Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten… Doomed Romances of Fantasyland

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Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday – a weekly feature from The Broke and the Bookish, now hosted by ThatArtsyReaderGirl. Expect a new top ten list every week!

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| Top Ten… Doomed Romances of Fantasyland |

Welcome back to Top Ten Tuesday! This week it’s a love freebie in honour of valentines day so, to get you all in the spirit, I bring to you the Top Ten… Doomed Romances of Fantasyland!

| 1. |

Túrin Turambar + Niënor Níniel

from The Silmarillion + The Children of Húrin

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Without giving away any spoilers to one of Tolkien’s many great tragedies, there is one glaringly obvious reason these two star crossed lovers should never have got their heavenly bodies entangled. Amnesia can be a bitch.

| 2. |

Beren + Lúthien

from The Silmarillion + Beren and Lúthien

by J.R.R. Tolkien

While this may be the only ‘happy ending’ The Silmarillion has to offer, the tale of Beren and Lúthien, which sees a man fall in love with an elvish woman, takes pleasing the in-laws to a whole new level. With more shapeshifting, limb-lopping and blood-letting than you can shake a silmaril at, its a good job this elf maiden had a beautiful voice.

| 3. |

Aredhel + Eöl 

from The Silmarillion

by J.R.R. Tolkien

When your spouse traps you in a forest and stops you from seeing any of your friends or family you know life has taken a turn for the worse. But hey, at least you didn’t try and escape with your small child and get fatally wounded in the process… Though on the grand scale of things death is probably the least of your worries.

| 4. |

Harry Dresden and Susan Rodriguez

from The Dresden Files

by Jim Butcher

If Harry Dresden and Susan Rodriguez can teach us anything with their dramatically flawed relationship it’s that being honest with your love interest is probably the best course of action. Harry and Susan however did not take this advice which lead to an escalating series of lies, dangerous encounters and eventual vampirism… things couldn’t get any worse, could they?

| 5. |

Albus Dumbledore + Gellert Grindelwald

from Harry Potter

by J.K. Rowling

Albus Dumbledore’s fancy for dark wizards and muggle suppression in his youth was bound to end in disaster from the start. After a chain of events instigated by his lover all but destroys his family, his interpersonal relationships took a sudden turn for the worse. But hey, love excluded, he didn’t do too badly afterwards.

| 6. |

Severus Snape + Lily Potter

from Harry Potter

by J.K. Rowling

The spurned love of Severus Snape by Lily Potter, which was escalated by her not-at-all-spurned love for infamous bully James Potter, lead to his eventual joining of He Who Should Not Be Named, her untimely death, and a somewhat short lifetime of secretive babysitting. 

| 7. |

Cersei + Jaime Lannister

from A Song of Ice and Fire

by George R. R. Martin

This one really doesn’t need any description, explanation or sorry conclusions. Suffice to say that having an incestuous affair with your twin is probably not the best idea you’ve ever had.

| 8. |

Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish + The Tully Sisters

from A Song of Ice and Fire

by George R.R. Martin

If love makes you go crazy then Petry “Littlefinger” Baelish may be the perfect example. Spurned by his childhood sweetheart, Littlefinger’s unrequited love caused him to instigate a civil war just to get her back. After this plan fails abysmally he settles for the runner-up, which leads to a series of deaths, murders and general mayhem thereafter. 

| 9. |

Lyra Belacqua + Will Parry

from His Dark Materials

by Philip Pullman

After spending almost an entire two books together, Lyra and Will’s blossoming relationship is cut woefully short when neither of them is capable of living in the others world. I guess some things just aren’t meant to be.

| 10. |

Lord Asriel + Marisa Coulter

from His Dark Materials

by Philip Pullman

After a steamy affair results in the birth of a certain compass wielding little girl, a sequence of murder, abandonment and child cruelty ensues. But it wasn’t all so bad; their tragic end, for once, made all the difference. 

What are your favourite doomed literary romances? If you would like to join in with Top Ten Tuesday, head on over to The Broke and the Bookish and sign up!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten… Classics of 2015

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Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday – a weekly feature hosted by those lovely bookworms over at The Broke and the Bookish. Expect a new top ten list every week!

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| Top Ten… Classics of 2015 |

This year i have been determined to read more classics and amongst those dusty tomes I’ve discovered some fantastic literature, many of which are almost poetic in narrative and are often full of understated (if not blatant.. cough… Wodehouse) humour. For this week’s Top Ten, and to avoid any repeats with last week, I’m bringing you my top ten classics of 2015 – and hopefully I’ll unearth many more literary masters in 2016!

| 1. |

Picadilly Jim

by P.G. Wodehouse

This is the book which started my love affair with Wodehouse. No author has brought tears of laughter to my eyes quite so much as this comedic genius, and with an inordinate number of books to his name, I expect to be crying with laughter for many more years to come!

| 2. |

Murder on the Orient Express

by Agatha Christie

I have been an Agatha Christie fan for some time now, dipping into and out of her work ever since I was a child, so it was about time then that I made a concerted effort to make my way through her catalogue in some semblance of order. Murder on the Orient Express most certainly lives up to its reputation as a whodunnit masterpiece and has fuelled my passion for Christie’s crime classics.

| 3. |

Sense and Sensibility

by Jane Austen

I had first read Sense and Sensibility as a young girl and, despite my love for both both literary and televised Austen, I hadn’t re-read a number of her novels until this year. Sense and Sensibility is social commentary at its finest, full of wit and humour with a sometimes heartbreaking storyline, which made me fall in love with Austen all over again.

| 4. |

Hard Times

by Charles Dickens

I cannot begin to describe how much I love this book. Charles Dickens is a master of the literary charicature and it is done so well in Hard Times. And not only that, we have some of the most beautiful and evocative descriptions of the industrial revolution that I’ve ever come across. A definite highlight in this year’s list of classics.

| 5. |

Around the World in Eighty Days

by Jules Verne

I was determined to read more Jules Verne this year but only ended up reading one novel – Around the World in Eighty Days. This delightful adventure, undertaken as a bet and chock full of a multitude of intriguing characters,  has definitely spurred me on to read more of Verne’s work.

| 6. |

The Thirty-Nine Steps

by John Buchan

Having never even heard of this novel until this year, The Thirty-Nine Steps took me by complete surprise. Reading just like one of the military escape memoirs I love so much, The Thirty-Nine Steps has me determined to add more John Buchan novels to my 2016 reading list.

| 7. |

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

by Lewis Carroll

And no list of classics for me would be complete without the delightful and nonsensical work of Lewis Carroll. This is pure and unadulterated fuel for the imagination, like a fever dream… on acid. And this year’s re-read only re-fuelled my love for this wonderful piece of literature.

| 8. |

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde remains one of the most well known classic horror stories so it’s unsurprising that this short book, packed full of mystery, shock and suspense, made its way into this week’s Top Ten.

| 9. |

Something Fresh

by P.G. Wodehouse

Something Fresh is the first book in the Blandings series which I’ve wholeheartedly devoured in 2015. With the delightfully dotty Lord Emsworth, many an imposter and something of a whodunnit… involving scarabs… this is a fine example of comedic literature which had me reaching for the next book in an instant.

| 10. |

The Mystery of the Blue Train

by Agatha Christie

Another Christie classic (and another which involves trains!) tops this week’s list. Full of intriguing (and highly suspicious) characters, exotic jewels and even more exotic locations, this is one of my favourite Christie novels to date.

Which are your favourite novels of 2015? Do any classics top your list? If you would like to join in with Top Ten Tuesday, head on over to The Broke and the Bookish and sign up!

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Review: Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

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Alice in Zombieland

Book One of The White Rabbit Chronicles

by Gena Showalter

Young Adult | Fantasy | 404 Pages | Published by MIRA Ink in 2012

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| Rating |

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An Alice in Wonderland retelling you say? With zombies? What’s not to like?! Well, quite a lot actually. But this will probably cure me of my habit of judging a book by its cover… and title… and tagline. Whilst this isn’t a terrible novel – I am sure there are people out there who would love it – it really wasn’t a book for me. The first half of this novel left me angry that I’d even bought it in the first place but, once I had forgotten how irritating I found the narrative style, the other half was actually quite fun.

She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever. 

Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. But that’s all it takes. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone. 

Her father was right. The monsters are real. 

To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies.

First and foremost, Alice in Zombieland is not a retelling. Beyond the protagonist being called Alice and her brief glimpses of a rabbit shaped cloud, it has nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland at all. No Mad Hatters, no tea parties, and not one person’s head is offed! But enough about that. This is a tale about a young girl who has lost everything. Her family, her innocence and her world come crashing down around her when her father’s apparent delusions become terrifyingly real. Alice must decide whether to live a life on the run in constant paranoia, or to stand and fight.

Alice in Zombieland takes an interesting spin around our general concept of ‘the zombie’. In this novel zombies are spiritual beings who attack and feed off the human spirit. There are people who can see such creatures, who can fight them with their own spirit form – Alice’s father was one – and after tragedy strikes, Alice is thrown headfirst into the same crazy and dangerous world. Whilst the premise of spiritual and ghostly zombies is an interesting one, the scare factor could have done with being turned up a notch. This perhaps has more to do with descriptive style though than the plot, which was at its strongest during these scenes.

The story is told through Alice, or Ali, a sixteen year old girl whose apparent intelligence is undermined by her vacuous narrative. The narrative, for the most part, is vapid and irritating, the text talk is infuriating and I am physically repulsed by the word ‘smexy’. Shudders. This novel, which can only be likened to a teenager’s diary, should have an appeal to certain readerships – those who like romance novels, fans of this YA style and other teenage girls – but for me it felt insincere and lacking the depth that makes first person narration work well.

And of course! This novel has a less than sensible dose of adolescent romance. Cue the instalove, the dark, dangerous and brooding guys (who can only be tamed by one woman) and an endless stream of verbal diarrhoea extolling their virtues. Romance is not and never will be my thing. And if you’re going to have visions of the future, I can imagine a thousand things more useful than a continuous loop of two sixteen year olds getting off with one another. But hey, what do I know.

When the action kicks in however, perhaps half or two thirds of the way through, there is a marked improvement in the narrative style. The plot develops an intriguing element as the opposing ‘hazmat’ side come into play and starts to build up an over-arcing storyline which will presumably play out in the next novels. Though it could have used some more tension and more of a scare factor – that’s more description of the zombies and fight scenes rather than what’s under Cole Holland’s shirt – once the story gets into its flow (and out of the high school) it actually becomes quite enjoyable.

Alice may not be one of my favourite protagonists but she does have her moments. When taking a backstep from the romance, the emotional qualities of her character are much starker, more painful and more real. The love she has for her family, the sorrow of her loss, and the pain and guilt over her last words to them are woven throughout the story and add a little of that much needed depth to her tale. On the other hand, the hoard of other characters felt a little generic. I didn’t particularly like or dislike any of them, in fact, with the exception of Alice’s grandparents, none of them made me feel much of anything at all. Except irritation.

Alice in Zombieland is a novel which, if I had known what it was like, I probably wouldn’t have read. The zombie plot was captivating enough to keep me going to the bitter end but it wasn’t enough to make up for the hours I spent reading it. There will be readers who find Alice quirky rather than vacuous, who will love the romantic storyline and swoon at Cole Holland’s supple sixteen-your-old man-child chest. Just not me. And the worst thing of all – I already own Alice Through the Zombieglass.

Amazon | The Book Depository | Goodreads

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Bookish Beats: Belle OST

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Music, much like literature, has the power to drive your imagination; it can lift the soul and create real emotion.This is Bookish Beats, a feature which will showcase some of the soundtracks which have enriched the worlds I’ve found between the pages. 

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Belle (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Composed by Rachel Portman

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Listen to with:

An enchanting & romantic tale

Such as:

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Belle is a seriously beautiful soundtrack – one thing that Rachel Portman consistently succeeds at. In fact, Belle could arguably be her best. It’s a gentle, softly sweeping soundtrack which heightens the emotions and is incredibly enchanting in its own right. Not to mention a perfect complement to a wonderful film.

This soundtrack also lends itself to being a perfect accompaniment for reading to; whether to a tale of magic and wonder or a classic romance. This soundtrack just works; brimming with emotion and poised on the edge of dramatic tension throughout. If you tend to cry whilst reading, this soundtrack may well push you over the edge!

And though I say it most weeks, Belle is incredibly difficult to single out any particular track for the favourites categories. Every single one is of an incredibly high standard and though they are all unique, they all share a common, incredibly beautiful theme. If you want to enhance an enchanting and romantic tale, look no further than Belle.

Favourite track

01 – Main Titles

Top track for action

21 – Dido Goes To Courts

Top track for tension

20 – Lord Mansfield Watches John

Top track for emotion

03 – Are You Punishing Me?

Purchase Here

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