The concept of perfection exists only so that we have something to strive toward: Impossibility is built into it which is why we call it perfect instead of extremely good.
– Maggie Stiefvater, All the Crooked Saints, page 139
Version:
Hardcover, 311 pages
Published October 10th 2017 by Scholastic Press
Perhaps without trees or cities to dampen the enormity of the feelings, they spread out hugely.
– Maggie Stiefvater, All the Crooked Saints, page 88
Version:
Hardcover, 311 pages
Published October 10th 2017 by Scholastic Press
She was eighteen years old, a hippie Madonna with dark hair parted evenly on either side of her face, a nose shaped like a J, and a small, enigmatic mouth that men would probably describe as a rosebud but Beatriz would describe as “my mouth.”
– Maggie Stiefvater, All the Crooked Saints, page 7
Version:
Hardcover, 311 pages
Published October 10th 2017 by Scholastic Press
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
First Lines:
I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold, surrounded by wolves.
Interested? Scroll down for the cover and summary!
For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without.
Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human… until the cold makes him shift back again.
Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.
All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took me a while to get to the halfway point, it felt like it was moving quite slowly, but once I reached halfway I didn’t want to put it down, so if you’re struggling at the beginning don’t get discouraged.
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: Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren GrahamI grabbed this one because I was getting a little stuck on the other book I’m reading. Lauren has a quarter-serious, mostly comical way of looking at her life and it’s pretty fun to read.
I almost feel as if she’s sitting there just chatting to me rather than me just being curled up reading a book.
I’m looking forward to finding out about behind-the-scenes Gilmore Girls things, but I don’t see how she can top the Top-Secret Hollywood Secrets on dieting.
All the Crooked Saints by Maggie StiefvaterI am both enjoying, and not enjoying this book…
Basically, it’s fascinating and strange, exactly like I was hoping it would be. But I don’t like it as much as I hoped.
I was warned that it might seem less magical than TRC, which when I first started I thought was erroneous, but the more I read of it the more I start to see what they meant. That’s not to say there isn’t any magic, in fact there’s quite a lot. But that’s my problem. There’s so much magic, it feels… somehow less magical…. And I can’t really explain that very well, but there it is.
Recently Finished: Gone Girl by Gillian FlynnThe decision to read this was pretty spur of the moment. Some other readers had made me want to try out Gillian Flynn’s novels, but I wasn’t going to for little while yet. And then I just sort of…. did? I have no idea what made me do it, but I’m sooo glad!
It was amazing. Except for the parts where I wanted to climb into the book and push Nick off something tall for being a pretentious douche… But otherwise, completely amazing!
I’ve already ordered it online because I know I’m going to want to reread it.
Reading Next: Jackaroo (Tales of the Kingdom, book 1) by Cynthia VoigtI’ve found myself in a major YA Fantasy mood and I haven’t even managed to finish the two books I’m currently reading!
I thought about looking for a book I hadn’t read before, but I know how much I love the Tales of the Kingdom books so I’m going to reread them yet again. After all, it’s been just slightly over a year since I reread them last!
The hard part will be making myself wait to start until I finish the two books I’m already on.
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.
Darkness, though, grows like a cave formation. Slow drips from the uneasiness harden over the surface of a slick knob of pain. Over time, the darkness crusts in unpredictable layers, growing at such a pace that one doesn’t notice it has filled every cavern under the skin until movement becomes difficult or even impossible.
Summary:
Here is a thing everyone wants: a miracle.
Here is a thing everyone fears: what it takes to get one.
Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars.
At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo.
They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro are never quite what you expect.
Thank you Bookshelf Fantasies for this fun book meme!
What Are You Reading Wednesdays #WAYRW is a weekly feature on It’s A Reading Thing. Everyone is welcome to participate.
Grab the book you are currently reading and answer three questions:
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 take part in any book challenges? If you do you find yourself keeping up and making the posts on the other blogs?
I’m currently reading…
All The Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater
I had been waiting to start this one and finally got it from the library last week. I’m only about 1/4 of the way in so far, but I’m liking it. The narrator is pretty funny and the descriptive language is fantastic as always with Maggie.
Do you take part in any book challenges? If you do you find yourself keeping up and making the posts on the other blogs?
I do the Goodreads challenge, but I’ve yet to try any other challenges. I would like to, and almost did last year, but I just kept forgetting like a dodo….
The Waterless Sea by Kate Constable
(The Chanters of Tremaris, book 2)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: December 11 – 12
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: Chanters vs. Pirates from the beginning.
Least Favorite Thing: Ooomg so many sexist desert-dwellers!
I started to reread this series earlier in the year and then just totally got side-tracked, but I’m back now! (Also I think I completely blocked out the end….)
My Posts About The Waterless Sea
The Tenth Power by Kate Constable
(The Chanters of Tremaris, book 3)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: December 12
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: The reveal about Cal’s family 🙂
Least Favorite Thing: Um… Keela’s entire original personality?
Man I zipped through this one! I was so anxious because I couldn’t remember in detail how this book went so I just devoured it!
I definitely recommend the Chanters of Tremaris series to anyone who likes YA Magical Fantasy and those who, like me, love stories about nature magic.
My Posts About The Tenth Power
The Swan Maiden by Heather Tomlinson
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review: Kinda?
Reading Dates: December 12
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: Lavena had me cackling!
Least Favorite Thing: Seriously why does her entire family have to be Like That?? I just wanted to climb into the novel and systematically throttle them all…
I was actually surprised by how little of this story I remembered from when I first read it years ago.
My Posts About The Swan Maiden
The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan
(Trials of Apollo, book 1)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: November 23 – December 13
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: Actually dealt pretty well with the portrayal of a relationship between a child and their abusive parent.
Least Favorite Thing: Apollo is so fucking annoying. I miss Percy.
Seriously the only parts of the book I truly loved were the parts with Percy. I didn’t even realize he was my favorite, but he’s obviously my favorite. Lovably sarcastic dork….
My Posts About The Hidden Oracle
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
(Brian’s Saga, book 1)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: December 13
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: I love the way Brian thinks about things, like referring to the fire as his “new hungry friend”.
Least Favorite Thing: That moose was a dick. (Honestly, I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about the story/writing.)
I’m really glad I decided to try rereading this again. I wanted to see if I still liked it after all these years and I think I actually like it more now.
Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao
(Rise of the Empress, book 1)
Rating: ★★★★★
Review: Yes
Reading Dates: December 15 – 18
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: Had me totally rooting for someone I knew was technically a villain!
Least Favorite Thing: I really didn’t need the mental images of killing small animals… (To be clear, it’s not often and it’s not like gratuitous slaughter, it’s just the descriptive language Julie C. Dao is good at made things a little too vivid for me for that particular couple scenes.)
I was so excited to get my hands on this book and it didn’t disappoint! I feel like wandering around town yelling about this book like a street preacher. Seriously, I recommend it to everyone, especially if you like fairy tale retellings.
(I almost put that my favorite thing was that there was literally zero white people in this entire novel, but I thought that might be a little tactless…oops!)
My Posts About Forest of a Thousand Lanterns
Mind Games by Kiersten White
(Mind Games, book 1)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: October 22 – December 23
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: Fia being all small and kick-ass.
Least Favorite Thing: It just didn’t hold my attention very well…
I think it’s a pretty decent book, there was just something that made it hard to stay in the story. Still it ended on a minor cliffhanger so I guess I’ll be reading the sequel at some point!
Hold Still by Nina LaCour
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: December 23 – 26
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: The photography.
Least Favorite Thing: I’m surprised to find there isn’t really anything I didn’t like from this book. Everything felt very honest.
I was afraid this book would be really hard to read because of the subject matter, but it moved really well and was a very honest portrayal of grief and recovery.
Darkestwings Reads