Friday Fun: Honesty and Swinging

Another Friday in China! Time goes so fast these days, but there are loads of plans to get massages, watch Fantastic Beasts and go to Hangzhou and Disney World Shanghai! Yup, I've got plans!! I'll be sharing loads of pictures on Instagram! Now, let's get on to Friday memes! Follow Friday is hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee and today's prompt is:

What protagonist is most like you?

Oh God this is a difficult question!It's requiring me to be very honest about myself, isn't it? I want to be very flattering to myself but I'll try to avoid that by first saying which character I'd like to be like: Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen!

'There is a stubbornness about me that never can be to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always roses at every attempt to intimidate me.'

I love this quote and it's the kind of attitude I try to have. If life throws an obstacle in my way I try to rise to the challenge. But I'm not always this brave unfortunately. However, I think one of the characters I'm sort of like is Hetty Deveraux from The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine. Although she can be a little bit uncertain at times and maybe too easily swayed by those she trusts she does have passion and a good heart! When she's determined to do something it is almost impossible to stop her, to everyone else's frustration. Now there's something I can see in myself!


Book Beginnings and Friday 56 are hosted by Gillion over at Rose City Reader and Freda over at Freda's Voice!Today I'm sharing quotes from a book I have just started: Swing Time by Zadie Smith!

Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either...

Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them. Moving from North-West London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time.

BB:

'It was the first day of my humiliation. Put on a plane, sent back home, to England, set up with a temporary rental in St. John's Wood.' 1%

I really like this opening because it puts you right into the narrator's mind. And for everyone who has ever started on an adventure, it can turn into a disaster very quickly as well! Although I'm not quite sure what's happening, I did want to share a bit more, but that would be spoiling you ;)


F56:

'What I couldn't work out among all this frenetic rumour and counter-rumour was whether a visit from the President was longed for or dreaded. It's the same when you hear of a storm that's coming to town, explained Fern, as we drove the tin legs of the folding chairs into the sand. Even if you fear it you're curious to see it!' 56%

I am not entirely sure what's happening since I'm not up to here yet in the novel, but I love Smith's comparison to the storm! It's such a nice description and that last line is so true!

So, what are you reading today? And what character do you think you're most like?