Annual Reading Challenge – 92% Done. Library re-visited!

 

Hello everyone.  Well, for those that read my last blog you’ll know I’d hit a bit of a mental brick wall with my reading.  I wasn’t sure if I was getting bored of my reading, or that a few books had just switched me off a little, or I was just generally getting grumpy.

So with that in mind, as well as recently (at home) re-visiting our finances and realising that some belt tightening was very much in order, decided to re-visit a place I loved visiting when I was a child.  The Library!  Rather then constantly buying books, and often not enjoying them, have decided to borrow them from my local Library instead.

And this I believe has slightly revitalised me.  So what have I read since my last blog?

 

Book #44 – Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

So as you know I’ve picked up this book on the bounce of a few disappointing reads, with my interest in reading wavering for the first time in a few years. So no pressure Mr Lawrence. Help reignite me and my reading challenge.

And I’m so pleased I did. This book was very difficult to put down, with it’s fast pace, action and intrigue around every page and corner. The main character Jorg – Prince of Ancrath, is great. He’s your role-model anti-hero. Nasty, cruel, uncaring but with some charismatic feature and hard done too past that has you championing him every step of the way. And deep down, we all know he’s a good guy. In some perverse way.

The story is around our young prince, Jorg, who has quite a difficult time and child hood. And we then follow him as he goes through life looking for revenge, redemption and to….long term…rule the world? Him and his band of ‘not so’ merry men are a joy and you can’t help but like them. Drinking, fighting and pillaging. But be warned, like Jorg, the author has no qualms with killing one or two off! The author also has no qualms with gore, violence and a little cruelty. I say little, as although there are moments of ‘darkness’ it isn’t too much and it doesn’t ruin the story or book. And I am normally quite sensitive too such things.

So overall, I really enjoyed this book. Will definitely be reading the rest of the series and the rest of the author’s work! Thumbs up and I’m back reading again.

Five out of five stars!

Book #45 – Far North by Marcel Theroux

This is the second book I’ve picked up from the Library.  This has been on my to-read-list for a good number of years, so was pleased to find it.  And what do we find? Well, Far North is a post-apocalyptic story, which follows our main character and hero Makepeace as she survives a new, cold, harsh and desperate new world in the snowy, chilly setting of Siberia.

The author Theroux has done a good job here, everything is beautifully written and descriptive, but he also keeps things simple, things aren’t bogged down in detail. He also only reveals what the main character knows, which keeps everything quite real, understated and helps keeps the pace up. However, and it’s not a complaint at such, this style does leave us readers with lots of unanswered questions about the world, what has happened before or elsewhere for example.

So did I enjoy this book? Now that is a tough one to answer. The book has a sadness to it, which considering the theme is fine. But I’m not convinced we have much of a plot here either and we have one to many unlikely events which maybe pushed/put me off from believing everything the characters where going through.

And something that really did ruin things for me a little, sorry to say, was the revelation in chapter three that Makepeace was actually a woman. Up to this point I’d pictured a grizzly old, cowboy type male, so to suddenly spring this change on me and how I was imaging the world was a big adjustment.

So I’m going to give this a, sit on the fence, three stars. Edging more to I liked it then just ok.

Book #46 – I am a Small God by AJ Dalton

This is a nice, refreshing (almost) and humorous little book (100 pages) about a god named Ecrelis who is our hero, small god and narrator throughout the story. There is a menacingly powerful new war god taking over from the East, I’ll let you read this to work out who it is, who is going around slowly killing off the old gods including those from the ancient Greeks, the Celtics, the Egyptians etc. etc. with the help? Not really help, forced assistance of our hero Ecrelis.

There is a definite intelligence in the writing here, from the wit that is used throughout to the thought provoking actions and ideas we read about as we travel through history and time as our hero, and the war gods, adventures continue to a climatic end.

So this is, overall, a good book that is intelligent, witty and insightful with a likeable, intelligent, witty and insightful hero/underdog main character that you can’t help cheering for. A good book.

Three out of five stars.  I liked it.

 

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Now, back to the library to return a couple of books and find some new ones!