<–The State of the Reader: 6/7/17          The State of the Reader: 6/21/17–>

A weekly post updated every Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and where I am with them in addition to what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads to make it easier for interested parties to add any books that might strike their fancy.  I attempt to use the covers for the edition I’m reading, and I’ll mention if this is not the case.  If you have a Goodreads account feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

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Samples Read This Week

1. Starglass by Phoebe North: Kept – I kept it, but I didn’t read that much of the sample.  Too many dead mom feels
2. The Passage by Justin Cronin: Kept (RWTR) – I would’ve bought this had it not been so expensive.  Stories this immersive come along once in a blue moon, and the brief sample painted a picture I wish more people could understand: how poverty, domestic abuse, and lack of support utterly destroys lives.  Some people have no one to turn to when everything goes wrong, and they are driven to make undesirable choices when in reality there is none.
3. Everlost by Neal Shusterman: Kept – I took it off my really-want-to-read list because the language is a bit juvenile, and I was expecting it to be more profound.  I think it’s more mid-grade than YA, so the author chose simpler language I suppose.
4. Anomalies by Sadie Turner & Colette Freedman: Passed – Just rereading the blurb again told me this would have to blow me away with its prose for me to keep it.  It didn’t and the title makes me think it’s going to be in a similar vein to Divergent, which I was lukewarm on anyway, so this is going into my passed bin.
5. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton: Kept – The gentle writing in this reminded me of how the early 1900 were romanticized, not how they really are.  While that narrative isn’t true, there is still a beauty in the lie.
6. Fire, Fury, Faith by N. D. Jones: Kept – There’s a dearth of paranormal romance that features people of color, so I like to support whenever I can.  Plus this is about angels, my favorite thing ever.
7. Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia: Kept – The writing is lush and pretty, and there’s something endearing about the android main character Mattie.
8. Among Others by Jo Walton: Kept – Though the blurb puts this book into the fantasy genre, what I’ve read so far could just be considered magical realism or even magical wishism.  Nothing particularly magical has happened or rather the supposed magical thing could be chalked up to coincidence.  The language of the writing and the fact the main character loves reading sci-fi has me intrigued.

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Books Purchased This Week: 6

Title: Gaslight Hades
Series Title: The Bonekeeper Chronicles
Author: Grace Draven
Date Added: June 11, 2017
Date Purchased: June 11, 2017

Media: eBook/Kindle
Price: $2.99
Retailer: Amazon

Title: The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
Author: Franz Kafka
Date Added: June 12, 2017
Date Purchased: June 12, 2017

Media: Paperback
Price: $4.50
Retailer: Barnes & Noble

Title: A Torch Against the Night
Series Title: An Ember in the Ashes
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Date Added: June 7, 2017
Date Purchased: June 12, 2017

Media: Hardback
Price: $14.36
Retailer: Barnes & Noble

Title: A Court of Wings and Ruin
Series Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Date Added: May 26, 2017
Date Purchased: June 12, 2017

Media: Hardback
Price: $13.67
Retailer: Barnes and Noble

Title: Saga, Volume 6
Series Title: Saga
Authors: Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples
Date Added: June 11, 2017
Date Purchased: June 13, 2017

Media: Paperback
Price: $9.93
Retailer: Amazon

Title: Saga, Volume 7
Series Title: Saga
Authors: Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples
Date Added: June 11, 2017
Date Purchased: June 13, 2017

Media: Paperback
Price: $9.71
Retailer: Amazon

Total: $55.16
Average Price: $9.19

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Books Finished This Week: 3

Title: Silent Child
Author: Sarah A. Denzil
Date Added: March 13, 2017
Date Started: May 26, 2017
Date Finished: June 9, 2017
Reading Duration: 14 days

This was okay.  It was quite a bit predictable, and I initially thought the author was doing a red herring thing, which would’ve been brilliant and explained why some things were painfully obvious to pick up.  I was waiting for a different twist and/or to be partially right that a particular character was a creep, but not involved in the mystery.  I’ll be more in depth with the review, which will have spoilers marked, but I was a bit disappointed.  Maybe I’m just jaded because there isn’t much I don’t expect from people…either in real life or in fiction, and the main character seems kind of naive.

Title: A Court of Mist and Fury
Series Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Date Added: January 26, 2017
Date Started: May 1, 2017
Date Finished: June 11, 2017
Reading Duration: 41 days

This was definitely better than the first, but the first was the way it was in order to set a trap.  As I’ve said before Tamlin is supposed to be an asshole, and you’re supposed to fall as hard for him as Feyre does.  I just wasn’t fooled, maybe because I’m an adult reading a YA book, and I was worried that this was going to be another Twilight-esque paranormal romances where the girl likes the guy because he’s so dreamy, handsome, and otherworldly.  Throw the fact that he rescued her from poverty on top of it, and this is a huge recipe for abuse, which Tamlin does in this book.  Feyre finally realizes what he is and later realizes and is shown the truth about Rhys and the Night Court.  It’s honestly very clever, the broken dichotomy of Spring vs. Night.  The former may be a time for new beginnings, but new isn’t always good, and the latter isn’t necessarily the realm of nightmares.

I put the next book on request at the library, but there are eight requests out before me, and all of the books are out on loan, so I think I’m just going to buy it.

Title: Saga, Volume 4
Series Title: Saga
Authors: Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples
Date Added: May 29, 2017
Date Started: June 8, 2017
Date Finished: June 11, 2017
Reading Duration: 3 days

At this point I’m just going to buy the last two and stop ordering them one by one.  It’s such a waste of packing materials.

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Books Currently Reading: 7

Title: A Court of Wings and Ruin
Series Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Date Added: May 26, 2017
Date Started: June 12, 2017

Media: Hardback
Progress: 22%

I was eight in line at the library, and all of the books were out on loan, so I just decided to buy it for myself.  I may pick up the second at some point, too, since that one is a library book that I need to return tomorrow.

I read the first section of this the day I bought it, and I’ve been averaging about three chapters a night.  I usually read my books as soon as I come home, but I’ve also been reading a bit of this before bed, as well.  I want to say that Maas did an excellent job improving each book as she went along, but you can tell she had a distinctive plan for this series, and though it’s a trilogy, it’s really just one overarching story.  My issues with the first book had to do with me seeing right through Tamlin’s character, but falling for the gambit of Rhys’s.  While the author probably means to ensnare us both for opposite reasons, I have to give her credit for Rhys.  He truly comes off like an asshole in Thorns/Roses, and I hated both him and Tamlin almost equally.  It was an excellent trap on her part with the High Lord of the Night Court, and I actually want to reread parts of the first book that contain him to look for the clues.

Title: Saga, Volume 5
Series Title: Saga
Authors: Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples
Date Added: June 6, 2017
Date Started: June 12, 2017

Media: Paperback
Progress: 50%

This entire series is obviously a commentary on war and its horrors and how there are no entirely just sides.  At this point we don’t even know why the wings and the horns are fighting (besides the symbolic Paradise Lost/war of heaven vs. hell motif).  The only truly innocent parties are the children.  I’m not sure if the author is ever going to tell us what started the war, and I’d be fine with that (though I’m hella curious), because it doesn’t matter; all that does is ending it.

Title: Talon
Series Title: Talon
Author: Julie Kagawa
Date Added: May 24, 2016
Date Started: June 10, 2017

Media: Kindle
Progress: 20%

The teenagers in this are a bit annoying.  I think the author decided to make them too over the top teenagery,.  I was even a bit annoyed at the part with Garrett, the 17 year old St. George soldier, because his first chapter just came off as utterly sanctimonious.  Their order has been killing dragons for centuries, and no one probably questions why anymore.  It’s similar to Saga and their endless war where it’s gone on for so long you’re just going through the motions, but those motions lead to death.  The narrative is decent and fast paced though and the rogue dragon angle is getting interesting.

Title: The Golden Bough
Author: Sir James George Frazer
Date Added: February 21, 2012
Date Started: June 6, 2017

Media: Kindle
Progress: 2%

I feel bad to admit this because this is considered one of the best books about comparative mythology predating Joseph Campbell, but it’s kind of plodding.  I’ve only gone up a percent in a week, so I think I might be in this for the long haul.  I’m hoping the further I go, the more engaging it will become.

Title: Half a King
Series Title: Shattered Sea
Author: Joe Abercrombie
Date Added: July 14, 2015
Date Started: May 27, 2017

Media: Kindle
Progress: 72%

Last week Yarvi was a pitiable figure whom I saw using his education and cunning to make up for what his society sees as a major failing, but now…he’s in a better position and seems to have forgotten how low he was brought.  I’m hoping something reminds him or he remembers whom his true friends are.

Title: An Ember in the Ashes
Series Title: An Ember in the Ashes
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Date Added: December 30, 2015
Date Started: May 17, 2017

Media: Paperback
Progress: 68%

I love the moment when two main characters meet, and this book makes it complicated.  In most YA novels when there’s a main male and female character (and they’re both straight), you know they’re going to end up together despite the love triangles that seek to divide them.  I don’t want to say this has love triangles, but Elias and Laia both have other potential love interests that are just as important to them if not more so.  This is of course on a backdrop of life and death for both of them due to the same cause: the Commandant, *spoiler* his mother and her master. *end spoiler* who would kill them both if their true motivations were known.  Ms. Tahir is brilliant at keeping the tension high through every page.

Title: The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes
Author: Anonymous
Date Added: June 19, 2016
Date Started: May 8, 2017

Media: Paperback
Progress: 48%

I think I was expecting this to be more cohesive, but then again it’s a collection of poems that have been passed down through the ages, so some of the knowledge is spotty or has been lost.  My guess is the Prose Edda is more edited to tell a story similar to The Mabinogion Tetralogy.

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Fanfictions Finished: 0

Fanfictions Currently Reading: 2

Title: I’m the Darkness, You’re the Starlight
Author: runicmagitek
Fandom: FFVI
Pairing: Celes Chere/Setzer Gabbiani

No update this week, and I haven’t had a chance to read what she did update.  I’ve been falling really behind in my email checking.  I may have to reorganize/reschedule the days I check it.

Title: I Will Call You Home: A Recounting of the Fifth Blight
Author: AthenaTseta
Fandom: Dragon Age
Pairing: Leilana/Various

I love the way the author wrote what the Gray Wardens looked like when they were in the Fade.

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Books Added to Goodreads TBR List This Week: 7

Title: Tank Girl
Series Title: Tank Girl
Authors: Alan C. Martin & Jamie Hewlett
Date Added: June 8, 2017

A conversation with a friend led to this add, and I would’ve added Guardians of the Galaxy, but there are a couple of series, and I don’t know where to start.  I kind of want to read the ones that most align with the movies, so if anyone wants to throw that information TSN’s way, I’d be much obliged.  Anyway…so I love the Tank Girl movie even though it’s absolutely absurd.  How can you not love a movie about mutants, a comet, and an evil corporation that controls everything?  Also…

“Eight, eight, the burning hate,
Between Sunday and Monday hangs a day so dark,
It will devastate…”

That was actually written for the movie.  I thought it was by some lovely, dark poet, but it’s original to the film.  I are impressed.

Title: Parasite Eve
Author: Hidaeki Sena
Date Added: June 8, 2017

We have a book that became a movie in Tank Girl, and this is a book that became a video game.  I played Parasite Eve after FFVII, but there’s no doubt in my mind that they used bits of this in the Final Fantasy.  There are too many similarities.  The mitochondria thing is extremely eerie, and scientists have traced all of humanity, matrilineally I might add, back to a female known as Mitochondrial Eve, which it sounds like this title is distorting.  Mitochondria used to be separate entities/parasites, but they formed a symbiosis with our eukaryotic cells, and now we can’t live without them.

Title: Club Dead
Series Title: Sookie Stackhouse
Author: Charlaine Harris
Date Added: June 10, 2017

I believe this is the series True Blood is based on, but correct me if I’m wrong.  I like the way it sounds like having a vampire boyfriend is no big deal, as if it’s just something that sometimes happens in the world.  Worlds were the paranormal is just a casually accepted fact of life can be interesting, so this warrants me checking it out.

Title: Saga, Volume 6
Series Title: Saga
Authors: Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples
Date Added: June 11, 2017

It just makes sense to add this and the seventh, since I’m going to read all of the series that’s out.

Title: Saga, Volume 7
Series Title: Saga
Authors: Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples
Date Added: June 11, 2017

It’s so much fun trying not to read the blurb.

Title: Gaslight Hades
Series Title: The Bonekeeper Chronicles
Author: Grace Draven
Date Added: June 11, 2017

I’m breaking my rule by adding this one, since I already have two books by the same author on my TBR list.  While I could get away with it for Ippos King because that’s not out yet, Master of Crows certain is, but seriously…LOOK at that cover.  How the hell could I not add this book?  I’m probably going to buy it as soon as I finish this and read it after I finish my next Kindle, because not only is he dressed all in black with silver hair, but I love Grace Draven’s writing style, so I’m sure the descriptions of him are utterly delicious.  Also he’s probably an angel of death-like character.

Title: The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
Author: Franz Kafka
Date Added: June 12, 2017

I made my monthly trip to the bookstore a little earlier in the week than I normally do, because I wanted to pick up A Court of Wings and Ruin immediately after the end of the second book.  While I was there, I saw this on the $5.00 table, so I picked it up (for actually less, because I’m a B&N member).  I’ve wanted to read Kafka for a while, and (less than) $5 is too cheap to pass up.

Total Books on Goodreads TBR List: 468
Change from Last Week: 0

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Books Added to Reread List This Week: 0

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What are you currently reading and/or what’s on your radar to read next?  What would you recommend based on my current and recently added?  As always I look forward to your comments and suggestions!

<–The State of the Reader: 6/7/17          The State of the Reader: 6/21/17–>

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