Once and for All

April 2018 Reading Wrap-Up

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Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
(Twilight Saga, book 3)
Rating:  ★☆☆☆☆ – did not like it
Review:  No
Format:  E-book
Reading Dates:  April 1 – 2
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  It could have been longer, but it wasn’t and I’m grateful.
Least Favorite Thing:  Bella’s doormat impersonations…

Lordy this book was obnoxious. There were a lot of parts I hated, but all of them in some way tie-in to the whole “Bella as a doormat” crap so… Like seriously I kept wanting to climb into the novel and shake her like “just stick to your guns about literally anything, just stand up for yourself, just stop letting these idiots run right over all your boundaries!” and then scream for an hour.

My Posts About Eclipse

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
(Twilight Saga, book 4)
Rating:  ★☆☆☆☆ – did not like it
Review:  No
Format:  E-book
Reading Dates:  April 2
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  Bella is slightly more tolerable as a vampire.
Least Favorite Thing:  Nessie. Both the name and the concept.

I read all of the Twilight books and my head didn’t even explode it’s a miracle! Never again.

My Posts About Breaking Dawn

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
(Throne of Glass, book 5)
Rating:  ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review:  No
Format:  Print
Reading Dates:  March 8 – April 4
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  Lorcan being like “I hate Elide, but if anyone ever even thought about hurting her, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.”
Least Favorite Thing:  Up until the very end of the novel, it was like “everything that can go wrong, will go wrong” and that made me tired.

My least favorite thing is actually why I rated this book only 3 stars. It was good, interesting, and there were a lot of parts I enjoyed, but it felt like for every good thing there were two bad things and it just starts to wear on me after a while and make me tired so it limits my enjoyment of the novel.

Also can I just say, why are they like “oh obviously someone has to die to forge the lock” when they have two heirs of Brannon? It takes all the power of one heir of Brannon to forge the lock, they have two heirs of Brannon. Halfsies, bro. Everybody lives.

My Posts About Empire of Storms

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
(Books of Bayern, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★★☆ – really liked it *
Review:  Yes **
Format:  Full-Cast Audiobook
Reading Dates:  April 5 – 7
Read Count:  5-ish
Favorite Thing:  Vicious Attack Geese!
Least Favorite Thing:  Um literally all of Selia’s guard friends. Too skeevy, blech.

* Please note that this rating is for the novel as a whole, not the Full Cast Audio version.
** This review is for the Full Cast Audio version, not the novel as a whole.

My Posts About The Goose Girl

Life and Death by Stephenie Meyer
(Twilight Saga, book 1.75)
Rating:  ★☆☆☆☆ – did not like it
Review:  Yes
Format:  E-book
Reading Dates:  April 10 – 13
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  The alternate ending.
Least Favorite Thing:  So boring.

Please tell me she’s done beating the dead horse that is the Twilight Saga???

My Posts About Life and Death

White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Rating:  ★★★★★ – it was amazing
Review:  No
Format:  E-book
Reading Dates:  April 5 – 15
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  The amazing prose.
Least Favorite Thing:  Literally every male past puberty that ever came in contact with Astrid….

This was recommended to me as part of the Buddy Reads activity in an online Book Club I am a part of. My “buddy” recommended this to me because I wanted to try more books outside of the YA genre this year. I am so incredibly glad I signed up for this activity because I got an excellent recommendation here. A recommendation which I happily pass along:  Read this book!

My Posts About White Oleander

Once and for All by Sarah Dessen
Rating:  ★★★☆☆ – liked it (real rating: 3.5)
Review:  No
Format:  Print
Reading Dates:  April 15 -17
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  Snarky wedding planner comments.
Least Favorite Thing:  Ambrose’s habit of writing everything off as being somebody else’s fault. Fucking obnoxious…

I read this book for my book club’s April Challenge (Read a book with a pastel cover.) and also because I’ve never yet met a Dessen novel I didn’t like. I wish I could give half-star ratings on Goodreads though.

My Posts About Once and for All

What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang
(Hybrid Chronicles, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review:  No
Format:  Print
Reading Dates:  April 20 – 28
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  Sisterly bond? Is that an accurate term for the bond between two souls sharing the same body?? Whatever. That’s what I’m calling it.
Least Favorite Thing:  Slow? Kind of slow… Not slow enough to DNF, but still slow.

April Challenge #2 complete with the finishing of this novel! Yay! (I don’t know how quickly I’ll move to the sequel though.)

My Posts About What’s Left of Me

Heartless by Marissa Meyer
Rating:  ★★★★☆ – really liked it
Review:  No
Format:  Print
Reading Dates:  April 29 – 30
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  I took sick pleasure in angry, vengeful Cath.
Least Favorite Thing:  Peter Peter.  Actually that’s not even the thing I hated most, but the real thing is a big spoiler.

It took me a minute to get into it, but once I did I couldn’t put it down! And April Challenge #3 successful by the skin of my teeth!

My Posts About Heartless

In Progress

Thursday Quotables: April 26, 2018

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This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week; whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written.

Big weddings meant big money and, with Bee’s fiancé, Kevin Yu, from a family that owned a big pharmaceutical company, big attention. Personally, I wanted to know if she planned to change her name, switching from Bee Little to Bee Yu, but had not found a way to work this into a meeting. Yet.

Summary:

As bubbly as champagne and delectable as wedding cake, Once and for All, Sarah Dessen’s thirteenth novel, is set in the world of wedding planning, where crises are routine.

Louna, daughter of famed wedding planner Natalie Barrett, has seen every sort of wedding: on the beach, at historic mansions, in fancy hotels and clubs. Perhaps that’s why she’s cynical about happily-ever-after endings, especially since her own first love ended tragically. When Louna meets charming, happy-go-lucky serial dater Ambrose, she holds him at arm’s length. But Ambrose isn’t about to be discouraged, now that he’s met the one girl he really wants.

Sarah Dessen’s many, many fans will adore her latest, a richly satisfying, enormously entertaining story that has everything—humor, romance, and an ending both happy and imperfect, just like life itself.

Thank you Bookshelf Fantasies for this fun book meme!

WWW Wednesday: April 25, 2018

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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:  What’s Left of Me (Hybrid Chronicles, book 1) by Kat Zhang

I’m enjoying this one, but I feel like I shouldn’t be considering how slow it’s going so far? I mean when I think about it and break it down into what has actually been happening, I feel like I should have DNF’d this by now, but for some reason the actual reading process is going pretty easily and it doesn’t feel slow.

I’m also still technically reading Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell and the audiobook of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I can already tell I won’t finish American Gods before hoopla auto-returns it, but that’s okay, I’ll just check it out again afterwhile. I am enjoying it, even if the pacing is a bit strange to me in a way I can’t place.

Recently Finished:  Once and for All by Sarah Dessen

This was my pick for one of the April reading challenges that this book club I’m in is doing. The challenge was to read a book with a pastel cover, and I wasn’t sure this counted, but I took a little poll of sorts and everyone agreed it was pastel enough to count for the challenge.

I was a little afraid I wouldn’t enjoy this book because I haven’t read anything by Sarah Dessen since high school, when I was the same age as the protagonists. I was worried I might have outgrown it or that her writing may have changed in a bad way. I wouldn’t rate this one as high as I have some of her other books, but since it’s been a while since I read them I can’t tell if that’s because I was right about aging out of her demo or if it’s just this book in particular. I’m thinking next month I might start on a little Sarah Dessen reread to answer that question.

Reading Next:  Heartless by Marissa Meyer

I don’t know exactly what to expect with this one. It’s another of my April Challenge books (read a book with a one word title) and my husband actually chose it off my TBR for me.

I hope I like it? I’ve only read one other book that was an Alice in Wonderland retelling, and I don’t remember enjoying it, but obviously that may have nothing to do with the setting and more to do with the writing.

I’m probably hopeful.

Teaser Tuesday: April 17, 2018

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If you’d asked me, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. But of course, nobody had asked me.

– Sarah Dessen, Once and for All, page 151

Version:
Hardcover, 358 pages
Published June 6th 2017 by Viking Books for Young Readers

Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, hosted by Ambrosia at The Purple Booker, the weekly Meme that wants you to add books to your TBR, or just share what you are currently reading. It is very easy to play along:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! Everyone loves Teaser Tuesday.

WWW Wednesday: April 11, 2018

LeeLeave a comment

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:  White Oleander by Janet Fitch

This book was recommended to me by a friend in a Book Club I am in as part of a “buddy reads” program. This is absolutely not my usual genre, and I was pretty nervous about that, but so far I am loving it.

I’ve had to take a bit of a break from it for a few days because the excellent writing which easy drew me into the main character’s world and mind, also makes for excellent dissociation fodder. By which I mean, I over-empathize and get so caught up in the emotions and thoughts of the character that I get stuck in them and it takes me a little while to recover. This is how I know a character/book is really well written, because a poorly written novel wouldn’t suck me in so deeply. But it also means that if the subject matter is a little darker or the protag a little more troubled than my usual YA genre novels, then I need breaks to keep from being overwhelmed by it.

Totally fucking worth it though.

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (Twilight Saga, book 1.75) by Stephenie Meyer

Welp, I’m reading another Twilight Saga novel, and before you ask, yes I am Suffering. Honestly I’ve been having trouble going through this one as quickly as some of the others because I keep having to stop and reorient my thinking due to the gender and name swapping. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve taken to keeping a list of each character and their new gender swap name so I can refer to it when I get confused.

Of course, I also keep getting held up by the amount of times I have to stop and heave an exhausted sigh or roll my eyes or groan or some combination of the three.

I’m in the middle of this one, but will definitely finish it by the end of the day today.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

*** Audiobook ***

So basically I have very little self-control, so when I learned of the existence of full-cast audiobooks I was incapable of stopping myself from checking them out. I listened to one full one already, and then started this one because it was recommended to me as a quality FCA.

I have to say though, listening to some man reading me that Bilquis scene was pretty damn awkward!

Right now I’m paused at the part where Shadow is at the funeral and he’s about to learn some hard truths!

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

I’m still reading this technically, but I’m taking a short break because I have 5 other books I have commited to reading this month, and 2 others that I’d like to finish within the week. Because moderation is for quitters!

Recently Finished:  Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, book 5) by Sarah J. Maas

Well it took me like a month, but I did finally finish it. Don’t even talk to me about the ending I’m not dealing with that right now. I refuse.

I had some troubles which I’ll talk about in my April Reading Wrap-Up, but one thing I have to say is like…. Why is everyone having sex every 10 seconds? Like I was trying to read a book about magic and war and all that. And my husband and I have theorized that if you cut out all the sex scenes the book would lose like half its volume so seriously, why was all that necessary?? Can we just chill even a little bit because I didn’t sign up for erotica at this time.

The Goose Girl (The Books of Bayern, book 1) by Shannon Hale

*** Audiobook **

I decided to listen to this on a whim. As I mentioned earlier I have only just learned about full-cast audiobooks, and when I discovered that one of my favorite stories had been done in that way I had to try it.

I wrote a Mini-Review, specifically about the audiobook version I listened to, not about the story itself. The story itself was as enjoyable as I have always found it to be.

It was more of a test of the FCA format, so I probably won’t keep going with the entire series at this time, especially since I’ve got so many other books to read right now.

Reading Next:  Once and for All by Sarah Dessen

I’ve been meaning to get to this one, and I found the perfect motivator. That book club I’m in has monthly challenges, and one of them is to read a book with a pastel cover.

I have some others that I need to read this month, but I’ve also been reading a lot of fantasy this year so I figured I should extend my genre break by reading a Dessen novel.

And if I’m honest, all the talking about Dessen novels I’ve been doing I’ve been considering a reread anyway, but I can hardly justify a Dessen reread if I haven’t even read the two newer novels of hers yet.