Thursday, June 20, 2013

Blog tour, review AND giveaway of Catherine by April Lindner!


I am so excited to be part of this blog tour!! Thanks for having me!
For the full tour schedule, go here.


Title/Author: Catherine by April Lindner
Publisher/Date published: Poppy, January 2nd 2013
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: A forbidden romance. A modern mystery. Wuthering Heights as you’ve never seen it before.

Catherine is tired of struggling musicians befriending her just so they can get a gig at her Dad’s famous Manhattan club, The Underground. Then she meets mysterious Hence, an unbelievably passionate and talented musician on the brink of success. As their relationship grows, both are swept away in a fiery romance. But when their love is tested by a cruel whim of fate, will pride keep them apart?

Chelsea has always believed that her mom died of a sudden illness, until she finds a letter her dad has kept from her for years — a letter from her mom, Catherine, who didn’t die: She disappeared. Driven by unanswered questions, Chelsea sets out to look for her — starting with the return address on the letter: The Underground.

Told in two voices, twenty years apart, Catherine interweaves a timeless forbidden romance with a compelling modern mystery.
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Ok, confession time: I never much cared for Wuthering Heights. *hides* I can't help it, in Wuthering Heights, Catherine REALLY annoyed me and I could never truly understand what was so great about her or Heathcliff and that kinda ruined the story for me. BUT I am always up for a retelling and I have to say that I enjoyed Catherine a lot more than the original story!

I liked that the POV alternates between Catherine through her diary entries and Chelsea, Catherine's daughter. It's really interesting, cause obviously I knew the general storyline, but I like that April Lindner gave her own spin to it. It definitely had a contemporary feel instead of just feeling like it was forced into a modern jacket and that's something I really appreciate, because it can get that way sometimes.

I really liked Chelsea. Though I thought it wasn't very responsible of her to just go off without telling her dad and start looking for her mother without telling ANYONE where she's going and just putting her complete trust in total strangers, BUT she's a nice girl and I loved that she sometimes just blurted stuff out without first thinking about it. I recognized a little of myself in that quirk, and I know how you can just want to take it back, so I could relate to this part of her. I liked that she doesn't just give up and doesn't really take no for an answer when something is important to her.

I REALLY disliked Wuthering Height's Catherine, but Catherine's Catherine (lol) not so much. She did make me roll my eyes a couple of times with her thinking that 'nobody had ever loved each other as much as she and Hence', I mean SERIOUSLY?? Talk about self-absorbed. But other than that I was rooting for her even though I knew things couldn't end well.

So, SPOILER ALERT: of course Chelsea discovers what happened to her mother. And I was kinda wondering: what kind of incompetent policemen were on this case? Because really, if a 17-year-old can solve it in basically no time at all, WHAT HAVE YOU ALL BEEN DOING??? It was a bit too easy. How did they not suspect this person of killing her? And ugh, Catherine, how could you go to this person and NOT think, gee, maybe I should tell someone I'm going there? HELLO, this is how you get killed. UGH. It's like yelling at the TV and expecting the candidates of a show to hear you and get the answer right...

So rant over.

I very much liked Catherine by April Lindner and am happy to report that I liked it better than the original version. Catherine was more likable, the writing was more engaging and while I did have some minor problems with it, I was very entertained throughout reading it! I'm even more excited to read Jane soon, because that is a retelling of one of my favourite classics :)

My rating: 4 stars

April Lindner is the author of two novels, Catherine, a modernization of Wuthering Heights, and Jane, an update of Jane Eyre. She also has published two poetry collections, Skin and This Bed Our Bodies Shaped. She plays acoustic guitar badly, sees more rock concerts than she’d care to admit, travels whenever she can, cooks Italian food, and lavishes attention on her pets—two Labrador retriever mixes and two excitable guinea pigs. A professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University, April lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two sons.

TWITTER | WEBSITE | BLOG | GOODREADS


GIVEAWAY TIME!!!
Up for grabs is a hardcover copy op Catherine by April Lindner to 3 lucky winners!

The rules:
US only.
Must be 13 or older to enter.
Giveaway ends July 4 at 11:59 p.m.
Winners will be chosen via Rafflecopter and contacted by email.

So what are you waiting for? Go enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

6 comments:

  1. I'm glad you liked it, I've been debating on and off if I should get it or not.
    I REALLY loved Jane, Ms Linder's previous retelling of Jane Eyre, she does a great job of modernizing the stories and make them still make sense.

    But well, like you, I never got what was so great about Cathy, she does some very questionable things. And I never really understood Heathcliff either, until I read Wuthering High where Cara Lockwood presents a teenage version of him that made sense (he was possessive because he had so little in life, and he was devoted) plus, it was all before he went all crazy at the end.


    Anyway, sorry for the rambling. I think you have convinced me to give this one a try :D

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  2. I've honestly never liked Wuthering Heights either, though I never finished it so I can't say my feelings are very fair. Still, it never quite appealed to me! I'm glad you ended up liking this retelling though :)

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  3. I've been intrigued by this one, and am glad you liked it! I think the thing I really like about modern retellings is that, if done properly, they help relate old times issues to modern-day ones. If I don't "get" a book because I can't relate to it or see myself in that time, but then I read a modern spin... all of a sudden, I connect with the story. And THEN I read the original, and it makes so much more sense! Great review!

    - Jana

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  4. I never finished Wuthering Heights, but I have a copy I've been meaning to read. This sounds really good, though! I love modern retellings seem to make stories seem more real. Reading the original can be great but sometimes you don't get everything and it seems fuzzy and then someone brings it into a modern setting and you can kind of "see" it better and the themes seem more relevant.

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  5. I admit, I never liked Wuthering Heights, either, but Catherine sounds really good! I love the mystery aspect and the POVs sound really interesting too! Great review! :) (New follower via Bloglovin!)

    Alice @ Alice in Readerland

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    1. Modern retellings interest me because I love seeing all the parallels between the new story and the original tale, but I also love all the new spins and perspectives a modern-day setting can add! :)

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