Top Ten Tuesday: Good trends, bad trends

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish and I love it! This week is really interesting - it is Top Ten Trends You Would Like to See More or Less of!
So here's my list:

See more of:
1) Books being promoted in the blogosphere! I think it is so great the bloggers share their love of books and promote books that maybe wouldn't get the attention they deserve if it wasn't for the blogosphere. We love great authors and wonderful books and sharing that love is beautiful!

2) Young, female authors writing literary fiction and getting acknowledged for their hard work and talent - such as Téa Obreht, author of "The Tiger's Wife"

3) Authors being translated to English. There are so many great authors out there and they deserve to be translated - one example is Sofi Oksanen's fantastic novel "Purge" that has been translated into English and is really popular.

4) Dystopian and steampunk, great imaginative genres that deserve more attention and more bestsellers.

5) Wrapping up classics in beautiful, tasteful, cool covers such as these below. Personally I would really love for E. F. Benson's "Mapp and Lucia" to be given some more attention.





See less of:
1) Vampires and werewolves. Enough is enough people. I don't care if they are sparkling or have tattoos, I don't want anymore of them for a while. Please come up with something else to write about.

2) Less focus on incest/pedophilia as romance/love relationships. Though I really liked "Repeat It Today With Tears" by Anne Peile and liked "Tiger, Tiger" by Margaux Fragoso, I really do not like this topic...

3) Paranormal romance... girl and vampire, girl and werewolf, girl and angel... it is becoming ever so slightly tiring.

4) Celebrity novels, ghostwritten by some poor guy/girl who really needed the money. I am not talking about real biographies from politicians etc. but Katie Price as an author? Really? That's just plain wrong.

5) Awful covers that try to sell a book as something it isn't (...or try to trade off Twilight, such bad taste!!)

Review: "Tiger, Tiger"

In case you haven't noticed (and you probably have), "Tiger, Tiger" by Margaux Fragoso has been the centre of quite a bit of hype due to the peculiar (not sure that is the word) topic. It has been called a modern version of Nabokov's "Lolita", only told by Lolita and based on true events. So you see why there has been quite a bit of hype. Even though hype normally repels me, I have read some reviews that convinced me to give the book a chance.

The plot is disturbing to say the least. As a child Margaux lives with her tempremental, loving father and her mentally ill mother in an environment that would probably be traumatic in itself but when she is six-seven years old she meets Peter and then the real tragedy starts. Peter is 44 years older than Margaux and from the very beginning of their relationship he grooms her. He plays with her, lets her feel at home in his home and eventually introduces sex into the relationship. It is truly disturbing reading, it made me so sad and so enraged and really really frustrated because in the first part of the book, Margaux tells this story from the child's point-of-view, describing Peter as her friend and idol.
The fact that his intentions and actions are hardly questioned in this first part of the book made me so angry and disappointed in the author but then in the second half, the narrators reflections began to develop as she describes her teenage years. She reflects on the power the he has over her and the power that his memory of her 7-year-old self has over him and suddenly from a really wrong and depraved love story of starcrossed lovers in a forbidding society, this becomes a tragedy about a girl whose childhood and innocence is stolen and who is violated by someone claiming to protect her. The narrator's voice in this second half is so sad as she realizes the horror that has been inflicted on her.
For Margaux Fragoso it has been impossible to separate her own childhood from the literary attemps at telling the story - and by aiming for a story that is more than a "real-life-account", she puts herself in a difficult position. I found a quote on www.observer.com that I think sums up the issue very well:
"The cosmic profundity of what she has experienced—the book is invariably called "harrowing" in reviews and blurbs, and this characterization certainly applies to the underlying reality, if not exactly her representation of it—is inextricable from her gift as a narrator and contemplator of her own experience."

In the end I liked the book even though the story was horrific. I kept wishing that it was all fiction, all made up because it is such a tragedy. Also I would have liked Fragoso to reflect more on the topic. To be honest about the implications that this has had and to ensure that the book cannot be used as a defence for pedophiles. This brainwashed child robbed of something that she can never replace. Read it only if you are prepared to have it on your mind for days.

Back again!

Wild monkeys playing

I'm back again :-) Having spent the last two weeks in Thailand enjoying the food, the culture, the weather and the company I am now back on the blog and ready to review the books that I have spent my days reading in the Hilton's hotel garden underneath palm trees and flowery trees with beautiful white blossoms.


The beach

I was quite ambitious about my reading and brought several books:

"Tiger, Tiger" by Margaux Fragoso
"The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov
"The Last Samurai" by Helen Dewitt
"A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin
"The Russian Debutante's Handbook" by Gary Shteyngart


Bangkok seen from the river

However, I only made it through the first three and half way through Shteyngart's novel but then I also spent a lot of time listening to "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. As you can tell from the list, it was quite an eclectic bunch of books I brought with me and I was quite surprised by some of what I read - more will follow in the reviews in the next couple of days. For now I will sign out and enjoy a lovely relaxed Sunday but first I will share a few holidays snaps with you. Have a great day :-)


Hilton garden - perfect from reading!