[2019 Reading Challenge] April Update

Oh hey, it’s May.  How’d that happen so fast?

I’m going to guess spending most of the month anticipating the final weekend kinda made it zoom by.  At least I managed to finish three whole books, including completing my full Brent Weeks reread.

First up in April, I finished rereading Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks, the third in the Night Angel Trilogy, checking off #27 on the challenge list.

As I mentioned in my March update, since my first read several years ago I’ve started paying more attention to others’ opinions of the series and have run across some valid criticisms, which I did notice in my reread.  And yet I still enjoyed it thoroughly, which I guess means that I’m more of a gourmand than a gourmet when it comes to literary taste.  Your mileage may vary.

After the rather dark, gritty world of the Night Angel series, I felt the need for something completely different, and searched my unread ebook acquisitions for a change of pace.  I’d picked up a random romance novel when it was discounted for Kindle after having Goodreads suggest it to me several times – apparently the author’s first published novel was quite good (I haven’t read it, but I am sure I will eventually) and the premise of the second one appealed to me.  In my late night book hangover state, I realized that the title of this one contained a number, and voila!  For #18, I picked up 99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne.

A lot of the reviews I read after the fact would have made me second guess reading it in the first place, but the vast majority of those were from people who had read Thorne’s debut novel and felt this one was a disappointment in comparison.  Coming into it fresh with no expectations, I was pleasantly surprised. I’ve read some good romance novels (Nora Roberts, say what you will about being formulaic, can actually write a readable and interesting story)… I’ve read some really, really terrible ones.  This was on the better side, despite its flaws.  I didn’t identify with the main character in a lot of ways at the outset, but I found myself finishing the last 2/3 of the novel in one long night, occasionally punctuated by tears, so it was a success in my world.

And finally, for yet another change of pace, I pulled from my endless unread books tracker and read one of the few Brandon Sanderson novels I haven’t gotten to yet (and the only one I had purchased but not yet read at least once) – the third book in his YA superhero trilogy, Calamity.

It’s been a few years since I read the first two in the Reckoners series, so I jumped on the Coppermind to read summaries of the others.  I’d forgotten a good bit about the plot, so it was probably a good thing there.  I’d also forgotten until I picked this one up how much I enjoyed the quirks of the point of view narrator, who is notoriously terrible at similes and metaphors, and says some of the most ridiculous things ever in trying to make comparisons.  A fair number of readers find this annoying, I’m sure, and there are times when mature readers would say Sanderson’s humor is a stretch and falls flat.  Ehhh, I still laughed more often than not, and highlighted the absurdities in my Kindle copy to go back and snerk at later.  The end of the story was exciting, interesting, and in true Sanderson fashion, hard to put down.

In any event, #31 is checked off, and April draws to a close still on target to finish at least three levels of the 2019 challenge.  Success!

See the full State of the Challenge Report below the jump.

[2019 Reading Challenge] #27 checked off!

(See the official Linzthebookworm/Logophile 2019 Reading Challenge post to play along!)

[2019 Reading Challenge] March Update

March is just nearly over, y’all, and boy howdy, there were books!  A bunch of books!  Let’s talk about ’em!
The first thing I read for the month of March was Red Rising by Pierce Brown – I’d snatched it up on sale for Kindle about 3 years ago but honestly knew nothing about it until recently, when I heard it mentioned on Elliot Brooks’ YouTube channel and got extremely intrigued, so I slotted it for #10, a book with a title done in alliteration.

If you can imagine a strange and wonderful hybrid of the Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones set on Mars, you might have as much imagination as Pierce Brown.    Oh man, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Following on the heels of Leviathan Wakes, that makes two really great books in a row from my unread books stash.

So the third time was… not so much a charm.  I guess I shouldn’t have expected much more from a random romance novel I found for free, and I have honestly read worse (I’m looking at you, Rachel Caid), but Jane Doe’s Return by Jen Talty was poorly edited, largely predictable, and written… eh, it was OK.

The framework of the story was reasonably interesting for what it was, which was an excuse for the highly predictable romance and the requisite miscommunication between the romantic partners.  Can’t say I recommend it, but hey.  My cup of tea may not be your cup of tea.  At least it was short, and I was able to check off #8 on the challenge in one night.

I was hopeful about my next choice – Marie Lu’s Legend series was a very enjoyable YA read, and I’d picked up The Young Elites on sale in 2016.  I needed a YA fiction for #2, and saw the opportunity to mark another unread book off my tracker, and Bob’s your uncle.

Actually, Chuck’s my uncle, and Marie Lu’s little experiment with writing an antihero protagonist fell thoroughly flat for me.  The worldbuilding was fine, the story was interesting, but really…  I found Adelina wholly unlikeable, and unpleasant to read.  She was kind of a terrible person, and I did not at all enjoy being inside her perspective.   Not even going to read the rest of the series.

Two unenjoyable reads in a row meant it was definitely time to check off #5 and reread the first book of a series I love.  Having just reread all of The Wheel of Time last year, as well as Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer series and the first few Outlander novels, those were off the table for this prompt.  I thought about the first Mistborn or Stormlight Archive novel for this as well, but I did burn through all of those in a 2017 binge, so I reached a little further back and decided it was time for Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files.  Storm Front isn’t the best of the series by a long shot, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun to read (and hey, Kindle has it on sale for $2.99 right now).

I immediately began plotting how to fit more of the Dresden Files in my 2019 challenge list (yeah, don’t be surprised to find Harry Dresden’s further adventures pop up in future updates)… but I showed amazing restraint if I must toot my own horn, and moved on to another from the unread stack.

I got a hardback copy of Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan for free at JordanCon last April, so I decided it would be #4 on this year’s challenge.  I had heard a few fantasy lit fans mention the Powder Mage trilogy before, but was totally not aware that it was written by Brian McClellan, and that this fat beautiful hardback I brought home from Atlanta is the first in a second trilogy set in that same world.  And now I really want to read the first trilogy (although I’ve been thoroughly spoiled on a few major events of the series by this book).  It was awesome.  Complex. Gritty.  Grabbed me by the throat about halfway through and made me stay up until 4:30 AM finishing it (wow, such talent for an inanimate object!)…  The second book is on my PBS wish list now, as well as the original trilogy.

And then before I knew it, the only item left on Level 1 of the challenge was #6, a book that takes place during the summer.  When Linz and I put together this year’s challenge, we were thinking this prompt would be a good one for a fast, fun, beach read or some such, but wouldn’t you know it, neither of us went that route.  I did a Google search which led to a Goodreads list of books that are set in summer, and cross checked my unread books list… and voila!  Postmortem, the first in Patricia Cornwell’s popular Kay Scarpetta series is set in the hot, steamy Southern summer.

As I was reading on Kindle, I realized I had actually read it once before but didn’t remember off the bat – I expect it was one of the hundreds of paperbacks I picked up from my mother-in-law’s house and burned through over the course of 8 years or so.  My memory is not the greatest.  I have, after all, slept since then. *wink*

And with that, Level 1 was complete.  And there was much rejoicing!

Next up, instead of moving to Level 2, I decided it was time to finish my full Brent Weeks reread before this year’s JordanCon.  I burned through the available Lightbringer books last year, but that left the Night Angel trilogy to reread, and fortuitously enough, three spots on the challenge to read a trilogy!  Perfect!

So The Way of Shadows filled in #25 for the first book of a trilogy, and Shadow’s Edge for #26.  I remember loving this trilogy when I first read it in 2015, and have read some fairly harsh critiques of the writing since then.

And when I started rereading it, I came to the conclusion that those critiques have a point.  There’s a fair amount of eyeroll-inducing sexist descriptions of women.  Some of the characters are quite two-dimensional.  And yeah, calling your uber-assassin class “wetboys” is one of the most laughably bad worldbuilding decisions I’ve run across from a good fantasy author.   But you know what?  I’ve still really, really enjoyed the reread.  The story is interesting.   And I’m looking forward to finishing the third book in the trilogy before getting to meet Brent Weeks in Atlanta.

But of course, you know I can’t just go through a month of reading without being sidetracked by something, and about 25% into Beyond the Shadows, I was browsing random YouTube recommendations and found a few Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tribute videos, which reminded me of how much I have been enjoying the show, and I couldn’t stand not to finish Season 5.  And then of course I had to start rewatching the show from the beginning.   Because that’s the kind of thing I do.

And since I have 75% left in my book in progress, there’s no chance I’ll be finishing another book in March, so this update will go live before April.

I have a few more ideas in the works for blog posts in April, so stay tuned.  You might find them mildly intriguing, eh?

And the full state of the challenge list, as always, is below the jump.  Happy April, friends!

[2019 Reading Challenge] #26 checked off!

(See the official Linzthebookworm/Logophile 2019 Reading Challenge post to play along!)

[2019 Reading Challenge] #25 checked off!

(See the official Linzthebookworm/Logophile 2019 Reading Challenge post to play along!)