Lillelara

"One must be prepared for ingratitude," said Miss Springer. Her voice, already loud, became louder. " The trouble is, people are so cowardly - won´t face facts. They often prefer not to see what´s under their noses all the time. I´m not like that. I go straight to the point. More than once I´ve unearthed a nasty scandal - brought into the open. I´ve a good nose - once I´m on the trail, I don´t leave it - not till I´ve pinned down my quarry."

I guess I found the victim.

I´m about to start this weeks "Let´s forget the C-word buddy read" and I´m really curious to find out who Miss Bullstrode is.

Almost all were young men who had been forcibly struck by [...] death and who, despite the cold mist of the century and the prosaic spirit of the age, felt the elegiac poetry of this beautiful, chaste, young woman, struck down in her prime.

 

I don´t think it can get anymore dramatic than this.

The mystery is so-so and yes, there are some incredibly silly bits in this and I could have shoved Hanni in a ditch. But these books are also incredibly fun and Katherine Kellgren´s narration is excellent.

Went back to the Count and, oh my godness, this suddenly became so intense. Unbelievable. The count, though ...

I cannot wait to get back to this in the afternoon.

"Day after day, I look for improvement in his skull. An enlargement in his organ for Philoprogenitiveness - that is, the love of children. A decrease to the areas of Exitability, Combativeness and Destructiveness."

[Source]

And ... I´m out.

I´ve got this from a single chapter, just to prove my point:

Poor Tilda cannot help it, of course - it is the shape of her head. When standing behind her, I have noticed a decided protrusion on the right at the baseline of the crown. Self-Esteem, Self-Love, all the selfish sentiments.

He nodded, slowly. What a perfectly shaped head his is, beneath the stovepipe police-hat! Everything in proportion; the subjective and the objective. You do not come across a specimen like that every day. Especially not combined with a handsome face and open heart.

Lifting myself from the bed, I go to my dressing table and tidy my hair. "I shall continue visiting Ruth Butterham," I tell the girl in the mirror. I might find Ruth distasteful, and the memories of Mama´s death hard to bear, but there is fruit to be reaped. I can bring her to salvation, and she can ... give me her skull.

 

[Source]

I get it! She likes skulls.

It took me hours to decide which book to read next and I picked up "The Corset" in the end. I liked Laura Purcell´s writing in "The Silent Companions", I wasn´t a big fan of the plot, though. So let´s see if this novel is going to be a better one.

It starts of with a female phrenologist, who visits women, condemned of murder, in prison to feel the shape of their heads. And tbh, her obsession with feeling the other womans skull freaks me more out than the murderess herself. 

I really liked this book.

It´s a weird combination of mystery and fantasy, set in grimy, dark and dirty Victorian London. And this book is dark and grimy in places, the main character having been raised by body snatchers and surgeons.

I´m quite surprised that this book did work for me as well as it did. But I found this novel fascinating and I´m enamoured by Jess Kids peculiar writing style, which really pulled me into the story and kept me thinking about this book whenever I wasn´t reading it.

Is this a book for everyone? Probably not. But I really liked it.

It´s 8 o´clock in the morning and I´m about to start our weekly buddy read. I think it´s the third time I will be reading this book and it´s a novel that definitely improves upon a reread when it comes to grasping the details of the story. And I just really like this story.

Happy reading to all of you and have a lovely weekend.

The best word to describe this book is peculiar, both in terms of the plot (a mystery with fantastical / supernatural elements) and the writing. And more often than not, peculiar and weird books don´t work for me, especially if they feel gimmicky. 

But I have to say, I´m really loving this book. Yes, the writing is a bit weird and it took me some time getting used to it, but I love the main character with her mysterious past, the mystery is an intriguing one and the historical setting has the right amount of gothic feel to it. And there is a love story, sort of, which I adore, even though I haven´t the faintest clue how this is going to end.

So, I guessed the murderer and the motive right off the bat.

[Source]

Definitely not one of my favorites by Dame Agatha.

Does the motive for the crime lie

I genuinely hope not.

Heather Badcock had died as a result of four grains of hy-ethyl-dexyl-barbo-quinde-lorytate, or, let us be frank, some such name.

That made me chuckle.

During my studies, I had to learn a lot of these names and to figure out the structural formulas based off of these names. And most of these names sound like complete gibberish, even though there is order and method behind them. It´s one of the reasons why I love chemistry.

"[...] Do you realize what that means to me? When the criminal sets out to do a crime his first effort is to deceive. Who does he seek to deceive? The image in the mind is that od the normal man. There is probably no such thing actually - it is a mathematical abstraction. But you came as near to realizing it as is possible. There are moments when you have flashes of brilliance when you rise above the average (I hope you will pardon me) when you descend to curious depths of obtuseness, but take it all for all, you are amazingly normal. Eh bien, how does this profit me? Simply in this way. As in a mirror I see reflected in your mind exactly what the criminal wishes me to believe. That is terrificly helpful and suggestive."

I did not quite understand. It seemed to me that what Poirot was saying was hardly complimentary.

 

LoL. I don´t think so either. Hastings is adorable. 

I just finished the first act of "Twelfth Night" and numerous characters suffer from severe cases of insta-love in this play.

As for the characters: I find the two drunkards, Sir Toby Belch (a very fitting name for that guy) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, a bit annoying and Olivia is incredibly full of herself. And don´t get me started on the Clown. I hate clowns, even if they are more of the jester kind.

I like Viola, though, and I´m curious how this story is going to play out.