Pretties

October 2021 Reading Wrap-Up

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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
(Uglies, book 1)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Sept 30 – Oct 1
Read Count: 4
Favorite Thing: I don’t know that I have strong enough feelings to have a favorite thing?
Least Favorite Thing: Once again, no strong feelings here…

Ok, but despite my lack of strong feelings, I do actually like this series. I do NOT, on the other hand, like the reader for this audiobook. She says things in such a weird way…

My Posts About Uglies

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
(Uglies, book 2)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 1 – 5
Read Count: 4
Favorite Thing: I think the dumb slang is so fun, to be honest.
Least Favorite Thing: Everybody let Shay down and I will die on this hill.

I liked this more last time I read it, but obviously I still enjoy it because here I am rereading it lol

My Posts About Pretties

Specials by Scott Westerfeld
(Uglies, book 3)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 5 – 6
Read Count: 4
Favorite Thing: I like the dumb slang even more. I love that every time they get new brain surgery they change the dumb slang they use lol
Least Favorite Thing: I can’t think of anything, this has always been my favorite of the original trilogy.

I want to be a special so bad! I don’t even care if I’d have anger management issues, it would be worth it!

My Posts About Specials

Extras by Scott Westerfeld
(Uglies, book 4)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 6
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: MOGGLE!!!!
Least Favorite Thing: I’m trying to think of something… Nope, I got nothin’.

I think this might be my new favorite of the whole series? I usually don’t even reread it because the first time I found it boring because it wasn’t really about Tally, but this time around I just enjoyed it for what it was and had a really good time.

My Posts About Extras

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris
(The Southern Vampire Mysteries, book 10)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 6 – 8
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: The whole thoughts/feelings as colors thing was cool.
Least Favorite Thing: I can’t really remember well enough to have one, so maybe my least favorite is just that it wasn’t very exciting.

This was the last one that I’d read before I think.

My Posts About Dead in the Family

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris
(The Southern Vampire Mysteries, book 11)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 11
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: Sookie/Pam friendship makes me happy.
Least Favorite Thing: I hate that Eric is being a poop…

I listened to this whole book while I got a tattoo in New York City and it was the perfect distraction in both the sense that I wasn’t concerned about the tattoo and that I didn’t fall asleep.

My Posts About Dead Reckoning

Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris
(The Southern Vampire Mysteries, book 12)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 12 – 14
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: I’m just enjoying the narrator more than anything.
Least Favorite Thing: So no one’s going to slap Claude?

I feel like saying I’m “just enjoying the narrator” makes it seem like I’m not enjoying the book, but really I am, I just am in New York City and am missing southern accents!

My Posts About Deadlocked

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
(The Southern Vampire Mysteries, book 12)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 14 – 16
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: I have no idea what my favorite thing was, but this book felt very satisfying.
Least Favorite Thing: IT’S OVER????? NOOOOOO!!!

I hate that this series is over, I want it to go on forever lol

My Posts About Dead Ever After

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
(The Wicked Years, book 1)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ – it was ok
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 19 – 20
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: The- The narrator again? I loved his voice.
Least Favorite Thing: So depresso…

I read this book back in middle school, when everyone at my school became obsessed with the musical (which is much less depressing), but I wanted to reread it because I recently saw the musical. And once I started I didn’t want to turn it off because the narrator was great!

My Posts About Wicked

The Marionettes by Katie Wismer
(The Marionettes, book 1)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Print
Reading Dates: Sept 28 – Oct 2
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: The magic system was pretty interesting, which is a thing I rarely say these days.
Least Favorite Thing: VALERIE! COME ON! You literally read about it and then didn’t think “hm I wonder if this is related to the body I found in pieces yesterday” come on girl!!!

Man this took me forever to read because of my stupid reading slump. I just cannot focus on print books lately at all, which is tragic let me tell you. And I have to say this was a really good first foray into the genre by Katie. But I also have to say, HOW DARE SHE end on that crazy cliffhanger oh my god.

My Posts About The Marionettes

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ – it was ok
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 21 – 25
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: Oh man I really want to think of something to say here…
Least Favorite Thing: So unmemorable that I already forgot reading it.

I have no distinct thoughts, just a slight internal cringe. I really wanted to like this book (the world needs more fat protags that don’t hate themselves), but something about the way it was written just…did not vibe with me. I felt like someone was holding my hand, leading me along to every point when I really didn’t need their help. That being said, it was by no means a horrible experience.

My Posts About Spoiler Alert

Cress by Marissa Meyer
(The Lunar Chronicles, book 3)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review: No
Format: Audiobook
Reading Dates: Oct 26 – 27
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: Cress is kinda presh.
Least Favorite Thing: Cress is also painfully naïve (which, like, I totally understand, but sometimes it was a bit annoying.)

I forgot how much I genuinely like Cress though you guys.

My Posts About Cress

In Progress

August 2017 Wrap-Up (Part 1)

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Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  July 30 – August 7
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  The author’s habit of giving back-handed praise to her characters. (For an example see the second quote in this post.)
Least Favorite Thing:  Willoughby whining about how much he was suffering under the pretense of seeking forgiveness, but really just trying to make himself feel better.

I did downgrade my rating of Sense and Sensibility from 4 stars to 3 stars, with every intention of explaining that here, but my explanation got too wordy so I included it in my rating post instead. (TL;DR I still like and recommend this book!)

My Posts About Sense and Sensibility

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson
(Little Blue Envelope, book 2)
Rating:  ★★☆☆☆
Review:  Yes
Reading Dates:  August 6 – 8
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  The picturesque descriptions of her travel destinations.
Least Favorite Thing:  Keith.

It was neither bad nor good. I will never read it again or even want to. The idea of being sent on an adventure by a quirky relative will remain fun and delightful. However, if such a thing should ever happen to me I will control my hormones and focus on my adventure.

NEVER GETTING OVER THE LAME-ASS SWOONING WTF WTF WTF

My Posts About The Last Little Blue Envelope

The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine
(The Impostor Queen, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  Yes
Reading Dates:  August 9 – 10
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  BISEXUAL PROTAG (Literally the first time I’ve ever seen one in a fantasy novel!)
Least Favorite Thing:  First person narration… (I’m just not a fan, I feel like it hindered the story’s movement.)

It took longer to get into this book than I usually have patience for, but I’m glad I kept at it (thank you goodreads reviews) because I did end up liking the story and I look forward to reading the next book (even if I’m pretty sure I know exactly what’s going to happen).

My Posts About The Impostor Queen

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
(Uglies, book 2)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  August 11 – 15
Read Count:  2  (Pretty sure I read this one other time, but didn’t keep a record of it.)
Favorite Thing:  Wilderness Tally
Least Favorite Thing:  Pretty slang… (It’s totally bogus!)

Tally’s fairytale dreams are so bizarre, I love them.

And I know I should be horrified by the reveal at the very end (and I think the first time I read it I actually was), but I love that too!

Trigger Warning:  Self-harm (cutting). Tally (POV) is horrified, but the people doing it treat it like a religious experience.

My Posts About Pretties

Crashed by Robin Wasserman
(Cold Awakening, book 2)
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  Yes
Reading Dates:  August 10 – 17
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  The struggles faced by the mechs against the prejudiced people who would oppress them are brutally allegorical.
Least Favorite Thing:  I….I didn’t like….anyone….

My library doesn’t have the third and final book, but I’ll figure something out because I definitely want to finish the trilogy.

My Posts About Crashed

Part 2

Musing Monday: August 21, 2017

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Musing Mondays is a weekly meme, hosted by Ambrosia at The Purple Booker, that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

I’m currently reading…
Up next I think I’ll read…
I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
I can’t wait to get a copy of…
I wish I could read ___, but…
I blogged about ____ this past week…

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: Do you steer away from heavy emotional books?

I blogged about ____ this past week…

  • Monday, August 14 – Musing Monday, where I talked about what I was reading at the moment and whether YA was just for teens.
  • Tuesday, August 15 – Teaser Tuesday using Crashed by Robin Wasserman, then a joint update on my progress through Crashed and Pretties by Scott Westerfeld, which I finished later that same day.
  • Wednesday, August 16 – My longest ever WWW Wednesday post in the morning, a little update on Crashed, then WAYRW in the evening (also using Crashed).
  • Thursday, August 17 – Thursday Quotables, pulling a quote from Persuasion this time, then that night I finished and did a rating post for Crashed.
  • Friday, August 18 – I got a review posted for Crashed in the wee hours of Friday morning, then a First Lines Fridays post later that morning, a currently reading photo post featuring Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor and Specials by Scott Westerfeld, and in the evening a Friday 56 using Strange the Dreamer.
  • Saturday, August 19 – My weekly update on my slow progress through Jane Austen’s Persuasion was the only post on Saturday.
  • Sunday, August 20 – A couple little commentary posts on Strange the Dreamer.

Do you steer away from heavy emotional books?
Not always, but a lot of the time yes. I don’t mind when a book makes me emotional, but I have a tendency to over-empathize with the characters in novels so if they are constantly feeling stressed and sad and hopeless I too feel stressed and sad and hopeless. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t read a heavy book if it was good enough, but it would probably take me some time and I would almost certainly need something lighter to pick me back up when it was done.

WWW Wednesday: August 16, 2017

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Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at Should be Reading and revived on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three W’s!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading:  Crashed (Cold Awakening, book 2) by Robin Wasserman
Lia is slowly becoming slightly less annoying, so that’s good news! Jude, on the other hand, is not getting any less annoying.

I’ve taken to entertaining myself by shipping Lia and Riley. That is to say, I don’t actually care whether they date or just form a good friendship, as long as one of those things happens!

I just wish Lia would try to figure things out a bit more!

I’m glad I got myself back to this series. Not sure where I’m going to get the third book in the trilogy though! (My library doesn’t have it…)

Specials (Uglies, book 3) by Scott Westerfeld
This is my favorite book in the Uglies series. I find the Specials fascinating.

I also like that we get to see a lot more of Shay in this one like we did back in Uglies. I know I’m not exactly meant to like her, but I really do.

I feel I should warn potential readers:
There are mentions of self-harm that could be triggering to some readers. The narration doesn’t seem to portray it as a good thing, but some of the characters do.

Persuasion by Jane Austen
And as will probably be the case for most of the rest of the year, I’m still working my way slowly through Persuasion. I really hope something interesting happens so I can find the will to read more than one chapter a week!

Recently Finished:  Pretties (Uglies, book 2) by Scott Westerfeld
I’ve read this one 2 or 3 times now (2 that I have a record of, but I could swear I read it another time before…)

Despite all the New Pretty slang that makes everything they talk/think about sound vapid and stupid, I really enjoy watching Tally work her way through problems and situations.

I do wish she would have thought of Shay a little more often! Or at least, would have acted on those thoughts. Not that I’m shocked, she did the same thing back in Uglies. Tally tends to forget Shay whenever she meets a guy.

Again I should mention a trigger warning for self-harm, although there are much fewer mentions in Pretties than in Specials.

The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, book 1) by Sarah Fine
I reviewed this one, read it here.

This is one of those books I liked and didn’t like at the same time. Or I should say, I liked the story, but I didn’t enjoy reading the book all that much. Luckily, it makes up for occasionally being boring or annoying by being a quick read with good themes.

And I really do look forward to getting the sequel from the library. I’m interested to see how things turn out, and also whether my predictions turn out to be true. (Also I guess I’m hoping it will be a little more enjoyable to read.)

Reading Next:  Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, book 1) by Laini Taylor
I was able to buy this book new, which is something I don’t get to do very often, but at the time that it came in I was in the middle of another series and I put this one aside for later and then forgot it like a dummy.

I had been considering rereading Laini’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, which is what reminded me that I still hadn’t gotten down to reading Strange!

I’m really looking forward to this book, and if booklr is to be believed, I won’t be disappointed.

I haven’t decided yet if I will go ahead and reread the fourth book in the Uglies series, Extras, or not. I guess it depends on if I find myself needing an easy reread while reading some other book.

Musing Monday: August 14, 2017

LeeLeave a comment

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme, hosted by Ambrosia at The Purple Booker, that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

I’m currently reading…
Up next I think I’ll read…
I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
I can’t wait to get a copy of…
I wish I could read ___, but…
I blogged about ____ this past week…

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: What are your feelings on YA? Do you think it is just for young adults or do you think it’s cool full grown adults like it too.

I’m currently reading…

 

I was having a little trouble getting into Crashed, which I anticipated (not because I didn’t want to read it, but because I find Lia kind of annoying) so I thought it would be a good time to do a reread of something easy to get through as well. I was going to do the whole Uglies series, but I reread book 1 not too long ago, so I just jumped straight to Pretties.

I’m also still working my way through Persuasion… I’ll read another chapter of that this week just like I committed to doing, though I don’t think I’ll do more than the one.

Interesting things are starting to happen in Crashed about 1/3 of the way in, but I’m already 2/3 of the way through Pretties so I’ll probably get to Specials (Uglies, book 3, my favorite of the series) before Crashed is completely finished. We shall see!

What are your feelings on YA? Do you think it is just for young adults or do you think it’s cool full grown adults like it too.
Well, as a 25-year-old reading YA, I might be a bit biased… Honestly, I fully believe that this genre is for anyone and everyone.

In fact, when I first became an “adult” I tried to move on from YA, thinking that it was only for teens or whatever, but what I found was a lot of books with the exact same disappointing storylines interspersed with unnecessary sex scenes. So I went back to what I enjoyed!

That isn’t to say that I don’t ever read anything else, but YA is my main deal (as you can probably tell if you have ever looked at my blog for even a minute).

Update: Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

LeeLeave a comment

Lee is on page 101 of 370

Just finished Part 1 (Sleeping Beauty) and I’m nice and adjusted to the dumb New Pretty slang they use.

Each time I reread Pretties I’m struck with how Zane is totally using Tally… It bugs me a little more each time actually. But somehow between now and the next time I reread Pretties I will have forgotten and decided Zane is alright. Hmm.