Hello October // Brianna Reviews - The Graces by Laure Eve

Published: 1^st September 2016

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Format: Paperback

Synopsis: Everyone said the Graces were witches. They moved through the corridors like sleek fish, ripples in their wake. Stares followed their backs and their hair. They had friends, but they were just distractions. They were waiting for someone different. All I had to do was show them that person was me.

Like everyone else in her town, River is obsessed with the Graces, attracted by their glamour and apparent ability to weave magic. But are they really what they seem? And are they more dangerous than they let on?

I was intrigued by this book since I first saw it when I opened my Illumicrate box last month, I’m not entirely sure why and I was a little taken by surprise as it is clearly a book about magic which tends to make me run in the opposite direction for reasons I cannot fathom.

To be honest I’m not 100% sure how I feel about this book, it’s characters or the plot. All I do know is that I picked it up yesterday only meaning to read one or two chapters and the next thing I knew hours had passed, in fact I didn’t get anything done yesterday because I couldn’t put the book down; even stayed up till stupid o’clock in the morning reading it. So I must have liked it, right?

Let’s start with River, firstly it’s a little disconcerting not knowing the name of the person the book is about –unless I missed it. I found her a little hard to relate to, sometimes and other times I found it easy, which probably has something to do with her not being very consistent and the fact that we don’t actually find out her secrets and motivation until the end. So at the start it’s a little confusing how she frowns upon everyone trying to be noticed by the Graces while plotting to do the same thing. She also makes me a little uneasy, which given what she can do might well be a spot on reaction.

I felt the story was a little slow to start even though I read the majority of the book in one day it took me 2 weeks of picking the book up to make it passed the first couple of chapters, although I’m not sure if that was the book or the fact I was trying to read it on my break at work. I found that the first chapter or two really strongly reminded me of Twilight especially the bit where Bella is being told about the Cullens But that is where the similarity ended, which is one of the things I really liked about this book it was refreshing she didn’t fall madly in love with the most stunning guy in school only to find out that he is madly in love with her despite having every girl in the school interested in him. That didn’t happen and it was nice, even if it did cause everything to go wrong. I admit I did find myself wanting him to love her back, but I think I’m glad he didn’t.

I would have liked to get to know Wolf better, have had him be a bigger part in the book before the drunken party because although I liked him the events of the cove really didn’t impact on me in as big a way as I think it should have, and it’s not like I like to cry but I do think I should have been upset about it.

I’m also not sure if the Graces are witches, I mean everyone said they were witches (sorry couldn’t help myself) but I didn’t see any evidence of any actual magic, just voodoo dolls, herb pouches, candles and chanting, oh and talk of a curse that was never really proved to exist. And all this comes dangerously close to the type of magic that makes me run screaming, it’s not the inclusion of these things with other magic, it’s these things on their own. However this was all redeemed when River revealed her secret – I have no doubt that River has magic (and more importantly for me it didn’t include candles, chanting and herbs) but I’m very confused about whether the Graces actually do, or if they are all just delusionally crazy, even Fenrin doesn’t really believe.

It doesn’t mention at the end, does Rivers dad come back, she tells Marcus that she can undo it so surely that would mean that her father would come back?

It’s the first in a series and despite not really knowing what to think about it I’m sure I will read the next when it comes out, because confused or not, it really did grab my attention, and to me it felt like something new, it didn’t go where I expected it to, right to the last minute.

Hello October // Brianna hates magic!... or does she?

I’m sure it has been mentioned before but if you asked me if I like magic or things about magic my immediate response would be no, no way, hell no and I’d probably laugh at the idea. In my opinion magic is cheesy, a gimmick not to be taken seriously. 

I immediately picture black and white wands, white rabbits in hats, capes and the word abracadabra. There is not a single thing about that mental image that I like; and let’s not even mention handkerchiefs joined together or pulling doves or bunches of flowers out of sleeves. Maybe I had a bad experience with a magician once. 

I really, really struggle not to associate the word magic with that kind of cheesy children’s party magician because I know that is not what all magic is, but it’s that split second where someone says magic and my mental image pops up that puts me off reading whatever they are talking about.

But the biggest problem is that I don’t actually dislike magic I loved the harry potter series (and loads of other magic books); I used to say that I didn’t like magic books except harry potter. But that is also not true, I felt devastated the day that I was informed that I didn’t hate magic (yes it came as a surprise to me), somehow I had been reading books about and involving magic for years without seeming to realise it! Turns out I really quite like it but for some reason I still struggle to get over my initial reaction. Does anyone else have this reaction to magic or is it just me?

I have recently realised that this may have something to do with the way you classify what magic is and what kind of magic it is which will be explored in the next instalment in my magic posts, there are 3 because 3 is a magic number!

Hello October // Carrie by Stephen King

Published - 1st January 1978
Publisher - NEL
Format - Paperback
Synopsis - Carrie knew she should not use the terrifying power she possessed... But one night at her senior prom, Carrie was scorned and humiliated just one time too many, and in a fit of uncontrollable fury she turned her clandestine game into a weapon of horror and destruction...

Stephen King.....what a guy. Right? Okay okay, i'm kidding. Mostly. I know next to nothing about Stephen King and i'm only a little bit ashamed of that. About 10 years ago I read a friends battered old copy of Christine whilst I was camping, in the middle of a massive storm and the tent got completely destroyed and....meh. You'd have thought that if a horror book was going to have an effect, it would be in the middle of a field, in a storm and at 3am. Sadly, it was just like the camping trip: disappointing.




So when I wrote on Facebook that I was looking for Horror recs and a friend from work kindly offered to let me read her copy of Carrie....I really just had to put old prejudices aside and accept the fact that when you want to read horror books, you're going to have to pick up a Stephen King book once in a while. And so, thanks to the lovely Annie who kindly let me read her copy of Carrie, I set upon my second ever reading of a King novel.
Now I know you're expecting a full on review of Carrie but I don't think I have it in me. For one, it's such a small book to begin with that there's not much to say at all and two, the entire time I read the book, all I could hear was 'You shoulda told me, Momma' interspersed with 'They're all gonna laugh at you!' from the original movie edition (which I loved as a child...). There were some things I really enjoyed though.

The newspaper articles, text book quotations, anything involving The White Commision - brilliant! Having seen the film many many times over the years (though still not braving the remake...maybe I should do that for Hello October?), the story itself was never going to be the main focus of the book for me. I was so surprised and intrigued by the use of fake realism (I have no better way of describing it). I might be a little ashamed to say that after 50 pages or so of reading about what happened at Prom Night, I did start to wonder if a little town in Maine really was affected by a rage-fuelled TK possessing teenage girl. It wasn't. It was very cleverly written and I was pleased to finally understand the appeal of King's writing style.

The term horror has always made me a little uneasy. Of course the events of Carrie can be described as horror and a lot of what I read made me feel uncomfortable, but it wasn't the spine chilling horror that I was really looking for. I wanted edge of my seat, turn the light on, can't sleep alone sort of horror whereas Carrie was mentally disturbing and uncomfortable. Maybe when I ask about the category horror, i'm not correctly describing the kind of book that i'm looking for. That's a topic about genres though and not really appropriate for this post. Since reading Carrie, I have discovered that it was King's first published book and that in itself gives me the encouragement I need to pick up more King books in future.

Another thing that really intrigued me was how the book kind of spoilered itself. It's not often now that a book references the climax of the book right at the beginning. And for that matter, I loved that Carrie's vengeance didn't even take place at the end of the book. It wasn't even written as a big deal. We knew something disastrous was going to happen and that Carrie was responsible. We knew that a town was destroyed because of it etc. It was never really important WHAT happened, and more WHY it happened. Fascinating.

Though the story itself was neither here nor there, I enjoyed reading Carrie and I especially enjoyed the writing style that I just haven't experienced previously. I hope that this is the start of a great love affair between Stephen King and I....

Hello October // Jesse + Inktober

Todays post comes from Jesse, a fellow Nerdfighter who wanted to talk a little bit about a project he took part in last October. Thank you Jesse!

Ok, so here's the deal.   Last year in October I was introduced to a concept by some online artists...they called it "Inktober".  Basically, every day in October you draw a picture and ink it. Sounds pretty simple.  The point is to help artists practice their inking skills and get some encouraging feedback.  So, I drew about 20 pictures, and posted them on Facebook and was kind of pleased with how some of them turned out.  I'll say something about a few of them.  

One is a drawing of Peter Capaldi as the Doctor...first I got a picture of him, drew a grid on it, drew each block on another grid, inked it, then erased the grid and scanned it...it was pretty time consuming and difficult, but I think it turned out ok, and people were able to identify him, which is good.

Another was a request by someone, I asked what they wanted to see and they said "the Moth Pope" so I threw together a quick sketch of the pope if he were a moth.  Last time I saw the person who asked for it it was their background image on their desktop.

Some of these are superheros re-imagined as the opposite sex.  There's a female Flash,

a female Superman

and lastly, Starfire if she were a man.  

 

I elected to not change the costume as an attempt to highlight some problems in how men and women are drawn in the comics.

There is a picture of a tree that is dropping its last leaf onto a pile, I drew it for my daughter Jeanne as a birthday present.

Lastly, I drew Loki and used marker to color him...it did not come out well, in my opinion.

Here are some links you might be interested in!

Inktober: http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober
Jesse's DeviantArt: http://diphycue.deviantart.com/
Jesse's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diphycue?fref=ts&ref=br_tf

Please get in touch if you'd like to be featured during the month. Any submissions are accepted as long as they are received by 30th October

Hello October // First of Halloween!

Hello, October! 
October is my absolute favourite month of all time. I could literally talk about it all month.....and that's exactly the plan ;)

This October you can expect to see a bunch of posts here on Loaded Shelves. Some are from me, some are from guests but ALL of them are October themed in one way or another. I am so ridiculously excited. We've tried to add a lot of different things but it's actually been quite difficult. For the first time ever i've struggled to find people to get involved and so I hope that you enjoy the Octoberish content that i've managed to put together for you guys.

It's my favourite time of the year and I'm filled with so much excitement and anticipation. It's the last leg of the year, reading challenges are abound as people rush to the finish line and it's now totally acceptable to wear scarves and boots with every outfit. YES!

That being said, I have spent the 1st October (or as I like to call it, 1st of Halloween) in true autumnal fashion: shopping & baking. I took my mum out shopping for cake ingredients so that we could bake a birthday cake together and it was lovely! I also got my autumn boots (i'm already in love with them) and brand new flannel pjs. My beautifully old and distinguished 19th century cottage is FREEZING now and...who am I kidding? I don't even need an excuse to buy new pjs.

It's not just mentally that i've been preparing for the best month, ever. In preparation for a full month of blogging, my desk has had a little bit of a makeover in honour of the occasion and the Halloween drinking vessels have made an appearance! I would love to see your photos of how you've been preparing for the month - if you have. It's recently been brought to my attention that uh, October just isn't that special to some people. Bah, humbug! =P

Also, just to finish off for the day, here's a photo of the outfit I wore today:

Happy Halloween, Witches ;)

I would officially like to open Hello October and get started with a truly magical month!
Please get in touch if you'd like to be featured during the month. Any submissions are accepted as long as they are received by 30th October.