Out of the Darkness.

Well. I am torn with this book. Loved it and became semi-appalled by it I did.

In Sadie Montgomery's The Phantom's Journey: Out of the Darkness, (book 2 in The Phoenix of the Opera series) we return to Erik and his new bride, Meg Giry, making their way over the French border into Italy, where they hope to reside and live a normal, quiet life. Meg hopes for this more than Erik does, because he still does not trust people in general, believing they are the same everywhere, as most prove to be in this book.

Before they arrive at their new home (a beautiful villa), which Raoul helped them to get, Meg suffers an accident when she finally loses her marbles due to Erik's coldness towards her. After giving her husband a well deserved beating, she runs off into the woods and takes a fall. Erik, genuinely worried for his wife's health, spends most of his days and nights at her side, praying she will be alright so he can start fresh with her and their relationship. (There's nothing like a health-rattle to a loved one to make you see how much you really care!) When Meg awakens, delusional from a fever and severe head injury, upon seeing Erik without his mask, she begins screaming uncontrollably, causing Erik to flee the villa, and her life for around three to four years.

He returns to his *roots* and comes across a few old faces and memories he'd rather keep buried deep down inside. While there in the traveling fair, he sees a recent past face (Lucianna) and ends up going to her home to help her rid herself of her perverted cruel husband. Which he succeeds at, after experiencing a few (disgusting) deceptions and surprises from husband and wife alike. When he is through there, and manages to dodge the clutches of Lucianna, he returns to Meg with Lucianna's somewhat reluctant help. While he was trying to find the right time to make himself known, I couldn't help but wonder if Lucianna had something up her sleeve, I was glad to see she didn't, but she makes a return in the next book, and it looks like she gets her way with her same old deceitfulness. But I will pause that speculation for the review of the next book, whenever I get to it, and actually buy it!

Anywhoozer, to wrap this up quickly, Erik and Meg overcome even more turbulence in their relationship, even when he finds he must flee again, to Rome, and finds himself in a theater, again. Only in a better way this time, the fear of him as a mad ghost is not there (thankfully), and Meg (and their son!) have resolved to join him there. & That is where this part of the series ended.

Even though I loved and hated this book for the way the plot went (trouble just loves that awesome phantom - hell, I'd follow him everywhere he went too if I could!) and even though I felt the writing could have been better, I can't wait to get on to the next part.

This was the first book I've read for the Romance Reading Challenge. Finally starting one of my challenges feels good! :)

There's Something Strange in Erik-Land...

Okay, so this feels like it's going to be (somewhat) a loaded post..here we go, wee!

Well, I gave up on Anna McPartlin's Pack up the Moon. It's not bad, it has me intrigued enough to keep going, but some other time - because I am no longer excited about it. I need to get re-excited about reading it and having it from the library. I also felt very strange not having read a Phantom of the Opera related book yet this year. The past two years in a row, I've started the reading year with a phantom book. This, I think shall be continued year after year, because well, I'm just obsessed with the character and it just feels right. :p Also I think it will be fun to have a *reading tradition* of my own of sorts.

So, now I am reading book two in Sadie Montgomery's Phoenix of the Opera series - The Phantom's Journey: Out of the Darkness. Call me crazy, but I think there is something a little strange going on with Erik and Meg in this book. They just don't seem like themselves..for me it feels like she strayed a bit too much from Leroux's original character. I realize this may be an attempt at making it all her own, but sometimes it can be a little over done. I'm finding myself not liking this new sensitive-man version of Erik. Oddly enough though, I can't stop reading. I also can't stop thinking, "God. This is getting worse by the sentence." But I still can't put it down! So I guess it's a good sign. I still intend to get the next book sometime this year, and then of course, the fourth and final book to see how this all ends. Oh, I can't stand Lucianna. I think she is a filthy-greedy Erik whore. I can't really blame her, but OMG, she completely molested him over and over, which was disgusting, and her excuse for it was definitely not enough. Yucky. If it were done to the old Erik I think he would have killed her, or at least given her a smack to put her back in line, right? Right! But enough about this disturbance.

I found out I won't have to be so very embarrassed at the library whenever I make it back in there, because I can pay my fines online, woohoo! I will definitely never slack this badly in the future. Ugh, one big mountain of never-had-to-be-this-bad it was. Never again will I be this lazy. Ever.

I don't know what will be next in line for reading after Out of the Darkness (56 pages to go), but I have some books on my own shelves that have been calling to me. Probably The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, I really want to read that one this year, and soon. Oh! the movie comes on DVD today, so go buy it! I haven't actually seen the film yet though, but it is a wonderfully tragic story. And I don't think I will be able to buy it for a few more weeks (bleah), I didn't get a chance to see it because it wasn't playing anywhere around here at a theater my mom and I were willing to go to. So we missed it then. I can't wait to finally go and buy it though! :)

Anywhoo, that's all I can think of for now, and at the rate I've been devouring my current read, there might (FINALLY!) be a review tomorrow. Yay me. :p

It Came.

I received this today, yay! :) Out of the Darkness: The Phantom's Journey, by Sadie Montgomery. I can barely wait to start reading it, I might even begin on it tonight. But I have to go to the library today. I think I am up for it even with this dumb cold. I feel so blah about not being able to finish Inkdeath though. :\Now I have to wait through 42 holds, ugh! But it shouldn't actually be so bad, because there are 42 copies at the library, so I'm not that worried about a really long wait. But it is still annoying.

Oh yeah, I signed up for this last night. It looked like too much fun to pass up!

wandering the bookstore.

I recently watched the movie version of Little Women, due to my obsession with Christian Bale, and I positively loved it so I decided to finally buy the book. I've been wanting the book anyhow so this time it just seemed right to go ahead and buy it since I had the bit of extra money in my pocket - sort of like an early birthday present for myself. :p Now I can barely wait to get through my Christy Brown books so I can read that. On a silly note; I am thrilled that it is blue. Blue is my favorite color. :p Yay.

I went to Barnes & Noble to get it, because I love their classics books they have going. While I was there browsing around I spotted two books I've been trying to find time for to get them from the library: Twilight, and New Moon. Both by Stephenie Meyer. I've never read her before but I spotted Twilight in the library catalog a bit ago and have wanted to check it out since. I took a look at them and I think I'll probably get them next from the library. Not only does the vampire factor interest me, but the covers are so lovely. It'll probably be a month or so though before I get a chance to get them, because I plan to order some books for my birthday on Saturday. I want to get the last three books of Sadie Montgomery's Phantom series, and that book by Georgina Hambleton on Christy Brown. If I'm able to get them I shall have lots of reading to do this summer. :)

Speaking of lots of reading, I cannot believe I have already read 19 books this year. This may not be a lot to some, but it is for me. Usually I'm only around 10 or 12 this time of year, so I'm quite pleased with myself. :p

The Phoenix of the Opera.

I was mad at Erik during the ending of this book, for the way he treated Meg. But I could also understand why he did so. In other books I've always disliked Christine; for not choosing him of course, but this book shed a new light on things between her and The Phantom - mostly through view of the situation from Erik's point of view. It just really made me realize how strong his love and obsession was for her, maybe even stronger in this book than in others. I know he'll always have a spot for his beloved Christine, but I cannot wait to see how things unfold with him and Meg.

Also what I found very interesting in this book, that I have never seen in others, is that he actually got caught by police. He did not quite get away. Not so easily. He actually had to pay some amount for his crimes. While I simply adore The Phantom, it was about time someone had him pay for things he had done. Perhaps in the next books of this series it will help him move on from that part of his life.

Phoenix Thoughts.

I've been reading The Phoenix of the Opera for a couple of days now, and I'm not quite sure what I think of it yet. But, it is quite interesting to read. I think this author has an interesting style going for her writing.

This is a book where you have to pay attention to the narrative as you go along, but it isn't too annoying. It changes somewhat often but still moves along in it's own way, which I think I rather like. She has these paragraphs, that are just like a train of thought with virtually no punctuation, which intrigues me most about the writing style. I've never encountered anything like it before. It's a little hard to depict a break where a period or comma might be, but I don't mind that too much. It just makes me absorb more of what is being thought by the character and who the character really is.

I really can't wait to get further into this story, and see how everything turns out in the series as a whole. :)

Babble, Moving onto Elephants.

Well, after I finished Under the Skin, I decided to move right onto Maskerade: a novel of Discworld. Ugh. I got fifty pages in before I couldn't stand all the downright babble that was going on in that book. Eew. It just felt like page after page of the author's half-hearted attempt at a story. I tried looking at it as the simple comedy it was, but I just couldn't because I didn't even find it all that funny. I didn't hate it because it was a phantom parody, I'm all game to make light of something I completely adore with an open mind - it was just boring to me and I couldn't bear to even try to finish it during my 50 Book Challenge. It would only be a waste of time.

So I moved on to the next library book I had waiting to be read: Elephant Winter. I'm only around ten or so pages into it and I already am really enjoying it. The writing is very beautiful feeling and I love the idea of a story with Elephants in it. I've never read one that circulates around them before so I am looking forward to getting further into this book. :) Kim Echlin is a new author to me, and so far it has been a very good choice to take another chance on another new-to-me writer.

On another pleasant note, Phoenix of the Opera arrived yesterday. I cannot wait to read it next. :) Not to sound too shallow, but I am very in love with the cover art. :p

library stuff.

I recently saw the movie "The Good Earth," based on the novel (by Pearl S. Buck) with the same title, I really liked it so I decided to check out the book from the library. I haven't actually began reading it yet though but I plan to start it tonight. I hope to be finished reading it or at least have read over half way through it, by the time my other books get in at the library.

I'm just waiting for Elephant Winter (by Kim Echlin), Maskerade: a novel of Discworld (by Terry Pratchett), and Under the Skin (by Michel Faber).

Elephant Winter; I found in the library catalog: it is about a daughter and her dying mother. The daughter ends up falling for the keeper of the Ontario Safari and his five elephants. There's more to it than that, but I don't want to get too engulfed in the description or the reviews on amazon.com because I don't want to ruin this book for myself before I even get it.
Maskerade: a novel of Discworld; I found while browsing amazon.com for Phantom of the Opera related books. It looks like a parody of Phantom, but I don't mind that. I read a few of the reviews and it seems kind of so-so, but I want to check it out anyway; because I simply adore the Phantom of the Opera and I love reading anything about it - as long as it's done decently enough. In which I hope that this book will be.
Under the Skin; I found as a recommendation from someone else's diary on another site I visit. It sounded interesting from their review and the description on amazon.com, so I decided to get it. it seems like a horror book though. I hate those creepy books. I never, ever read horror. The only "horror" novel I've ever read is The Prestige. It wasn't that bad, and in fact, it was creepy-thrilling. I liked it for it's own way. This one, sounds a little more strange though, in the way that it will probably give me that gross horrific feeling I oh-so definitely hate. I am looking forward to reading it though because it will be different from what I normally read, and I feel like a change right now. I just hope I won't regret reading it for a few months.

I'm also waiting for another book - Phantom of the Opera related. I ordered The Phoenix of the Opera, by Sadie Montgomery. It is book one of her phantom series. I've never come across a series before for the phantom, so I was immediately intrigued, but a little put off by the description. But more-so, a little excited about it. Because it pairs him with Meg. I love Meg Giry, and I've always wanted to see her and Erik paired off together, so I am somewhat anxiously awaiting this book. Even if I don't like this one, I am still going to get the others of the series, because those do sound more interesting than this first one. But I wanted to go one at time with them. Also I don't see much sense in starting this series off on the second book, I just can't read like that. :p I have to know everything, because Erik is one of my favorite characters.

Phantom.

I finished reading Susan Kay's Phantom yesterday, and I was left quite broken. it was just such a sad book. Erik had such a sad and tragic life. I actually do love sad stories like this one though. that is why I love the Phantom of the Opera, he is just one sad tragic character and I love that. one thing about this book though, is the ending. I found it a little boring feeling the first time around, but this time I didn't care. I just read right through it. I suppose because the story just really engulfed me this time in the things it had to offer about Erik. which I very much enjoyed.

Different.

I've been reading Phantom for the past few days, and I remember completely loving it the first time I'd read it when I checked it out from the library; but this time around, I guess I'm really seeing how sad it is. Of course I haven't expected Erik (the Phantom) to have a completely happy life, but, it seems like wherever he goes, a sadness or tragic event follows him, just waiting for the right moment to crash down upon him. it's just so very sad, and I feel so bad for him. it just makes me want to climb into the book and give him just one true and complete happy memory to have.

Phantom.

okay, so I finally settled on a book. yay me.

I was going to read Tara Road, but I really didn't feel like it. seriously. so, since I am going to see ALW's Phantom of the Opera stage production in May, I decided to read Phantom, by Susan Kay. this will be my second time reading it. :) I loved it the first time. I forgot how sad of a beginning she gave him though. I hate his mother. ugh. she is just such a fool to me.

anyhoo, I'm glad I decided to skip Tara Road again and read Phantom. :p

Deception: A Phantom of the Opera Novel.

My first book of the 50 Book Challenge is done. In Deception: A Phantom of the Opera Novel, by Shirley Yoshinaka, Erik; previously known in Paris as The Phantom of the Opera, flees France and escapes to England in search of a new life. While trying to find his new life he meets many obstacles he greatly overcomes and finds the things he's always deserved and longed for, and leaves his past behind him in many ways.

I finished this last night and it was even better the second time reading it. I still can't understand though why she chose to kill Henry in the story. But I was glad all over again to see Wentworth die by Erik's hand. I remember the first time I read this I wished Erik would just kill him, but of course he did not as he was trying to be a new man with a new life. I rather like Shirley Yoshinaka's phantom. He seemed more real and more human, she took away the whole opera ghost persona and made him even more likable and honorable which I very much enjoyed.

Deception...

I have been reading Deception: A Phantom of the Opera Novel, for a few days now. I completely love it. This is my second reading of the book and I am still highly enjoying it. I read it in january of last year as well. Very good choice to read it again. And, very good choice to start with for my 50 book challenge.