Uglies series

First Lines Fridays: November 16, 2018

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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:

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.
Of course, Tally thought, you’d have to feed your cat only salmon-flavored cat food for a while, to get the pinks right.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

 

August 2017 Wrap-Up (Part 2)

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Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
(Strange the Dreamer, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★★★
Review:  Yes
Reading Dates:  August 18 – 25
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  Lazlo’s love of and respect for books and stories.
Least Favorite Thing:  Thyon Nero’s love of and respect for nothing. (The little prick.)

I spent 1/4 of my time reading this book going back and forth checking the prologue against things I learned to try and brace myself for the inevitable utter fucking heartbreak of the ending!

Trigger Warning:  Descriptions of the Carnage include the murder of infants. It doesn’t go into gory detail, it’s a little more abstract, but it’s still vivid and mentioned many times.

My Posts About Strange the Dreamer

Specials by Scott Westerfeld
(Uglies, book 3)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  August 16 – 27
Read Count:  2  (I really think I read this one other time, but I haven’t got a record of it…)
Favorite Thing:  Special Tally’s Special skillz!
Least Favorite Thing:  The way Shay treats Tally…

Raise your hand if you want to be a little teen angst Special!
No? Just me? Well then…

Seriously though, the Specials are so cool, if only they weren’t Like That (looking at you Shay!). I honestly wouldn’t mind a whole separate book that’s just Tally’s adventures as a lone Special.

Trigger Warning:  Self-harm (cutting, some passing mention of burning). Only one character really treats it like it’s a bad thing, everyone else treats it as normal and/or good for the majority of the book.

My Posts About Specials

Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt
(The Tillerman Cycle, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  August 28 – 29
Read Count:  3
Favorite Thing:  “Parents?” “Not noticeably.”
Least Favorite Thing:  Eunice…

I missed this series so much! I’m sitting here now (having just finished it) with a warm, fuzzy contentment that only the most special books give me. Thank goodness for Cynthia Voigt.

My Posts About Homecoming

The Cursed Queen by Sarah Fine
(The Impostor Queen, book 2)
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  Yes
Reading Dates:  August 29 – 31
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  Scrappy little (bisexual) protag 🙂
Least Favorite Thing:  Kill marks… (Why does every author feel the need to have a raider race that cuts themselves as a mark of honor? Can we stop that?)

This one was better than the first book. Somewhat less predictable, less annoying protag, more interesting people around the protag.

Trigger Warning: Self-harm (cutting). The protag glorifies it along with pretty much everyone else in her tribe, but towards the end of the book she seems to have realized it’s not a good thing. However, it is never explicitly decried.

My Posts About The Cursed Queen

Ash by Malinda Lo
Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  August 31
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  The Fairy Tales
Least Favorite Thing:  Lady Isobel (duh)

I’m not 100% sure how to feel about this book. That is, I liked it, it’s a nice story, but it’s not what I was expecting. I’ll try to review it soon.

My Posts About Ash

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 28, 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 find yourself reading more or less as the school season starts?

I blogged about ____ this past week…

Do you find yourself reading more or less as the school season starts?
I haven’t been in school for a while now, but back when I was I always read more during the school year. It seemed like the more I had to do, the more I just wanted to read!

Update: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor / Specials by Scott Westerfeld

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Lee is on page 153 of 532

Thyon Nero is still a douche, Lazlo is precious, Calixte seems awesome, and the blue children are still fascinating! I and loving finding out more about their world!

On a not quite unrelated note:  I think I’ve figured out something!!!!

Lee is on page 137 of 372

Every time I reread this I’m surprised by how long it takes for Tally to realize that Shay is going off the rails…

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.