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What are you reading 2021
message 901:
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Brittany
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Dec 18, 2021 09:27PM
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Finished
yesterday, really enjoyed it. My final audiobook of the year is going to be
which is fairly short so I'm hoping I'll finish it before the end of the year.
Jo, I loved Trever Noah's book when I listened to it! Hope you enjoy it!
HeatherH wrote: "Jo, I loved Trever Noah's book when I listened to it! Hope you enjoy it!"I hope so too! I thought it would be a really interesting one to read since I went to South Africa last year and have a bit more understanding of its history now!
Time for a brief recap of the last week. I've been doing a lot of mood reading this week honestly. 
-3 StarsI had some reservations heading into this one. I'll be perfectly honest here, these books, like the Rogue Angel series, are not peak literature. This series is kind of special to me though as it was the series that got me into the whole post apocalypse genre when I was a wee little teen. It still has a bit of a special place as I love the brutal vision of a world long after the bombs have dropped. Mutations, radiation sickness, power hungry evil people, religious crazies, etc. This isn't humanity at its best, it's humanity at its worst. The series has been teasing this Japanese angle to the story for a while now and we finally get to see a post apocalyptic Japan in this one. I was a little concerned how they were going to handle the Japan angle in this one. It never really got offensive but it danced real close to the line more than a few times. It felt like they had shoe horned in just about every Japanese stereotype in this book. Even though it was supposedly semi-medieval times they still had a karaoke machine, pachinko machines, etc. They had to get the whole seppuku thing in there more than once as well. There was the nonstop talk of honor and bushido. It really felt like a mid 90's attempt at shoeing in all things Japanese. The one that probably rubbed me the wrong way the most was the whole manga thing. They did the very 90's thing where they tried portraying all manga as these super sexually violent comics. I just felt my inner nerd reach up, adjust his glasses, and say "well actually...". Outside of the Japan angle this was just another Deathlands book. Guns, women, shooting, trans gates, etc. Pure mindless popcorn reading.
-5 StarsYup, a mood week and I read more In Death, shocking I know. This book here really returned to the In Death formula but I'm not complaining. The last couple of books were amazing but really emotional, especially the last one, so this kind of felt like a lighter return to norm to act as a palette cleanser in a way. I like these books, everyone knows it, and I don't have a lot more to say.
-3 StarWhile mostly mood reading I did slide in a challenge book this week. This was a very middle of the road book. I'd say this is a Kindle freebie but I don't think it's on Kindle anymore. It's free on Kobo and I got my copy through the library. Like a lot of these ebook series where the first book is free it was a tease of what was to come in the series. This one didn't really annoy me though as it didn't just drop the plot midway so that you had the buy the second book to finish the plot. This one just took the bold choice of not having a plot to drop. I know that's not an endearing way to start my review of this book but there wasn't really a whole lot that happened in this book. Basically our MC finds out about the supernatural, gets a new job, and goes on her first case. What I liked about this book was the setting and the MC. This takes place in Anchorage and our MC is an apprentice grim reaper. More specifically our MC is widow and a single mom of three. After losing her husband she sank into her grief for a year really letting herself just fall apart. After certain events in the beginning of the book she finds herself with a job and putting her life back together. I love the fact this MC is very normal. I'm not going to say flawed, just normal. She is in mid-thirties, she isn't as fit as she used to be, and her life is about her kids. It kind of refreshing to have this normal MC in an urban fantasy. I definitely plan to at least check out the second book to see where things are going.
-5 StarsNow this was the ultimate mood read for me this week. I've been reading a lot of cute fluffy stuff lately and I just wanted a change of pace. I've also been meaning to pick this series up again as there have been several new books that have come out that I've just never got around to. This book is just a fun read for me. Sometimes the best ways to deal with the monsters that go bump in the dark is by shooting them in the face with really big guns and/or by using lots of explosives. That is this book in a nutshell. Our MC is an "accountant" who happens to be over 6' tall and can bench press 400lbs who gets attacked by a werewolf. After managing to kill the werewolf with his bare hands, and the use of an office desk through a window, he gets recruited to be a monster hunter. You have ancient evils, prophecies, vampires, and lots of illegal weapons. I took a couple days to read this and just had a fun time all the way through. I'm definitely reading through the series again.
-3 StarsOne of the original three webcomics that got me into webcomics way back in the mid 2000's. I saw that my library had a copy of this and I just had to check it out for nostalgia. This really is a tough one as I have a lot of memories of reading this comic and loving it. Reading it in a condensed format like this was interesting and I think it speaks to how my tastes have changed though. I still loved some of the lunacy that happens in the background but a lot of the more emotional/romance related stuff just doesn't interest me as much any more. I was pondering a reread of the entire series again but honestly after this I probably won't bother. As for the other two webcomics from back in the day there was Ctrl-Alt-Delete which I'm never touching again and 8 Bit Theater which I am slowly working through right now.
-3 StarsI read these so that I could get them back to the library and I probably wasn't 100% in the mood for these. These were still cute, innocent, and all that but I just felt like they were starting to take on a whiny or angsty kind of air to them. Instead of anything really happening it was just a lot of time spent in the characters head wondering what to do, what the other person was thinking, etc. It just didn't click with me and I'm not sure if I want to keep reading.
-4 StarI wasn't sure how I was going to like this one after the last volume. I really do love how realistic this portrayed emotions and relationships but there is a part of it that kind of feels like it's dragging a bit. Now for the long wait for the next volume.
-4 StarI'm just loving this series. The combination of absurd food stuff and the shonen battle manga stuff is just working for me.
Over the next week I've already got some stuff lined up. I'm currently reading
and after that I've also got
.I'm also starting In Another World with My Smartphone. Don't, don't, don't judge. Yes it's trashy isekai, not the trashiest of isekai but pretty far down there. I'm just looking for something mindless to read alright.
This month was dedicated to the Shadowhunters world mostly and this week is not an exception.
- I think I've enjoyed the series even more than the original one.
- the selection of romantic stories for this week was good and cozy. Liked every book but my favourite was the Spring at Blueberry Bay (I love the trope with rich man - poor woman).
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Seeing people read the Shadowhunter books makes me want to read them too, but I can't find Queen of Air and Darkness anywhere. I started reading these books in Dutch, so I don't want to switch languages since names and other things change in translations. So here I am, hoping I'll ever be able to finish the series haha.
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Oh no Gwen! That sucks 😞 I hope you find it! Have you tried Book Depository? They're usually pretty good at having different international editions of books.
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Glad you've been enjoying all the shadow hunter catch up Elena! Reminding me that I really need to get back at that myself...
I tried Book Depository, but they don't have it either. I guess it is completely sold out, so I hope there will be a second print. I tried secondhand bookshops too, but no one has it.
So my final books of 2021 (okay well one audiobook and two comics but comics still count!): 
-I read the first two issues of The Night of Knives, the second arc of The Steel Prince comics by VE Schwab. They were exactly what I needed, 2 very quick reads to help me reach my Goodreads goal, and I'm excited to read the other two comics in the arc at a later date (probably when I'm struggling to reach my Goodreads goal next year haha). My last audiobook of the year
also happens to be my favourite book of the year, so way to end on a high! It was incredibly entertaining and Trevor Noah was a great narrator, definitely one of the best memoirs I've listened to!
Mod
Awesome about ending the year on a high point Jo!
Thanks! Yeah the comics were very useful at getting me to my GR goal because I was never going to finish anything long in the last two days of the year.
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