Challenge A&M Maisons Partenaires

laraemilie

Challenge A&M Maisons Partenaires
Organisé par: le Forum A&M
Du 1er janvier 2013 au 31 décembre 2013
Voici le deuxième challenge organisé par le forum auquel j'ai décidé de participer.

Ce challenge met de l'avant de nos maisons d'édition partenaires qui nous offrent régulièrement des romans à chroniquer. Il consiste à choisir des romans dans les catalogues des maisons d'édition que nous avons présélectionnées. Vous trouverez cette liste un peu plus bas. Au fur et à mesure de vos lectures, vous atteindrez différents niveaux. Le but étant de vous rendre le plus haut possible, tout au long de l'année.

Une fois encore, j'ai décidé de ne pas mettre la barre trop haut et de commencer par le niveau Lecteur Timide, entre 0 et 10 livres.

1) Aux Forges de Vulcain: Après la vague, d'Alexander Key
2) Scrineo Jeunesse: Zoanthropes #1: La métamorphose, de Matthias Rouage


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Challenge A&M Adaptations

laraemilie

Challenge A&M Adaptations
Organisé par: le Forum A&M
Du 1er janvier 2013 au 31 décembre 2013
Les admins de mon forum adoré ce sont donné beaucoup de peine pour proposer des challenges qui sortent de l'ordinaire... Et j'ai bien sûr eu l'envie de participer à tous, mais je vias me contenter de deux pour le moment.

Ce challenge consiste à choisir des oeuvres que ce soit des livres, des films ou des séries qui possèdent une adaptation et les découvrir. Le but étant de comparer les deux et d'énumérer les bons points comme les moins bons. Du film au livre? Du livre au film? Peu importe! Amusez-vous c'est tout ce qui compte!
Ce sera donc pour moi l'occasion de continuer la section que j'avais commencé sur ce blog avec la chronique du film War horse, section que je n'ai jamais continuée.
Pour ne pas être trop ambitieuse, je m'inscris tout d'abord au niveau néophyte, 0 à 5 livres lus et adaptations vues.


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European Reading Challenge 2013

laraemilie


European Reading challenge 2013
Organised by: Rose City Reader
From January 1st 2013 to January 31st 2014
This year I decided to take part in this challenge again, as I really enjoyed it and still have many books set in European countries on my TBR shelf.

The idea is to read books by European authors or books set in European countries (no matter where the author comes from). The books can be anything – novels, short stories, memoirs, travel guides, cookbooks, biography, poetry, or any other genre. You can participate at different levels, but each book must be by a different author and set in a different country – it's supposed to be a tour.

There are five different levels: I chose the five-star one (Deluxe Entourage) again - Read at least five books by different European authors or books set in different European countries.

1) France: Odette Toulemonde et autres histoires, de Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
2) Switzerland: Entre deux voix, de Jenny Sigot-Müller
3) 3.1) England: When will there be good news?, by Kate Atkinson
    3.2) Scotland: La dame sombre, de Ambre Dubois
4) Germany: Das dunkle Haus am Meer, von Susanne Mischke


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Challenges 2012

laraemilie

Challenges 2012 - summary

As I have been extremely busy at the beginning of this year, I have not even had time to do my wrap-up posts about my 2012 challenges. So here comes the summary: 2012 was my first year of challenges and I saw it a little too big. Every time I came across an interesting one - and believe me, there are many - I could not resist and had to join in. Altogether, I took part in 9 different challenges and completed... two of them...

  • European reading challenge - aim: 5 books / read: 21 books COMPLETED (and got 2nd)
  • God save the livre challenge - aim: 10 books, at least 1 in English / read: 10 books COMPLETED
  • Challenge animaux du monde - aim: 8 books / read: 6 books
  • Mount TBR Reading Challenge - aim: 25 books / read: 18 books
  • Read your own books reading challenge - aim: 21 books / read: 18 books
  • A-Z reading challenge - aim: 16 books / read: 21 books
  • Challenge Petit Bac - aim: 10 books / read: 6 books
  • Challenge biographie, témoignage, réaliste A&M - aim: 20 books / read: 3 books
  • Around the world in 80 books Challenge - aim: 80 books / read: 27 books
As for 2013, I have decided to be more reasonable and not get carried away by all the exciting challenges. I will take part in the European Reading Challenge again, as well as two others from the A&M forum. I have also changed category for the "Around the world in 80 books reading challenge", which now means I have no deadline to complete it.
Challenges 2012 - résumé

Comme j'ai été très occupée au début de l'année, je n'ai même pas eu le temps de faire un article reprenant mes challenges de 2012. Voici donc le résumé : 2012 a été la première année durant laquelle j'ai participé aux challenges et j'ai vu le tout un peu gros. Chaque fois que je tombais sur une proposition intéressante - et, croyez-moi, il y en a beaucoup - je ne pouvais pas résister et je m'inscrivais. En tout, j'ai participé à 9 challenges différents et j'en ai terminé... deux...

  • European reading challenge - objectif: 5 books / read: 21 books TERMINÉ (au deuxième rang)
  • God save the livre challenge - objectif: 10 books, at least 1 in English / read: 10 books TERMINÉ
  • Challenge animaux du monde - objectif: 8 books / lus: 6 books
  • Mount TBR Reading Challenge - objectif: 25 books / lus: 18 books
  • Read your own books reading challenge - objectif: 21 books / lus: 18 books
  • A-Z reading challenge - objectif: 16 books / lus: 21 books
  • Challenge Petit Bac - objectif: 10 books / lus: 6 books
  • Challenge biographie, témoignage, réaliste A&M - objectif: 20 books / lus: 3 books
  • Around the world in 80 books Challenge - objectif: 80 books / lus: 27 books
En ce qui concerne 2013, j'ai décidé d'être plus raisonnable et de ne pas me laisser emporter par tous les incroyables challenges. Je participerai à nouveau à l'European Reading Challenge ainsi qu'à deux autres proposés par le forum A&M. J'ai aussi changé de catégories pour le challenge "Around the world in 80 books", ce qui veut dire que je n'ai désormais plus de limite de temps pour le terminer.


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The book of summers by Emylia Hall

laraemilie

Shrewsbury, English Bridge

Author: Emylia Hall
Publication date: 2012
Publisher: Headline Review
Pages: 324
My opinion: 

* Family. A word that has always sat so uneasily with me. For other people it may mean rambling dinners with elbows on tables and old jokes kneaded and pulled like baking dough. Or dotty aunts and long-suffering uncles awkwardly shaped, shift dresses and crappy moustaches, the hard press of a wellmeant hug. Or just a house on a street. Handprints pushed into soft cement. The knotted, fraying ropes of an old swing on an apple bough. But for me? None of that. It's a word that undoes me. Like the snagging of a thread on a jumper that runs unravelling quickly, into the cup of your hand. *

Beth Lowe has been sent a parcel. Inside is a letter telling her that Marika, her long-estranged mother, has died. There is also a scrapbook, the Book of Summers, it's stuffed with photographs and mementos compiled by her mother to record the seven glorious childhood summers Beth spend in rural Hungary. It was a time when she trod the tightrope between separated parents and two very different countries. And it was a time that came to the most brutal of ends the year Beth turned sixteen.
Since then, Beth hasn't allowed herself to think about those years of her childhood. But the arrival of The Book of Summers brings the past tumbling back into the present; as vivid, painful and vital as ever.

The Book of Summers caught my eye a long time ago, on the Waterstones' shelf, along with other summer reads. The back cover promised a trip to exotic Hungary, full of vivid descriptions and family mysteries and I must admit that, after eventually finishing it, I am rather disappointed.
Everything starts in England, when Beth receives a letter from Hungary, telling her that her mother Marika has died. With it comes the Book of Summers, which contains photographs of the seven wonderful holidays she spent in Hungary, before a tragic event put an end to this wonderful time.
In the first few pages already, we know that Marika has died. Most of the novel consists then of memories of Beth's life in England for a short time with both her parents, of her father and her in England and of her holiday in Hungary. Each chapter starts with the description of a picture, which reminds her of the summer it was taken and everything she experienced then, from the discovery of her mother's life and her first love.
As I expected, there are numerous descriptions of the places she visits. However, I felt that it was sometimes too much; too many adjectives in one sentence and, above all, the same places described several times. The advantage is that I have a precise image of Villa Serena, but I felt like the story was not really going anywhere, that everything was slow and that Beth did not really do much during the summer. It took me weeks to read it and unfortunately only the last third of the book really held my interest. The promise of a secret made me finish it: I wanted to know why Beth stopped going to Hungary, did not see her mother anymore and why everything changed. I must say that this twist in the plot was rather unexpected and Emylia Hall did not leave any clues which would enable the reader to guess the secret in the first chapters.
The setting is wonderful, but somehow artificial because we only get to know Beth through her summers in Hungary and we get to know people through her own eyes. It felt strange not to know much about her life in England, where she spends most of the time, and to have so many details about her yearly stay with her mother. In the same way, her relationships did not seem extremely realistic, probably because they were too stereotypical – a father with whom she cannot talk, an exotic and attractive mother, a wonderful boy she falls in love with at first sight and keeps loving through the years, although she only sees him a few weeks every year... I would have liked to know more about her feelings, because I do not have the impression that I got to know her at all, despite the three hundred pages I spent by her side.
While the beginning is slow, the end is rather quick. From the moment Beth discovers the secret that changes her life, everything moves on rapidly and we do not have time to think about her actions or the consequences of the decisions the characters made. The last pages are a little too romantic and unreal for my liking, but I enjoyed the fact that the author left it (rather) open and that everybody can have his own interpretation of what is going to happen.
Altogether, The Book of Summers did not live up to my expectations. I liked the general idea, the descriptions of Hungarian landscape, the way the story is built and the discovery of the secret, but the lack of balance disturbed me. I felt that everything was to descriptive while the story was not really going anywhere, that Beth's relationships to the other characters were artificial and that to understand her better and get to like her more, we would have needed to know more about her English life as well in order to compare it with her Hungarian summers. Nevertheless, it is Emylia Hall's first novel, a nice and easy summer read, and she will probably refine her style in her next publications.


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