<–The State of the Reader: 10/24/18          The State of the Reader: 12/19/18–>

A weekly post updated every other Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads, and if you have an account there feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

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Books Purchased: 9

• Sepher Yetzirah by Anonymous; Translated by W. Wynn Westcott – $0.99 @ Amazon
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving – $0.99 @ Amazon
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald – $0.99 @ Amazon
• In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker – $5.49 @ Amazon
• The Fairy Faith in the Celtic Community by W. Y. Evans-Wentz – $0.99 @ Amazon
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux – $4.95 @ Amazon
• Phantom by Susan Kay – $19.99 @ Amazon
• Calling All Angels by John C. Harkness – $2.99
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – $0.99 @ Amazon

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Books DNF: 2

• A Lick of Frost by Laurell K. Hamilton (Meredith Gentry) – Somehow or another LKH made silver hair boring.  I didn’t think that was possible, but she did it.  “But his hair was uniquely his own, silver, like metal beaten into hair.”  Are you…fucking…kidding me?  I didn’t even finish the first chapter and I took the rest of her books of my TBR list.  I love her earlier work, but you can tell she now only cares about collecting a check.
• The Stillness of the Sky by Starla Huchton (Flipped Fairy Tales) – Fuck abusive parents and fuck kindness when you’re being abused.  I know I have a huge issue with blaming the victim in stories like this.  I want to shake them and tell them to not put up with it, even though I know intellectually that that’s not fair.  It’s not the victim’s fault their abusers are trash.  I’m much more cognizant of it in real life, but in stories I hate a particular type of naivete in protagonists.  I think I hate when naivete is unrealistic even for fairy tales.  The MC is actually shocked her drunken, abusive father is willing to sell her to a whorehouse in order to pay his debts and continue to get his fix.  It just bugged me that she wouldn’t expect this from a man who’s done nothing but beat and belittle her since her mother left.  This is a Jack and the Beanstalk retelling, which isn’t one of my favorite stories in the first place, and I’m not invested enough in the character.  The ironic thing is this story is what got me interested in the Flipped Fairy Tale series in the first place.  I added it then realized it was the “second” in the compendium so I read Shadows on Snow first,which was okay.  It’s not like they’re in any order; I think it’s just the order Huchton wrote them.

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Books Finished: 5

Title: Alex + Ada: The Complete Collection
Series Title: Alex + Ada
Author: Jonathan Luna
Artist: Sarah Vaugn
Date Added: October 28, 2016
Date Started: June 17, 2018
Date Finished: October 28, 2018
Reading Duration: 133 days

It didn’t take me this long to read this entire collection; I just split it up to pad my reading total.  The Complete Collection is made up of three books, but I read the one pictured above.  People rated the second and third higher than the first, and I’m not really sure why.  It’s an excellent series, and even though it doesn’t do anything new, it refines many previously touched on points in fiction involving AI sentience.

Title: Eating Robots: And Other Stories
Series Title: Nudging the Future
Author: Stephen Oram
Date Added: April 10, 2017
Date Started: October 23, 2018
Date Finished: November 6, 2018
Reading Duration: 14 days

Excellent collection of sci-fi/speculative fiction that hits a bit too close to home quite a few times.

Title: Snow White & the Seven Angels
Series Title: Queerky Tales
Author: Rhys Christopher Ethan
Date Added: August 23, 2017
Date Started: November 7, 2018
Date Finished: November 9, 2018
Reading Duration: 2 days

There were some pretty serious editing issues with novel, but the message it has is much too important to write it off just for that.  It’s a transgender retelling of the classic fairy tale where Snow White is a trans girl who has to brave a kingdom worth of adversity before she finds her happy ending.

Title: Blister
Author: Jeff Strand
Date Added: October 1, 2017
Date Started: November 12, 2018
Date Finished: November 20, 2018
Reading Duration: 8 days

I’m legitimately shocked at how well the subject matter of this book was handled as well as how realistically.  I think I like this better than his other novel Dweller.

Title: Kingdom of the Last Dragons
Series Title: The Farloft Chronicles
Author: Theresa Snyder
Date Added: February 19, 2018
Date Started: November 23, 2018
Date Finished: December 5, 2018
Reading Duration: 12 days

Media: eBook/Kindle

There are some editing issues with this one, which happens with self-published books quite a bit (it’s why you need to hire an editor; it’s expensive, but it makes your work look professional), but these are cute, little stories that are also quick reads.

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On Hold

Title: Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth
Author: Mark Williams
Date Added: October 5, 2017
Date Started: July 6, 2018

Media: Hardback

I decided to put this one on hold because I really wanted to reread The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and I can’t do two hefty references at once.  Reading them is like studying a textbook with all the accompanying notes.  While this one is on my Research List, too, I’ve wanted to reread Hero for over a year.

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Currently Reading

Title: Muse of Nightmares
Series Title: Strange the Dreamer
Author: Laini Taylor
Date Added: December 20, 2017
Date Started: October 6, 2018

Media: Hardback
Progress: 96%

If I’m not too tired after this monstrous update, I might finish this tonight.  I can’t even explain the amount of feels this book gave me.  I was legit crying throughout the last part.

Title: Angels’ Blood
Series Title: Guild Hunter
Author: Nalini Singh
Date Added: May 11, 2017
Date Started: November 2, 2028

Media: Paperback (Library)
Progress: 48%

Holy fuck…sexy and dangerous angels with mind control powers who run the world with their vampire underlings?  Yes please.  I keep renewing this because I don’t have the time to read as much as I want per session, but this is going to be a buy when I finish it and go for the next.

Title: The Phantom of the Opera
Author: Gaston Leroux
Date Added: November 29, 2018
Date Started: December 2, 2018

Media: Paperback
Progress: 3%

Even though I just added this, I’ve wanted to read it for years, and an old friend let me know there was a new translation out.  It was pretty cheap on Amazon so I picked it up along with Susan Kay’s Phantom, which I read years ago, but couldn’t find for less than an exorbitant price until now.

Title: The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Author: Joseph Campbell
Date Added: April 24, 2014
Date Started: December 3, 2018

Media: Hardback
Progress: 1%

Joseph Campbell is a brilliant source for comparative mythology, and I’ve wanted to reread this for over a year so I can take extensive notes for my own comparative research and essays.

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This post was exhausted and almost happened tomorrow until I saw all of the stuff I need to do then.  Oof.  It’s tough when you have to update a month’s worth of books purchased, finished, and currently reading.  I usually just copy and paste from the prior post, but since it’s been so long there’s a lot of new stuff.

I have one more book to finish for my Goodreads Reading Challenge of 50.  Next year I’m bringing it down to 20 to give myself more time to work on other things.  How have you done with your reading challenge if you decided to do one?  Are you going to increase or decrease next year?

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<–The State of the Reader: 10/24/18          The State of the Reader: 12/19/18–>