Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan
(The Lynburn Legacy, book 2)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  Yes
Reading Dates:  September 15 – 17
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  Rusty. Perfect Rusty.
Least Favorite Thing:  Rob Lynburn is so skeezy I need 10 showers every time he talks…

Welp, I’m not mad about the thing I was mad about at the end of the first book anymore because it was explained and resolved in a very satisfying manner. However! I am frustrated because I have made several connections based on information Kami has already that she has not made and I have no way of climbing into the book to tell her!

My Posts About Untold

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor
(Daughter of Smoke & Bone, book 2)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  September 17 – 20
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  That fucking fruit basket/note thing!
Least Favorite Thing:  Thiago. Obviously.

The close second for favorite thing was the trio of Akiva, Liraz, and Hazael. Sweet murder siblings.

But it was deeply infuriating waiting for Karou to figure out that Thiago and Ten were playing her! It seemed so damn obvious!

One thing that bugged me about the book though, there was a mention when explaining the whole “Angel-lover” insult where it says “in all Karou’s human languages, there was no insult so loaded with disgust and contempt, no single word that cast such a pall of filth” and I actually had to stop for a minute because I was annoyed. I mean… It’s really obvious what real life insult it resembles and yet it’s supposedly worse than anything in any human language. Ok Laini. Sure. (To clarify, I by no means think this was some intentional slight intended by the author, it’s just something that really bothered me personally.)

My Posts About Days of Blood & Starlight

The Runner by Cynthia Voigt
(The Tillerman Cycle, book 4)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  September 20 – 21
Read Count:  3  (Pretty sure I’ve read it more than that, but only 3 that I can be sure of.)
Favorite Thing:  Reading him running, of course.
Least Favorite Thing:  The Phone Call. I’m still crying even though I always know it’s coming.

I want to warn potential readers, for a good half of this book Bullet is a racist. Not a “death to all black people” kind of racist, you won’t have to read depictions of him committing violence against black people, but an “I don’t mix with them” sort of racist, and you will see his thoughts about it several times. Part of his journey in this book is him learning that he’s wrong to just arbitrarily dislike people who are black. I didn’t want anyone getting blindsided by that in the beginning of the book.

My Posts About The Runner

Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor
(Daughter of Smoke & Bone, book 3)
Rating:  ★★★★★
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  September 23 – 27
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  We Haven’t Been Introduced
Seriously this is easily my favorite part of the whole book. I grin like an idiot and squeal internally just thinking about it. Like just now, I briefly recalled parts of the book I enjoyed to evaluate them for a favorite and when I came to this one I actually hid my face and giggled so I feel like it’s really no contest.
Least Favorite Thing:  Morgan Toth’s pillowy lips…

I actually raised my rating of this book from 4 stars (from back in 2014) to 5 because it’s definitely the best of the trilogy for me.

My Posts About Dreams of Gods & Monsters

Come A Stranger by Cynthia Voigt
(The Tillerman Cycle, book 5)
Rating:  ★★★★☆
Review:  No
Reading Dates:  September 28 – 29
Read Count:  3  (Pretty sure I’ve read it more than that, but only 3 that I can be sure of.)
Favorite Thing:  Mina’s laughter.
Least Favorite Thing:  Racist teachers, blech.

I learned so much from Mina back in middle school when I first read this book. So much was changing for me and reading a book where that was happening to a character who was dynamic and strong was so helpful at that time.

My Posts About Come A Stranger

In Progress

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 like book clubs or not?

I blogged about ____ this past week…

• Monday, September 18 – Musing Monday, showing off a new book I got & talking about background noise, and a review of Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan.
• Tuesday, September 19 – A progress update for Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor, then Teaser Tuesday (also using DoBaS).
• Wednesday, September 20 – A rating post for Days of Blood & Starlight, a belated WWW Wednesday, WAYRW, then a bookstagram for The Runner by Cynthia Voigt.
• Thursday, September 21 – Thursday Quotables, using The Runner, and then a rating post for the same novel.
• Friday, September 22 – As usual, First Lines Friday & Friday 56 (the latter using Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor).
• Saturday, September 23 – I managed two chapters of Persuasion this week, and I posted my usual progress update for that.

Do you like book clubs or not?
Uh… In theory?

I’ve never actually been in a book club, so I can’t say for sure. I like the idea of being in one, but I’ve never seen a book club of adults who read a ridiculous amount of YA novels!

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 Runner (The Tillerman Cycle, book 4) by Cynthia Voigt
This is one of my favorites of the Tillerman Cycle books. It focuses on Bullet Tillerman, the Tillerman Children’s late uncle, back before he left for the war in Vietnam.

I can’t wait to get back in Bullet’s head, honestly; he’s such a defiant little shit. Plus, it’s interesting to see how Gram was back when her husband was still alive and she wasn’t “crazy Abigail Tillerman” yet.

And as always, I’m also still working my way through Persuasion by Jane Austen. It’s not quite as torturous as it was originally, but I don’t know if that will last… I hope it will.

Recently Finished:  Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, book 2) by Laini Taylor
I literally just finished this book 5 minutes ago… This was my second time reading it.

I had a little trouble halfway through the book because Karou’s situation feels so hopeless that I started feeling hopeless too. Luckily, all I needed was a short break and I was able to get right back into the story.

I have forgotten a few things from last time I read it though. Like the whole bit with the White Wolf towards the end. I won’t get into details because it’s spoilery, but damn.

Untold (The Lynburn Legacy, book 2) by Sarah Rees Brennan
I finished Untold just before DoBaS. I was a little nervous about Second Book Syndrome, but that didn’t happen and I enjoyed Untold quite a bit. Especially the banter between characters. I really am such a sucker for funny, sassy banter in novels and Sarah Rees Brennan excels at it!

I reviewed it too.

It looks like I will have to wait a while to read the third book though, because I have to get it through an Interlibrary Loan to get it. My local library only has the first two books in the trilogy for some unknown, but deeply annoying reason. (They do that a lot actually.)

Reading Next:  Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, book 3) by Laini Taylor
Try as I might…. I’m not sure I really remember anything specific from this book?? Which I didn’t realize until just now…

So I guess it’s a good thing I’m rereading the series, huh?

I never bothered to read the novella for the series, but I think I might this time around? But I still haven’t quite decided if I should read it before DoGaM where it fits chronologically, or read it after I finish the whole series the way it was published.

Rating:  ★★★★☆ – really liked it
Genre:  young adult fiction, ya mystery, paranormal fantasy
Pros:  queer rep, more banter!, funny
Cons:  love triangle (ish), occasionally choppy narrative

A lot of the things I would talk about in a review for Untold are things I already talked about in my review of the first book, Unspoken. To avoid being repetitive I will skip those and advise you to read that review, then move on to Untold-specific things:

Untold is one of the better sequels I’ve read in a while. It didn’t fall into the traps a lot of “middle of a trilogy” books fall into.

We get more insight into the personalities of several characters that we didn’t get in the first book. This is done through a ton of POV switching (Unspoken switched between Jared & Kami, Untold goes much farther than that). This can sometimes make the narrative feel a little choppy, but overall I think it’s good for the story.

Almost everyone got a little character development. Kami has to learn to cope with things on her own, Holly must learn to accept who she is, Jared learns to care about other people and let them in, just to list a few. Even the adults got some moments of development.

I’ve never read a book with such a strong ensemble of characters, and I’m not sure how I can go back to reading books where background characters are 2-dimensional plot devices now that I’ve found Sarah Rees Brennan’s novels.

I want to take a minute to talk about the queer representation in the novel, because something happened that you so rarely see. We already have the character whose sexuality we discovered in the first book, and that gets developed a bit. Turns out she knew and accepted that she was a lesbian, but wasn’t quite ready for other people to know. Then we get another character who is unsure of her own sexual identity because she knows she likes boys and now is shocked to discover an attraction to another girl. She discusses this with another character and this is where I braced myself for the inevitable “you can just like people, not labels” or some other such copout. But instead he openly discusses bisexuality with her. He even says the word “bisexual”! For some people this probably seems like a small thing to be so excited about, but being bisexual myself, and constantly seeing media refuse to acknowledge it even when they have bisexual characters, this scene was very important to me and utterly refreshing.

The plot feels a little slower paced than the first book, but I think this is mostly due to the fact that there is less suspense and mystery. Instead of finding bodies and trying to figure out who the bad guys are, the group are preparing for a showdown. There is still some mystery and there’s a big confrontation at the end like the first novel, but most of the book is about planning and preparing. Luckily, the book is well-written and there is enough going on the keep the reader interested despite the somewhat slower plot.

On the whole, Untold is an excellent bridge between the first novel and the third. The reader ends up just as invested in the main plot arc as in the first novel and more invested in the characters, which is exactly what a second book needs to do to move a trilogy along. It’s an easy read with enough substance not to be considered fluff.

In addition to those who enjoyed the first novel, Unspoken, I recommend Untold to fans of ya romance, paranormal fantasy, and novels with strong characterization.

Spoiler Zone

I mentioned in my review of Unspoken that there was something about the first book that left me angry and that I hoped would be resolved in the sequel. It was! If you are someone who found yourself angry at Jared’s character in the end of the first book and you aren’t sure if you want to read Untold because of that, this spoiler is for you!
[start] We learn that Jared lashed out at Kami because of what she said before she broke the link and his belief that she wanted nothing to do with him. Her avoiding him afterwards (because she believed what he said) confirmed for Jared that she must hate him so he tried to maintain a distance from her, partially because of his hurt feelings and partially because he believed it’s what she wanted. [end]

Goodreads | Book Depository | Author’s Website

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

View all my ratings on Goodreads

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:  Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, book 1) by Laini Taylor
I had been wanting to reread this series for a while;, and now that I’m stuck waiting for the sequel to Strange the Dreamer, I think this is the perfect time.

I read this the first time with Mary at Books and Cookies, but that was years ago apparently!

Who knows, I may even try to review them this time around since I’m (hopefully) likely to be less overwhelmed by how much I like it with the second reading.

And, of course, I’ll be reading another chapter of Persuasion this week.

Recently Finished:  Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy, book 1) by Sarah Rees Brennan
I’m still fiddling around to see if I can come up with a whole review for this book. I have some thoughts, but I’m not sure it adds up to much.

I had never even heard of anyone doing a Young Adult book in the style of a Gothic novel before I was recommended this book. I’m glad I gave it a chance.

But honestly, y’all, that ending? I just sat there in shock like…what? What kind of complete 180??? I don’t want to say too much and spoil things, but seriously what?

Reading Next:  Untold (The Lynburn Legacy, book 2) by Sarah Rees Brennan
I’m looking forward to continuing this series. I have to admit I don’t see how they can possibly go anywhere else from where the last book ended!

As always with a sequel, I’m wary of Second Book Syndrome, but we shall see. If the dialogue is as enjoyable as the first book I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble.

And, seriously, this book better explain that ending from Unspoken or I swear I will throw something…

I’m also waiting for the last four Tillerman Cycle books to come in from the public library, so cross your fingers for me that I get those this week because I want to finish rereading that series too. (Someone please motivate me to set up my home library so I can just read my own copies of my favorite books!)