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What are you reading 2021
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Elena
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Mar 26, 2021 09:25PM
@Heather it's ok, just not my genre I think. And I'm not going to read Eleanor & Park. Also it's ok if you don't like the books everyone loved, you don't have to feel sorry for that!
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@Elena, your right but sooo many people loved it and I was trying to figure out if I missed something because I didn’t..lol!
Finished 2 more books:
is a good romance but there are better ones by the same author.
I wanted to love this book and expectations were high as the first book was amazing. Though the second one was average. I expected more academia content and better writing, interesting twists but never get any :(Currently reading:
I've been on and off with this book for don't know how many times and finally have only 100 pages left. I have some mixed thoughts about this one. I enjoyed more reading about secondary characters and story lines. Also Dorian is so annoying.
I've heard so much good reviews of this series and wanted to enjoy this book but the thing is... I can't get into the story. It is good, the idea is great, the writing style is amazing but I feel nothing reading this book.
Mod
I rated Fangirl higher than I ever should have, I was more lenient when I read it and felt like I should have loved it more than I did. You totally need some more Percy Jackson time though.
Mod
so goodNext up I am finally getting to
Ah I hope you enjoy A Good Girl's Guide To Murder Britt! Glad to see you liked The House of Hades, it was my favourite Heroes of Olympus book!
@Brittany but the good thing is that after those reads now I have more time for PJ series and it's even more enjoyable.I'm also glad you're enjoying your reads.
I was on a bit of a roll this week and got a lot of stuff read. 
-5 StarsHands down the best of the week and a bit of a surprise honestly. I had thrown this on my TBR pile at some point and I can't remember why but it helped finish a challenge for the month. This is a middle grade horror novel and I might say one of the better ones. A lot of the time with middle grade horror, especially ones involving ghosts, they just aren't scary. The "ghost" is basically a kid with someone holding a flashlight behind him making him glow. I understand that the books are for kids and I'm not a kid but still. This book had some genuinely creepy moments especially towards the end of the book. Basically a family moves to Washington from New York after one of their daughters recovered from some incident that had hospitalized her for several months. The daughter doesn't remember what happened in New York and because of where she was no one really knows what happened either. The younger brother finds a new "invisible" friend at the house and starts to change. The daughter that was hospitalized has to help him out and in the process starts to regain her memories. Both story lines are engaging and there are some good characters in this book. I'll also mention that there is some social commentary in the book. Nothing to heavy handed or preachy though. The MC is of mixed race and has to deal with an incident of racism and self-confidence issues in regards to her looks. It rather fits with the novel and never feels like the book is pausing it's story to preach.
-3 StarI feel like I need one of those tack boards from the old cop shows with a whole lot of string to keep this story straight. I'm not going to get into a whole lot of detail as there could be a lot of spoilers depending on where you are with the LN/anime/manga. Let's just say that there are two different story lines and each story line is told from multiple POV's with the entire story switching back and forth at random. Once you get your head around things it's not that hard to keep the time lines separate but it has a monster roster of characters and it's not afraid to throw more at you. This is the book where those two story lines finally meetup, kind of, and I'm interested to see where things go from here. This book continues to have the same issue that the rest of the series has which is that the spider story line is just more interesting than the human one. I also want to touch on the ending but I can't for spoiler reasons. That twist that was dropped on us at the end was the most unexpected, out of left field, wtf is happening twist that I've read in a long time. It just added to the general feeling of wanting to know more about what is happening the world and just why.
-3 StarA PNR with a smattering of smut. There really isn't a lot to say about this book honestly. It's not a bad book, it's pretty much what you would expect from a PNR. Curvy, attractive female lead. Shredded male lead that is well "equipped". Borderline instalove, a bit of outside tension, and a smattering of sexy scenes for heat. This was a pure popcorn, turn your brain off, kind of book.
-3 StarsThis isn't a series or the kind of book that most people will like. It's a men's adventure novel and I've kind of got the nostalgia goggles on when it comes to books of this nature. I read a lot of books like this growing up and every once in a while I get the urge to read one again. It's basically an action movie in book format. The Executioner gets a tip that bad things are happening, shows up to investigate, proceeds to kill everything in his path until the antagonist is dead. Sprinkle in details about guns/cars/etc, rinse and repeat.
-3 StarsAfter finishing up my books from the week early Saturday morning I found myself in a bit of a book funk. I didn't want to read what I had on hand and I didn't know what I wanted to read in general. I went poking around Libby and stumbled across this book and had a great time reading it. This, in a way, is also another childhood read but with a twist. I read a lot of Westerns growing up, in particular Louis L'Amour, but as an adult I just can't stand them. The books are just boring. That's when I discovered the sub-genre of Weird Westerns. Basically take all the things you would associate with a typical Western novel but inject elements of fantasy/horror/sci-fi into it. The genre just clicks with me and I love it. This book is a collection of four short stories about the reverend Jebidiah. He is a man of God, old testament God, who has been tasked with eliminating evil in God's name. Now he doesn't do this with prayer and sermons but with his trusty Colt and a silver bullet. Listen, I'll be honest here, this is cheese but cheese of the finest quality. It has werewolf conquistadors, kobolds, the undead, beings from beyond the veil, and enough grit to gum up an engine.
-3 StarsMy random comic pick of the week. This is about a small town riding on the local Sasquatch myth and the tourism it brings. Of course that tourism dries up over time and the town is dying. The MC is determined to save the town and this book is about that journey. The MC is coming up on life as an adult and what happens after high school. The story wasn't bad and the art work was pretty good but it feels like a story I've read before. I'd still recommend it for those that like this genre of books.
I also read two more volumes of Fairy Tail. Still nothing crazy to say here.
Next week I plan to read
and
. I'm also picking up some new manga from the library today that I plan on checking out.
Mod
Elena true enough!
Jae how did you like Speak?
Gord nice reading!
Mod
loved it, especially how the narration was done. It is such a different story than the Grisha trilogy but that's partly because its a different genre really. I liked the way the heist was put together and all the side plans. Looking forward to reading the second book and can't wait for the TV show to start.Next up on audio is
I finished this book yesterday but couldn't collect my thoughts to write something. It was so tense, so emotional! I cried in the end! Final chapters made it worth struggling through the first half of the book and elevated the rating from meh 2 stars up to gorgeous 5! Now I can't read anything else till (view spoiler). So I'm reading the next book today during the lunchtime and just any small breaks I can fit into my working schedule.
Mod
@Lili yeah! The thing is that there is a really small chance when the pretty boring book becomes something amazing and somehow it's even better than the amazing book from the beginning.
I just finished
, lots of tears! Now I have to wait for the next one.
@Heather this week we are the ones who cry :DD
Elena wrote: "@Heather this week we are the ones who cry :DD"we are!! it was a very bad ugly cry too:)
Mod
I figured I'd do this wrap up a little early today and then go back to my reading.
-5 StarsIt's funny how far I've come since the beginning of this series and how far the books have come along. That first book had a really rough translation and I nearly dropped it after that. Since the series has really won me over and I'm enjoying the story that is being told. This book was another one that took place in the city of Orario but this one decided to dive into some darker subject matter. Honestly I was rather surprised how dark this was willing to go. This takes place in the red light district/pleasure quarters of the city so of course it deals with a lot of prostitution. It also dives into matters of human trafficking (It's about more creatures than just humans but I can't think of a better term for it) and some of the scenes, well, (view spoiler)
I loved the darker subject matter and exploring the seedier underbelly of this city. I've also come to really like the action scenes in this series. It just flows smoothly and just pulls you into the story itself. The fact that this happens in a translation is impressive. While the MC's do have a certain level of protection because they are the MC's it feels like they get fed through the grinder sometimes to get to their goal and I rather enjoy it. Reading on in this series is a given at this point but I'm also looking at the various spin off series just to see what else is there in this world.
-3 StarsHonestly this book should have been a 2 star book but I decided to round it up for a couple of things. This is one of the books that has a super interesting idea that just failed in its execution. This book takes place in the world of Imagination where everything is geared around assisting the Author in creating their new story. This could be by having people like our MC enrolling in Protagonist Preparatory where they learn to be the Protagonists, the side characters, or maybe just a cameo. Their is also an Antagonist school where the bad guys get to brush up on their dastardly skills. Those who aren't chosen to go to one of those skills might find themselves working in the mines digging for story nuggets that will get polished and passed on the Authors. It's a very interesting idea that has a lot of potential but everything felt flat in this world. I didn't care about the MC, I didn't care about the side characters, honestly there was really only one character I enjoyed and they barely got any page time. The world building just felt like a jumbled mess. It started out feeling like a generic medieval fantasy novel, it then suddenly started talking about mochas, airports, TV's, going to Amsterdam, etc with no real explanation. I get what the author was trying to do but it could have been handled so much better. Maybe have the main city split into various districts for each genre or something like that. If you wanted to go for a city wide shift explain what is happening and why. A lot of my issues with this book all come back to the same complaint, there is a great idea there but it's not properly fleshed out.
Now what did I like the book beside the basic idea? The literary references that are everywhere. You have references to a lot of other books such as Sherlock Holmes, Stephen King, Dracula, Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc,etc. In a world like this it made sense to have all these references and it was a nice touch. I also loved the teacher Alice from Alice in Wonderland. I know this is odd as I hated the Alice in Wonderland novels but I loved the world of Alice and I think books that explore the more darker or insane ideas of the world are fascinating. In this one Alice is a teacher of the Last Minute Escapes class. She has no scheduled time or location for her class. You will just be walking through the school and suddenly will get yanked into the floor/ceiling/wall, deposited somewhere in the school with the rest of your class, Alice will show up to give a hint, and then vanish. It's up to the class to figure out to escape what ever scheme she cooked up. Like so many other things though this could have been fleshed out so much more.
I'm kind of conflicted about this series. I went in expecting something like Way of the House Husband and what I got was something completely different. This is a Josei manga or a manga aimed at older teenage girls and adult women with themes centered on more female interests. It's not really an area of manga I've ever really explored. This manga was about this young woman who gets engaged to guy with a large family and of course she has a secret. In her past she was part of a Bosozoku, basically a biker gang, and because of her upbringing she has no skills as a traditional house wife. The future husband basically bounces in the first few pages for business never to be seen again for the series. Not that he abandoned her and ran away but he was just gone for business. Due to the engaged status she finds herself living with his family. The book then basically becomes a drama. Secrets are revealed, young romance is explored, family bonds are also explored. It's not bad but it never really clicked with me either. It just wasn't what I was expecting.
Right now I'm reading
and
After that I plan on tackling
Mod
I finished this book yesterday but couldn't collect my thoughts to write something. It was so tense, so emotional! I cried in the end! Final chapters made it w..."I told you it gets better!!! Glad you finally finished it
Mod
finally!"Yay for finally finishing it! How was it?
Brittany wrote: "Jo wrote: "Finished finally!"Yay for finally finishing it! How was it?"
Kind of disappointing tbh! I found a lot of it quite confusing and hard to follow, the romance was super cliche and I really didn't like the misogynistic attitudes of the leaders of the different Hunter families-they're descendants of the Greek gods not living in Ancient Greece, they can't have been that cut off from the modern world that feminism never reached them!
Mod
It was! I was really looking forward to it because I love Greek mythology, but sadly didn't live up to expectations.
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YA Addicted Book Club
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