The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

Goodreads Summary:
Meet Pat. Pat has a theory: his life is a movie produced by God. And his God-given mission is to become physically fit and emotionally literate, whereupon God will ensure a happy ending for him -- the return of his estranged wife Nikki. (It might not come as a surprise to learn that Pat has spent time in a mental health facility.) The problem is, Pat's now home, and everything feels off. No one will talk to him about Nikki; his beloved Philadelphia Eagles keep losing; he's being pursued by the deeply odd Tiffany; his new therapist seems to recommend adultery as a form of therapy. Plus, he's being hunted by Kenny G!

OK, show of hands, how many people didn't know that this was a book before it was a multi-Oscar winning movie? Me, too, until quite recently. When reading, I have a rule guideline that I try to follow: READ THE BOOK BEFORE SEEING THE MOVIE. When I saw the movie, I didn't know it was a book. I didn't know it was a book until four weeks ago when one of my best friends told me that it was one of her favourite books and insisted that I read it ASAP. So, I did. 

I loved how this book is written. It really does sound like someone is telling you a story of their life, complete with some miniscule details that don't really matter to the overall story, which adds to the realism, very unlike "cold" first person narratives that are very aloof and don't mention the little details that make the story endearing. Matthew Quick makes Pat a very likeable person and also a very alienating person at the same time. This book eloquently and heartbreakingly paints an accurate portrait of living with mental illness and methods of coping with different mental illnesses in everday life. What I really liked is that there was no Big Event like there usually is in these sorts of books; the film makes the dance competition that Pat and Tiffany participate in a Big Event, but is a very small event in the book. There is no one Big Event, rather a lot of small events in a big story, which is refreshing to see. It has a very minimized atmosphere.

This book is definitely a character-driven one rather than a plot-driven one. It was a short read, took me maybe a few hours to finish, and I really enjoyed seeing how everything would play out. For comparison, once I finished the novel, I popped in the movie adaptation, and while it is still a good movie on its own, it is not a good ADAPTATION. This was the first book I read on my reading week, and it was such a charming, endearing novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm giving The Silver Linings Playbook a 4.5/5 because I wish I had read the book before seeing the movie. 

Also, P.S. Pat's book "reviews" are the greatest thing ever. 

The Ballroom by Anna Hope

From Goodreads: 
1911: Inside an asylum at the edge of the Yorkshire moors, where men and women are kept apart by high walls and barred windows,
there is a ballroom vast and beautiful. For one bright evening every week they come together and dance. When John and Ella meet, it is a dance that will change two lives forever.

Set over the heatwave summer of 1911, the end of the Edwardian era, THE BALLROOM is a historical love story. It tells a page-turning tale of dangerous obsession, of madness and sanity, and of who gets to decide which is which.

Like most of the books I buy these days, I bought The Ballroom by Anna Hope on a sort of whim. I was in Chapters a few weeks ago, just browsing for books to read over my reading week. It was the second book of four I read that wasn't for school on my reading week, the first being The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick (that review coming soon to a blog near you!). Right away upon starting the book, I felt instantly connected to the main character Ella and her plight inside an early twentieth-century asylum. Hope's prose is lyrical and rhythmic. The story provides an insight into how patients at an asylum were treated in the pre-World War I era, regardless of their mental health status, and you see that it might not be the patients that are the most troubled ...

Weekly in this asylum, men and women, who are forcibly separated, are selected to join together at the ballroom for weekly balls. It is here where our two protagonists Ella and John form their unbreakable bond and herein unfolds our love story in an almost epistolary form, with John writing letters to Ella, which are read to by her friend Clem (as Ella cannot read herself), which, if done correctly (as it is in this book) really pays off. Elsewhere in the novel is the main antagonist, Charles, who goes from a disgruntled and intense doctor and master of the band that plays at the weekly balls, to the deranged and deluded man obsessed with eugenics, raising the question of who the troubled ones really are.

I truly enjoyed this book. I tore through it in about a day and could not bear to put it down when I had to go to work. Hope's prose is beautiful and simplistic and does well in splitting up the perspectives between Ella, John and Charles, showing each side of the story from different perspectives, filling in the blanks. The latter part of the novel is both heartbreaking and uplifting as is the overarching message and theme of finding love where love cannot be seen. It is one of those books that cannot leave your brain. I loved reading this book, and I will definitely will be reading more of Anna Hope's novels in the future. This book easily became one of my all-time favourites soon after I finished reading it. I definitely recommend this book, especially to those who enjoy historical fiction and mental illness in literature, and I give it a 5/5

I'm back ... Sort of

Hi, everyone.

It's been awhile, hasn't it? Well, that's what university does for you. As predicted, I got super busy almost right out of the gate starting third year, and since then, I've had very little time to read and blog. But I'm here now. And I read about four books over my reading week, which ended back on Sunday. Mostly horror, but a few historical things in there as well. I'm trying to get more into the reviewing atmosphere for books, so I might join Net Galley or Book Look in the next little while so I can get more books to review.

I'm going to try and change the way I do business around here a little bit too and make it be a more professional looking blog, so I can go into a book-reviewing career of some sort. I'm not going to drastically change things, just polish it up a little bit. What I'm going to try to do is cross-post on Goodreads whenever I make a review, and post on Facebook and possibly Twitter once a review has gone live over here. I'm going to try and be a more active book-reviewer.

I'm hoping to get more reviews up, but it's assignment time coming up in the next little while. I only have a month and a bit left to go until I'm done third year, so I'm hoping to read a lot this summer and document what I read. While I am doing a summer course in the second half of the summer semester, it won't be an intensive 12-week affair. I don't have a class until 6pm tonight and it's 8:30 here right now, so expect something soon.

That's all for me right now. I'll have my first review up from reading week soon!