#they sucked out lyra's soul in this adaptation

[filmmakerdreamst]

The Problem with Lyra

Just to be clear, I think Dafne Keen is a terrific actor. This is in no way criticising her or her abilities. It’s more to do with the direction and the way her character was put together.

Adaptations of characters change according to the actor, or the vision the writer has i.e. There are different versions of Lizzie Bennet. I don't have a problem with a different vision of Lyra.

The problem I had was the Jack Thorne shaved away her prominent flaws - yet mentioned them at the same time.  At the start, and throughout its mentioned that she's a liar, but we don't see it or rarely experience it. So when we do get moments where the storyline mentions that "she has to tell the truth", it doesn’t hit as hard as it should. 

The whole concept in the 'Land of the Dead' sequence was her telling the dead true stories, but those story beats don't land as well because she's already truthful. 

It was like the storyline wanted it both ways with her.

For example, comments that characters made in the show like "you are insufferable" "you don't apologise easily" or "LIAR" don't make sense because TV!Lyra is nothing like that.

And another thing, Lyra’s dislikable qualities are important to the story. 'His Dark Materials' is mostly driven by characters emotions and motivations rather than the plot. So things like, her lying, her selfishness, her rudeness even her EMOTIONS being toned down effects the entire story.

Lyra is first and fourmost an EMOTIONAL and impulsive person. She wears her heart on her sleeve. She doesn't filter herself. So her leaving Pan on the doc in the TV Show, kind of seems unnecessarily mean since we've never seen her do anything like that before. Which brings me to another point that I have. 

Shaving away Lyra's flaws doesn't make her a kickass amazing character, it dehumanises her. I've seen this with other adaptations before. It presents a major problem that media has. "That women are just pawns to be pushed from one scene to the next. Their own agency never truly factoring in"

Lyra in the books undergoes through a massive character growth. Take her lying for example. She first lies to do wrong. She lies to save herself. She lies for good. Then she finally learns to tell the truth in the land of the dead. The whole irony of her being given the compass, is that it’s something that "tells her the truth".

So the TV show presented all these plot points to her, but none of the development or emotions to go with it.

So her character development is..I don't know really. 

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

Some Disappointments I had about the “His Dark Materials” show

So I loved the HDM show, I did. I can’t wait to see The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass adapted, since I’ve been wanting to see that since I first got into HDM/TGC.

Having said that, whilst I enjoyed it, there’s still parts that disappointed me? I don’t know if that makes sense, but I’ll try to explain anyway.

This post ended up being far longer than I wanted it to, because I ramble and don’t edit, so it’s under a “keep reading”/”read more” just so it doesn’t bother anyone or clog up the dashboards! I’m also interested to hear what any other fans have to say, so please feel free to add/disagree with anything!

Firstly, dæmons. I know that TV budget is significantly less than movie budget, so I understand why it was not possible to show every single person on-screen having a dæmon. When the dæmons ARE there, especially Pan, they’re done extremely well - such as seeing him shift forms, for example, and the fight between the Pan and the monkey. However, there are moments where there’s maybe two people on-screen, such as Ma Costa (who has a hawk dæmon) and Lyra, and they’re indoors (eg. On the boat), and their dæmons are nowhere in sight - I think I saw Ma Costa’s dæmon once in the course of eight episodes. It really put me off because for 60% of the show, there were no dæmons - saying “maybe these people ALL have tiny dæmons in their pockets” can only go so far. Dæmons can also only travel a short distance from their humans, and going too far physically hurts them both.

The worst part is when it comes to a) Billy Costa and b) the parts in Bolvanger, where we’re supposed to feel horror because these children are having their dæmons - literally their souls - cut away and they’re becoming sickly zombie-like beings, barely even human. In the book AND the movie, it always made me feel sick and scared seeing Tony/Billy because it’s this child without a dæmon, clutching a dead rotting fish “as Lyra would clutch Pantalaimon” - it is literally a barbaric and sickening sight. Tony/Billy (depending on whether we’re discussing book or movie/tv) is awake, asking for their dæmon, unable to say anything but “where’s my Ratter? I want Ratter” - in the show, Billy is passed out and says nothing, he just sort of let’s Lyra help him into Iorek so they can go back to the camp. Because the point of dæmons being your soul, something EVERY person has, wasn’t exactly driven in properly in the series, it’s just kind of like “oh. Okay. Well, that sucks I guess”. Imagine the horror you’d feel at seeing someone walk around with half of their head missing - that’s the same horror you’re supposed to feel here.

Then you have Bolvanger. At first I was like “okay actually this is super creepy and messed up, good job”, but then it got to the part where Lyra and Pan are about to be separated, and...I don’t know. I respect that the series was trying to develop the human relationships, I get that, but parts of that whole scene didn’t work. Lyra is about to he separated from her soul, her lifetime companion who knows her better than literally anybody else, and in the book/movie, they cry out for each other and are distressed about it. Whilst Lyra was kind of animalistic like in the book, she doesn’t even spare a look at Pan the entire scene. Even when she and Pan are let out of their cages, she doesn’t look at him - where was the hugging? The “never, never, they’ll never separate us”? Maybe it’s a budget thing, the reason they didn’t hug, but would it have killed them to have her just so much as look at Pan? For them to check on each other? Instead we got her and Mrs Coulter staring at each other coolly for some reason? At least in the movie, after they wake up (because they passed out before Mrs Coulter saved them), she sees him and immediately hugs him tight, burying her face into his fur.

My other major gripe is the bear fight; the 2007 film did a way better job at showing that damn bear fight, despite the fact the film was a PG extremely watered down for families, and the show is a supposedly more adult one - and on BBC, the bear fight episode was shown a whole hour later at night, which is usually what happens when an episode has more violence/adult content. First of all, why were Iorek and Iofur NOT wearing armour?? The panserbjørne are ARMOURED BEARS. Part of the satisfaction in seeing Iofur being killed by Iorek is that under Iofur’s rule, the bears were forced to turn from their ways, using prettier/fancier but weaker metal for their armour, whilst Iorek - the rightful bear king - represents how the bears SHOULD be, using armour he made himself from Sky Iron that fell from the sky. Iofur tried to be a human so bad, allowing himself to be manipulated by Mrs Coulter, and he was able to be tricked - Iorek says that you cannot trick a bear, and the reason Lyra is able to trick Iofur is because he doesn’t behave like a bear, doesn’t think like one, because he’s not as a bear should be. I went off on a tangent there, but what I was trying to show is that having two ARMOURED bears fight WITHOUT armour is literally stupid, especially since every other bear was wearing armour during the scene.

Secondly, even in the PG film, we got to see the two bears fight and claw at each other - AND we saw Iorek smack Iofur/Ragnar’s lower jaw clean off before grabbing him by the throat and disposing of him. In the show, it mostly happens behind Lyra as she cowers and doesn’t watch - fucking excuse me?? Why is Lyra NOT watching her dear Iorek - who she loves fiercely and more than her own parents (not that that’s difficult, mind you) - fight in a life or death battle? Why is she NOT watching two bears fight when that is exactly the kind of thing Lyra WOULD watch? Lyra Silvertongue does NOT turn away and cower. She would especially not be hiding and refusing to watch because the outcome of this battle literally decides if she lives or dies too - she’s told Iofur that she’s Iorek’s dæmon, and that if he kills Iorek then she will become his dæmon instead. She does this because otherwise, Iorek will be killed by the fire-hurlers/guards before he can even get close to the palace - it’s the only way she can stop that from happening. If Iorek IS killed in the one-on-one battle, Iofur will know right away by a) her heartbroken reaction and b) the fact that they’re not connected that she was lying, and he would kill her instantly. So yeah, if I were Lyra, I would not be closing my eyes and turning away.

It’s just overall a disappointing battle, even more so because it’s one of the most exciting and thrilling parts of the book. I was also lowkey hoping that we’d finally get to see Iorek tear open Iofur’s chest and eat his heart, but I guess not.

I do have a minor gripe about the way Mrs Coulter is shown as well - I love Ruth Wilson. I absolutely do, and she’s an incredible actress; she’s incredible in this series too. Having said that, I always personally envisaged Mrs Coulter as being very cool, calculated, collected, etc. She knows how to wield the power she has, she knows how to manipulate people into doing what she wants, and she’s nearly always wearing a mask - her dæmon being a Golden Monkey shows that while, like the Monkey, she’s very beautiful and sleek and pretty to look at, her exterior hides a darker and more violent side. I’m rereading the first book again, and in the first two or three chapters (before the Cocktail Party) where we see Mrs Coulter, she puts on the front of being very kind, very wonderful, and an absolute dream come true for Lyra, who has never had any kind of maternal figure in her life. It’s so easy to see why Lyra trusts her at first, because she’s soft with her, charming, and genuinely seems to be absolutely perfect. I personally felt that Nicole Kidman did a pretty good job at conveying that, though I may be somewhat biased because it was the film that made me even know the books existed (hence why I tend to be nicer about the film than most); the first few scenes before the fight between Pan and the monkey, you get that same sense of Mrs Coulter being a loving motherly figure to Lyra, such as taking her out to lunches, getting their hair done together, etc.

However, in the film, there’s a moment I love during the first dinner scene where a) Mrs Coulter goes from soft to slightly threatening in 0.05 seconds, and b) where her monkey dæmon is grooming Pantalaimon under the table whilst he tries to escape, all while she’s carefully manipulating Lyra into trusting her. You also know that Mrs Coulter is probably bad news in the scene after when we see her dæmon straight up attack Roger and Billy + their dæmons, and then next thing you know both are missing...that kind of makes it a little more sinister.

In the show, Mrs Coulter from episode 3(?) onwards always seems like she’s constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown. In a way, it’s an interesting take on the character, and I thought the way certain behaviors or mannerisms directly paralleled the Monkey dæmon’s was brilliant (eg. The way she repeatedly hit Benjamin when tackling him, the way she crouched on a table after leaving the vent in Bolvanger). It’s also interesting to see a new side of her, and it’s unsettling as well, which makes her a fantastic villain because you just don’t know what’s going through her mind or when she’ll snap. However, in this interpretation, it also kind of means that we don’t see the carefully maintained and calm front that she puts on, and it makes you wonder why on Earth Lyra trusts her in the first place because the whole time we see her, even at Jordan College, you can tell that something is not right. Like that moment where she says “sometimes children can just...disappear” while snapping her fingers...yikes. I would NOT trust her at all. This is not me trying to insult Ruth Wilson, because her performance was absolutely incredible and she did a great job with it.

It’s not just Mrs Coulter, to be fair - I love James McAvoy so much, I truly do, but the moment at the end of Episode 7 when Asriel starts to creepily smile at Roger and say “I’m so glad you’re here, Roger Parslow” is WAY too on the nose. I know this scene wasn’t in the film, but you can see it somewhat in the cut-scenes of the console game, and Daniel Craig’s reaction is way more believable; he sees Roger, slowly calms down because before he was yelling at Lyra, and then tells Thorold to run the children a bath - he gains control over himself, and you can sort of tell that something’s not right but it’s not “alarm bells blaring” kind of off putting. Other than that moment, however, I do love McAvoy in the series, especially since he was actually cast very last minute apparently.

Even Lyra comes across differently in the show. I don’t know know what it is about show!Lyra, but she seemed for the most part sort of subdued and less like how she is in the book. Maybe some of that is due to what I said before about the dæmons/Bolvanger issue, but she seemed overall more subdued and less wild. Lyra is supposed to be, as Pullman wrote in Northern Lights, “a brutal little savage”; before any of these events happened, she was this girl who led warfare against the town kids and Gyptian children, she tried to steal the Costas boat, she was constantly dirty and filthy, never listened to any of the Scholars to the point where it was disrespectful, and she was always lying or exaggerating - she had the background to act like she was better than the servant kids, like she was somewhat more noble, because of her “uncle” and his wealth, whilst also being savvy and street smart enough to be absolutely savage and wild. In the show, there were moments where I felt that, “yes, this is the Lyra we know and love”, but overall it just seemed like she was extremely toned down and not as fiery or fierce as she should be. Maybe that’s just what happens when you adapt such a huge scale trilogy like HDM, I don’t know. Again, I have nothing against Dafne Keen, she’s incredible at what she does, especially at her age.

Finally... While I loved seeing Will, I do feel like seeing him and seeing Boreal in our world was kind of just filler. It made for a beautiful ending scene in the final episode, where we see the parallel of him and Lyra both entering windows into different worlds, but for the most part I felt like it was unnecessary and slowed the episodes to a grinding halt. Like, we’d be seeing exciting battle, scary child-cutters, and then suddenly switch to Will watching interviews of his missing dad on his laptop, or to Boreal talking to a contact or whatever. It just feels like that time could have been used to develop the characters (in Lyra’s world) better, because I watched the series with my sister, she has never read the books, and I had to explain to her that it was a different world, why is this important etc., and I have to wonder if people who haven’t read the books felt the same.

I don’t think it’s the actors’ faults - I do think it’s the way it’s been written/adapted by Jack Thorne. I mean, come on, we’ve seen what his work on Cursed Child looked like, for goodness sake (yes, I know he was one of three credited writers on Cursed Child, but still). I feel like he didn’t quite grasp the importance of dæmons, or how to write some of the characters...hell, I don’t think he even wrote LYRA properly, for that matter, and she’s the main character.

Having said all of this, I am looking forward to the next series, as well as (hopefully) seeing the entire trilogy FINALLY adapted to completion (unlike the film, which didn’t even give us the final part even though it was filmed), and I’m excited to see how it’s all done! I know it sounds like I’m totally trashing the television series, but I did love the first season of the show, I truly did, and I would love to make a post about everything I loved or thought was well-done, but that’s for another post! It would also be a FAR longer post, or else episode-by-episode separate posts, but perhaps another day!

^For the record, this is absolutely the Lyra we know and love, and she said this in the book, so yay!

[aion-rsa]

His Dark Materials’ Spectres: ‘I Tried to Find a Way To Not Make Dementors’

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When Philip Pullman magicked up Spectres on the pages of The Subtle Knife, he did it without giving a thought to the VFX artists of the future. If Pullman had considered the puzzle he was setting the people tasked with depicting creatures so diaphanous that “in some lights, they were hardly there at all,” he may have had a rethink. Instead, not knowing that his story would be turned first into a feature film and then a stunning TV adaptation, he described monsters that were “a rhythmic evanescence, like veils of transparency turning in a mirror.” Tricky.

“In literary form, it’s a very different game,” laughs Framestore VFX Supervisor Russell Dodgson. “You can describe things that you can’t quite picture and that makes it more magical, but then you try and put it on screen and it’s like, oh! It’s such hard work. Our 3D VFX supervisor on that, Rob Harrington, has definitely gone greyer doing the Spectres.”

Monsters from the void between parallel worlds, His Dark Materials’ Spectres are created whenever a window is cut from one reality to another. They float around and swoop down indiscriminately on adults, feeding on their souls and leaving them as zombies. Only children are safe from attack. 

Not Humanoid, Not Creature-like, Not Dementors

The team had long conversations about how to depict the Spectres. First, they ruled out making them humanoid. Production company head honcho Jane Tranter was clear that she didn’t want them to appear too creature-like. Dodgson was keen to avoid comparisons with another brand of fantasy monster from the Harry Potter universe. 

“I was really trying to find a way to not end up making Dementors,” says Dodgson, referencing the Potterverse’s wraithlike, skeletal, cloaked creatures whose soul-sucking effect on their victims is remarkably similar to that of Pullman’s Spectres. (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published two years after The Subtle Knife.)

Early Spectre concept art courtesy of Painting Practice

“There was a nice bit of concept work from Dan May at Painting Practice that was a bit Dementor-like, but more made of trails rather than being solid,” says Dodgson. Effects-driven monsters, he explains, are either computer-generated models or mathematical simulations. His Dark Materials’ daemons – also designed and animated by Framestore – are the former; Spectres are the latter. “They’re made out of maths, simulations that you apply rules to.” 

 “With the daemons, we make a really good-looking creature and it looks good in every shot, and it’s up to us to animate it. With FX monsters, you don’t have that luxury.” What Dodgson and his team see when they’re animating the Spectres is about as far from a rhythmic evanescence as you can go: 

“We’ve literally got a moving sausage,” he laughs, and you can see the video below for proof. “Everything else happens because you’re telling the inside of the sausage to do one thing and the outside of the sausage to do something else. It’s massively unpredictable. We’ll put those numbers in and paint in some weighting, and on one shot it looks great and on the other shot it looks awful.” 

That’s why you’re unlikely to have seen still images of the Spectres in any of His Dark Materials’ promotional material. Static, they don’t work as well as in motion, where they’re a menacing, writhing, otherworldly grey mass. 

No Ordinary Monsters

The Spectres weren’t always grey. Early versions were transparent and white, but neither quite worked. They settled on black for a while, but Jane Tranter came back with the note that she wanted them to be grey. “Grey is good because it makes them more unique,” says Dodgson, “but there’s a reason people don’t do grey monsters a lot, and that’s because in different lighting conditions, grey becomes whatever colour the environment is, so that was a unique challenge but it was worth it.”

Read more

TV

His Dark Materials: Secrets of Cittàgazze and the Meaning of Pan’s Different Forms

By Louisa Mellor

TV

His Dark Materials: Details on James McAvoy’s Missing Season 2 Episode

By Kayti Burt

Another challenge came from Covid-19, which forced the production to shut down filming and eventually scrap a standalone episode which had been written to tell the story of James McAvoy’s  (otherwise absent) character Lord Asriel in the second season. “They pulled the plug on it at the right time,” says Dodgson, “but one of the tragedies, and one of the hardest things for us with the Spectres, was that we had a sequence where the Spectres attack the town before everybody left.” 

Plans for that lost episode meant more time had been spent designing the way the Spectres attacked – enveloping their victims and sapping them of their life force – than what season two eventually shows of them. “In the end, we have less of them attacking and more of them creeping. We’d spent time developing the way they move when they’re being quicker than slower, and then on a dime, we had to shift our design.” 

Will in HIs Dark Materials season two

The Spectres’ style of attack is to wrap around their victim and absorb rather than fight, says Dodgson. “They drain you of your energy and your life. It’s not like a battle with a monster.” 

What Spectres Mean

Spectres aren’t just any monsters, says production designer Joel Collins. “A Spectre is something half in the mind. It’s the anxiety of them as much as what they do. They’re a very complicated thing that come from the fabric and the tears between the worlds. They are the bad side of cutting between worlds. They’re the warning. They’re the price you pay.”

A Spectre is as much an allegory for mental illness as it is a fantasy creature, says Collins. “Or at least it relates to mental illness. In our world, you don’t see the Spectres. They manifest themselves in ways that are invisible but emotionally, you see people disturbed, upset, or they’ve had something taken away from them. They’re a manifestation of something you see in Cittàgazze, but in other worlds, you may not be able to see.” 

Philip Pullman would agree. In this online Q&A from 2004, he told a fan that Spectres “were a way of talking about certain mental states such as depression and self-hatred.” 

Terence Stamp as Giacamo Paradiso

To Dodgson, the Spectres are a symbol of repression. They represent the psychological cost of living under a regime like the oppressive Magisterium. “In every world, there is something that oppresses you and takes away your spirit or crushes your soul or your freedom or your free will. In Lyra’s world, that’s the Magisterium, in Cittàgazze, that’s the Spectres.” 

“That’s what I always say about the daemons,” he continues. “The daemons aren’t the point of the show, even though they’re one of the unique things about it, they’re just one of many ways of representing the connection a person has with their inner soul. In Cittàgazze, the connection that you see is the separation from that connection. When you get further on into the third book with the Mulefa, it’s about them and their connection with nature.” 

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The Mulefa. Now that’s an entirely different challenge sure to give the VFX team even more long conversations, late nights and grey hairs. Somehow though, just as they managed with the Spectres, they’ll find a way. 

The post His Dark Materials’ Spectres: ‘I Tried to Find a Way To Not Make Dementors’ appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[u-wll-rmmbr-me-fr-centuries]

We all need to agree that we can be judgemental. Especially when it comes to books. Some of these books I bought purely for the cover. Most of these, however, were just because of the amazing reviews I’ve heard. It just helps that they are beautiful beyond belief.

Top Ten Tuesday

Before we start, I just want to say that this part of Top Ten Tuesday, a fun little book event run every week by The Broke and The Bookish.  This week it is a ‘free’ week based on covers. Instead of The Best or The Ugliest  I decided to take it to a whole new level. What books would I buy just because they are so gosh darn sexy? Some of these have a beautiful back to them as well, so I will be showing both sides of these. So, in no particular order… 

All books are linked to their Goodreads page. To see my other Top Ten Tuesday posts, click here!

Magonia

Magonia is the first in a duology that surrounds this mysterious theory of a ship/life in the sky. Although I didn’t particularly like this book very much, I fell in love with the cover as soon as I first ever saw it online. And then once I had it actually in my hands, I couldn’t stop staring at it. At all. Even the blurb has this night sky pattern on the back.

Aza Ray is drowning in thin air.

Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live.

So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.

–Goodreads

  Red Queen

Just by looking at the cover you can tell it’s going to be action packed. The cover is stunning. If someone handed this to me, didn’t say a word and there wasn’t any blurb to it, I would still buy this. I have read this, I did actually enjoy it. And this book cover just screams, “I am bad ass!“

This is a world divided by blood – red or silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

-Goodreads

      An Ember in The Ashes

This book I have heard great things about, which is the main reason why I first bought this. But at the same time, the cover just looks amazing. The various textures, the dark and earthy colours – just yes please.

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

-Goodreads

  Game of Thrones 

Unsurprisingly, this was due to the TV adaption that I ended up buying the book. But either way, this cover is to die for. (Except the price sticker!) Even if this wasn’t a book cover, I’d want that picture of mountains on my wall. In a frame. And then, serving as the cherry on top of the cake: there’s a sparkly sticker. I might be Eighteen,  but any book that even has a tiny reflective or shiny thing – you’ve got me.

Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.

As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must … and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty.

–Goodreads

  Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban

So maybe I am slightly bias as this is probably one of my favourite Harry Potter books, but either way… Just look at this. The stag patronus? The Knight Bus? Shimmery gold stars? Yes. A million times.

Harry Potter is lucky to reach the age of thirteen, since he has already survived the murderous attacks of the feared Dark Lord on more than one occasion. But his hopes for a quiet term concentrating on Quidditch are dashed when a maniacal mass-murderer escapes from Azkaban, pursued by the soul-sucking Dementors who guard the prison. It’s assumed that Hogwarts is the safest place for Harry to be. But is it a coincidence that he can feel eyes watching him in the dark, and should he be taking Professor Trelawney’s ghoulish predictions seriously?

–Goodreads

  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (The Original Screenplay) 

So the whole golden part of this is shiny. And even the back has this cute creature on it. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but either way, it is adorable. And on the front, the design has all sorts of creatures hidden within, such as the famous Niffler.

J.K. Rowling’s screenwriting debut is captured in this exciting hardcover edition of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplay.

When Magizoologist Newt Scamander arrives in New York, he intends his stay to be just a brief stopover. However, when his magical case is misplaced and some of Newt’s fantastic beasts escape, it spells trouble for everyone…

–Goodreads

  Lola and The Boy Next Door

Lucky me got the ugly cover of Anna and The French Kiss. But, to make up for it, this one is just gorgeous. Apart from the obvious The Fault in Our Stars, this series are probably one of the most iconic book covers within the Young Adult contemporary books. The good versions of the covers, that is.

Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion… she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit — more sparkly, more fun, more wild — the better. But even though Lola’s style is outrageous, she’s a devoted daughter and friend with some big plans for the future. And everything is pretty perfect (right down to her hot rocker boyfriend) until the dreaded Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the neighborhood.

–Goodreads

  The Essex Serpent

This is by far the most stunning book I have bought this year. Although it’s not a massively popular book in the BookTuber and Book blogging world, it is a rather popular read in England. The level of the detailing is exquisite.

Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890’s, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, The Essex Serpent has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way.

–Goodreads

The Last of Us

If the cover doesn’t scream creepy and powerful, then I have no idea what will. It’s one of those books that you can just look at and tell that it is both going to shock you and move you, right at the same time. That’s before reading the description.

When a pandemic wipes out the entire population of a remote Scottish island, only a small group of children survive. How will they fend for themselves?

Since the last adult died, sensible Elizabeth has been the group leader, testing for a radio signal, playing teacher and keeping an eye on Alex, the littlest, whose insulin can only last so long.

There is ‘shopping’ to do in the houses they haven’t yet searched and wrong smells to avoid. For eight-year-old Rona each day brings fresh hope that someone will come back for them, tempered by the reality of their dwindling supplies.

–Goodreads

  Replica

A double sided book. A book that is two stories. Technically two covers. Both awesome and beautiful. I don’t think anything more needs to be said about that.

Two girls, two stories, one novel.

While the stories of Gemma and Lyra mirror each other, each contains revelations critically important to the other story. Their narratives can be read separately or in alternating chapters.

–Goodreads

    Top Ten Books I Would Buy Just For The Cover We all need to agree that we can be judgemental. Especially when it comes to books. Some of these books I bought