A Great and Terrible Beauty

It's been a while since I updated with a book review, and this one was I particularly loved. Libba Bray is a relatively uknown author outside of her first mainstream trilogy, but I have a feeling that we'll be hearing from her again soon. The first book in what is known as the Gemma Doyle triology is called A Great and Terrible Beauty. It revolves around the interactions of the young women at an austere boarding school which houses secrets which have remained under dusty lock and key for decades.

Following the suicide of Gemma's mother on the Indian streets on which she was raised, Gemma is transported to Spence Academy to learn how to become a proper young lady ready to be released for the matrimonial picking of London's finest gentlement. Unschooled in the interworkings of young girls, Gemma is shocked at the cruelty displayed by her English peers. While she herself is a formidable target for would-be bullies, Gemma begins to notice that a particular group of girls is making life difficult for an underprivileged and unfortunate girl named Ann, her new roommate. On top of her attempts to make Ann's life a little easier, Gemma is plagued by visions which allude to the existence of a world exterior to our own, which contains the most desirable and wonderful of things, as well as the worst, and most horrific. As the story unfolds, Gemma's connection to the realms she glimpses is unravelled with the narrative expertise of a writer whose talent is extremely apparent, and as her supernatural ability reveals itself, the girls who proved former tormentors begin to expose their vulnerabilities in a world where they are traded as commodities.

Felicity longs for the power to influence those around her. Ann, cursed with unattractiveness, wishes to be beautiful so that her unfortunate past is perhaps more concealable, and Pippa, the most stunning of the four, desparately wants the opportunity to find true love for herself rather than walk down the aisle toward the incompatible husband and dreary future her parents have arranged for her. Gemma's deepest desire is to have the inner workings of herself revealed to her, so that she may understand her role in both the worlds she inhabits.

All four girls are appeased in their deepest desires when Gemma begins to control her ability to access the realms, and the greatest wishes of the girls are within tangible reach. Meeting in a cave adorned with Celtic prehistoric imagery in the dead of night, the girls explore the realms and the diary of a student of Spence past which begins to reveal, page by page, a destiny which awaits Gemma.

Brimming with Gothic eeriness and a modern understanding of teenage girls, A Great and Terrible Beauty provides insightful commentary into the lives of women during the late 1800s. I felt drawn into the inner circle of the Spence girls, as if I were a part of the illicit secret they harboured, and I was as enthralled by the novel's plot as the protaganists were by the diary of their predecessors.

The novel crept up to a suspenseful and dramatic ending, with more than one surprise I most certainly did not expect. Absolutely unputdownable! I'm so glad I read it, as this is one I'd been tossing up on for literally years.

I give this book my highest reccommendation to anyone looking for, as they would have put it in Gemma's day, "a rollicking good read".

The following books are: Rebel Angels and A Sweet Far Thing. I'm sure you'll get an update on these as I finish them!

Thanks to Gracie, a fellow superbookworm (because we're more avid than your average bookworms) who reccommended this wonderful novel to me.

thanks for reading.

claire.x.

Ode to the iPod

It would only be just to give my recently acquired purple iPod nano its due credit for having gotten me through some confusing and difficult times of late. The past few weeks have been filled with the usual ups and downs, as well as an onslaught of pressure from unexpected places, but I've been just fine, because when I'm so frustrated that I can't find words to describe it, my little nano shuffles itself into gear, and presents me with Paramore's "Pressure" to do it for me. When I've got a minute to myself, the nano reminds me to try and relax by serving up Josh Pyke's "Lines on Palms" and Coldplay's "In My Place". Or, once, when it was in a particularly perceptive mood, the nano offered me "Full Moon" by Black Ghosts, indicating that I should go and escape into my favourite fantasy world at Forks and unwind.

Okay, so this is probably reading into my iPod's shuffle function a little too much. But I most certainly have come to appreciate the benefits of having this little piece of technological advancement in my handbag at all times. Music is a relaxing influence, can be vindicating, is an outlet. It can stir up memories of an entire period in your life (X&Y and Queen's "A Day at the Races" for me = high school), or from a particular night (Black Eyed Peas' I Gotta Feeling, anyone?), and can entirely change your mindset. Soundtracks, if put together well enough, have the capacity to transport us back to the setting of our favourite movie or book. Romeo and Juliet's incredible soundtrack has the ability to tell the entire story of Shakespeare's play through the clever track arrangement of Radiohead, Garbage and Desree. These days, music can make you laugh and cheer you up on a day when you feel down. Take Lily Allen, for one, whose surprisngly insightful appraisal of George Bush ("You want to be like your father/His approval you're after), set against cheerfully boppy music, never fails to crack me up. And Katy Perry, one of my favourites, whose hit Hot 'N' Cold yielded the following sparkling gems of wit: "You change your mind like a girl changes clothes/Yeah, you PMS like a bitch, I would know". How can you not laugh at that sarcasm? It's fantastic. Flight of the Choncords, not to be matched, provide crazy, quirky and hilarious lyricism, which immediately recalls their hilarious show no matter how often you hear them.

At the other end of the spectrum existing within the confines of my little purple nano are the heart wrenchingly works of Placebo, whose drug based songs are definite downers ("I'm forever black-eyed, a product of a broken home"). Good to listen to while you're in the same mood, but not for long, lest you remain there. And for goodness' sake, don't move on to Eminem, who seems to lurk in the "Unknown" track titles, even when I think I've evicted him from the iPod, who is blatantly open about his disdain for most of his fans, himself, his family...you know how he is. However, as I've mentioned, I found Paramore's albums immsely useful in relieving frustration of late...Then there's the endless string of Ministry of Sound albums I've acquired over the years, which are surprisingly useful for study, the gym, drowning out noise, etc., but lack most emotional depth, as would be expected.

So I'm thankful for my purple nano for housing all these realms of expression for me. It's definitely helped me get through these stressful weeks just past. :)

claire. x.

Busy week & Tim Burton

This has been a busy week yet again! So just a quick post to update you. I've been occupied with my study, naturally, and have been assembling several essays for submission as the FINAL ASSESSMENT PIECES FOR THE YEAR. What an exciting feeling! I can't wait for this to be over. However, even though I'm just dying to be free of reference lists and Turnitin.com and due dates, etc., I'm enjoying these last few essays. Essays are my favourite assessments, and I have one to write on the Black Death, as well as another one on Tim Burton! What could be better?! I've always loved Tim Burton's directorial style; my mother used to put us through the paces of watching The Nightmare Before Christmas every year since I was little, and I've grown up appreciating his eccentricity as artful. So I'm anticipating that my essay on his films will be an enjoyable one to write! It's also made me excited about Alice In Wonderland, coming out next year!

I've also been at my first practicum this week. For some reason, they wanted us in a primary school, despite the fact that I'm a pre-service high school teacher...but I ended up in my old primary school, to which my sisters and my partner's neice have also gone. It's strange to hear myself being called Ms. Lines by teachers who taught me, and remembered my tendency to read under the table during their lessons. I have four more days there, and my next day is on Friday. I like it there, but it hasn't swayed me to become a primary school teacher just yet.

I'm also happy this week because I've gotten some marks back for assessment, and despite it having been yet another stressful one because of family issues, I have managed to keep all my marks above a six so far. Hopefully with a bit of hard work, I can keep them there!

Somewhere in amongst all this assessment, I've managed to fit work in. Work's going really well at the moment, despite our excessive consumption of Whittakers Coconut Block during the week, and the dilemma of where to shelf the bondage shoe, as we like to call it.

Today is Szilveszter's Bathurst BBQ (more like pizza, though, I'm thinking...), and after a bit of study in the morning, I'll be going along with Jess, so I'm looking forward to an afternoon relaxing. :)

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

claire.x.