Why not to read too fast

I recently read three books MUCH quicker than I really should have done, and I'm now getting the feeling that maybe I should read them again properly because reading fast is a good way to miss out things.  The books were: 
     Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
     Ultraviolet by R J Anderson
     Quicksilver by R J Anderson

I think I liked Ultraviolet nearly as much as Me Before You but I was more... affected by ending of Me Before You but I preferred them both to Quicksilver - not much though...  but I'll get back to that later.

The cover looks a fairytale I think - I didn't feel
that it really fitted with the book but I quite like it
otherwise, reminds me slightly of Rob Ryan
or Lotte Reiniger

Here's a tip, if you become emotionally attached to characters very easily, do NOT read Me Before You into the early hours of the morning because you can't sleep, leave the last few chapters for the morning because FINALLY by 3:40 you're feeling sleepy. And then, DO NOT read the ending at 8:00 because against your better judgement you've woken up at the normal time. Yeah, don't do that. Just don't, because you end up curled into a ball sobbing uncontrollably. UNCONTROLLABLY - for probably about an hour.

All that aside, I thought this book was amazing.  It's about Will Traynor who has been paralysed almost completely after he was hit by a motorcycle and Lou Clark who, after losing her job is employed by Will's mother to keep him company.  I didn't really like Lou (the narrator for most of the book) all that much at first,  but she grew on me.

I would highly recommend this book, but be warned, in case I hadn't made it abundantly obvious, it is SAD.  I don't think it takes anything away from it though because it's not sad in a bad way if that makes any sense.  The story tackles issues about assisted suicide and I feel like the author really did her research and it comes across really well.  I completely believed the characters and the things they said and did.  A lot of books with *big* themes have dialogue which feels really fake and contrived but I didn't get that with this book at all.

Still haven't made up my mind about this cover
I'm not sure if it's a bit-- pff maybe I'm being
too critical

Ultraviolet is about Alison, a girl admitted to a mental institute after she comes home saying she has killed someone - we find out that she has synaesthesia - a condition where some sensations can trigger others.  Alison can taste lies and see sounds but she thinks that this is just part of her having some mental condition, which isn't helped by her mother who has made her afraid to tell anyone about what she experiences.  Whilst an involuntary patient in this mental institute, she becomes part of research conducted by Sebastian Faraday (apparently Alison really likes the name, but personally I thought it was a bit pompous) who is looking into synaesthesia.  Alison begins to confide in Sebastian and her situation starts improving bit by bit.  I found the mysterious stranger thing a little bit predictable, but I didn't really mind too much because I was pretty much caught up in everything else. I don't want to spoil anything and it's hard to go into much more detail without revealing something, but what I will say is I really enjoyed this book - partly as a lover of (OK, small spoiler: sci-fi) but also because synaesthesia has intrigued me ever since I first heard about it.  If you don't know anything about it or have never heard of it, look it up, it really is fascinating - some synesthetes can literally feel things that they see other people experiencing (mirror-touch synesthsia).  Anyway, I really liked how R J Anderson included these unusual perceptions from Alison's point of view without it seeming really forced.  Sometimes in this book I felt SO frustrated for Alison, I think had it been me, I would have reacted much worse to some of the other characters - I'm talking about her mother and her doctor (damn, can't remember his name - I think this proves that I read it too fast!)

Same as before really, can't decide whether I
like it or not :S

Quicksilver is a follow up to Ultraviolet, though I agree with the author that they both work pretty well on their own - Alison isn't in this book much except at the end (although she is mentioned quite a bit) but one of the things that made me like this book slightly less is that the way Alison talked.  I might just be being fussy here, but I don't think someone who spent so long afraid of her synaesthesia would so quickly be saying things like: "he sounded really orange" (I don't think she says that particular phrase but she does occasionally say things like that) - I just didn't really believe it.  I don't want to give anything away about Ultraviolet which makes it a bit difficult to talk about this book so maybe I'll do that some other time in a separate post.

Oooh, but one thing I will say is that I liked how the chapters were laid out - I'm big on aesthetics and I like it when it feels like someone has gone to the trouble of making the book something complete - like it all matches up rather than just something to put the words on, it's one of the reasons I like reading actual books (although I do use my kindle quite a lot).

So, if anybody is actually reading this, I highly recommend these books and if you've already read them, let me know what you think (please comment please comment please comment - not to sound needy or anything ;) ) (hehe too many brackets!)

The next book I'm going to read is The Fault in Our stars which I realise could be a BIG mistake as I'm lead to believe it's not the cheeriest of books - Sme, I'm blaming you if this turns bad!!