imme_van_gorp's reviews
697 reviews

A cute, fluffy, angst-free read that’ll make you smile more often than not! It took me a little while to get into this one, but once I did, I really had a great time with it.

This story is about two sisters; one of them, Marianne, represents “sensibility”, while the other, Elinor, represents “sense”. 
If I ever had any doubts as to which category I am most attached to, I can now vehemently proclaim it to be “sense”, because, wow, I cannot even begin to explain in words how much Marianne got on my nerves. Her ungratefulness, her superiority complex, her dramatics, and her general selfishness were just too much to excuse on her simply being a “spirited girl”. I honestly felt so bad for Elinor that she had to be subjected to this person, day in, day out. I’d go mad!

Opposingly, Elinor was truly an amazing heroine and it was a joy to see her navigate all social situations in such a mindful, kind and clever way. I often admired her selfless perseverance and her ability to know right from wrong. She was very resolute as well as astute, and always composed herself in a confident yet gentle manner, and I therefore had difficulty finding any fault in her at all. If I must name one thing, however, that bothered me about her, it would be her tendency towards excusing the behaviors of disgusting men (her immediate forgiveness of Edward and, even more, her eventual forgiveness of Willoughby, never sat right with me).

This was also why it pained me to see a good, honorable man such as Colonel Brandon pine after Marianne when everything would have pointed towards Elinor as the better match! Marianne treated him so unkindly, so uncivilized, so judgmental, so dismissively (as she did everyone, actually), and it was almost painful to witness. What he saw in her, I will never understand. Was it truly just because of her pretty face? It does my opinion of him no good if that really were the truth…
In any case, his love for Marianne was especially baffling to me when someone so much better than her was right there! Elinor and the Colonel actually suited each other quite perfectly, so much unlike their respective partners. Because truly, let me not even begin to speak of Edward, as it physically pained me to see Elinor settle for a man who never fought for her. She deserved much more passion and affection than that man could ever give her.

When it comes to all the many side-characters, I fear it would take up too much time to express my opinion on all of them, but be sure that I had many and excessive opinions of them all. I could feel genuine affection, but also vexation or even hatred, towards a multitude of them. I really admired this novel for its ability to bring forth such strong opinion on so many characters in me. The warmth I felt towards Mrs. Jennings was strongest of all, while my judgment and disgust towards the Ferrars (I am, of course, also including John and Fanny in this, even if their surname was technically Dashwood, as well as Lucy, even if she only acquired the surname near the end) was unmatched.

All in all, I have to say that this book was far from what I was expecting it to be, but I did not find myself feeling disappointed nonetheless. Whereas I expected to find a story of grand romance, I got none in that regard at all. Instead, I received a detailed story of two sisters traversing the intricacies of gentry social life in Regency England. And although I must proclaim the writing to have been a little dense at times, these characters truly did captivate my interest to a high enough degree to have me consider this novel to be rather engaging and certainly intriguing.

I know it’s a fairy tale, and should thus not be taken too seriously, but the pure and utter stupidity of Snow White really got on my nerves so badly. She genuinely had to have had less than a single brain cell, and her passivity and unwillingness to learn were truly astounding. 
I’m certain that if she didn’t have her pretty privilege, nobody would have even cared to save her either. Sure, the Queen wouldn’t have had a reason to go after her  in the first place, but let’s ignore that for argument’s sake.

Oddly enough, I was actually looking forward to reading this original fairy tale (even though I was never a fan of Snow White’s story), but it was exceedingly disappointing to me due to its complete lack of intelligence and rationale. It’s hard for me to root for a character if they don’t even attempt to save themselves and honestly seem to do everything in their power to make the dumbest possible decisions. 

Oh, and the fact that she eventually marries the guy who tried to take her dead corpse to his castle because she was just too damn pretty to never look at again was… disturbing, at best.

P.S. The version I read didn’t have any illustrations, so maybe those could have made this more enjoyable or charming.

This play is about Prometheus, a Titan who defied Zeus and is now being torturously punished for it. 
After Zeus overthrew the Titans (with Prometheus’ help), he settled himself as a pure tyrant with nothing but cruelty and narcissism to his name. He saw no use for humans and wanted to wipe them off the face of the earth to be replaced by a new race. However, Prometheus took pity on the human creatures and decided to give them the gift of Fire, and with that gift gave them the knowledge to stay alive and improve their lives. 
Zeus, furious for being defied, puts Prometheus in chains for this and orders him to be tied to a cliff’s edge for many, many years, where he will feel nothing but torture and misery. Prometheus knew that he would be punished for his selfless act to help the humans, but even he did not imagine his punishment to be so cruel. Thus, the play mostly shows him lamenting his bad fortune and hopeless future to whoever will listen, but yet he never loses his spirit or his belief in his own righteousness. He screams taunts of Zeus’ inevitable downfall, and refuses to offer any help in the future. The play shows us that Prometheus may have lost his freedom, but he did not lose his fiery heart or his desire for revenge.

All in all, I think this was a very sad story that showed the evilness of the Gods, even towards someone to whom they owe their rule. 
We see how Prometheus, who acted out of nothing but the goodness of his heart and willingness to teach, will have to suffer dire consequences by the hands of the evil Zeus, who, by tradition, is truly one of the most cruel and disgusting Gods in the whole of Greek mythology. Honestly, Zeus and his weak-minded minions made me want to rage and riot, as per usual. 
That said, I do think the play itself lacked a sense of action, suspense and urgency. The characters spoke a lot of words discussing the past and future, but we don’t actually get to see any events unfold in the present. Therefore, the story was a little bit stale.

I loved Hyacinth, but I hated that Gareth didn’t appreciate her whatsoever. I truly despised the fact that she fell first AND harder…

It’s extra unfortunate because Hyacinth was probably one of my favourite heroines in the series so far and she truly had a lot of personality, so her romance could have been so much better. It definitely feels a lot like wasted potential.
I just wish that Gareth adored her for her wit, enthusiasm, intelligence, banter, sass, honesty, sarcasm and quirkiness, rather than just tolerated it… She deserved to be worshipped, and instead he acted like she was a nuisance he reluctantly enjoyed against his better judgement.
I mean, imagine if this is how your future husband decides that he wants to marry you:

The whole romance was made even worse by the fact that Gareth only pursued her because he had daddy issues and he wanted to proof to him that he could marry Hyacinth if he wanted to. It made me a little sick to my stomach.
I also really disliked the plotline where he tried to seduce her so she’s be trapped into marrying him. It was not only unromantic and uncomfortable, but it also made his love for her seem very dirty rather than gentle. It made me feel so bad for Hyacinth, and made me dislike Gareth even more. 

In conclusion, Hyacinth had a great personality on her own, but she completely lacked a backbone when it came to Gareth. He treated her pretty badly and she just took it. She never held him accountable and even ended up being the one fighting for him over and over again instead of the other way around. Yuck.

This is such a tragic story, but so beautifully written. 
It’s a story that many queer people used to live through in the past, which makes it all the more heartbreaking to read… 
There’s not much focus here on the build-up of their love connection, but instead it tells the story of how sad and lonely and angry and impossible their lives were because of that love.

It seems to me that Elisabeth has actually been so lonely and unhappy over the years. Sure, she loved her pack and her children, but she was clearly missing something. I don’t think she ever felt truly whole.

However, the loss, the grief and the guilt never brought her down though; she always continued to be strong, courageous and formidable. Nothing could bring her down completely.

The writing was just as beautiful and unique as I remember from the first book, but, similarly, it also dragged and became a little repetitive. I am definitely standing by my statement that these books should not be this long, especially since it simply doesn’t have a very elaborate story to tell. The plot is fairly simple and uncomplicated, and not much of anything happens. 

The reason I liked this book less than I did the first one is because I felt less of an emotional connection between the characters here as I did there. Not only is Gordo someone I personally felt less sympathy and love towards than I did Ox, but it was also clear that Gordo’s relationships with everyone else were less intense and well-developed. Perhaps it’s because Gordo was so incredibly angry at everyone and everything for such a long time, but I also feel like the author simply chose to include less bonding scenes in this book. 
I mean, Gordo’s relationship with the other pack-members all felt rather surface level and really didn’t have a whole lot of meat to it. The most interesting relationship Gordo had with anyone else was with Thomas, and he was already dead at the beginning of this book, so those complex and intricate feelings were only present through flashbacks.
Even Gordo’s relationship with Ox, which was one of my favourite things about the first book, felt inconsequential and insignificant here. They hardly ever interacted and I didn’t feel any of the love between them that they used to have. I had a lot of expectations from their relationship, but it failed to deliver on every front. I really thought Gordo would be really protective of him and see him as a son, but he never really thought about Ox in any special way. It was disappointing. 

Lastly, the romance also felt a little random in the sense that we were being told they had this deep-rooted mating bond, but we weren’t being shown. Gordo and Mark’s interactions were few and far between, and even when they did interact it wasn’t one filled with love or longing or tension or chemistry; it was all a little bland and uncaring. Gordo was angry, and Mark just… existed. Mark never fought for Gordo (not in the past or in the present), and Gordo never made any attempt at forgiveness. Neither of them ever really showed me that they truly loved each other, not through words or through actions.

All in all, this was a bit disappointing for me, but the writing itself remained gorgeous. Maybe it’s a little crazy, but I mostly enjoyed this book because of how pretty and lyrical and engaging it was to read, but not really because of the actual content.

Although this was pretty entertaining and absorbing to read (for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on), I won’t deny that it was technically bad. The plot was okay-ish (for this type of book at least), but the romance definitely lacked any kind of depth or meaning. 

The entire relationship was lust-based and all they did was have hate-sex. It wasn’t until the book was almost over that I finally started to see some semblance of a connection between these two (which was honestly still shallow at best). Before that point they only felt animosity and an inexplicable attraction towards each other, and no hint of gentleness or affection was in sight. It would certainly be a fair description to call their relationship toxic and unhealthy, which wouldn’t be the end of the world if it weren’t for the fact that their obsession with each other was only based on lust and hate. 

This book is so brilliant in its straightforward way of showing the manipulation, narcissism, cruelty, slavery and inequality involved in communist regimes, fascist doctrines, and totalitarian tyrannies. 

The book’s utter simplicity in writing as well as content is exactly what makes it so powerful. 

The bitter irony of this story is that I think Snowball could have actually made it all work fairly and efficiently for everyone on the farm, but unfortunately the right people are never the ones (who stay) in power, either through corruption or through sheer stupidity of the masses. 
That’s also why, although communism is nice in theory, it can never become reality as it will always be ruined by the innate evilness and selfishness of men (or pigs, in this case).