Currently reading
Leaving Ordinary: Encounter God Through Extraordinary Prayer
Progress:
65/192 pages
The Walking Dead, Compendium 1
Progress:
8 %
Lola XOXO, Vol. 1
Progress:
16 %
Psalms, 1-72 (Journibles: the 17:18 Series)
Progress:
132/336 pages
The Handmaid's Tale
Progress:
31/311 pages
The 5th Wave
Progress:
156/457 pages
Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 3
Yet again, really amazing. The way the stories have all blended together is really amazing, and I really like the fact that it hasn't copied from Once Upon a Time (or well, OUAT hasn't copied from it), and that there are so many ways to combine the worlds of Disney. The Ariel and Pinocchio storylines weren't my favorites but it was awesome to see them in there, and they were adorable as sea creatures. Hoping to knock out the fourth one today too, and I can't wait to dive into the other series too :)
Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 2
This one could have easily been five stars, if it didn't become SO apparent that I'm reading a fan translated copy. It's obvious that it's still the correct story, and it matches what I've seen from the game, and the movies in general, but what really got me was the translations in Agrabah. Having Jafar call Aladdin, Sora, Donald and Goofy "infidels" was a little much in my opinion, and while I thought it was really cool seeing Genie being referred to as a djinn, I wish that that would have stayed consistent, OR that they would have consistently called him Genie. Obviously a super quick read that I'm really enjoying!
Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 1
I review books on The Reading Picnic. Check it out for recommendations, give aways and moreWOW, first book of the year! I can't believe it. I had to make a 2015 shelf for this. I had been talking about the Kingdom Hearts video game with a friend, and I remembered watching my brother play it when I was growing up. I have a serious love for all things Disney and I remembered there being a Hercules level as well, which...as a huge fan of the movie Hercules, I loved. This manga was pretty amazing considering it was my first. I had Pewdiepie's Let's plays in the background and this manga ended right where his let's plays did so I'm excited to read the others. It makes me want to actually learn to play video games to play this game. This was a super quick read and I really enjoyed it, although it was slightly hard to follow sometimes.
Percy Jackson's Greek Gods
I was super super pumped for this book, mostly because I love Greek Mythology, and also because, well I love Percy Jackson. Although I will say I didn't expect this book to be so big in size. I think that's part of the reason why it ended up taking me awhile to get through, it was hard to just sit and read it, as it had to stay in my lap most of the time.The content in this book was amazing, and I wish that I had it when I taught Percy Jackson for the first time. It would be amazing to use it in conjunction, especially with one of the activities where the groups were divided to research the Greek gods. It's amazing that now I could easily make it cohesive. Percy Jackson book, and Percy Jackson talking about the Gods.
The illustrations are seriously breathtaking. Once I get my own apartment, I, no lie, plan on buying this book again so I can rip out the pictures and frame them. Sure, some of them are dark, but they're seriously so breathtakingly beautiful that I can't stand it.
Overall, easy read. Sometimes a little heavy, especially for middle readers, but I would probably recommend this before any other mythos book.
Also I now own my first coffee table book and I feel very adult.
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The Blood of Olympus
Full review to come, but the fact that Nico had POV chapters? Like. I just can't. I love him so much.Also, not as phenomenal as House of Hades
People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman
This book DRAGS. It's super interesting at times, but for a 300 page book it feels like it's 800 pages. It was interesting but not interesting enough to get through.
Attachments
This book was our first book back after our book club hiatus, and I was glad it was something that was really readable. I don't mind sitting through books I don't like as long as they're readable (see [b:Will Grayson Will Grayson|6567017|Will Grayson, Will Grayson|John Green|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1368393890s/6567017.jpg|6759965]), but I will say I had pretty high expectations for this book. One of my closest friends whose book recommendations I trust more than anything LOVES Rainbow Rowell, and has even said that Rowell is now her favorite author over John Green (which is saying something!) and while this book was pretty adorable, I expected more. I liked the characters, and absolutely adored the email format, and watching the friendship between the women happen, but Lincoln still struck me as kind of creepy? I also seemed to be the only one at book club who actually LIKED Beth's boyfriend and maybe it's because I cast him as Chris Pratt although apparently NO ONE ELSE DID.Rowell's writing is amazing, readable and relateable, and I loved Doris so very much, mostly because she reminded me of my grandmother whose name was also Doris. I loved the parts about Y2K, and I also loved that the book slowly made you invested in the characters. One particular part, when we discover the miscarriage, was written so extremely beautifully, and made me realize how attached I actually was to these characters. I wanted to know more about Jennifer, I liked Beth and Lincoln, but Rowell left me wanting to know more about Jennifer and how her life turned out. How everything ended up with her husband and just...how her life is. I'm such a sucker though, in all honesty, for when writers aren't afraid to write huge issues like the one she wrote for Jennifer, and watch as the characters grow around it.
I really loved the email format. I'd read a whole book in that type of format, and I did find that the alternating between email and narrative felt slightly jarring. This was Rowell's first book, so I can only imagine that they keep getting better and better.
But really though, when did my standards get so high?
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Isla and the Happily Ever After
So this book took me forever to get through, relatively compared to "Lola" and "Anna" and I'd read someone elses review first and I knew this one was going to be different. I do enjoy how Perkins writes similarly to Sarah Dessen where the characters all exist in the same universe, and unlike other people I was NOT ready to say goodbye to these characters.But I wasn't ready for Isla either. Again, I thought it dragged and was kind of annoyed by parts of it, but I thought it was sweet and I just wanted to be a passerby watching all of this happen in real time.
But then the breakup scene happened and I shamelessly started sobbing. I realized that I see so much of myself in Isla, that it was throwing me off. I have a tendency to not really like characters that resemble myself much, which is a psychological thing I should figure out at some point, but everything she said in the limo scene with Josh just shattered me, because it's exactly how I feel about relationships and even the thought of being one. It petrifies me, and it broke everything to read a character saying the exact same things I've felt.
This is why I read, this is why so many of us on this site read, for moments where a character has a breakthrough that you realize that you needed just as much. Or just to know, if even for a brief moment, that someone else in this world, even if it's just a fictional character has spoken the words you've always wanted to say, or felt the feelings you thought you were alone in feeling. Maybe this is a silly book for me to see that in, but in my mind, there is no silly book, especially when it gives you an experience like this.
""You know exactly who you are. You know how to be yourself, but you also know how to be a different kind of yourself on television and society...I don't know any of that. I've never cared about anything like you've cared about your work. I don't even belong to a single country. I'm nobody. I'm nothing.""
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Dead to You
So over Labor Day weekend I decided to fly through a bunch of books, because why not? I had gotten a ton of recommendations from my local bookstore and this was one of them.As I said in my original review, Have I just gotten really picky lately? I was yet again underwhelmed by this book, I saw the ending coming pretty early on. Sigh.
I was expecting this book to blow me away, I really thought that it was going to be a nail biter, that I wasn't going to anticipate the ending, but I saw it coming a mile away, especially once one of the siblings started to study genetics.
The ending was actually disappointing, how it all unraveled, and overall, it was absolutely more like 2.5 stars, but my only 2 star rated book is "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" and I didn't hate the characters in this book like I sort of did in that one? Anyway, it seemed super predictable to me as I've said before. Sorry not sorry?
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SPOILER ALERT!
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
So I did like this book. But I was expecting more. I was expecting really creepy, can't put it down until you know what the hell is going on, almost akin to Julie Berry's "All The Truth That's In Me", or Kate Karyus Quinn's "Another Little Piece", the latter of those I haven't been able to finish yet because it is seriously that creepy.But that's not what I got. I got some kind of weird, semi Twilighty romance stuff. I didn't hate Violet like I hated Bella Swan, but she was...kind of dumb like girls in these books tend to be. Maybe it's just maybe it's just me that I wouldn't want to date a guy who has supernatural stuff going on or whatever, but I will never understand why people think it's sweet to have a girl just say "It's totally okay that you're doing really weird shit to my town! Like telling kids there's the Devil in the graveyard" etc etc etc.
If it was me I would have just been like, "Peace out, it's a shame too cause you're hot." But no. Violet didn't do that. Instead she mooned over him the whole book while I attempted to tell her through the pages VIOLET SWEETHEART YOU DON'T NEED NO MAN.
This was another one of the books I marathoned through on Labor Day Weekend. It did get creepy towards the end, but when someone tells me that it's a Gothic novel, I guess I just expected a little more? I feel like my standards are getting really high and I don't know how to feel about this...
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Random
This book started my Labor Day book marathon and it set the tone for the rest of the books I read that weekend.Honestly, I was kind of talked into buying this book. The woman at my favorite bookstore told me that she LOVES this author etc etc and his writing style didn't disappoint. I also loved that the copy I ended up buying revealed that he was a local author (double the local!) and ended up being signed. Pretty cool.
Overall, this book was a really quick read. I knew I was supposed to feel conflicted or whatever, and I didn't really get that. Tori royally fucked up, this is true. But cyberbulling is so heavily covered these days that the whole intrigue of "is this guy for real or not" just...I didn't care. I was more interested in the actual Facebook posts that this book included. The phone call was...I don't know how to describe it, it seemed a little weird? But again that was probably intentional on the authors part.
I did fly through this, wanting to know more about the characters but in the end, when Tori found out that everyone had planned this to teach her a lesson it felt like an after school special. I don't like books that tend to leave me feeling like I've been lectured at, which this did in a way. Bullying is so heavily covered in the world now that I feel like I've beat my head against with it.
Yes, bullying is real. Yes, I was bullied, I'm not discounting those experiences, but I didn't feel a visceral connection to many of the characters in here. I know that bullying is bad, I've experienced it, but I think because I work with kids and I repeat that so many times, maybe that's why this book didn't connect with me? I would have much preferred something revolving around the trial? Maybe because I'm weird and like law and order-y like things.
ANYWAY, I did love the writing style, it flowed, I wanted to keep reading, which is why this gets four stars. There are absolutely people out there who need to read this, no doubting that, just not sure if it was me.
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Lola and the Boy Next Door
THIS BOOK GAHHHHHH SO FING PERFECT IM DONE WITH STEPHANIE PERKINS RUINING ALL MY IDEAS OF LOVE
