Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children

Top 5 Wednesday: September 27, 2017

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Books You’ve Read Because of Booktube/Blogging/etc.

Discuss the books you’ve picked up because you’ve heard of them in the online book community or platform you use.
To participate in Top 5 Wednesday, head over to their Goodreads Group!

  1. The Raven Cycle // Maggie Stiefvater
    Well I had to put this series first because it’s the one I’m the most grateful to booklr for convincing me to read. I had seen The Raven Boys (book 1) on a shelf before, but had specifically not even picked it up because of the title. Then even when I did pick it up and read the blurb, I remember thinking it would be just a dumb romance about private school boys and setting it back down! (I’m ashamed to even admit that…) So it wasn’t until several posts from booklr peeps and direct cajoling from a reader friend that I finally decided to give it a chance.
  2. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
    This book comes second because I think it’s the second most important in that it taught me not to blindly trust booklr hype! I reviewed it, if you want to know more, but long story short: booklr straight lied to me about this book; it was trash.
  3. The Lunar Chronicles // Marissa Meyer
    I was pretty resistant to reading this one, but now that I have I can’t remember what my reasoning was… I should have known I would enjoy a sci-fi fairytale retelling series!
  4. Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes, book 1) by Sara Raasch
    Anyone on booklr knows how all over this series the community was for a while there. I bought into the hype of course, because I’m weak, and found this to be a pretty enjoyable book. I was reading it when I went to sign my pre-trial diversion paperwork and my lawyer and I talked about it at length. (Apparently it’s one she recommends all the time.) Unfortunately I couldn’t get into the sequel despite repeated tries and wound up abandoning the series.
  5. Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children // Ransom Riggs
    This is another series I am so grateful to the booklr community for recommending! There’s just so much to love about this series. The first time around, back in 2014, I really liked the story, but I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I did when I went back and reread it at the beginning of this year.

I’d love to know about some books the online book community you are a part of convinced you to read! Comment or make your own post and leave me a link.

January 2017 Wrap-Up

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
(Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★★★
Reading Dates:  January 9 – 12
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  The books Jake finds when he explores the bombed shell of the home. He remarks the titles of ‘Peter Pan’ and ‘The Secret Garden’. I laughed so hard I lost my place!
Least Favorite Thing:  Jake does not think about things enough! He supposedly went over his grandfather’s last words constantly, but he doesn’t catch when people say things that might allude back to it? That freaking apple rots overnight into dust and his reaction is literally: “puzzled, I shrugged it off and went out”! What the hell, Jake!?

If you love adventure and amazing descriptive language in your novels, this is definitely a book (and series) you need to read. I genuinely had to pause several times just to absorb the imagery. (And once to scrub my brain of the mental image presented by the imagery…)
If you saw the movie and decided this book wasn’t worth reading, I urge you to reconsider.

My Posts About Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
(Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, book 2)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Reading Dates:  January 12 – 14
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  “Nowhere am I deadlier than in a field of wildflowers,” Hugh said, enjoying the attention.
(Also can we talk about how cute Fiona and Hugh are? She grew flowers for his bees so they could kiss! I’m dyingggg!)
Least Favorite Thing:  The menagerie… Something about the peculiar animals just… Bleh…

My Posts About Hollow City

Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
(Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, book 3)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Reading Dates:  January 14 – 23
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  Jacob’s Hollow!!!! Precious little killing machine!
Least Favorite Thing:  The defeated feeling it gave me around halfway through… I accept that adventure novels have to have a “progress, set back, progress, set back” sort of rhythm, but sometimes it gets to a point where it feels like more set backs than progress and it leaves me feeling hopeless. Luckily, it didn’t last too long in this book, so don’t let that be what keeps you from reading it.

My Posts About Library of Souls

The Singer of All Songs by Kate Constable
(The Chanters of Tremaris, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Reading Dates:  January 24 – 27
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  Talk shit get…..all the saliva in your mouth frozen solid.
Least Favorite Thing:  Trout whines too damn much… (And Samis gloats too damn much…)

My Posts About The Singer of All Songs

WWW Wednesday: January 25, 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:  The Singer of All Songs by Kate Constable (Chanters of Tremaris, book 1)
I’ve read this series once before, but I realized the other day I was having trouble remembering some details. And the details I did remember made me want to reread it so I could remember them all!
Plus I always love the idea of magic through language (in this case song). And of course it’s elemental magic for the most part, which is always fun.
Calwyn almost seems boring in the beginning, but I’m not sure how exciting you can make a convent girl who does nothing but chores or singing at a wall to keep it frozen solid all day long really seem…. She get’s more interesting after she meets Darrow.

Recently Finished:  Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, book 3)
I am never getting over my affection for Jacob’s stupid Hollow! I literally cried over that thing for heaven’s sake… And the ending really got me. Like I knew there had to be some way to make the ending happy, but at a certain point (I won’t say specifically in case some haven’t read it) I was feeling just as desperate and hopeless as Jacob and almost in tears.
I did have some trouble around the half-way point with this one because everything just seemed to be going wrong over and over and nothing going right, but I got past it and I’m so glad I kept reading.
Did I mention the Hollow? 😦 I miss him….

Reading Next:  Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink (Prophecy of the Sisters, book 1)
I’ll probably be reading this next, unless some miracle happens and the copy of The Waterless Sea that the public library ordered comes in and I can continue with the Chanters of Tremaris series.
Also if I have any luck at all, I’ll manage to read some more on The Tale of Oriel since I just stopped part way through a while back and never got back to it! It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that I hit a reading slump while I was reading this one and now I’m having trouble making myself get back to it in case the slump comes back!