Author: Lee

What Are You Reading Wednesdays: January 3, 2018

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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:

  1. What’s the name of your current read?
  2. Go to page 34 in your book or 34% in your eBook and share a couple of sentences.
  3. Would you like to live in the world that exists within your book? Why or why not?

  1. All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater
  2. Judith used to be the most beautiful woman in Bicho Raro, but then she’d moved, and now she was the most beautiful woman in Colorado Springs.
  3. I mean, I’d like to, as long as I don’t have to be a pilgrim. Because I know I have darkness inside me and I really do not want to know what it would manifest as! Yikes…

 

Top 5 Wednesday: January 3, 2018

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2018 Reading Resolutions

Self explanatory. Let us know 5 of your reading goals for the year. 
To participate in Top 5 Wednesday, head over to their Goodreads Group!

It’s that time again, y’all! I pretty much never make regular new year’s resolutions, but making reading resolutions really helped last year, so here we go!

  1. Read 75 books in 2018! (Goodreads Goal)
    I considered raising this number since this was my goal for 2017 as well, but I decided to keep it since it is still a challenge for me at this point. With my mental state the way it is, I have massive slumps where I can barely even get out of bed, much less read regularly. So if I can do 75 two years in a row, I’ll raise the goal for 2019, but for now I think this is still challenging myself.
  2. Give General Fiction novels another chance.
    I always had trouble getting into General Fiction because most of the books I found seemed to be full of gratuitous sex scenes that did nothing to enhance the plot, which got boring fast. This year I’d like to at least try a few more General Fic books to see if I can find ones I like.
  3. Read at least 15 books that I own, but haven’t read yet.
    Haha I’m garbage and I buy books and never fucking read them! This year I want to knock 15 of them off my TBR so if I don’t like them I can trade them to the used bookstore for better ones!
  4. Keep up with writing reviews.
    I said for 2017 that I wanted to start writing book reviews and I did, but as the year went on I did less and less. I would like to get better at reviewing and do it more because I do kind of enjoy it.
  5. Keep reading more #OwnVoices novels.
    I never bothered specifically trying to find novels by non-white authors before last year, despite being annoyed by the lack of diversity in a lot of the novels I read (before Own Voices novels I never read a single book with a character like me in it…), but I’m glad I started to that and I want to read even more this year.

Do you have any bookish goals for 2018?

Musing Monday: January 1, 2018

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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 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….

December 2017 Wrap-Up

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Non-Reading Stuff

Health-wise I’ve been doing about the same, but my mental health is like sort of good and bad? Like I’ve noticed I’m having more and more trouble enjoying anything lately, which is part of the depression being really bad (yay Major Depressive Disorder), but at the same time I’ve been making some progress. I spent time with my mom and left the house and have been working on doing more around the house, which is all progress…

I actually left the house 3 times this month, and they were all my own idea and everything! Basically I went with my husband to a procedure he had, and then hung out with him and my mom for most of the rest of that day walking around the square and stuff. Then that weekend the hubby and I went out for coffee and to the library. That was my favorite thing honestly even though it was such a small thing because it’s been years since I was able to go to the public library. When I was younger I practically lived there, but not for years. So I walked in and immediately froze because I had forgotten how the public library smells and I know it sounds ridiculous but I spent like several minutes just standing in the entryway taking deep breaths! Ha! And I did another thing this month that I hadn’t done in years: I went to the movies! My mom and I brought back our old Christmas tradition from my childhood and we went to the movies on xmas day.

So I’m not sure what’s up with my brain lately, but I’m trying to find a way to get back on meds because I definitely need it!

Reading Stuff

I read 9 books in November, and of those I finished 8.
You can view the list of books and my fave/least fave things about them here.

I MET MY GOAL I MET MY GOAL I MET MY MOTHER FUCKING GOAL!!!!

Finishing 8 books put me at 78 for the year, officially 3 over my Goodreads goal of 75 for 2017! I’m so proud of myself honestly because there was a good half of the year where I didn’t see how I was going to meet that goal.

Blogging Stuff

I wasn’t a whole lot more active on the blog this month, but I did manage to do some things I had been wanting to do more of so I’m cool with it.

As always there are some of the weekly book memes, along with quotes and rating posts (links for all these in sidebar for WordPress users), but I also managed to do more bookstagrams. (This was made easier by my actually leaving the house this month!) I got to post pictures of yummy food with yummy books, and a little used bookstore haul. I even managed to get out a full review this month, for Forest of a Thousand Lanterns.

One of my other goals was to make more original posts, not just the same things I always do. So when I felt like screaming, either in frustration or celebration? I tossed it up on the blog. When I got to the last quarter of FOTL and realized there was too much book left for the protag to be feeling as confident as she was? I posted that too.

I have several cross-posted things from talking to booklr folks on tumblr. I gave some incredibly wise, insightful writing advice, some book recs, did a couple tag games, and did my best to answer someone who was worried about running into one of their phobias reading FOTL.

I hope I can keep this good momentum up because I’ve noticed the more I blog the more I keep up with my reading, even when the depression is bad.

Is there something you would like to see (or see more of) on the blog? Let me know! And if you have your own monthly wrap-ups I’d love some links! 🙂 Hope all y’all had good Decembers & Happy Holidays!

December 2017 Reading Wrap-Up

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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.

My Posts About Hatchet

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!

My Posts About Mind Games

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.

My Posts About Hold Still

In Progress

First Lines Fridays: December 29, 2017

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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?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

Brian Robeson stared out the window of the small plane at the endless green northern wilderness below.

Interested? Scroll down for the cover and summary!

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
(Brian’s Saga, book 1)

Brian is on his way to Canada to visit his estranged father when the pilot of his small prop plane suffers a heart attack. Brian is forced to crash-land the plane in a lake–and finds himself stranded in the remote Canadian wilderness with only his clothing and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present before his departure.

Brian had been distraught over his parents’ impending divorce and the secret he carries about his mother, but now he is truly desolate and alone. Exhausted, terrified, and hungry, Brian struggles to find food and make a shelter for himself. He has no special knowledge of the woods, and he must find a new kind of awareness and patience as he meets each day’s challenges. Is the water safe to drink? Are the berries he finds poisonous?

Slowly, Brian learns to turn adversity to his advantage–an invading porcupine unexpectedly shows him how to make fire, a devastating tornado shows him how to retrieve supplies from the submerged airplane. Most of all, Brian leaves behind the self-pity he has felt about his predicament as he summons the courage to stay alive.