Belated love กว่าจะรู้ เล่มจบ - 藍淋,หลันห...
This one is around 3.5 stars or so.

Finished in record time. It is entertaining and fun to read. But it wasn't as intense and evocative as the first book, Long Way Home (歸途) in the Round Trip (雙程系列) series.

Older guy as the bottom is not exactly my cup of tea but I am surprised it could secure my attention so well and I did enjoyed reading it. The age gap here is very wide. They are 18 years apart in age and that older guy is highly-sexed and favors younger men. Sexually he is originally a top who does not bottom at all until he met and fell in love with a handsome young man. It just happened that that young man is rather dominant when it comes to sex. Therefore that older guy had to compromise or not get to touch or see him at all. He gave in rather reluctantly and they would wrestle each other for the top position whenever they have sex.

I think I know why I am so engrossed with this author's work. Her characters are imperfect human beings with benign desires as well as dark intentions. This gave a sense of realness to her characters and they world he/she had created.

This story is supposed to be book 3 in the series. I have unintentionally skipped book 2 not knowing the correct sequence of this series until much later. Therefore I am going to be reading book 2 shortly after I have watched the film adaptation of it. I have a feeling book 2 is just as engrossing and intense as book 1.


* Reviewed 4th November 2016

Belated love กว่าจะรู้ เล่มต้น - 藍淋,หลัน...
This one is around 3.5 stars or so.

Finished in record time. It is entertaining and fun to read. But it wasn't as intense and evocative as the first book, Long Way Home (歸途) in the Round Trip (雙程系列) series.

Older guy as the bottom is not exactly my cup of tea but I am surprised it could secure my attention so well and I did enjoyed reading it. The age gap here is very wide. They are 18 years apart in age and that older guy is highly-sexed and favors younger men. Sexually he is originally a top who does not bottom at all until he met and fell in love with a handsome young man. It just happened that that young man is rather dominant when it comes to sex. Therefore that older guy had to compromise or not get to touch or see him at all. He gave in rather reluctantly and they would wrestle each other for the top position whenever they have sex.

I think I know why I am so engrossed with this author's work. Her characters are imperfect human beings with benign desires as well as dark intentions. This gave a sense of realness to her characters and they world he/she had created.

This story is supposed to be book 3 in the series. I have unintentionally skipped book 2 not knowing the correct sequence of this series until much later. Therefore I am going to be reading book 2 shortly after I have watched the film adaptation of it. I have a feeling book 2 is just as engrossing and intense as book 1.


* Reviewed 4th November 2016

Several fellow BL'ers have recently been extolling the virtues and talents of Edith Wharton; so much so that I've actually been tempted to pick up one of her books, even though I'm pretty sure the stories themselves wouldn't appeal to me (vapid characters, unhappy endings, etc.).  So when I saw this little gem for .10 at a recent book sale it was a sign - kismit - a way to experience Ms. Wharton's writing without depressing myself in the process.

 

Souls Belated starts mid-scene, two people on a train avoiding each other and the conversation they must have and the reader has no idea why or what the conversation is about.  The ending isn't sad, but it isn't uplifting either; it's a defeat via success.  I don't want to say much more than that - it's a short story and therefore easy to spoil.

 

But the writing is brilliant and the author perfectly encapsulates the snake-eating-its-own-tail dilemma these two find themselves in and then magnifies it with the woman's over-inflated sense of her own intellectualism.  She has truly thought her way into a corner.

 

A fast read, but one that leaves the reader with plenty to mull over or enjoy as karmic justice.  Sometimes the passion of your convictions can truly paint you into a corner and leave you exposed to your own hypocrisy. 

A church down the road from us had their annual book sale today.  It's the first time I'd ever been, and it was somewhat smaller than I expected, but still very fruitful.

 

 

The 3 books on the right were MT's finds and the picture doesn't include a small bag of children's books I picked up for a song to donate to one of the primary schools I work for (they're in the middle of a book drive for their classroom libraries).

 

Lots of good bargains and a few I bought because I felt like I should read them and at their bargain price, if I didn't like them, I wasn't committed to finishing them.  

 

 But the biggest find, I think, was when I was flipping through the fiction titles and came across an old clothbound copy of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens:  I've never read any Dickens (I know!) and when I flipped open the cover and saw the price I thought "what the hell?" and added it to the stack.  

 

When I got home, I started googling the older books (pre-isbn) to add to my home database and here on BookLikes, starting with the Dickens.  It's one volume of a 17 volume set from 1890.  I found one listing for it on eBay and the going price was 69.99 USD - the condition of that book was NOT good; from the pictures it was missing most of its spine - much worse shape than mine.  What did I pay for my pretty-good-for-a-125-year-old copy?  10 cents.  SCORE!!

 

I also paid 10 cents for Souls Belated by Edith Wharton - with everyone raving about her, while simultaneously talking about how anxious her stories make them, I've been WAY hesitant to dip my toe in - until I found this little 60 page gem.  I'm hoping not even Wharton's characters can scar me too badly in 60 pages.

 

The rest of the haul are all books I'd heard about here or elsewhere that sounded interesting - A Pelican at Blandings was bought solely on the strength of Wodehouse.  The The Children's Bible is the exact same copy I had as a kid and I had a sentimental moment when I saw it; for 2 bucks, it can sit on my shelf and remind me of a happy childhood, although I'm as unlikely to actually read it now as when I was a kid.

 

I've been moderately interested in owning a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary for sometime, so I snapped up this two volume set for $4 - even though MT thinks I'm bonkers.  I also have him seriously considering ripping out the wall my library shares with the hallway, and replacing it with a bookcase wall.  :D  Woot!

It took me 1 month to finish this book. My mother says I am a "bookeater" because I am a fast reader. The fact that it took me so long to finish the book says a lot about this book.

I don't know what wasn't working for me. I don't think it is written poorly. I do not mind the so-called "second change romances" all that much (though admittedly I am no fan.) The hero was ok, a handsome and rick duke, what is wrong with that? The heroin is ok too. I hate a shrew of a heroin and she is not one of those heroins who think throwing fits shows characters and strength. The plot is not so bad, albeit not great either. I just cannot get into the story. I cannot put my finger on anything in particular that I really did not like. I just do not like the story and do not care what happens to the lead characters. OK the guy left after sharing a passionate night. OK the girl has sufferred humiliation and self-doubt. OK now he is rich and can right the old wrongs. OK she is now shouldering all the family responsibilities plus a handicapped brother. You see what I mean? I am just not impressed by anything in this story and cannot find anything or anyone that I felt oh man I liked that in this book.

I can only conclude that it is the writing style. Everyone has different tastes in writing styles and Ms. Hawkins' style does not speak to me. It is as if she was talking in a foreign language which I am not 100% fluent in and have to focus to understand what she is saying. And with characters that I could not make connections with......that spells a not so great reading experience.

I do not want to discourage anyone from reading this book. I have read worse really. Just to give you some refenrences:

Writers whose styles I respond well to, for example:

Elizabeth Hoyt, Teresa Mederois, Lisa Kleypas

Writers whose style I cannot stomach, for example:

Grace Burrows, Lynsay Sands, Eloisa James