Always Me

❋  ❋  ❋  ❋ This Saturday I spent some quality time at my local movie theater watching Avengers: Age of Ultron with 3D glasses perched on the bridge of my nose - great way to relax after a crazy day at work! Here's a short plot summary: Tony decides that the best way to achieve peace in our time is to go ahead with his artificial intelligence Ultron project and put a suit of armor around the world.  When Ultron becomes sentient, he comes to the conclusion that the best way to save humanity is to wipe it from the face of the earth.  Let's just say that things start to go downhill from there after Ultron really sets his mind to it and builds an army of his own.  He's also recruited Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, twins who lived through Hydra experimentation and are lead to believe that Ultron is interested in destroying the Avengers only, since they have reasons of their own to want Stark dead. For the most part, Age of Ultron is a pretty fun sequel....

❋  ❋  ❋  ❋ I read an ARC of this title. Longbourn is a reimagining of Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of the servants. There is just as much going on with the downstairs staff as there is with the ladies and gentlemen of the original story. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly world of the staff, Sarah in particular, is irrevocably changed. What I liked so much about this novel is that it takes elements that are untouched in the original novel, and manages to believably flesh them out. I particularly enjoyed getting those events filtered through the perspective of the staff to hear their thoughts on upstairs matters. That being said I was happy enough to just read of their daily routines because Jo Baker does such a good job bringing this story and her characters to life. She doesn't rely on trying to copy the sound of Austen, but she comes through with her own distinct voice. If you are a fan of Pride and Prejudice and Downton ...

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by  Freda's Voice . These are the rules: 1. Grab a book, any book. 2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. 3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. 4. Post it. 5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post. I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by  Rose City Reader .   The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader. This week I'm spotlighting my next read, Unhinged ( Splintered #2) by A.G. Howard .  I'm super excited to start in on this one - I was pleasantly surprised by the first novel in the series, so I've got high hopes for this Alice in Wonderland retelling.   Book Beginning:  My art teacher says that a real artist bleeds for ...

❋  ❋  ❋  ❋ Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel traces Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in Henry VIII's court. Cromwell was essentially a nobody - a son of a blacksmith - who becomes Cardinal Wolsey's aide and a well-known lawyer, and eventually King Henry VIII's most trusted advisor. The story is primarily set between 1527 and 1535 as Cromwell, a proponent of the English Reformation, is working on Henry VIII's divorce from his first wife and union with Anne Boleyn. This novel is an excellent work of historical fiction, to the point where you can almost forget it's a fictional account. It's thought-provoking, atmospheric, and commands your full attention. The cast of characters is broad, and well known to those knowledgeable on the Tudor court, but she has really succeeded in making Cromwell, often portrayed as a villain, her own and a sympathetic character at that. Unfortunately, sometimes this novel is a little difficult to follow with the use constant...

Tuesday is here again and this week the theme for Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish , is Books Which Feature Characters Who ______.  I decided to choose time travel - partly because I've recently rewatched the Back to the Future trilogy for the umpteenth time and I've been on a bit of a Doctor Who kick lately.  Honestly, though, I've always been intrigued by the concept.  Below are some of my favorite books with characters who time travel, in alphabetical order. 11/22/63 by Stephen King All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling Kindred by Octavia E. Butler Landline by Rainbow Rowell Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Hollow City by Ransom Riggs The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer The Time Machine by H.G. Wells The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle...

❋  ❋  ❋  ❋  ❋ Think you know Queen Levana from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer? Think again! Fairest , a prequel of sorts, tells the story leading up to her glamourous rise to power. We get an in-depth look at her life growing up with Channery, her skill and determination when it comes to glamour and manipulation, and how she becomes the twisted villain we know. I can't express how excited I was to finally pick this up from the library. This series offers such great retellings of classic fairy tales, and this prequel is no exception. I loved getting to see Levana's development. From her family relationships to forced romance, it's easy to follow her trajectory into the villain she becomes. The Levana we're introduced to is a lonely little girl who just wants to be loved, but we see her sociopathic tendencies really start to come out as she learns to get what she wants by creating glamours. I can appreciate her determination, but what she does by...

❋  ❋  ❋ Maggie Hope graduated at the top of her Wellesley College class and planned to continue her studies in mathematics at M.I.T., but due to a change of events needed to travel to London to sell her grandmother's old house. Maggie knows she has the skills to make a name for herself in British Intelligence, but her gender only lets her rank as the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street rather than as one of the Prime Minister's private secretaries. She knows it's not right, but what can she do aside from her best. It turns out that working where she does gets her a lot of access and she quickly finds herself wrapped up in an assassination plot that could potential take down the country at the height of the war. I started this novel hoping it would be something like the tv shows The Bletchley Circle crossed with Agent Carter , but it just didn't have what made those shows so compelling. A good deal of the story could be cut down and the character...