Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Being cooped up all day and feeling a bit restless I knew that if I was going to read it needed to be something light, and immediate. No lingering descriptions, social comments etc, so a YA book it was.
Shiver was sent to me last year by a fellow bookcrosser, I'd been looking out for the book at the time, but then I read lots of mixed reviews and its position on the tbr pile lowered. I'm glad that I finally got around to it.
Shiver, in the same vain as Twilight, has an ordinary, if slightly (apparently) shy and isolated teenage girl as a lead character, and a mythical (in this case a werewolf) love interest. As in Twilight the boyfriend should be a killer, a threat to the humans, yet he hates harm to humans and killing anything bigger than a rabbit distresses him. The couple have had a fascination with each other for years as the girl watches the wolf who once saved her from an attack, then they finally meet and their lives become entangled.
Yes, the story has that same intense teenage love to it that Twilight has, it has its sequels and you can kind of guess the outcome of the end of the novel way ahead of time, but it hit the right spots. The alternating narration, the inclusion of beautiful poetry by Rilke and the gorgeous coverwork all work in its favour, as does a plotline than moves along at a nice pace.
I will seek out the next book in the series, although not for a while yet. Was good to read some YA fiction, its been a while.

My Thoughts: Love and Summer by William Trevor

After complaining yesterday that I wouldn't have much time to read I managed to get a whole book read. Love and Summer has sat on my bottom step (where library books and bookrings live, for fear of mixing them in with my personal tbr pile) for a good 6 weeks. Its a bookring so should have been read and sent of asap, ideally within 4 weeks of receiving it. I just kept putting it off and reading anything but it, as its cover and the title just made me think romance yuck! (Can you tell I'm oh so very single at the moment!). However I picked it up last night thinking I'd manage half an hour and whizzed through it.
Set in rural Ireland, a a tiny village where nothing happens 2 people meet and fall in love. Ellie, was first a maid then a wife to a local widower, lives a secluded life on the farm. She travels into town to sell eggs, pick supplies and pick lavender once a week. One week, during the funeral of a well to-do lady in town she notices a photographer, which sparks off feelings of love.
The pair meet regularly, but nothing really seems to happen between them accept the knowledge the her love for him exists.
Its a book of moments, there is little action, but it is an easy and comforting read - kind of a literary beach read. I'm not sure if I'll remember it next week, let alone in a year but I'm thinking that I may buy a copy for my Mum's next birthday/holiday.

My Thoughts: Silk, Baricco

I first read about this book earlier this year when Eva reviewed it, gorgeously as usual - it is certainly well worth going and checking out her post.
I sat down to read it this afternoon and wasn't expecting to be blown away by it quite as much as I was.
The novella is only 104 pages in length, with 65 chapters many of which barely fill a page this can be read in about an hour. Despite its shortness every page holds tons of tiny images, the sparse language is almost poetic in its ability to create a picture in the reader's mind.
The book tells of a French silkworm trader. In the 1880s the silkworms across Europe have developed a bug and keep dying. Herve Joncour is sent to Japan, a country, at the time, which was kept unopened to foreigners and reportedly killed any man trying to export products from its shores. While there Herve meets a young women, of unknown origin. They never speak and barely touch, yet she transforms his life.
This was one of those books I wish I had studied at university, I have a ton of questions about individuals interpretations of the events that happened swarming my head and the langauge would be beautiful to look at in close detail.
I will have to check out his other work soon.
Challenges:
A-Z (Author)
Lost in Translation
The Decades Challenge (1990s)
999 (1001)

My Thoughts: Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree by Santa Montefiore

This was one of those bargains in the library sale, that I would never have picked up otherwise. I need to read a few Latin American book for a Bookcrossing book box, and this fit in nicely as a complete contrast to the other books from this area I'm going to read.

A Quick Synopsis: Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree is whopping 550 pages about the love of Sofia Solanas. Sofia starts the novel as a precocious teenager with a crush on her cousin Santi, she is rebellious, demanding and a troublemaker. They embark on an affair, amid the Argentine pampas, which leaves her pregnant and sent away to Europe in disgrace. She spends the next 20 odd years in England with her new family, before having to return to Argentina due to a family tragedy and to discover whether her love still survives.

This was a good read, with much more to it than I've expressed above, lots of family relationships at work and things lurking in the past. It certainly wasn't the best written novel or the most original by any means, but it was a typical summer read.

Challenges:

Unread Authors Book 7 of 6