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Friday, July 6, 2018

50/50 Friday (92): Best/Worst Book Read in June


50/50 Friday is a meme hosted by Carrie @The Butterfly Reads and I and focuses on the opposite sides of books (best/worst, differing opinions, etc).  Every week will have a new topic and several advance topics will be listed in the tab labeled 50/50 Friday!


Today's Topic: Favorite/Least Favorite Title


Again, I'm going with only reads for this (not counting rereads).

Best:
I had a bunch of four stars (nope, no five star books in June!) but I think my favorite would have to be:

Standalone (novella length)
Released: 2015
Rating: 4 stars (Review)

Blurb:
"Ariadne Daniels seems to have it all: A successful career as a pastry chef, a Victorian home in a trendy neighborhood, and her dedicated boyfriend Scott who she's been with for years.

Her life is great until the day she stops by Scott's apartment to surprise him and finds out that he's not so dedicated to her after all. Shocked and too depressed to celebrate, she decides to skip Christmas. Her best friend Jess does his part to convince her otherwise, but Ariadne's determined to wallow in her misery, at least until spring.

Life has other plans for her, however. Some helpful meddling from a new friend at a local bookstore, along with some questionable behavior on the part of Jess’s girlfriend, turn Ariadne’s ho-hum holiday plans on their head."


I may have read this in the wrong season but I still enjoyed it immensely.  Normally, I can't bring myself to care about characters in a novella because it's so short and there's so little time to build them up while also building a plot and a world.  However, the author certainly accomplished it which made this the perfect little book to end a reading slump!


Worst:
I actually had a one star book this month (synonymous with DNF), surprisingly.  If you've been following me for any length of time, you'll know I very, very rarely DNF books which is why this was so disappointing.


The Heart #1
Released: 2016
Rating: 1 star (Review)

Blurb:
""In a world where love is for sale, everything else lacks value.”

In London, 2040, love is known as OX2 and it has a price, a price that not everyone can pay. Sophie Quinn is lucky, recently she has moved with her family to Upper Thames, the most favored part of the city. They can consume OX2 whenever they want, which enables them to preserve their emotional ties and carry on a relatively normal life; she goes to college and her relationship with James is at its best. However, something is threatening her apparent happiness. The sale of OX2 has generated new social classes and sociopolitical interests that will put her perfect world in danger. Sophie will have to choose whether to fight against love or for it; the days go by, the hours count and her own love has a price. Will she be willing to pay that price in spite of the consequences?"


I actually think it's a very good thing that this is currently unavailable.  I received it for review, after it had been translated from Spanish to English (the publicists were looking to expose it to another market) and that was, in fact, it's main issue.  It's like they just stuck the whole book into Google Translate and didn't read it over before publishing it.  Bottom line: it may be just fine in Spanish, but in English?  Nope.


Have you read either of these?  What did you think of them?  Have you read many translated books?  What books were your favorite and least favorite in June?  Make a post and link up down below!



Next Week's Topic: Favorite Book That's the Most/Least Quotable

8 comments:

  1. I'm glad you had a few four stars last month! I did a lot of rereading last month so my best new read was actually Sea Witch. My worst read was Heart of Thorns which I really wanted to love but just didn't gel with at all. :( I have rarely read translations because of exactly what you mention here. Hopefully you don't have any DNFs this month!

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    1. Oooo yes Sea Witch! I've heard amazing things about it! Yeah... it's just so difficult to rate them because I have no idea what is the author's and what is the translator's, you know? People who translate books really are authors in of themselves! I don't want to write off all translations because I really want to read books written in other countries but coming across books like this make that difficult. Thanks for stopping by, Di!

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  2. I haven't read either of these, but Right Under Your Nose sounds soo cute! My favorite in June is probably Autoboyography :)

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    1. It is! Perfect for the wintertime :) I keep meaning to read Auto! I've been hearing amazing things about it and it seems like the perfect summery book so I'll have to keep my eye out for a copy at the library. Thanks for stopping by, Lindsey!

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  3. I love reading translated books, but there definitely is an art to being a good translator for fiction. I think the translator needs to either be totally on the author's wavelength, or have a similar creative spark themselves. I'm lucky that I have only rarely been put off reading a book by a dodgy translation, but it sounds like that is exactly the case here. A shame

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    1. For sure! I completely agree. They really have to know everything that went into the book and the emotions behind every scene and dialogue exchange to really get it right. I'm hoping I can read a really great translation so I can put this one out of my mind right away. Thanks for stopping by, Stephanie!

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  4. I’m sorry you didn’t have any five star books in June. Still the novella sounds cute. I don’t like dnf-ing books either so if I do you know it’s bad. Sorry this translation didn’t work. If they’d done it better I wonder how it would be.

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    1. It kind of is partially my fault because I told myself that I wanted to be more stingy with ratings (I always seem to have an average rating of about 4.2 which is ridiculous) so this is the first month where I think I really accomplished it. Still, it's very strange and kind of sad. I really wish I could read Spanish with a bigger degree of accuracy! I can understand basic Spanish but I'm no where near the level necessary to read a full length novel. Still, I have a hunch the Spanish version is a little better judging by the Spanish reviews I read. Thanks for stopping by, Jenny!

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