Madalena

I read this at 17 and now at 29. They feel and are two different books completely, depending on which stage of your life you read it. It comes to prove that timing is essential in literature. Sometimes you connect with a book so much, yet you come to hate it a few years later. Literature is beautiful like that.

I felt mostly depressed and annoyed with Holden self-loathing view on life. He's cynical and sarcastic and I want to slap him in the face. But he also made me laugh a lot. I swear to god I laughed for over 5 minutes straight once, and I laughed a lot too in other occasions. He's mighty funny sometimes I give him that. And his way of speaking and thinking is contagious also, you know what I mean? Ya feel me? Boy, I swear to god it is.

In Portuguese this book is divided into two volumes, which I just realised today. The second part was only released not long ago, and in between reading the first part and the second one was a couple of years which made me sort of forget parts of the first book I could still not recall whilst reading the second part - or a recap of the first one. I loved the first part but felt that the second one sort of slowed down my interest and was not as engaged. Still a lovely read, not my favourite kind of writing - read Leviathan Wakes prior to reading the second part of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and loved the writing much more - but it's a fun story with fun characters, even though a bit one dimensional at times. The ending left me sort of hanging and I didn't love it, but who knows what else the writer will bring on Kira's adventures in the future?