Read This Month

I can’t believe tomorrow is already October. We’ve been in Dallas a month and a half, and things are finally starting to cool down. Or…at least as much as Texas cools. The State Fair just opened up, and my lucky husband gets to take a work trip over there today. I’m so jealous! Hopefully we can make it over there soon.

I read a ton of books great books this month. Now that I’ve set a schedule for myself, I’m getting quite a variety again. And I’m allowing myself to ditch books if they aren’t up to par, which I had stopped doing at one point. Gotta stop wasting time. Some books just aren’t blog-worthy.

(Which, on that point. Aaron’s Rod is on the list below, but I’m not going to do a post about it. I got about 65% through it before I had to give it up. Far enough to count it as “read” but I’m not going to bore you guys with a terrible post. Not DH Lawrence’s best work, let’s leave it at that.)

And now, the books!

 

Read this month:

Throne of Glass by Sarah Mass

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

Justine by Lawrence Durrell

The Innocent Man by John Grisham

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

Atlantia by Ally Condie

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (which didn’t make it onto the list in the picture…oops!)

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Aaron’s Rod by DH Lawrence

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Trees of Reverie Readathon Wrapup

Welp, it’s been a fun two weeks. The September Readathon was a success in my opinion!

Here’s what I came out with:

2997 pages total

6 total books read + a few partials

Atlantia by Ally Condie

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Bird Box  by Josh Malerman

Winter’s Tale by Mark Hellprin

The Protector by Gennita Low

Short Fiction Classic and Contemporary: Sixth Edition

Aaron’s Rod by DH Lawrence

 

I also finished quite a few of the challenges! You can check those out HERE.

 

 

WWW Wednesday 9/17/2014

 

 

What are you currently reading?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

 

What did you just finish reading?

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Atlantia by Ally Condie

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

No Goodbye by Georgie Marie

Aaron’s Rod by DH Lawrence

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Bachman

 

Didn’t Finish

This is a very apropos post for today. I’ve been stuck at home sick in bed all weekend, so really all I’ve been able to do is read. I finished Atlantia pretty quickly, and started on the next book for the readathon–Winter’s Tale.

I did not get very far. You know how, every once in awhile, you’ll pick up a book where the voice just doesn’t resonate with you? This was one of those books. It was really noiresque, kind of that macho Dick Tracy voice. Except the point of reference was a horse, not a man. It was very strange. After 20 pages, I was done. It drove me crazy, and I had no interest in the horse or the idiot running away from the “short tails.”

The next book on the list was a free Kindle read that I had downloaded forever ago:  The Protector by Gennita Low. This was one I just wanted to cycle through my TBR list, maybe it’ll be good maybe it won’t. It wasn’t. It was SUPPOSED to be a romance novel about a Navy SEAL saving young girls from the sex trade. That was a tiny part of it, but really it was so misogynistic and nasty I had to throw it away. I couldn’t imagine how she was going to take it from “I hate women and you can’t be a part of my mission because you’re female and get out of my life.” to “Oh, I love you let’s have sex.” And the sex scenes that were IN the book already between a different couple were near rape. It was pretty disgusting. I’ve read a lot of romance novels, but never anything like this. The writing itself was terrible to begin with, and everything the writing was about…no way.

I hate not finishing books, especially during challenges, and it’s even worse when I don’t finish two in a row, so I was really frustrated yesterday. But, sometimes you have to give up and move on. I started Middlesex last night, which I is a reread for me that I didn’t finish last time. But, I read it back when it first came out in 2002 and would have been a sophomore in high school. I’m reading it from a very different perspective now. I’m also reading it for a book club so I’ll at least finish it, whether I like it or not.

Atlantia

I received my first ARC through Penguin’s First to Read program and I couldn’t have been more excited (and nervous)! The book I was given was Ally Condie’s Atlantia.

This book is about Rio, a siren who lives in the Below. She wants everything to go Above, but her sister convinces her to stay. Then, when it’s too late…her sister leaves her behind. Rio is left alone to find her way in a society that is quickly falling apart.

I absolutely loved Atlantia. I couldn’t put it down. The underwater world was so beautiful, if a bit metallic. I was fascinated by the twist in the siren legend…without turning it into a mermaid story.

There were a few holes, however that made me a little skeptical. I couldn’t get past the fact that Rio was SO determined that she was going to survive the crushing pressures of the ocean, even after multiple people told her it would kill her. Just because you can swim, doesn’t mean you are invincible. Also, why all of the sudden did the leaves start falling off the trees?

For the most part though, I loved the characters, the plot, all of it. Really excited for this book to come out!

Trees of Reverie September Readathon TBR List

I mentioned in my last post that I actually have a structured TBR list. It’s actually written out. Wanna see?

I wasn’t going to show it to you, because I’m a little self-conscious about how obsessive my book lists can get. I mean, have you looked at my Goodreads page yet? Jesus. Don’t. Seriously. It’s a rabbit-hole you’ll never come back from.

But then the lovely Sarah from Trees of Reverie challenged us Readathoners to post our TBR lists for September, so, I’m relenting. You guys can see the list. But I warn you. It’s a little intense.

Ok. Here goes.

See what I mean? And I really will read these books in order too. Although I’m swapping out some of the shelf books for the book club books I have to read, and I’ll fill in the library books depending on what comes available off my hold list first. But the cycle will continue in order again and again and again.

How do I pick the order? Mostly, it’s what is next on my Goodreads lists for that section. Sometimes, it’s based on what everyone is yelling about on Tumblr, if I can get my hands on it.  There’s nothing like that here at the moment, although one of my holds is Dorothy Must Die, and I’ve been waiting on that for MONTHS. I’m way behind the curve on that book!

Sometimes it seems like I spend as much time organizing my books, as I do reading them! Anyone else have any weird book quirks so I don’t feel so dorky?