<–The State of the Reader: 12/14/22         The State of the Reader: 3/22/23–>

A biweekly 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: 10

• The Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus – $0.99 @ Amazon Kindle
• The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay – $1.99 @ Amazon Kindle
• The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay (The Fionavar Tapestry) – $3.99 @ Amazon Kindle
• Oak King Holly King by Sebastian Nothwell (Oak King Holly King) – $3.99 @ Amazon Kindle
• Prince of the Sorrows by Kellen Graves (Rowan Blood) – $1.99 @ Amazon Kindle
• Gulliver’s Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift – $1.99 @ Amazon Kindle
• The Bookshop and the Barbarian by Morgan Stang – $0.00 @ Amazon Kindle
• Lost in Time by A. G. Riddle – $1.99 @ Amazon Kindle
• Coffee, Milk & Spider Silk by Coyote J. M. Edwards – $0.99 @ Amazon Kindle
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb) – $1.99 @ Amazon Kindle

Total: $19.21

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Books Finished: 3

Title: The Cruel Prince
Series: The Folk of the Air
Author: Holly Black
Date Added: August 1, 2019
Date Started: October 31, 2022
Date Finished: January 3, 2023

Media: eBook/Kindle

I had mixed feelings about this one.  For the most part I liked it: enemies to lovers, slow burn, and all that, but some of the shit Jude did was so unbelievably stupid it was hard to suspend my disbelief.  Yes, even beyond the foolishness most YA protagonists do.  There’s also something about the world building that bothers me, but I can’t put my finger on it.  It’s meant to show how common the weirdness of faerie is for Jude and her twin sister, but it almost makes it come off as shallow as opposed to just every day strangeness.  I put the next book on my TBR list, but I don’t know when I’m going to get to it.

Note: I’m just going to list out the other two books I finished since I started them after I put this post on impromptu hiatus.  Sorry, I just have a lot of catching up to do and lack the time and energy to do my regular detailed post.

• Verity by Colleen Hoover – I was pleasantly surprised this was as good as it was, though I did read some valid critiques in the comments.  I…didn’t quite agree with them, but I can see why people would think that.  In terms of story telling and shocking twists, the author did an excellent job even if people didn’t like her execution of it.  I guess there was some over exposition, but it made sense to me.  This was one of the co-authors of the series Never Never, which had so much potential, but wound up shitting the bed in the end.  I was happy to see the high rating here, so I figured this time she’d stuck the landing.  Now I’m interested in what Tarryn Fisher, the other co-author, might have out.
• A Spindle Shattered by Alix E. Harrow (Fractured Fables) – I’m always up for a good trope shuffler, and I’ll never tire of reworked fairytales.  Maybe because I’m biased since I like writing them, but they also lend credence to my fanfiction validity arguments.  This was pretty decent, though I think Harrow relied a little too much on pop culture “hey look at me I’m a fish out of water” references with it came to the main character Zin, though I get she was trying really hard to put a barrier between herself and her ultimate and untimely demise (I’m a deflector myself so trust me I know).  In the end I’d say this was cute and the ideas behind it decent if the world building a bit rocky.  Some of the characters either felt more like caricatures, which was probably on purpose in some cases, or like Harrow was trying too hard to make them not like Princess Primrose in the end.  This is one of her shorter works though, and people seem to have particular feelings about those.  I think this might have been better served by being longer to give the ideas more room to breathe.  I intend to read one of her full novels soon so I can compare.

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Books DNF’d: 1

Title: Maya and the Rising Dark
Series: Maya and the Rising Dark
Author: Rena Barron
Date Added: June 20, 2022
Date Started: November 22, 2022
Date DNF: December 31, 2022

Media: eBook/Library

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this book.  I just lost interest.  I suppose that might imply there’s something wrong with it, but there really isn’t.  I’m totally fine with midgrade novels and I especially loves ones with an all POC cast that focuses on ancestral beliefs.  Things don’t have to hold your individual interest to be good, and if I heard the way it ended was different than I expected, I might even continue the series, but for now it’s shelved.

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Books On Hold: 5

So right now everything I was currently reading is on hold because the books are physically still packed away so I can’t get to them to read right now lol.  I really, really want to find them because I usually have Dion Fortune’s Mystical Qabalah and Gustav Davidson’s Angel Dictionary near at hand for quick reference.  I haven’t been able to look anything up since we moved and it’s driving me a bit crazy.  I also don’t have any of the books I was physically reading, and I just haven’t been in the mind frame to continue with Hamlet.  Thankfully, I’m still doing some reading with my Kindle on my lunch breaks…if I don’t spend them napping haha.  Yeaaaah, it’s been interesting.

Here are the books on hold.  There’s just one additional as the Kindle loan I was reading expired today so I have to wait until I can get the book again to continue.  The rest will be picked back up once I find them or gain the wherewithal to dive in again (sorry Hamlet).

• Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko (Raybearer) – This is the first book I’ve started this year, though I suppose I technically finished Verity, The Cruel Prince, and the Harrow in 2023 so they count.  I’m liking the reluctant (and child) assassin aspect of this.  It fits one of my favorite hated ideas of parents using their children for nefarious purposes.  Also all the majority of the characters are Black or POC so yay lol.

Title: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Series: Jung’s Collected Works
Author: C. G. Jung
Date Added: July 20, 2019
Date Started: December 9, 2022

Media: Paperback
Progress: 1%

Title: Hamlet
Author: William Shakespeare
Date Added: March 6, 2018
Date Started: October 23, 2022

Media: eBook/Kindle

Title: Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens: The Divine Feminine in the African Religious Traditions
Author: Lilith Dorsey
Date Added: May 29, 2020
Date Started: August 1, 2022

Media: Paperback
Progress: 15%

Title: House of Sky and Breath
Series: Crescent City
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Date Added: March 7, 2021
Date Started: February 23, 2022

Media: Physical/Hardback
Progress: 55%

This is the one I miss the most

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Books Reading: 0

This will hopefully change by tomorrow.  Since Raybearer was returned I’ll have to find another Kindle (or two) to read, and I just bought Gideon the Ninth, which I had on my Really Want to Read List for years.  I also have the next Saga to start, but again it’s in a box somewhere.

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Two months after moving and I’m trying to get back into routines.  I knew this would take a while to post even with modifications, but it’s up and I’ll try to get back to my biweekly schedule.  I’d love to have the books unpacked by next update, but the going is so slow.

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<–The State of the Reader: 12/14/22         The State of the Reader: 3/22/23–>