Do you know that the “new shiny thing” is really a syndrome? I am positive that I might be afflicted by it. I am talking about the feature we started at the beginning of the year called Flyaway Friday. I know it has been a while since we visited France and Finland, so I guess it is time for another trip, don’t you think?
So pack your bags and get ready to spend your Fridays dreaming about Italy this month.
We will learn about the country, talk about books set in Italy and I am saving the best for the last, have an Italian blogger tell us more about the country and its people. Sounds exciting right?
So let us start with the basics about Italy, shall we?
Italy is one of the common country in the bucket list for many of us, thanks to all the books and the characters we fell for.
I am sure we know Italy is an European country, somewhere in the Mediterranean region but we need to know a bit more than that before we travel, don’t we?
1.Italy, or Repubblica Italiana, is surrounded by water on three front and shares its land border with a lot of countries viz France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, and Vatican City.
Italy map Credit: http://www.sos-usa.org/
2. The eternal city of Rome is one of the oldest city’s of the world and it is about 3000 years old.
3. Rome is the home to the famous Trevi fountain, which is 85 feet in height and 65 feet in width is one of those must see tourist place in Italy. Yes, it is the one where people make a wish by throwing in coins.
Trevi Fountain Credit: flickr/fotodispalle/
4. The major Italian cities you need to know are: Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Naples
5. Did I say almost 80% of Italy is hilly or has a mountainous terrain?
6. It may come as no surprise that the Italians brought many of the cheeses like Mozzarella, Parmesan, Ricotta to the world.
Credit:Wikipedia
7. The world’s first woman graduate and a Ph.D holder, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia was born in Venice, Italy.
8. The Vatican City and the Republic of San Marino are located with the Italian territory.
9. Europe’s three active volcanoes Etna, Vesuvius, and Stromboli are all in Italy.
10. Many of the leading brands like Lamborghini, Gucci, Prada, Aramani, Ferrari call Italy their home.
11. While Italians have a long life expectancy with one of highest number of centenarians, they also have the lowest birth rate in the western world.
Want to see some of the books I reviewed set in Italy? Try them here.
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So do you have any trivia about Italy to share? Do you have any questions to ask to the Italian blogger about Italy? Have you heard of any Italian stereotypes? Comment away!
There comes a time when every author has to put an end to their writing and start seeing their work objectively. Their objectivity would go a long away in making their manuscript, or book if I may, appealing to the masses. Of course the beta readers and editors would do their jobs but you would be glad you did your part before sending it off to the professionals.
Much like typos and grammatical errors, a glaring plot hole would turn me off from reading the book completely. When we say plot hole we generally think of the inconsistencies in the storyline or the plot itself, but it is much more than that, don’t you think?
In fact anything that would make your readers go ‘what just happened?‘ in a not so expected way is just the plot holes we are talking about.
As an author you are expected to have already fixed the plot holes when you send your book off to editing and critiquing, but there are some plot holes that are sneaky and may not be visible to your eyes, especially after repeated readings. This makes the use of a beta reader indispensable.
A plot hole is a collective term to all the sneaky inconsistencies in the narrative or a character development of a book or a movie/television programme, to paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary.
This does not include those apparent inconsistencies that will be solved in the oncoming chapters or books. We can divide such inconsistencies into three heads based on where they may be found.
Inconsistencies in the plot
Plot holes refers to any inconsistencies in the plot or any event in the story line. Plot refers to anything from the place, time and events that take place in those places and times.
Inconsistencies could be illogical, contradictory or ignored. Let us examples of each of these cases.
Illogical plot hole:
A character who is terminally ill gets well miraculously just to be a part of a love triangle.
Contradictions:
A character that living 2000 km away from his lady love, drives back to her hometown in a single night to save her from the villain.
A plot that is ignored or forgotten:
A character that goes missing (i.e forgotten) all of a sudden for no reason.
2) Inconsistencies in the character development
We are never gonna hear the end of how Lily has brown eyes, when we all knew she and Harry had the same blue eyes. Or why Buzz has to pretend freeze around humans if he thought he was a real space ranger.
And that is exactly what we are talking about.
Anything that character does or does not do as the reader has been told to expect of him is an inconsistency and thus a plot hole.
Some examples of such holes are:
A mighty super villain has a change of heart about destroying the planet just after a small setback.
A protagonist that never grows, changes or is affected by the plot.
3) Inconsistencies in the world building
This is a major one, especially in the fantasy genre. The fictional world that we write for includes why things happen the way they do and why the characters react how they do.
We need to know the reasons and motivation behind the character’s actions before we can relate to them and continue to root for them. But when these fails, the readers stop caring about what happens to the characters and the plot.
Some examples of issues in terms of world building:
An antagonist whom we fail to see as powerful enough.
Sub plots that are not closed.
Why the lead falls for the female and why is it different from the other times?
While these plot holes may not be apparent to you, your readers are definitely going to find them out and it is critical that you should too. You could always reach to a friend, a fellow writer or a professional beta reader requesting them to give a read to weed these out.
Aside, I am considering to write more on these series, what do you say? Should I continue these writing topics? Let me know in the comment section.
Are there plot holes that do not fall in these headers? Do you plot holes turn off from reading further? What is the most annoying plot hole issue that you have read? And authors/writers, tell us about the plot hole you had and how you fixed Let us chat.
You know I usually say I never read a book when everyone is talking about it, right? But I am here to show you that I have read some books at the right time. And of course, I forgot to review them right then, which is quite like me of course.
So in our new episode of review shots, let me tell you about books that were not on my TBR and I read them only because of the hype. Well, that never turns out quite well, does it?
This YA took the Twitter world by a storm and I got the book almost immediately to read it.
Maddy led a very sheltered life all through her life due to her illness. She has never stepped out of her house in years and her mother and her nurse are the only one she interacts with. Them and her book blog. Until a new family moves to their next house.
I liked the book and would have loved it even until for the twist at the end, which I didn’t see coming at all. I normally would love to be thrown off, but this twist was kinda ‘trying too hard’. I also didn’t like the theme that ‘love conquers all, even illness’ that kept surfacing.
I loved reading the story, for the cutesy cheesy love story but it didn’t win my approval.
This book had everything that the book world is talking about and needs now. Turtles All the Way Down has #Ownvoice leads, one of whom suffers from mental illness and a mystery the leads had to solve in relation to their parents. Sounds all good to me.
Yet I could not relate to the characters at all, nor did I buy their ‘love story’. Did I mention this book had an absentee parent as well? I know lots of people loved this book but for me it ended as a so-so read because of these reasons and more.
I wanted to like it more than it deserved any way. And probably will stay away from John Green hereon.
Book Name: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
Oh I loved Backman’s other book A Man Called Ove and I started reading this one almost immediately. But it took me more than a month to finish this 350 and odd pages and I will tell you why.
The precocious ‘almost eight’ years old Elsa has just lost her grandmother to cancer. Her grandmother was also her best and only friend, who kept her safe at night with the tales of the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas.
Now she is set with the task of handing over apology notes to the wacky characters in their apartment for her grandmother’s past and getting to know more about them and her family as well.
I liked the concept of the book and how the little girl learnt to deal with all the changes and new people in her life. I loved many of these characters and their sub plots. But the book totally went over my head when it came to the imaginary land and its people.
Maybe there is a reason to why I don’t read fantasy much.
Bottom – line
Of course I don’t regret reading them at all. But I wish I hadn’t tried as hard to like them and gave up when I should have. Well, lesson learnt. Maybe.
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Do you read books because everyone is reading them? Are there books that you have read only because of the hype and that didn’t turn out as expected? Let us talk.
I know the fall just started, but now it is already winter. I mean as much a winter as this desert Dubai would get to. Of course it is gonna get colder as it goes, and I can’t say enough how much I love this pleasant winter, instead of the harsh summer that is usual around here.
What I read this week:
This week was a slow in terms of reading for me. I have not even finished Young Jane Young, which I started last Sunday. Well, life happened.
What I watched this week:
And I watched the Handmaid’s tale season 2. The series goes beyond the book and continues the story of Offred and Gilead. While I liked it, I am not sure it is for the faint hearted. It was depressing as much as it kept me intrigued.
I finally finished watching the Heist season 2, the Spanish and the ending was so satisfactory. How many times do we see a perfect heist? Sigh.
On the blog
Here is a quick recap of the week’s posts, in case you missed them.
On other news, I wrote a guest post on Clo’s Book Dragons 247 on things about blogging I wish I had known little earlier.
Around the blogosphere
I didn’t do much of blog hopping this week, but here are some of the best ones I came across this week.
I love this book personality tag post from Simant at Flipping Thru The Pages. I was an ESTP the last time I checked, but you will have to wait for my answers.
Are you struggling to juggle between life and blogging? Check out Clo and Merv’s post @ Book Dragons 247 this week.
I love Margaret Atwood and I recently found she is celebrating her birthday this month from Consumed by Ink, as they host the Atwood reading month.
Check out Shanatala’s post on her blog Shanaya Tales about accepting paid book reviews which totally resonated to me.
You all know, I love morally gray characters. And the Orangutan Librarian’s post on Why can’t characters just be evil was just perfect.
Of course we are going to judge a book by its covers. Let us be honest, does any one follow that proverb in its literal sense. More often than not, it works so well. So well that they tell us off some books.
I am sure you have seen some interesting covers on books. Who has not?
Here I am presenting some covers that have freaked me out and go WTF, recently.
Let us get on with it, shall we?
Disclaimer: This post is intended for fun and not intended to hurt anyone. If it did, I am sorry and it was purely unintentional.
Did he cut her head with the axe? If so, shouldn’t the blood mark be on the sharper side? Where are her eye balls?
So many questions!
Where did they find these weird looking kids? And if this is what feelings make us look like, please let us destroy them!
What animal is that? And why is it an Australian art?
Why is she having a crocodile head and why is it titled ‘carnivore romance’? Is it a romance between the crocodile and the red dress wearing, poker playing lady? And what kinda romance ends up with their bodies morphing into one?
Curiosity got ahead of me and I checked the author on Amazon and guess what? All her covers have an animal head human body combo!! Wut?
I get this one. Almost.
Thelma and her fiance are in love. Hint: Silhouette image And he has a pet snake, also pictured.
But what is that weird white thing with syringe or pen or dagger thing in its hands?
What is in that cupcake? Why are they both scared of it? And does she have an Adam’s apple or is it just me?
Did they just show us a literal balance to indicate the pH balance? And it sure makes me think it is a spiritual thing, rather than science-y.
I. am. not. even. gonna. attempt.
Did you like these covers? Which is your favorite? Should I make another list with such covers? Do you have a cover that weirded you out? Let us chat.
