Cil's Reading Challenge 2016 (22 books)

[Cil]

Okay, so I really hope I'm doing this right, since it's the first challenge I'm doing on GR.
Maybe I'm gonna make some changes in my list now and then since I'm not very good in sticking to plans...

So, I thought it to be quite difficult to only stick to one challenge so I mixed a few of them, to make my own..

Most of my list is from the "Around the Year in 52 Books". But there are also some of the "Popsugar 2016 Reading Challenge" and the "Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge 2016".

The order I'm gonna read them in is random.


1. A book you meant to read in 2015, but didn't
Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary

✔2. A book by an author you discovered in 2015
On Wings, Rising

3. A book with a title beginning with the 1st letter of your name
A Fashionable Indulgence

✔4. The highest rated on your TBR
Hadassa

5. A book by an author you feel you should have read by now
Der Stern der Pandora (Pandora's Star)

✔6. A book with one of the five W’s -or H in the title (Who/What/Where/When/Why/How)
What remains

7. A book set in the past (more than 100 years ago)
Brothers of the Wild North Sea

✔8. A book with a first name in the title
Noah

9. The first book in a new to you series
One breath, one bullet

✔10. A book you can finish in a day
Test of Faith

✔11. A historical fiction book
The Gladiator’s Master

✔12. The 16th book on your TBR
Counterpoint

✔13. A book about mental illness
Aftermath

14. A crime story
Shades of Gray

15. A romance set in the future
In His Command

✔16. A book under 150 pages
The Pillar

17. A book that's more than 600 pages
Close Protection

18. A book with a blue cover
VILM 01 - Der Regenplanet

19. A book about a road trip
Astounding!

20. A book that takes place on an island
Savages

✔21. Read a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel
Tagebuch der Apokalypse (Day by Day Armageddon)

✔22. Read a book by or about a person that identifies as transgender
Change for the Better

[Cil]

#1 Read a book by or about a person that identifies as transgender
Change for the Better, 4 stars

I've finished the first book in my challenge! Yay! Okay, actually it's the last one but who cares? ;-)

Well, this was a really interesting read for me. It's a topic I don't know very much about, so it was also very educating. The author seems to have done a lot of research.
I also liked the fact that this was about a transgender man, rather than a transgender woman. Actually I think both should be covered more in media, but in my experience, at this point we hear more about transgender women than transgender men in the media. So I appreciated this variation.

The relationship was done very nicely and in my opinion realistically. Especially Flynn's doubts (view spoiler)[and his overcoming of them in the end (hide spoiler)] seemed genuine to me.

And finally, let me just say that I loved the fact, they were both RPG players! (I'm kind of a big geek myself.) It's something I haven't read before in a book.

[Cil]

#2 A historical fiction book
The Gladiator’s Master, 5 stars

While reading this book, I felt like the authors peeked into my head and wrote down all the things I love. I cannot describe it any better. This really had everything I like: an enemies to lovers relationship (well, at least on Gaidres side), interesting historical setting, a complicated relationship, very likeable characters who couldn't be more different and still complement each other so well and also some sappy (but very well earned!) moments that made me feel all warm and happy.

I really loved the development of Caelius' and Gaidres' relationship. Even though it was insta-lust, it definitely wasn't insta-love. That took a long, long time. Gaidres feelings on the subject, his inner turmoil about slowly beginning to care about the very man he vowed to kill, were written extremely well.

I do have to admit that the whole setting reminded me a lot of the TV show Spartacus. But that's certainly not a bad thing, since I thoroughly enjoyed that show. I even dare say I enjoyed this book a little bit more.

Oh and let's not forget that this book had some of the hottest scenes I've read in a long time!

So yes, I liked this book very very much and I will definitely check out the two authors other works.

[Cil]

#3 Read a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel
Tagebuch der Apokalypse (Day by Day Armageddon), 2.5 stars

Yes, you saw that right, I'm actually reading some other things beside m/m romances sometimes. ;-) (In fact, about a third of the books in my reading challenge aren't m/m.)

Unfortunately this book didn't do much for me. It wasn't anything special and merely mediocre. It wasn't completely bad either, just pretty forgettable.

I did like the idea of a journal style telling of a zombie apocalypse. Unfortunately the author doesn't really make full use of that style. The book is written like a normal first person POV with the dates as chapter titles. I didn't really mind that too much, I just thought it was a bit of a missed opportunity.

What bothered me more were the unbelievably detailed descriptions. Usually you'd think a lot of descriptions would make a book more authentic. Not in this case. Sometimes it felt like reading an instruction manual with just as much emotion. You wouldn't really think this guy was fighting for his life, worrying about his family and the future. Everything just felt very clinical and emotionless to me. Speaking of which, I feel like I don't know the protagonist at all. He doesn't really seem to have a lot of personality.

There were some good parts were I actually experienced a little suspense. But it was way too less. I bought this as an audiobook and as such it did entertain me enough while doing my housework and stuff. But I don't think I'm gonna buy the next two books. It just didn't grip me enough.

I would give this book 2.5 stars. Since that's not possible here, I decided to be nice and round up to 3 stars.

[Cassandra]

Good luck, Cil! No need to worry about doing things right - we're very flexible because we just want to encourage reading. You can do whatever makes sense to you. :)

[Cil]

Cassandra wrote: "Good luck, Cil! No need to worry about doing things right - we're very flexible because we just want to encourage reading. You can do whatever makes sense to you. :)"

Thank you very much, Cassandra! :-) I'm really glad to hear that. I think the whole challenge thing is a very good idea, even if it's just a personal challenge I'm issuing to myself. I feel like it really does encourage me to read more.

[Cil]

#4 A book about mental illness
Aftermath, 5 stars

This was a truly touching book for me. It managed to be disturbing, tender, brutal and heartwarming at the same time. I felt and suffered with the characters and I think they earned every little piece of happiness they could get.

The story was told in two different timeframes. The first one starting shortly after they escaped their captor and the second one starting roughly at the time they were first kidnapped. Their time in captivity is told in flashbacks, written in italics. Although they are told chronologically they often have time leaps in between.
In my opinion the flasbacks were handled very well and it was at no time confusing in any way.

I think the decision to tell their kidnapping in short flashbacks was a very good and a clever one. Since we already know right from the beginning that the two MC's made it out alive, it makes the frankly really brutal and hopeless situation a little easier to stomach. Of course it's still in no way an easy read. But the flashbacks were absolutely necessary for us to really get what these men went through together. Also although there certainly was brutality, I never felt like the author just wanted to write some gratuitous and excessive violence for violence sake. There was just enough violence described to know what's going on, without indulging in it.

The whole aftermath of their ordeal was very well and in my opinion realistically done. I also really liked the dynamic between Austin and Cam and how their relationship slowly changed over the time. Speaking of which, I like the fact, that they didn't become lovers until they escaped and tried to continue their previous lives. A romantic relationship probably wouldn't have felt authentic during their captivity. In a way, for me it made the very deep bond they forged in captivity even more special, because it started as just platonic.

[Cassandra]

It helps me too! It helps keep reading at the top of my mind so I make sure to set aside time for it. That said, I'm a bit behind on my challenge right now!

[Cil]

#5 A book under 150 pages
The Pillar, 4 stars

This was a very sweet book. It's the third book I'm reading by Kim Fielding and I think by now I can really trust that she won't disappoint me.

For some reason this felt more like a fantasy novel than a historical one for me. Maybe it's because I couldn't figure out exactly what epoch this took place in. But since I love fantasy books just as much, this wasn't a negative point for me.

I've seen others describe "The Pillar" to "Brute", another book by Kim Fielding that I love with all my heart. And yes, I'm also seeing some parallels, although I have to admit I did like "Brute" a little bit better. Part of the reason why is probably that "The Pillar" is just a bit too short for me.

Nonetheless this was a great book on its own. For everyone who loves touching hurt/comfort stories with some likeable characters and not too much angst, this is the book for you.

[Cil]

#6 A book with a first name in the title
Noah, 3 stars

This book was quite a disappointment for me. It wasn't exactly bad, it just wasn't at all what I was expecting.

I'm a huge Sebastian Fitzek fan. In my opinion he is the king of psychological thrillers. So when I started this book I was expecting something in the style of "Splinter" or "Therapy". Unfortunately it wasn't like that at all. Noah is written in a very different style and with a very different theme.

I do have to say though, it got a lot better after about 50%. But that was just too late. Until then I was tempted to quit way too often. I couldn't figure out what the whole book was about, what all these different, unrelated characters had to do with the story and it frankly was just boring. And "boring" definitely isn't a word I would use to describe any of the other Fitzek books I've read. I probably should have listened to an abridged edition on audible. I guess it would have benefited from it.

Also sometimes the book just seemed a bit too preachy for me. Of course the social and environmental problems thematized here are very real indeed. It was just a little too much and it gave me the impression like the preaching stuff was the main reason the author wanted to write this book, not the story itself.

So I'm still giving it 3 stars, because it really did get better in the second half and there were some pretty interesting ideas. There were just way too many boring passages that didn't add anything to the main story.

[Cil]

#7 The 16th book on your TBR
Counterpoint

To be honest, it did take me a while to really get into this book. It wasn't bad by any means, it just didn't manage to actually grip me. At least not until about 50%. While the beginning was pretty slow, the pace accelerated greatly in the second half. And yes it definitely did grip me then and I needed to know what happens next.

At first Ayden did annoy me at times because he just seemed a little too sulky to me. However I really grew to like him a lot later on, I think even better than Freyrík.

This novel also contained a lot of things I always enjoy, namely a nicely portrayed fantasy world, a slow burn relationship and an interesting enemies to lovers theme.

A little warning: The book ends on a cliffhanger. So you should better have the sequel ready. Which is what I'm intending to read next.

[Cil]

#8 A book by an author you discovered in 2015
On Wings, Rising, 2 stars

This book didn't really work for me. I didn't hate it or anything, I just couldn't connect to the stories or characters. Somehow I always kind of felt distant and indifferent.

I liked the premise but the execution could have been a lot better. Especially the world building felt very lacking to me. And in a fantasy or science fiction novel the world building is extremely important. This book felt more like a rough draft than a finished full-length novel. A lot of things were introduced but never really explained.

However the biggest problem for me was the character Moon and the Angels in general. Or rather their way of "talking". They don't actually talk but communicate telepathically. Which is a cool idea, don't get me wrong. But I didn't like the way they did that. They talked in a kind of choppy way with disconnected one-word sentences. A little example: "Bare skin. Thing. Wanted. No. Keep. Out. He. Order." This got confusing and tiring extremely fast. I usually love reading good dialog scenes, however the dialogs here felt very one-sided and severely lacking because of that.

I also didn't feel any chemistry between the two MC's or even saw much of their respective personality.

So I think this could have been a good book if the telepathic communication was handled differently and the whole story and characters were a bit more fleshed out. The way it is now, left me with a kind of hollow feeling.

[Cil]

#9 The highest rated on your TBR
Hadassa, 3 stars

This book took me a really long time to read. And there were reasons for that.

First let me start by saying, that I'm very interested in Roman history and a book about the first Christians in ancient Rome sounded like a very interesting story. The book did deliver in that department. The story did get interesting, but it took quite a while to get there. During the first half I was tempted to abandon the book more than once. Towards the end however it got really good and it even developed some suspense.

Still there were quite a few things that annoyed me greatly. The worst thing was the writing style. There was a lot of head hopping, which is usually a reason for me to stop reading. Fortunately the head hopping wasn't so extreme, that it was too distracting. Still, I would have prefered a whole chapter staying in the same perspective, instead of randomly changing during scenes.

Especially in the beginning I had some problems with the preaching part of the book. Don't get me wrong, I like to read Christian books and at times (particularly the end) it was really inspiring. The problem was, that you could tell from the very first page that the author has a message, which she wants to get across as loud and clear and as often as possible. Even for the sake of good writing or storytelling. She also seemed to try really hard to place our social issues of today into the Roman era, which just doesn't work all the time, because the mentality was just too different from ours.

There is also a lot of "telling instead of showing" going on in this book. A lot of potentially interesting storylines are skipped over and resumed afterwards. In the first half we are getting told the characters personality traits over and over again. It felt like every character who was thinking about Julia was telling us again on almost every page how beautiful but spoiled and selfish she is. Usually even with the same words. Also the author takes every chance she can possibly get to tell us how debauched Rome's population and how special, innocent, not beautiful but still weirdly attractive Hadassa is.

And here we're getting to the biggest problem I had with this book: the characters. They were all extremely two-dimensional, especially Hadassa. All the secondary characters anyway. People were mostly painted in black and white and have no character development. This even got so far, that I thought Julia to be the most interesting character. Yes, she is a terrible person, but at least she has some kind of character development, even if her character is getting worse and worse. And now that I'm thinking about it, most of the story was actually about Julia and Atretes (even though these two storylines didn't cross until well into the book). Hadassa, whom the book is actually called after, seemed to mostly play a secondary role to the story.

The love story unfortunately was very unbelievable to me. I adore a good love story. But this wasn't one. At no time I felt any love between Marcus and Hadassa. For Marcus it seemed to be sort of lust at first sight and his feelings for Hadassa mostly seemed more like an obsession than love. Hadassa's feelings on the other hand came completely out of the blue about 70% into the book. Until that time, the reader never got any idea, she could be in love with Marcus. And let's be honest, how could she? They didn't actually know each other at all and hardly changed words.

I'm really sorry to rant about this book like that. Like I said, there were some parts I liked and enjoyed and I appreciate the effort of the author. I just wish the execution could have been different.

There are two sequels to this and I don't know yet, if I'm gonna read them. I kind of want to know what happens next, since it ended with a cliffhanger and I'm especially interested to read Atretes story (which will be the main focus in the third book). But I'm not sure if I can bring myself to read two more really long books in this style...

I would actually give this book 2.5 stars. But since that's not possible here, I'm gonna round up to 3 stars.

[Cil]

#10 A book with one of the five W’s -or H in the title (Who/What/Where/When/Why/How)
What remains, 5 stars

I know it's kind of a cliché, but I've always been a fan of amnesia stories. They just provide so many possibilities.

I really liked the execution of this story. It seemed very realistic to me. Especially the fact that Jodi suffered from more than "just" the amnesia, due to his brain damage.

I enjoyed the flashbacks in the beginning to show how their relationship started five years ago and how they used to be together. This helped to really care about them and it made it a lot easier to feel Rupert's suffering when he was mourning everything they'd lost.

(view spoiler)[I'm a sucker for HEAs and this book does have a good but realistic feeling one. I really liked that Jodi didn't just all of a sudden get his memory back. He got back a few of them but most will probably forever be lost to him. Still they managed to make it work and build a new relationship. I loved that! (hide spoiler)]

As a little side note: Is it weird that this is the first MM book I've been reading where one of the MCs has a beard? :-D It was just kind of refreshing.

[Kadijah Michelle]

I like your reading challenge list. I hope you keep going strong.

[Cil]

#11 A book you can finish in a day
Test of Faith, 3 stars

Okay, I admit, it actually took me two days, instead of one. I would absolutely have been able to finish it in a day though, if I'd had a bit more time yesterday. ;-)

I'm not quite sure what I'm thinking about this book.

There were some things I didn't like. First the head-hopping! I can't stand that. But surprisingly, I had even more problems with the length. Or lack thereof. This book was just way too short. Everything happens on just two days, apart from the last two or three pages, it was even only one evening. And this is just not enough to form a meaningful friendship or relationship. Even less so if they are originally enemies. I think I would have liked it a lot better if it was more than just a short story. (Don't be fooled, even though it says here on Goodreads the book has 132 pages, that's not exactly true, since the last 32 pages are only the appendix. Also if the font size and line pitch were in a normal range, I'm sure this book wouldn't have more than maybe 50 pages.)

On the other hand, I really liked the discussions about faith and what it means for each man. Also the historical aspects were very interesting. The highly informative appendix proves how much work the authors put into the research. And that's something I'm always appreciating.

(view spoiler)[Be warned that there isn't a HEA, not even a HFN. It's a very tragic end. And even though I usually prefer a HEA, I think it was brave of the authors to actually go there and it was fitting to the whole story and it's essence. (hide spoiler)]