March: Read This Month

March was the month of series, it seems. I reread Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy. I finally read Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles. I even started The Hogwarts Library and Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Quartet.

There were some digital reads in the mix, but the books far outweighed my Kindle usage for the first time in a long time!

 

 

Here’s the full list:

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Cecilia by Fanny Burney

Cress by Marissa Meyer

All the Rage by Courtney Summers

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Selected Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

The Horse Healer by Gonzalo Giner

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

Dear Millie by Marco Previero

Lying by Lauren Slater

Four by Veronica Roth

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Mauprat by George Sand

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

Killing Kennedy by Bill O’Reilly

The One That Got Away by Bethany Chase

Quidditch Through the Ages by JK Rowling

Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler

The Iron King by Maurice Druon

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WWW Wednesday 3/18/2015

 

 

What are you currently reading?

The Turn of the Screw, The Aspern Papers and Two Stories by Henry James

Dear Millie by Marco Previero

 

What did you just finish reading?

The Horse Healer by Gonzalo Giner

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Selected Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Lying by Lauren Slater

Critical Incident by Troy Blackford

Four by Veronica Roth

Fairest

With the release of the new Winter cover, and all the controversy that caused yesterday, what a better time to read the 4th book from The Lunar Chronicles.

 

I’ll be honest, when I first saw the new cover, I thought WOW! How striking! And someone posted a picture of it on their tablet, and I think the glowing apple and the purply pink color was made for an iPad or Kindle Fire. It looked fierce and really shined on that tablet. However, after I read some of the breakdowns and discussions, I do agree that next to the other four, darker hardcovers, it is going to look weird. It is not as ethereal as the others, and the hand is definitely Levana…not Winter. Which ok–except Levana had her time to shine in Fairest.

So…striking cover for a tablet…just not quite right to mesh with the other books. Ok, assessment over.

As far as Fairest goes–it was a decent prequel. It did fill in a few of the details from how Levana became the evil witch we know her to be. However, some of it seemed a little too quickly written or edited or something. I had to reread a few parts to see if I had just misunderstood a tense or a phrase or a queue, and it just didn’t quite make sense. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong, other than it just didn’t seem to fit.

One last thing. If you’re looking to start this series, keep in mind that Fairest is a prequel, but do not start there. Start with Cinder. Don’t read this one until after Cress or things won’t quite make sense and you will be spoiled.

 

Fulfills Popsugar #16:  A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet

WWW Wednesday 3/11/2015

 

 

What are you currently reading?

Selected Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

 

 

What did you just finish reading?

All the Rage by Courtney Summers

Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cecilia by Fanny Burney

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen

Mrs. Astor Regrets by Meryl Gordon

Cress

So what do you get when you combine Firefly with fairy tales, and add in a bit of Star Wars for flavor?

You get The Lunar Chronicles. Specifically, Cress. 

The drama really picks up in this third book, and it is so freaking cool. I’m not kidding about the Firefly angle either. So much awesome space nerdness going on–I kept expecting Malcolm and crew to pop up somewhere and cause mischief. Thorne reminds me a lot of Mal, actually.

This is the longest book in the series, but I couldn’t put it down. The crew is running around pretty much nonstop the whole time, so it is very fast-paced. You never know what crazy plan is going to come up next, or what is, of course, going to go wrong with that plan.

Meyer is leading up to the eventual Lunar Wars, so there’s a pretty big cliffhanger at the end of this. I’m interested to see whether Fairest is a continuation/fourth book, or if it’s a prequel, companion book, or how it fits in. I know she’s working on Winter currently as an end to everything. I’ll be reading Fairest in a week or so, so I’ll let you know! (And yes, I could just look it up, but that’s no fun!)

Fulfills PopSugar #32:  A trilogy

March Photo Challenge: Guilty Pleasure

I used to buy all used copies of books. Why spend the money on the new ones when I was just going to wear them out? I don’t remember the name of the site now, but I was part of this club at one point where I could trade back and forth with other members and get new “old” books all the time, just for the cost of shipping.

And then I discovered SERIES. Beautiful. Matching. SERIES.

You can’t just go buy used copies of them, because you’ll almost never find a matching set. It is possible, but difficult. Especially in the right condition. And it is so much lovelier to find them in a boxed set, if they come that way! Of course, that means I can’t buy it until after I’ve already borrowed the entire thing from the library…or wait until I buy it to read it. Catch-22!

Still, buying whole series and seeing their gorgeousness is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. These are just a few of them, I have many more!

WWW Wednesday 3/4/2015

 

 

What are you currently reading?

Selected Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Divergent by Veronica Roth

 

 

What did you just finish reading?

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Dubliners & A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

 

 

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Cecilia by Fanny Burney

Cress by Marissa Meyer

At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen

Last Book I Read

In my latest book haul, I picked up a gorgeous series by Marissa Meyer. If you saw my latest post, I gushed about the first two books, so I won’t do much of a review here.

Suffice it to say, I’m loving them.

And…guys, these books are GORGEOUS.

LOOK LOOK LOOK!

 

 

I couldn’t NOT have these on my shelves. And, lucky for me, they are right in my vision line when I sit at my desk.

Oooooh the pretties!

 

What was the last book you read?

Scarlet

There are a lot of series out there who suffer from “Second Book Syndrome.” That sophomore part of the set just always seems to be mundane, usually because it’s a means to the end. The scene was set and characters introduced in the first book, and all the major drama and climaxes will happen in the third book. But in the second, all of the details are given. This is where all the real meat of the plot happens, and often a lot of the dialogue. Unfortunately, though, this can often make the second book very dull.

When I started hearing about Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, the most common theme was:  “The second book is better than the first!” “The series just keeps getting better!” “The first book was just ok, but the second book is going to blow you away!”

And then I read Cinder, and loved it. I mean, hello, futuristic badass cyborg Cinderella? Yes, please. So how was Meyer going to top that?!

Oh, only with a gardening pilot Red Riding Hood who falls in love with a secret agent Wolfman. That’s one way of doing it.

If you haven’t read these souped up fairy tales yet, what are you waiting for? I just ordered the whole series (or what I could…the last book hasn’t been published yet), and I am going to gobble them up like breakfast.

 

Fulfills PopSugar #35:  A book set in the future

Daily Bookish Challenges | Day Two

What’s on your book wishlist for the holidays?
Surprisingly, I don’t normally ask for books for Christmas.

*gasp*

WHAT?!

I know, right? As much of a book lover as I am, why wouldn’t I ask for books for Christmas?

Well, one, because it’s so damn hard to choose which books to ask for. I have such a huge wish list, I can’t just give the whole damn thing to my family. They would have no idea. My Nana used to get me the latest Nora Roberts books, but I have long outgrown those, so she’s stopped with that. Now, I usually just ask for Barnes and Noble gift cards, which I hoard until I can figure out what I actually want to purchase.

The second reason is that my mom LOVES clothes shopping. And she loves clothes shopping with her girls. So, every year, we would do a pre-holiday (and birthday, since it’s in November) shopping spree. She’d come down to Indy, take me to lunch, sometimes my sisters would come along too, and we’d all go crazy. So most years, I’d know what I was getting. But, my wardrobe would be set for the year–and it would be fashionable! Haha!

This year is a little bit different–since I live so far away now, we couldn’t do our traditional shopping trip. I missed it terribly. Instead, I built an Amazon wishlist, and there were quite a few books on there. They are exactly what you would expect from me:

Harry Potter by JK Rowling–I KNOWWWWW…but I still don’t own them, and it’s killing me. I would love to own the new UK collection, but if someone gets it for me, it’ll be the US version. If I buy it with my Christmas money afterwards though…I will be ordering it from across the blue.

Hogwarts Library–obviously.

I got The Wise Man’s Fear and The Slow Regard for Silent Things for my birthday, but The Name of the Wind is still on the list to complete the collection. I suspect it has already been purchased though…

Not that Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham–I haven’t read this one yet, but I keep hearing about it, so I must.

The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry–That big gorgeous gray and red hardcover version.

Quiet by Susan Cain

Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis box set

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Lunar Chronicles Series by Marissa Meyer

Solitaire by Alice Oseman

Chasers of the Light by Tyler Knott Gregson

 

I can’t wait to see what books I get, and I’ll be sure to do a book haul post in January! Happy Holidays!