. Most of us know the feeling of not being believed--though perhaps not to the extent of Jacob--and we can all certainly relate to the point in childhood where you simply cease believing in the "fairy tales" you once did. 

I absolutely adored the settings of this book: first Florida (2 of my 5 favorite books are set there, it must mean something) and then on an island in Wales. Both, but particularly Cairnholm Island were vividly described by the author, to the point that you could feel as if you were there. Ransom Riggs, among other things, is among the ranks of the few author who can make the weather of their novels interesting without making it a key part of the plot (the first example I can think of that displays this is the children's novel Bridge to Terebithia).

Miss Peregrine's was so unlike any other book I've ever read, and I never quite knew what would happen next. The hero's journey takes such a unique meaning in this book, and the empathy I felt while reading was off the charts. And that, friends, is why Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children not only gets 5 out of 5 hearts, but why it also joins my list of favorite books ever.

Standout Quotes: 
“When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking."

“To have endured all the horrors he did, to have seen the worst of humanity and have your life made unrecognizable by it, to come out of all that the honorable and brave and good person I knew him to be— that was magical.”

“I didn’t know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good.” 

Album to listen to: I don't know why, but Sigh No More by Mumford and Sons. Children's playtime songs also come to mind,

Now to begin devouring this month's Sister Read! Expect a review soon, as S and I are both ecstatic about reading this book!

~D

S's January 2013 Book Wrap Up

So here's my January BWU.  It's pretty extensive... I've been a busy girl this month!


Books Read:  8

• On the Island – Tracey Garvis-Graves
• The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
• Before I Fall – Lauren Oliver (Sister Read!)
• The Haunting Season – Michelle Muto (Review here)
• All My Friends Are Superheroes – Andrew Kaufman
• The Tiny Wife – Andrew Kaufman
• Wrecked – Charlotte Roche
• Where the Devil Can’t Go – Anya Lipska

 Books Abandoned:  0

 Books in Progress:  1

• My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece - Annabel Pitcher

Just a friendly reminder... Lucy Robinson's second book, "A Passionate Love Affair With a Total Stranger" is out now!  Check out my advance review but, really?  Why would you?  Just go read the book!

X
S

D's January Book Wrap-Up

Hello, all! As promised, here is my book wrap-up for the month.

Books Read:  4

1. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
2. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (sister read)
3. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
4. Silas Marner by George Eliot (classic)

 Books Abandoned:  0

 Books in Progress:  0, as I just finished Silas Marner today

Best Book: A tough decision, but Miss Peregrine's was the best. A review should be coming your way this weekend.

Worst Book: Before I Fall. No question. Ick. 

If you're looking for S's BWU, you can find it on her other blog here.

Adieu! Goodbye and good luck!

~D