The beginning of this month was filled with responsibility, stress and changes. I attended my cousin's wedding at the beginning, started a new semester in a new university and reunited with my friends. Little I need to say that sometimes, books weren't my priority. Finding a new life rhythm can sometimes be tricky, managing work, friends and hobbies can quickly get overwhelming. I think, I needed some time to adjust and leave my three month of holidays behind me...
1. Dalva by Jim Harrison: 3/5
* This is the story of Dalva, a forty-something woman of Sioux descend. When she was fifteen she got pregnant of the love of her life and gave the child to adoption. Thirty years later she tries to find her son as well as going back to her hometown and roots.
* This is my father's favorite book and this was a gift from him, I kinda felt like I had to like it. unfortunately, it wasn't the time for me to read this novel. I never properly got into it, I was reading the words but I did not understand them. I was bored and I did not want to be so.
* The second half of the book interested me more, I slowly got to know the characters and grew interest in their fate, but nothing too passionate or remotely strong. I was actually happy to end it. I neither enjoyed nor disliked it.
* I really believe that we weave connections to certain characters and stories because they find an echo in ourselves, and I guess that this one didn't find any yet in me. I think that in some years I might read this again and love it, who knows.
* I would recommend this book if you're into nature writing, alcohol and sex themes as well as family secrets and meditative descriptions.
2. The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild : 4,5/5
* The story follows Annie who has the incredible luck of finding a Watteau in a junk shop. The whole novel narrates her adventures finding out about the lost painting, trying to tie it to its roots as well as dealing with the people of the art world. Weaved in this pursuit of the truth, a love story might bloom...
*At first, what draw me to this book was the incredible reviews AND the fact that one of the narrators was the painting itself. I found it original and actually useful, sometimes funny... When the painting wasn't narrating i would find myself wondering what it thought or how it felt haha.
* If you are a lover of art, it's a delight to read as it references to a bunch of painters and technical facts about art. It's witty and interesting. I must say, as a former art student, I knew a lot of the artists and paintings, or artistic movements the author referred to, but I also learned a lot of things on the actual making of a painting !
* It's also a very sharp critique of the art world and how money rules most things and how sometimes the artistic and emotional value of a painting is forgotten. I thought it underlined some deep issues of the modern art world and how some paintings are more commercial product than works of art.
* So-many-plot-twists, like seriously, until the very end, you don't know what's coming for you, you think t's going to go one way, but it goes the other.
* My only issue with it, and why I didn't give it a 5/5 on goodreads was the love story between Annie and Jesse. Even though it wasn't the main subject of the novel and a side plot, I thought it lacked of something. For a while nothing happens (at all), then they both become super-cheesy, then nothing much again, then bam the very-predictable-end. I found it rather odd and, from my opinion, it lacked strength ?
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