Five Reasons You Know You are Addicted to Borgia

I've been watching Borgia on Netflix lately, and it's full of everything I love. Except the incest part, because ew. It takes place in fifteen century Rome, and follows the lives of the Vatican's most intriguing family, the Borgia. I've never heard of them before, but any gamers out there familiar with Assassin's Creed might have. I've been watching the Canal + version, but there is a tamer, watered down version on Showtime as well, and both are on Netflix. I'm totally loving it and finding myself a tad obsessed.

Here are a few of the warning signs that you are addicted (as I am) to this awesome, disgusting, beautiful and disturbing show.

5. You are disappointed Borgia doesn't have a wikia like Game of Thrones that has a biography on every character. 

Every show with a huge cast needs this. Especially when you have casting directors that favor certain "looks" and half the male cast look the same.

4. You have taken sides against the "other" show about the Borgia even though you haven't watched it.

For the record, I've only watched the European version. Things are less censored over there.

3. You expect to see Mark Ryder selfies in your Twitter feed every morning. 

It only happened once since I started following him, but it was great.

2. You debated in your head for a minute about reading the political work by Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, because it apparently loosely based on Cesare Borgia. Then you didn't. Because, well....it's early yet. You still might. 

You have full plans to read The Family by Mario Puzo though.

1. OMG you can't wait for season three to start. That is all.

My Goodreads Challenge

In the spirit of my new years resolution, Turn Off the Damn TV (paraphrased, of course), I took up Goodreads' 2014 Reading Challenge. The challenge is an individual one, you can set the number of books you pledge to read during the year. I set my goal at 12 books, so a book a month. Easy peasy.

I'm going to try not to dwell on the fact that Goodreads average number of books in the challenge is 55. Oy. Not this year.

Book One: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief is a young adult book, but the Nazi Germany setting and the sections of the book narrated by Death are as dark as you would expect. I cared about the characters (Rudy especially- what a little gem he was), and I honestly liked the way the unconventional way the author approached some things. I enjoyed the book by the end, but I was crying like a baby.

Book Two: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

I picked this one because I loved the Netflix series so much. The book was good, though the series was MUCH more dramatized. The series created challenges and drama where there was none in the book. And there is much less lesbian sexytime in the book, if anyone is wondering.

Book Three: The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory

I love historical drama, and I loved Phillipa Gregory's Tudor series, but this one was a different beast. It was a lot more political and the story is repetitive (Oh, look. Edward is off to war again.). And every character was either named Elizabeth, Mary, Richard, Edward or George. It's super hard to keep track of twenty characters when they share the same five names. What also threw me was there was a certain mystery that was left completely unresolved, and it wasn't until I wikipedia'ed it after that it was indeed based on a true story, and the mystery was never solved. How depressing.

I'm realizing this list is are all movies or tv shows now, so while I was thinking my next few books will be Game of Thones, but maybe I should pick a few things that don't encourage me to turn on the tv to watch the story I just read. 

Anyone have any good books they read lately? Anyone else in the Goodreads Challenge?