Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres

Date Finished: 24 August 2014

Rating: 5*

View on Goodreads.

Beautifully insightful, inspiring and deeply moving, ‘Birds Without Wings’ could very easily have been one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Although I’ve only read one other of Louis de Bernieres’s books –‘Notwithstanding’, which I thoroughly enjoyed at age thirteen, but on hindsight might have to reread it in order to fully understand its depth – I think that after reading ‘Birds Without Wings’, he’s quickly jumped to the top of my list of favourite authors. His writing is stunning, and I can’t seem to get nearly enough of it. He makes it seem so effortless to write a six hundred-page novel about the supposedly ordinary lives of insignificant people in an almost forgotten community.

De Bernieres weaves the lives of his characters expertly, inspiring in the reader a deep empathy for a community so incredibly lost in stupendous ignorance of the outside world that Greeks and Turks are able to live together peacefully, despite their religious and cultural differences. The careful crafting of the story and witty humour interspersed with gasp-worthy moments of scandal and excitement creates a flow of events that makes the novel unbearable to be put down. I have a feeling that the characters and their separate narratives will haunt my dreams for months, but I can’t find it in myself to shudder at the thought of this.

‘Birds Without Wings’ is phenomenal, and I highly, highly recommend it, but only to people who are able to set aside several days of doing nothing other than reading, and then a further day or two to recover and shed a couple of tears.

Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran

Date Finished: 21 October 2013

Rating: 5*

View on Goodreads.

Before I begin, I just want to point out that it took me over a month to finish this book. Literally. I was reading it on the bus on the way home from camp. I have witnesses, who had to remind me of this fact when I brought it to school on Monday, still only having read a hundred pages.

I’m losing my touch.

Okay. Now we’re all just going to ignore that I ever said that and disguise our gasps of horror so that I can carry on with this review. If it doesn’t take me a month to write it *sob*.

Anyway… I'll keep it short and sweet for once.

Michele Moran wrote a stunningly realistic re-telling of the French Revolution. Told from the perspective of Marie, a young woman practicing as a wax modeler under the influence of her uncle, it artfully draws the reader into a web of nail-biting suspense and excitement. Moran’s writing style is incredibly effective in the way that it tugged me so far into Marie’s world that I had to take a deep breath every time I re-entered reality to remind myself that I didn’t belong inside the novel. When Marie got employed as the king’s sister’s wax modeling tutor, I shared her honor, and when her friends got involved in the revolution, I shared her mixture of anxiety and horror. When the novel finished, I felt both satisfied and empty, as though I had lost a part of myself to Marie’s world, but I am not complaining.

Overall incredibly moving, and yet without soppiness and awful clichés, Madame Tussaud’s was empowering and inspirational, and has definitely made my list of highly recommended historical fiction novels.

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The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

Date Finished: 24 December 2012

Series: Arthurian Saga, #1

Rating: 2*

Read the Goodreads description here 


This was an interesting take on Merlin's life, and to be quite honest, I'm not completely sure how I feel about it.

The style of writing was good overall, but often the storyline was boring and dragged on a bit. The whole magic aspect confused me. I wasn't really sure if Merlin could really do anything extraordinary other than tell the future, but he would say things like: "Leave it to my magic," even though the book never really explained what he did that was magical or how he helped in any situation. He also seemed to believe that he wasn't "magical" or whatever for the first half or so of the book, and would say that it was just luck. Whatever, maybe I just didn't read carefully enough.

I don't usually enjoy the whole King Arthur and his Knights type of fiction, maybe because I like Historical Fiction books to actually be backed up by historical evidence. Even then, I still find it extremely difficult to finish them; often they are exciting in the beginning, but then the rest of the book is made up of the same sort of thing, which bores me to no extent. This book was no different. I was constantly annoyed with the fact that it was based on legend, but not exciting in the way that a modern re-telling of a legend or fairytale is. I guess it must be difficult to re-write a legend, because you're forced to involve certain parts of the legend and tell them almost exactly the way they've been told for years, but still. I also struggled to finish it. I had to force myself to pick it up every night and read at least ten or so pages, instead of diving into the growing pile of books on my nightstand which have been sitting there since Christmas. That took a lot of self control, and I have to say I am very proud of myself, although I still feel like I've hurt their feelings by leaving them to gather dust for a week. 

Anyway, now that I've FINALLY finished, instead of having that excited, breathless I-have-to-read-the-next-book feeling, there's that thank-goodness-that's-over, let's-put-this-on-the-other-side-of-the-room-and-never-look-at-it-again feeling, mixed with the why-the-hell-did-I-waste-a-week-of-my-life-on-this-crap feeling. Sorry if I've offended those of you who did like this book, but I really didn't get it.

Blood Red, Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick

Date Finished: 10 January 2013

Rating: 4*

Read the Goodreads description here

Wow. I have to say that this was one of the best historical fictions that I have ever read. The author is absolutely fantastic in the way that he manages to weave such a gripping story while still making it completely historically accurate. I loved the style of writing as well and the way it changed, as though the narrator was speaking right out of the book and reading it to me, in the first third of the book, but then the style was slowly altered until the story was being told from Arthur Ransom’s point of view. 

I have to say that although I was thoroughly impressed, I also got a bit bored closer to the end of the book. It seemed as though it had lost its sparkle and was dragging on a little. It soon righted itself though. By the final few pages, I was completely hooked again and couldn’t put it down. 

I absolutely loved this book, but that might just be because I am a complete history nerd. I loved the way that it was different to all the other historical fictions that I usually read in the way that it was more accurate and focused more on telling the story of the Russian Revolution rather than telling a love story. Although there was a bit of a love story, the author managed to keep it subtle and didn’t let it get in the way of the main storyline, which really impressed me. I also really enjoyed the way he managed to portray Vladimir Lenin throughout the book. The way in which he managed to imply that he was either a weak leader or extremely intelligent close to the beginning of the book was simply genius (the scene where Lenin explains to Arthur how he managed to get a neat bullet hole in his window). I also loved loved loved the way he used metaphors disguised as fairytales in the beginning of the book to explain the rise of the Reds against the Tsar (with the bear symbolizing Russia and Vlad and Lev who manage to convince it to eat the Tsar).

It was, overall, an incredible read. I would recommend it to any other history nerds out there who are looking for an accurate but gripping fictional account of the Russian Revolution.

The Venetian Contract by Marina Fiorato - Review

Date Finished: 15 March 2013

Rating: 5*

Read the Goodreads description here 

Excuse me while I fangirl for a moment...

This book was absolutely beautiful. I don't usually manage to finish Historical Fiction novels, because they always seem to have the same storyline and outcome, and after a while my (extremely short) attention span gets in the way, and I end up doing ANYTHING except actually reading. But for some reason, I couldn't put The Venetian Contract down.

I don't know why. Really I don't. It didn't have vampires, or werewolves, or sexy aliens (yes, I am still hooked on the Lux series, don't judge me). It didn't have a hot hero to drool over. It didn't have a mystery woven into the story. Hell, it wasn't even set in this time period. But what it DID have was the Black Death (aka Bubonic Plague, Black Plague, or even just The Plague)... And Venice. Now that I think about it, that was probably the reason for my absolute obsession with this book.

If you've read any of my other reviews of Historical Fiction novels (read my review for Blood Red, Snow White here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...), or anything to do with History, you'll probably have noticed that I am a bit of a History nerd. Okay, a LOT of a History nerd. History-obsessed-psychopath-who's-constantly-preoccupied-with-the-middle-ages is probably the most correct term. And I love Venice. Probably because I've been there, so throughout the book, my friends, family and teachers had to deal with me shouting out: "I WAS THERE! SEE? READ THIS PARAGRAPH. YOU KNOW THAT PLACE? I WAS THERE!!" Yup, I am just that cool. So that was DEFINITELY the reason I loved it so much. 

But really. Even if I wasn't totally obsessed with the Black Death, I would have loved this book. Sure, you sort of have to like History to be able to read Historic novels, so I wouldn't recommend this to anybody who hates anything to do with the past. Or people like some of my friends who just respond with, "Yeah, whatever. Guess what rock that is?" when I try to tell them about my latest Historical obsession (Geography nerds...). But The Venetian Contract was seriously one of the best books I have read in the past few years. And even though I absolutely love my vampires and werewolves, aliens and fairies, it was really nice to find a book to read that didn't have anything to do with supernatural beings in it. 

Adding to the fact that this book was amazing because of the History behind it as well as in it, the writing was exceptional. I had to mentally prepare myself to come back into this world every time I wanted to put it down. I also loved the way that the story was told from the perspective of a Turk, and not a Venetian. It made the novel just that much more interesting. 

So to all my fellow History nerds out there, READ THIS BOOK. Seriously. You won't regret it.