Reading Round Up 2021 #18

 Hello fellow bookish people.

I struggled to write this post for my weekly reading round up. It's been a busy week working etc, which meant I forgot to post my reviews via Goodreads, which in turn meant that I actually had a hard time remembering just what I read in the past 7 days.

Has anyone else had this problem before?

After much thinking time (and going back over my Twitter page for evidence) I can now share with you the books which I now have memory of reading lol.

Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien 5 out of 5 stars

Bookseller Paula has lost a child, and a husband. Where will she find her happiness? Fiercely independent Judith thinks more of horses than men, but that doesn't stop her looking for love online. Brida is a writer with no time to write, until she faces a choice between her work and her family. Abandoned by the "perfect" man, Malika struggles for recognition from her parents. Her sister Jorinde, an actor, is pregnant for a third time, but how can she provide for her family alone?

Love in Five Acts explores what is left to five women when they have fulfilled their roles as wives, mothers, friends, lovers, sisters and daughters. As teenagers they experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall, but freedom brings with it another form of pressure: the pressure of choice.

Punchy and entirely of the moment, Love in Five Acts engages head-on with what it is to be a woman in the twenty-first century.

                                                                                                                                                                           

This is such a powerful book.

Translated from German by Jamie Bulloch, this is a tale like now other.

Five women, five stories, each one just as important. Every chapter varies, the characters all with their own reasonings and intimacies yet also carefully (sometimes unknowingly) intertwined with one another.

Showcasing gently and meaningfully that love is not just a feeling.

A beautifully written/translated piece of literature.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks 5 out of 5 stars

Set amid the austere beauty of the North Carolina coast begins the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner recently returned from the Second World War. Noah is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier, a girl he loved like no other. Unable to find her, yet unwilling to forget the summer they spent together, Noah is content to live with only memories...until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again.

Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. It is a story of miracles and emotions that will stay with you forever. 

                                                                                                                                                                           

I was reading this as part of a gloabal readalong with Tandem Collective and some fabulous bookstagrammers.

I have to be honest, I'd only watched the film before last week.

And I'll share something else with you, I think I prefer the film - what's your opinion, book or film?

The book is still wonderful, emotional.

I'm just a sucker for Ryan Gosling!

This Fragile Earth by Susannah Wise 5 out of 5 stars

Not long from now, in a recognizable yet changed London, Signy and Matthew lead a dull, difficult life. They’ve only really stayed together for the sake of their six year old son, Jed. But they’re surviving, just about. Until the day the technology that runs their world stops working. Unable to use their phones, pay for anything, even open the smart door to their flat, Matthew assumes that this is just a momentary glitch in the computers that now run the world.

But then the electricity and gas are cut off. Even the water stops running. And the pollination drones – vital to the world, ever since the bees all died – are behaving oddly. People are going missing. Soldiers are on the streets. London is no longer safe.

A shocking incident sends Signy and Jed on the run, desperate to flee London and escape to the small village where Signy grew up. Determined to protect her son, Signy will do almost anything to survive as the world falls apart around them. But she has no idea what is waiting for them outside the city… 

                                                                                                                                                                           

Futuristic.

Almost dystopian.

This is London, but not as we know it.

AI has taken over and not in the best of ways. A frankly shocking incident occurs and what transpires afterwards is something like a zombie apocalypse.

The world is failing and it seems like nothing will ever be the same again.

A question that remains throughout, will anyone survive?

Eerie, emotional, educational. This is how I'd describe This Fragile Earth. What makes the story more effective is that all of the science discussed, the machines used. everything seems plausible, things that could eventually happen in real life.

This is a story that highlights just how much we are coming to rely on technology. Makes you question how efficient we really are as a planet, could we continue if left to try and thrive without modern day devices.

Fascinating and frightening all at the same time!

Ok I have to be honest, I'm still reading The Book of Longings (I will finish it I promise) and I'm also nearly finished with The Perfect Lie - which I highly recommend already. 

What books can you share with me this week?