Book & Dessert 🍰😋

This book is so bizarre! It reads like something between Roots and a high school drama. It is so full of themes and topics that just fly by quickly without deserved focus. The idea of the book is so intriguing but the execution is not what I hoped for. I feel like somehow this book manages accidentally romantice both slavery and it's consequences to the later generations without meaning to. I'm just not sure how I feel about this.

Started reading this

Started reading this. It's been awhile since I've read any non-fiction about China and now it felt like a perfect time. This book has true life stories from women of China collected by Xinran.

I loved this! Such a interesting combination of heavy themes and humor that made me smile. I would love to read more books like this! Characters were written really well and I felt the main character really inspiring.

Small but impactful book. I was expecting a bit more but maybe I just wasn't in the correct headspace to focuss on a story like this. I still liked it and I think I would like to read more about the Magdalen laundry system. I remember seeing a movie about it years ago.

Spoiled myself a bit today with chocolate cake as a desert after lunch. 🥰🍰

This book makes me smile! 😍

Lunch & book ❤️

Afternoon reading & chocolate 😋🍫

Decided to start this book. I've heard a lot of good things about it! My very first Claire Keegan. 😊

New book started 🤩

This was good! It is quite a tough read though. The reality of Pompeij brothel is brutal but I was happy that it wasn't toned down or romanticed. Characters were well written and I loved the description of the women's friendships. I think this book handles the topic of slavery and ownership of one's body really well. The story followed the route we walked through Pompeij last year when we visited there. I remember a lot of the locations.

Started reading this. It feels quite brutal. I love the location though. I visited Pompeii a little less than a year ago and saw many of the actual locations mentioned in the book.

All the books I read during 2023. Only 22 books. I had such a crazy year that I'm not suprised that the amount is this low. On the other hand I really enjoyed most of these! 🥰📚

This was a nice visit back to see what Robin and Strike are up to. The next one is already waiting on my bookshelf. I enjoyed reading this. I really like the characters and the plotlines are wonderfully complicated. Sometimes I get bored with short thrillers because of overly simplified crimes and plots that are run through really quickly. This is such a long book that it gives plenty of time for both characters and the plot.

This was an interesting read! I enjoyed the locations and the character work. I could feel the loneliness and trauma build into the characters. The story and the translation worked really well together and I liked how expressionless the storytelling felt and how much impact it still had to the reader.

Christmas reading & chocolate. Only one work day left before the Christmas holidays. 😍

Second book in Apothecary Melchior series and it is even better than the first one! I think this is closer to Niklas Natt och Dag style of writing than the first book in the series and I totally understand that it definitely is not for everyone but I just loved it. It is way more brutal and dark than the first book. I love the location of medieval Tallinn! The third book is already waiting on my shelf. Hopefully I get to it soon! 😁

This small book has a complex story inside it. It took me awhile to understand what was going on and when I did I was totally surprised and a bit uncomfortable for some reason. I think it is quite a difficult read even though it is a short one. I might need to read it again. I also think this story has a quite interesting mental health angles to it.

Started reading this. I've heard good things.

One of the best books I've read in the past few years! This was so good it was hard to put down and I usually avoid stories of the world war II! I'm so glad I decided to pick this one! This will break your faith in humanity at the same time as it builds it up again and make you cry... If you haven't read this one yet you DEFINITELY should!

Loved this iron age story of a healer woman and a Viking. I enjoy reading descriptions of old religions, societies and way of life in acient history.

Such a unique book! Part a memoir, part a history book and part society commentary. I would recommed this to everyone who is interested in a real nomad life. I haven't really read anything like this before but would like to find more books like this. 😍

I've got flu so I have plenty of time to read. I'm alternating between Youtube and this. I've never read anything like this it's part a memoir and part a history book about world travellers. It works really well and makes a perfect light travel book about being a nomad! 😍

This book was a depressing read. It tells the story of a family with five daughters through the eyes of neighborhood boys. Somehow it manages to capture perfectly the experience of being a teenage girl even though we never get to see the story through their point of view. In many ways this is a tough read.

I found this interesting and loved the setting of the story both as physical locations and timewise. The characters felt like they actually lived in the pages. This is quite a big book and it was fun to read one story for such a long time. It's been awhile since I last did that. I think I'll be reading more Amy Tan at some point. 😊

I wanted to see if this was as good as they say it is. It didn't work for me. I feel like if it were a bit longer the atmosphere could have been build a bit more intensely than what it was now. I did like the world building.

I hate it when books break the first time you read it. The plastic on the cover is rolling off all over the book and both the front and back cover has lost some of its color. I hate it when this happens! 🫤

Non-fiction book about mafia. I learned so much reading this. For example I didn't know that mafia has a hand in producing high end fashion clothes. This book is almost 20 years old so I think much has changed about mafia in that time but I still found this fascinating to read.

Tea & reading after a long work week 🥰

It was extra tough Monday after holidays so decided to end it early and have salad & some quality reading time at my favourite caffeteria. 📚📖

It's also soo hot today that it is uncomfortable to use one's brain. 🤦‍♀️🧠

Started two new books today. I'm travelling again and wanted to pick two books to take with me that are as different as possible. Blue one is historical fiction and the black one is non-fiction that focuses around mafia.

Found this from recycle center yesterday. Can't wait to read it! 😍

This was quite an interesting read. Pamuk certainly has his own unique style of writing. The story is at the same time boring and interesting and you kind of want to not finnish and still you really can't. I think I would have gotten more out of this if I knew more about Turkish politics. I think I want to read more of him just to understand a bit better how he builds his stories. It feels also really unique.

Reading on a train my way to home. This book is not quite what I expected. I'm still finding that I return to it all the time. It is strangely calming read.

Reading at cafeteria 🤓📖

Took some old books to used bookstore and picked up these in exchange. 😍

My first Orhan Pamuk. After only couple of pages I feel like this will not be my last. Also I feel like this will be a very quick read even though it's quite a chunkster. Can't wait to get really deep into it! 😍

This was a good read! It told the life story of one of Finland's most famous writers. She specialiced in historical fiction and historical non-fiction. She wrote a lot about especially women's and children's history in a time when no one was interested in it. Her father also founded one of Finland's biggest publishing houses so in many ways this was also a book about the history of literature in Finland.

My first Karin Slaughter and I really enjoyed it! The story was really captivating and I liked the way characters were introduced both thinly and indepth at the same time. It left me feeling like the next books I will get to know them even more. The violence in this book was described in detail. The storyline was skillfully broken so that it didn't feel like one of those cliché thrillers where you can guess the ending after the first page.

Got Covid again. Luckily the symptoms are easier this time. So started reading a new book to pass the time. This book is a memoir of one of Finland's most succesful female writers. Starts with description of wartime family life. Feels a bit heavy topic at the moment for my tired brain. Still really liking it! 😅

So I got covid again. This is the second time. The symptoms are quite easy at the moment so I decided to start reading this. I might have to put it down though until I feel a bit better because for some reason reading in English feels a bit challenging at the moment. I'm looking forward to reading it. 😁

I loved this book! The story and characters felt so real and somehow the focus of the book was more in the dynamic between characters than the plotline. I also realised reading this that I haven't read many books set in Kanada and I totally want to read more Atwood books as well! 😍

This book focuses on women and their experiences in workinglife. It reminds that women should be more empowered to speak up and take control. It's very heatlhy to read books like this every once in awhile. I needed this last month. The cover could be much better though...

The first encounter I had with the Phelps family was through Louis Theroux's documentaries. I was intrigued to learn that Megan had written a book. This book tells her story through childhood to when she left the family religion. I enjoyed to learn about her thought process and reasons to leave and the insights to the family dynamic entwined with the religion. It was a fascinating read!

This was an easy read even though it took me forever to read it. I had heard a lot of good about this book and it was really unique story but it didn't quite live up to the hype for me. I especially loved the main characters and how the story was constructed.

Some train reading while travelling home 🤓📖

I loved this book! It's a story set in the 17th century Turku. A woman is waiting her death in a prison for murdering her husband. She is telling her story to prison guards. This is based on a true story. Very feministic approach to to the world at the time and the story itself. Loved it! 😍

Found a box of full of books from at the lobby of my building 😍

This was easy and fun. I really liked how it was set in London but in a very different version of London than usually. The story was slightly different than I expected but still a nice read.

This book made me so angry! It's a good book but I really have complicated feelings about it. I found especially infuriating the doctor's comments in the end. It is painfully realistic and doesn't offer much hope for the reader.

Learned quite a lot about history and modern day cults in Finland. Didn't really know too much about them before. I really liked the dry sense of humor the writer had. It worked really well with the subject matter.