192 replies to this topic

[SweeneyxxTodd]

That time of year again. This year, I'm aiming to read 60 books.

1. Mitosis by Brandon Sanderson
2. The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson
3. Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure by Jeffrey Rowe and Lissa Rovetch
4. World After by Susan Ee
5. Golden Son by Pierce Brown
6. How to Break a Dragon's Heart by Cressida Cowell
7. The Serpent's Heir by Dean DuBlois, Richard Hamilton, and Doug Wheatley
8. Morning Star by Pierce Brown
9. Copperhead vol 2 by Jay Faerber
10. When My Heart Was Wicked by Tricia Sterling
11. End of Days by Susan Ee

12. Illuminae by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kauffman
13. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas
14. The Greatest Controversies of Early Christian History by Bart D. Erhman
15. How to Steal a Dragon's Sword by Cressida Cowell
16. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
17. The Search for Wondla by Tony DiTerlizzi
18. The Hidden Gallery by Maryrose Wood
19. Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan
20. A Hero for Wondla by Tony DiTerlizzi
21. The Heart of Betrayal by Mary E. Pearson
22. Over the Garden Wall: Tome of the Unknown by Pat McHale and Jim Campbell 
23. Over the Garden Wall volume 1 by Jim Campbell
24. Truthwitch by Susan Dennard
25. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
26. Wires and Nerve volume 1 by Marissa Meyer
27. The Battle for Wondla by Tony DiTerlizzi
28. The Countdown Conspiracy by Katie Slivensky
29. Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
30. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
31. Big Hero 6 vol. 2 by Haruki Ueno
32. Big Hero 6, vol. 1 by Haruki Ueno

33. The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan
34-40. Fullmetal Alchemist volumes 1-7 by Hiromu Arakawa (not reviewing, but counting towards goal)
41. Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab (review pending)
42. The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan (review pending)

43. How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel by Cressida Cowell (review pending)
44. The Unseen Guest by Maryrose Wood (review pending)
45. Icefall by Matthew J Kirby (reread, review pending)
46. Native Peoples of North America by Daniel M Cobb (review pending)
47. The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (review pending)
48. The Interrupted Tale by Maryrose Wood (review pending)
49. Quidditch Through the Ages by J.K. Rowling (review pending)
50. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling (reread, review pending)
51. Language A to Z by John McWhorter (review pending)
52. The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson (review pending)
53. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them illustrated edition by J.K. Rowling (review pending)
54. Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson (review pending)

55. Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson (review pending)
56. Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson (review pending)
57.
58.
59.
60.

Other Goals:

Finish Books Started in 2016:
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (DNF'd because I haven't had any desire to pick it back up)
Splintered by A.G. Howard (I decided to DNF this because I'm really not all that interested in it.)

No longer doing any more of the goals in this section

Finish Series:
Myst Tie-in trilogy (2 books to go)
Heroes of Olympus series *3/5 through*

Other goals of this year:
Read at least one of the books in my Fairy Tales From Around the World leatherbound collection
Read one classic

Goals Achieved:
Finish The Kiss of Deception by Mary E Pearson

Finish Angelfall trilogy by Susan Ee

Finish Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown

Read at least 3 non-fiction books (The Great Courses lectures and fairy/folk tale/mythology both count) (!!! First time meeting this goal!)

[Chompyzilla]

That's a tough goal.
Good luck with all that!

[Mara=^.^=]

I'll be rootin' for ya, sis!

 

~*Mara*~ = ^.^ =

[Katia11]

I set my goal for 40 again this year.  

[JimmyxxCindy4EVER]

Best of luck with that, Kate!

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Mitosis by Brandon Sanderson

(The Reckoners tie-in short story)

 

Solid 4 stars. Short and to the point. I do wish this had been a bit longer, and that we'd gotten some more of Mitosis' backstory, but for what it was, it really worked. This short was intended to give us a hint about an aspect of the Epics' nature and their powers/weaknesses, which is explained more fully in the series itself, so it really wasn't necessary to do more than hint at it here, which is why I can't really fault the story for much. I guess the only complaint I have is that we didn't have the full Reckoners team here, which I think would have made this short even better. I would really like to have had Cody's contribution, which is always funny.

[Katia11]

This is a series I've been eyeing.... 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

This is a series I've been eyeing....

Read it! Oh my godddd it's incredible.

[Katia11]

On the must read list now!  

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson

The Remnant Chronicles #1

 

3.5 stars

This book had a great start. It got right into the action in the first chapter or two, during Lia's run from her wedding, but then it sorta stalled out for a couple hundred pages before picking up again about 2/3 of the way through and then moving at a steady pace. I knew throughout the whole time that there wasn't anything I really disliked about the story--the characters felt well-rounded for the most part, and the plot wasn't uninteresting or anything--but I did sometimes wonder if anything was actually going to happen.

There are a lot of tropes and cliches in this book that are typical of YA books, and YA fantasies in particular, though they were generally handled well. In my opinion, the most interesting parts of this book were the parts that focused on the lore, religious beliefs and practices, and the cultural tensions and different languages of the kingdoms featured in the story. The plot itself, while not bad, was where the tropes and cliches happened, so I generally was less interested in that than I was in the backstory and mythos of the world.

Overall, I got the impression that Mary Pearson had a great idea for a story, with a really intriguing world and interesting, layered characters, but that she thought she had to throw a bunch of tropes in there to catch readers' attention so they'd stay for the next book, where she'll get to the story she actually wants to tell.

So while I'm not super impressed by this book itself, I am very impressed with the world building and want to check out the second book, at the very least, to see if it lives up to what I'm expecting it to.

 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure by Jeffrey Rowe and Lissa Rovetch

 

4.5 stars

 

This book was really fun! I loved that there were so many illustrations included, and that they were all full-color. I also loved that code page that gave us a secret about Bill. I didn't get to it until I was almost done with the book because it was accessed through the last path I chose to take near the beginning, but I'm actually kind of glad that I didn't learn it until the end. It made it that much more satisfying, flipping through the entire book following fun adventures and hilarious nods to the series before finally reaching the one canon secret that Alex Hirsch said was hidden in this non-canon story.

 

Overall, a great addition to my little collection of Gravity Falls books. I hope there are more to come in the future.

 

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

World After by Susan Ee

 

3.5 stars

 

I thought this book was a bit slower going than Angelfall. It took me longer to get interested in the story, but once I was hooked, I was flying through. This was a good installment in the story, but I do have to admit that it was borderline "middle book syndrome" at times. Less happened than I would have expected to in a second book in a series, though more was learned overall than in the first one. I hope the last book really blows everything out of the park.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Golden Son by Pierce Brown

(Red Rising #2)

 

Holy hell. What a sequel.

 

I had forgotten how much I adored Red Rising until I picked this book up, and now I'm completely hooked. I don't think I can wait as long to read Morning Star as I waited to read this. This series is absolutely phenomenal, and despite not having read the last installment yet, I know it'll sit solidly in my top five favorites of all time. The Society is so well thought out, and characters are so well developed and so three-dimensional. Brown really makes good use out of the Good is Not Nice, Deliberate Values Dissonance, and Dark is Not Evil tropes. Many of the characters on the side of "good" are not paragons of virtue and flawless morals, in fact many of them hold a fair few double standards and this is acknowledged in the story--they are not necessarily bad people, but they may do bad things or hold unsavory values. And the antagonists as well seem like real people, as if they had really lived their whole lives and been shaped by their society into what they are, and the vast moral gray area we were introduced to in the first book just keeps getting bigger.

 

I am so excited to read the conclusion. This book gets a solid five stars, and deserves every single one of them without doubt.

[Mara=^.^=]

Guess I'll pick up this series next time I go to the library.

 

~*Mara*~ = ^.^ =

[SweeneyxxTodd]

Doooooooo itttttt omg it's so great. I ordered the last book off Amazon the other day and it's arriving sometime later today. I'm so excited.

[Mara=^.^=]

So, I read the first 45 pages of Red Rising today. And I like...viscerally hate it. I had to stop because of how much I cannot stand the narration; something about the prose strikes me as pretentiously grandiose, like a Redditor fedora guy waxing eloquent about shit. Does the book get better from here, Mary, or do you think I won't like the rest of it if I didn't like the first 6 chapters? I need to know whether to continue pushing through.

 

~*Mara*~ = ^.^ =

[SweeneyxxTodd]

So, I read the first 45 pages of Red Rising today. And I like...viscerally hate it. I had to stop because of how much I cannot stand the narration; something about the prose strikes me as pretentiously grandiose, like a Redditor fedora guy waxing eloquent about shit. Does the book get better from here, Mary, or do you think I won't like the rest of it if I didn't like the first 6 chapters? I need to know whether to continue pushing through.

~*Mara*~ = ^.^ =

If you hate the writing style that much, you might as well stop now. I gotta admit I'm really sad you don't like it because this is one of my favorite series of all time, but style is hard to ignore in favor of a plot. I can't read The Hunger Games because of how much I hate the writing style. It sounds stilted and juvenile to me, but obviously plenty of people think it's great. Style is really subjective. So if you want to try giving it more time to grow on you, that's up to you, but from how you describe it, it sounds to me like this just isn't for you.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

How to Break a Dragon's Heart by Cressida Cowell

 

3.5 stars

 

The series is finally starting to show elements of a larger plot, outgrowing its seemingly episodic nature from the beginning of the series, which I quite enjoyed. I liked the glimpse into the end-game for these books, which I was starting to doubt would ever really happen when I was reading books five through seven. So overall, a good book, but I do think that the series started taking itself seriously a little too late. I would have liked to have seen more of this sort of foreshadowing earlier on.

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

The Serpent's Heir by Dean DuBlois, Richard Hamilton, and Doug Wheatley

(How to Train Your Dragon comics #1)

 

This was really fun. It was good to see the normally CGI-rendered characters portrayed in a more traditional graphic novel style, and I was also excited to see how the aftermath of the second movie would pan out for everyone. There were some parts I was a bit fuzzy on, having not seen the second movie all that recently, but it didn't impact my ability to understand this at all. I thought the choice of antagonist was...kinda hilarious, actually? I'm sure it was supposed to be at least a little serious (despite Hiccup's jokes), but I couldn't help but laugh at his motivation. It was just so bizarre.

 

Spoiler

I mean, an otherkin?? Seriously???

 

I also really appreciated this joke from the end: "Considering all the <i>other</i> holes we could've been in, I'd say we got lucky."

 

4 stars

[SweeneyxxTodd]

REVIEW:

 

 

Morning Star by Pierce Brown

(Red Rising Trilogy #3)

 

5 stars

 

Absolutely phenomenal end to the series. I loved every minute of it--and I went through quite the rollercoaster of emotions. I love these characters so much, all of them. They all feel so real and so layered and I got so attached to them. When they were hurting, my heart ached right along with them. These are the types of characters I strive to create myself in my own writing, and I hope I can do it half as well.

 

I also loved that even after getting to know Darrow for three books, I still found it hard to predict the crazy shit he was going to do--or, more often than not, the crazy shit he was going to make Sevro do. And Sevro would excitedly go along with every batshit idea, because he himself is twice as batshit crazy and impulsive and ridiculous as everyone else combined, and I love him. I love those two together specificually--Darrow and Sevro's friendship is one of the best I've read in books in a long time. Equal parts trolling, gross humor, crazy plotting, and the deepest heart-to-hearts either of them has ever had with another human being. A true bromance worthy of envy. This was one of my favorite of their interactions:

 

"Sevro, you're a lot of things. You're smelly. You're small. Your tattoo taste is questionable. Your pornographic proclivities are...uh, eccentric. And you've got really weird toenails."

 

He swivels to look at me. "Weird?"

 

"They're really long, mate. Like...you should trim them."

 

"Nah. They're good for hanging on to things."--page 412

 

 

 

And Darrow can't tell if that's even a joke? But then Sevro also goes around saying awesome stuff like this:

 

“We are the new age. The new world. And if we’re to show the way, then we better damn well make it a better one. I am Sevro au Barca. And I am no longer afraid.”--page 429

 

 

Sevro's just my favorite, overall. My little goblin-faced killer with a wolf cloak and a well-hidden, deeply buried cinnamon roll side that grows a goatee because the Amazon lady he's got an eye on complimented some other guy's goatee, so that means he needs one now, and who steamrolled himself into Darrow's family and refers to himself as Uncle Sevro when visiting Darrow's nieces and nephews and tries so hard to censor his sailor mouth around them but fails miserably. He's great. Him and Ragnar both. I was kinda indifferent to Ragnar when we first met him in Golden Son but he was so loveable in this book. He was like another Pax.

 

Anyway, I've rambled long enough. This is a fantastic trilogy. It gets better with each installment and has a huge cast of both loveable and despicable characters, but even the awful ones you can find some sympathy for. It's settled in quite nicely in the number two spot on my favorite series list, after The Lunar Chronicles (and excluding Harry Potter, which I no longer include in my ranking because it would always win and that didn't seem fair).