Announcement: I surrender! I’m sick and tired of translating. It’s eating up too much time. I’d rather use my precious minutes writing new posts than translating everything into German. I’m assuming that most of you are perfectly able to read and understand English and of course you can still comment in German. I will still translate the reviews, though, and maybe there will be posts in German only, depending on the context. But for most parts, it’s going to be English from now on. I hope this is ok for you, but I just can’t manage the workload otherwise anymore.

It’s been a very long time since I read over 3000 pages. February, to be exact. This makes November a pretty awesome month for my stats but I also feel bad about it. I shouldn’t have read all those books. Instead, I should have read The Hunger Games Trilogy and a whole lot of companions for my Bachelor thesis. Now I will have to do this in December. God, I think I’m going to panic soon. The only positive thing about the whole process is that Ms Collins seems to have swallowed Goffman’s Asylums and rehashed it as The Hunger Games. She’s pretty much serving me everything I need on a silver plate. It’s going to be a pleasure to put everything together.

So here’s the long list of the books I read in November:

Finished

1. The School for Good and Evil (The School for Good and Evil, #1) by Soman Chainani

   I have no idea what took me so long. This novel’s just wonderful! It’s middle grade but in my humble opinion, it’s also very entertaining for adults. The writing is fluid and incredibly funny, the characters are wonderfully rounded and complex, and I loved how the author tackled topics like good and evil, friendship, love, and beauty. Nothing is as it seems at first glance and the messages are just heartwarming. I was afraid of the ending but he resolved it beautifully; it was thrilling, confusing and outright magnificent. 5/5

2. The Treason of Isengard: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part 2 (The History of Middle-earth, #7) by J.R.R. Tolkien

   Nerd alert! Well, I’ve been reading it for almost a year, I had to finish it sometime. It was equally as interesting and boring as one can expect from such a book. However, I decided to share some of the more interesting facts in a sort of Fun Facts review, which will go live on Dec 11 when I’m in Vienna watching the English double feature of The Hobbit 1 & 2 with one of my dearest and craziest friends. 4/5

Read

3. Das Wunschpferd by Inger Brattström
   [LT: The Wish Horse]

   Nothing special, really. A sweet story about a little girl who dreams of a horse of her own and when her wish unexpectedly comes true, her adventure’s just begun. It’s very short and suitable for young horse fans. 3/5

4. American Horses: Traumpferde aus Amerika by PonyClub (ed.)
   [ET: American Dream Horses]

   An informative work of nonfiction on the horse races that originated in the United States illustrated with many beautiful pictures. 3/5

5. Pferde der Wüste by Christiane Slawik
   [ET: The Book of Desert Horses]

   This factual book focuses on the Arabian horse and the Barb horse and their Arabian and African homes. There are a couple of wonderful stories on individual horses and truly divine images. Well, Arabian horses are gorgeous creatures and if one adds the ocean, the desert and a setting sun, the result is heavenly. 3/5

6. Tornado (Engel der Pferde, #11) by Angela Dorsey
   [OT: Fighting Chance (Horse Angel, #11)]

   I liked it much better than I remembered. I really liked the dynamic between the girls. It’s nice that they have to tackle such everyday but serious issues such as mobbing and envy. They have to learn what’s truly important and what friendship means in order to overcome their differences and to survive. The craziest, most hilarious part was most certainly when the horse became the ‘human whisperer’. 4/5

7. Die Höhle der Wölfin (Engel der Pferde, #12) by Angela Dorsey
   [LT: Wolf Chasm (Horse Angel, #12)]

   So this is it, this is ‘my’ novel. When I was younger, Angela Dorsey was one of my favourite authors and I won a couple of her trivia quizzes and at some point started nagging her with Icelandic horse names because I hoped she would write a novel set in Iceland. Unfortunately, the publisher cancelled the series so she inserted a couple of small scenes into this one, in which I – although unnamed, of course – get my very own dream horse, a wind-coloured Icelandic mare called Skyfaxa. I really truly cried when reading this scene. It took me so long to finally read this novel and finish the series, but these snippets truly made my day. Overall, I was a little disappointing since it felt like a mixture of the second novel Desert Song (dt. Verloren in der Wüste) and the fifth novel Gold Fever (dt. Goldfieber). 3/5

8. Blue Moon by Marilyn Halvorson

   This novel really surprised me since its protagonist was one of the most down-to-earth horse girls I’ve ever met. Horses are slaughtered? Well, yes, that’s reality and our dear Bobbie Jo accepts that. Nevertheless, she ends up with one of these horses, which turns out to be quite a talent. Unfortunately, she has to work with Cole, a guy she can’t stand. The two of them make an entertaining couple since BJ has a wonderful quick tongue. I just had one major problem: the novel’s awfully short! It feels like an exposé and could have been much more fleshed out since there was great potential. 4/5

9. Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School, #2) by Gail Carriger

   I loved it so much! Oh Sophronia, you truly are a little spider at the centre of her web! She really has a finger in every pie there is. Then there are her wonderful friends (God, Sidheag really killed me with her sex ed interlude) – and, sigh, a love triangle. And surprise, surprise, at the moment, I’m mostly ok with it. I just love her and Felix flirting, but I adore Soap. So we’ll see what’s next for all of them. 5/5

10. Drowning: Tödliches Element (Drowning, #1) by Rachel Ward
    [The Drowning (The Drowning, #1)]

    Unfortunately, it wasn’t my cup of tea. Although I liked the atmosphere and story of the first third, the novel lost me later on because I couldn’t understand the girl at all and found it quite frustrating were everything was heading. 2/5

11. Der Kuss des Kjer by Lynn Raven
    [LT: The Kiss of the Kjer]

    The second novel for my Favourites-Challenge, and let me tell you, it was unbearable torture! I love rereading books, but this was the first time ever that I didn’t want to read on at certain points, even had to put it aside for a couple of days because I couldn’t bear what was to come. All I wanted was to ignore parts of the story as if they never happened. I’m deeply in love with a fictional character which makes me obviously completely mental, but oh, he is the very reason I love this novel so much. Mordan ♥ ! very very long review with lots of little hearts

12. Der Sommer der Pferde by Carol Fenner
    [OT: A Summer of Horses]

    It has such an awesome cover but the novel itself was mostly boring and not at all what I’d expected. The beginning was really frustrating and it took quite some time to get more interesting. I’m going to part with my copy, although it’s a pity to get rid of such a beautiful cover. But I just need the space. 2/5

13. Das Rätsel um den weißen Hengst (Sternentänzer, #1) by Lisa Capelli
    [LT: The Mystery of the White Stallion (Star Dancer, #1)]

    Gosh, this is one of – no – the most annoying and unrealistic horse novel I’ve ever read! Yes, I know it’s also fantasy, but it’s set in our world and should therefore follow such concept as reason and laws. Instead, Carolin is just the most annoying and stupid character ever! She behaves like a five-years-old doing whatever she likes, which is often both illegal and extremely irresponsible. Really, I wanted to slap her every five pages or so. 1/5

14. Die Große Wildnis (Die Große Wildnis, #1) by Piers Torday
    [OT: The Last Wild (The Last Wild, #1)]

    Not at all what I expected but a really sweet middle grade novel! I don’t know what exactly I did expect it to be, but most certainly not a proper dystopia, a world where all animals were killed by a plague. I really liked Kester’s journey and his companions. That white dove, for instance, was hilarious! However, the happy moments are few. The world is very bleak and a couple of really sad things happen. It’s also the first in a series, which I didn’t know although I kept wondering how everything should resolve in the remaining couple of pages. But when it ended in that cliffhanger, well, it became obvious. 3/5

15. Legend (Legend, #1) by Marie Lu
    [dt. Fallender Himmel (Legend, #1)]

    Well, I think I had to read it sometime. Although I read it really fast because I couldn’t put it down, it wasn’t that great. I mean, I like it. The world is interesting enough and it’s not like there’s no pacing. In fact, things happen incredibly fast – sometimes a little too fast for my taste. The characters are interesting, although they are a little too good at everything for their age. The story was too straight forward, especially for someone whose mind always works overtime. I kept wondering whether it was important that the buttons are gold in one chapter and silver in the next. Well, it wasn’t. Someone just didn’t pay attention while editing. Still, I’m curious what will happen next. 3/5

Started

16. Prodigy (Legend, #2) by Marie Lu
    [dt. Schwelender Sturm (Legend, #2)]

    I started it as soon as I finished Legend but didn’t have the time to continue, so I’m really just at the very beginning.

17. Fifty Shades Freed (Fifty Shades, #3) by E.L. James
    [dt. Befreite Lust (Shades of Grey, #3)]

    Don’t judge me! I have to finish this trilogy no matter what. I’m the girl who can’t discontinue books and series, remember? So I read the first two ‘novels’ (I’m actually reading the fanfiction version so it’s all Bella and Edward and Co., but at least I didn’t spend a single cent) just before the hype started and I find them pretty awful but still somehow entertaining and if it’s just for the constant wish to smack the characters or anybody with the book because they are so super annoying. But you just cannot take it seriously since it’s a damn fanfiction!

Continued

18. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
    [dt. Ein plötzlicher Todesfall]

    I really don’t want to take it into the next year. It’s not bad, but not really exciting either. I still have quite a lot of pages pages left, but maybe I will be able to finish it in time.

19. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

    I actually got some reading done and enjoy it very much with the exception of some conversations, which can be a little dry. The relationship between Mr Thornton and Margaret is quite similar to the one of Lizzy and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and I love that so much! However, I’m really surprise how critically it portrays Victorian working conditions. I didn’t expect it to focus so much on that issue since I didn’t take that up in the series. Talking about the series, the adaptation and the novel are quite different. The series somehow feels much more coherent and condensed, explaining things and indroducing characters much earlier so that it is more dramatic. Since the novel was serialised and each chapter had to be able to stand on its own, that’s probably where this problem comes from. But I don’t mind.

Stats

In Books

In Pages