R, R & RR

Me being a bookish bookworm-

Hiiiiiiiii
(Wow. Wattpad is being a bad influence. I wouldn have not written so many "i" before.)
How are you doing?
Seriously I want to know.

If anyone cares, I m fine and I am here with some of my bookworm stuff! But before that some news that nobody cares about:
Some days ago was the Carnival, you know, but we got in lockdown two days before that so I stayed home. In midnight my dad FINALLY dicided to bring the costumes etc out of the basement. So I wore a frizzy black wig, a cowboy hat and sunglasses. Oh I also stole my mom's black leather jacket. What did I dress like?😏😏

Now

Let's get to the bookworm stuff.
I have noticed that most of the book-fangirl accounts I may or may not follow belong to mainly these fandoms:

-PJO (Percy Jackson and the Olympians)
-HoO (Heroes Of Olympus)
-ToA (Trials Of Apollo)
-Mcga (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard)
-KC (Kane Chronicles)
-Harry Potter
-KOTLC (Keeper Of The Lost Cities)
-Divergent
-Maze Runner
-The Mortal Instruments
-The Hunger Games

Now I have read only the first 5 of what I mentioned, but I think that the rest of them are in the same style of writing. Please correct me if I 'm wrong. The point is, based on the books I have read, I would say that it's unfair that they are so popular. I mean PJO is really fun to read (when you don't cry because of the 74291048361910471003829 tragic, epic deaths or tragic, sad stories of the characters) but it's not a book I would say one must read. It's humorous and well-written but it doesn't get across any meanings at all and it isn't a considerable source when it comes to how accurate is on mythology because, seriously, I wanted to bang my head against the wall when I was reading all these mistakes Riordan did.
In conslusion, I think that, while books like that have gained extreme popularity, there are a lot of other books that nobody knows about and in my opinion deserve much more recognition. So, I will be making a series of chapters with reviews of some of my favourite books. If you are searching for an interesring read, I believe you should check out the ones I will recommend and I hope my suggestions can be useful to you!

So, let's get to the first book I would like to let you know about.

S t r a v a g a n z a
by Mary Hoffman

1) City of Masks
2) City of Stars
3) City of Flowers
4) City of Secrets
5) City of Ships
6) City of Swords

As you can see Stravaganza (and I know the name is ridiculous but please ignore it) is a series of books and more specifically fantasy and adventure books. I haven't finished it yet (currently reading "City of Ships") so I will only judge based on what I have already read.

The plot:

The main characters are some teenagers in London. Each book gas a different protagonist whom we don't know from the previous books and plays a secondary role in the next ones. Each protagonist finds a special object. When they fall asleep holding these objects, they found themselves in the parallel world of Talia, which resembles our 16th-century Italy! The "bad guys" are the richest and most powerful Talian family, the di Chimichi, who want to find out the secrets of the Stravaganti (that's how the protagonists are called as travellers in space and time) and conquer the Talian cities that aren't under their rule.

What I liked
• First of all I loved the fact that this is a fantasy series taking place in 16th century. It has everything a reader of fantasy novels, like me, would like: adventure, plot twists, magical powers, some mystery, suspense and -of course- the eternal battle between good and evil.
However, I also love historical novels. I think they are fascinating and exciting while travelling the reader to a tottaly different period of time. And exactly the fact that they are based on reality, is what makes them so exciting, in my opinion.
Even though, Stravaganza doesn't narrate a real story, it certainly captures the feeling of the times. I mean there are the cities, the architecture, the clothes, the beliefs: everything that defines that period except for historical events. I believe that the idea of a parallel universe was REALLY good because in that way, the author develops her story around history but in the same time she doesn't have any restrictions.

• Another thing I really liked about the series was the fact that the story was told by the point of a lot of characters. It was written in a 3d person's POV but reflecting the thoughts of a huge variery of characters. It wasn't just the protagonist but also all the secondary characters, the "bad guys" and the minor characters. In the third book there were even some parts that showed the thoughts of a horse!

•Have you ever thought about how cliché are fantasy books?
I mean there's always the same story: good guy discovers they are super-special, suddenly they find themselves into something really big and exciting along with a bunch of secondary characters who introduced them to this "something", bad guy who wants either to destroy or to rule the world for no apparent reason appears, bad guy and good guy fight and boom! good guy wins and the world is saved again!
Have you ever wondered why in Hades is the bad guy bad?
Well I have and there's never an answer apart from some very rare cases.
Stravaganza is one of these cases. It doesn't exactly explain it, but it makes the "bad guys" human. The di Chimichi aren't a bunch of greedy, cruel merciless monsters as most bad guys are presented. In the contrary, they have feelings and that makes them realistic. I mean in fantasy books there is always this incredibly clear separation between good and bad, but in real life these two exist together. The fact that we read the diChimichi's thoughts as well as the Stravaganti's ones, just helps the reader understand that. For instance, the head of the diChimichi family who was supposed to be the ultimate bad guy or something was the main character in one of the most sad and touching scenes in the series.

• Finally the last thing I would like to add is that there isn't action and only action. The author descrives scenes from daily life as well as the adventure ones. One of my favourite parts of the series was in the beginning of the third book, in which a sculptor described how she looked at the marble they brought to her and saw the sculpture she would make with her fantasy.

In conclusion I really like these series because of all the reasons I described above and I highly recommend them because they SURELY deserve a bigger fandom. And I need someone to talk out about cute OTPs too lol. By the way the couples are really romantic.
If you decide to read them though, be warned that there are a lot of plot holes tok unfortunately and also the daily-life scenes can be quite tiring and boring too sometimes.

That was for today!

An Irish Pub Song -The Rumjacks

Okay but I love Irish music. And random opinion: The Rumjacks are one of the most underrated bands EVER. Listen to the song and let me know if you agree.

Bye my ducklings!