This Week In Books (October 5th 2016)

This Week In Books is a weekly update on what you’ve been reading hosted by Lipsyy Lost & Found . A similar meme is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words.

My one-book-a-week rule applies starting today *cries endlessly* With the hundred books I need to read as part of my studies, I won’t be able to squeeze in more of my personal choices. Now is the time to pray the assigned titles I was asked to buy are interesting enough to prevent a slump!

∧ Then ∧ Manipulated Lives, H.A Leuschel

Five stories – Five Lives.
Have you ever felt confused or at a loss for words in front of a spouse, colleague or parent, to the extent that you have felt inadequate or, worse, a failure? Do you ever wonder why someone close to you seems to endure humiliation without resistance?
Manipulators are everywhere. At first these devious and calculating people can be hard to spot, because that is their way. They are often masters of disguise: witty, disarming, even charming in public – tricks to snare their prey – but then they revert to their true self of being controlling and angry in private. Their main aim: to dominate and use others to satisfy their needs, with a complete lack of compassion and empathy for their victim.

In this collection of short novellas, you meet people like you and me, intent on living happy lives, yet each of them, in one way or another, is caught up and damaged by a manipulative individual. First you meet a manipulator himself, trying to make sense of his irreversible incarceration. Next, there is Tess, whose past is haunted by a wrong decision, then young, successful and well balanced Sophie, who is drawn into the life of a little boy and his troubled father. Next, there is teenage Holly, who is intent on making a better life for herself and finally Lisa, who has to face a parent’s biggest regret. All stories highlight to what extent abusive manipulation can distort lives and threaten our very feeling of self-worth.

Another slow paced book, sort of. Many things are happening but this is a book you read slowly and carefully to try and understand the detailed narration of how manipulation is a tricky and often silent mean used by people to get what they want. Review to come!

≈ Now ≈ Queen of Shadows, Sarah J. Maas / The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

The queen has returned.

Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she’s at last returned to the empire—for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past…

She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight.

She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die for her. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped in an unspeakable prison. And she will fight for her people, enslaved to a brutal king and awaiting their lost queen’s triumphant return.

Time for some Maas fun! I am buddy reading the series again with the adorable Flo @ Flowless Books

Mark Twain’s tale of a boy’s picaresque journey down the Mississippi on a raft conveyed the voice and experience of the American frontier as no other work has done before. When Huck escapes from his drunken father and the ‘sivilizing’ Widow Douglas with the runaway slave Jim, he embarks on a series of adventures that draw him to feuding families and the trickery of the unscrupulous ‘Duke’ and ‘Daupin’. Beneath the exploits, however, are more serious undercurrents–of slavery, adult control and, above all, of Huck’s struggle between his instinctive goodness and the corrupt values of society, which threaten his deep and enduring frienship with Jim.

If you’ve been around for some time, you know I am not a fond of classics. Let me tell you, this book should not be on this post. I have a terrible feeling I will hate it and struggle to read it until I end up crying in fetal position on my bed, wondering why what on Earth I was thinking about when I asked to be transferred to English studies.

∨ Next ∨ Lolita, Nabokov

Humbert Humbert – scholar, aesthete and romantic – has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady’s gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.

Another torture! I really don’t feel in the mood to reread this book I DNF earlier this year but if I want to have the slightest idea of what the teacher is rambling about, I need to peruse it. Entirely. Let’s remember reading is fun! *coughs painfully*

Have you read any of these books? What is on your list this week?
Do share in the comments
Happy reading!