Does anyone else get the urge to read a book that (from the synopsis) you are fairly certain you will dislike, just to challenge yourself?
General
What Are You Reading Wednesday: May 2, 2018
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:
- What’s the name of your current read?
- Go to page 34 in your book or 34% in your eBook and share a couple of sentences.
- Would you like to live in the world that exists within your book? Why or why not?
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- I’ve now grown accustomed to hearing the alarms blare at all times.
- UHM . . . No thank you I would prefer not to be stranded alone on Mars.
April Acrostic
I saw a version of this on another blog and thought it looked like fun so I adapted it just a little. They didn’t know who had come up with it originally, so I obviously don’t either. But I thought it was neat so here it is, to celebrate the end of the month: April Acrostic!
To play, just spell the word “April” with some of your favorite titles! (Be sure to link me to your post if you do it!)
For my April Acrostic I chose:
- All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- The Runner by Cynthia Voigt
- It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It by Robert Fulghum
& - Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
Potential Discussion Post: Required Reading
So I missed Musing Monday this week due to hospital and the random question was something I actually had things to say about so I’m just going to randomly post it because, who cares, it’s my blog.
The Question: What do you think of required reading in school?
My thoughts:
While I loved the idea of reading novels for credit, and fully appreciate how important a part of the curriculum it is, I never could quite enjoy required reading no matter how much I wanted to.
My problem with required reading was always the way that the books were taught. I mean yes, there were always some boring ones (Animal Farm can die, honestly), but even the good ones were often made boring just by the way they were taught to us.
No original thought allowed, no discussion of the literary impact of the books, no appreciation of their impact on popular culture of the times they were published, no analysis deeper than “can you spot the foreshadowing” was allowed. We weren’t even allowed to voice displeasure with the text. I got kicked out of class for saying that I didn’t like Lord of the Flies. (Literally just that, nothing more, nothing inappropriate.)
It was just ridiculously unenjoyable, almost intentionally so.
I also always thought it might be fun if they would let us vote as a class to pick one book a year (from a list of acceptable books) so that at least once we could be reading something we chose.
I’d love to know what you guys thought of required reading in schools and what made you feel the way you do!
And one other thing!
Am I the only one who thinks that Edward/Edythe deciding that they shouldn’t kill/eat rapists and serial killers anymore is worse than the actual killing part?
Like…some people should die, y’all. That’s just how it is. And if you know that someone is a rapist/murderer and you just let them go about their business, you’re shit.
Somebody going through my town and getting rid of all the bad people doesn’t sound like a monster to me. Sounds like a fucking hero. Vigilante Vampires! We could even still use the fucking bat signal.
Help me Sparkle Man, a pedophile moved to my town! Oh, you already ate him on the way here? Cool cool thanks, you rock Sparkle Man.
Just sayin’.
Some Book Talk
Predicting the Future of Twilight
WWW Wednesday: April 25, 2018
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: What’s Left of Me (Hybrid Chronicles, book 1) by Kat Zhang
I’m enjoying this one, but I feel like I shouldn’t be considering how slow it’s going so far? I mean when I think about it and break it down into what has actually been happening, I feel like I should have DNF’d this by now, but for some reason the actual reading process is going pretty easily and it doesn’t feel slow.
I’m also still technically reading Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell and the audiobook of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I can already tell I won’t finish American Gods before hoopla auto-returns it, but that’s okay, I’ll just check it out again afterwhile. I am enjoying it, even if the pacing is a bit strange to me in a way I can’t place.
Recently Finished: Once and for All by Sarah Dessen
This was my pick for one of the April reading challenges that this book club I’m in is doing. The challenge was to read a book with a pastel cover, and I wasn’t sure this counted, but I took a little poll of sorts and everyone agreed it was pastel enough to count for the challenge.
I was a little afraid I wouldn’t enjoy this book because I haven’t read anything by Sarah Dessen since high school, when I was the same age as the protagonists. I was worried I might have outgrown it or that her writing may have changed in a bad way. I wouldn’t rate this one as high as I have some of her other books, but since it’s been a while since I read them I can’t tell if that’s because I was right about aging out of her demo or if it’s just this book in particular. I’m thinking next month I might start on a little Sarah Dessen reread to answer that question.
Reading Next: Heartless by Marissa Meyer
I don’t know exactly what to expect with this one. It’s another of my April Challenge books (read a book with a one word title) and my husband actually chose it off my TBR for me.
I hope I like it? I’ve only read one other book that was an Alice in Wonderland retelling, and I don’t remember enjoying it, but obviously that may have nothing to do with the setting and more to do with the writing.
I’m probably hopeful.
Gettin’ real sick of this shit…
Top 5 Wednesday: April 11, 2018
Auto-Buy Scifi and Fantasy Authors
This month’s crossover topic is your auto-buy authors that write SFF.
To participate in Top 5 Wednesday, head over to their Goodreads Group!
Cynthia Voigt
I know she’s only done the one fantasy series, Tales of the Kingdom, but they are my favorites (it’s not often that I find a non-magical fantasy in the YA genre) and she’s my absolute favorite author so you know I had to bring her up! And anyway, if she ever published another fantasy novel I’d be trying to buy it before the ink could even dry.
Julie C. Dao
After Forest of a Thousand Lanterns, I am so in love with Dao’s writing I absolutely have to have her future novels. It’s rare that I would call someone an auto-buy after only one book (or at all actually, I have very few auto-buy authors), but that’s how good it was to me so there you have it.
Laini Taylor
If you had asked me before Strange the Dreamer I might not have mentioned Laini, since I’d only read her DoSaB trilogy at that point, but now? I don’t think I could resist buying anything she came out with at this point.
Shannon Hale
Shannon was the first author that I liked something of theirs so much I had to search out everything else they’d written. I got Shannon’s novel The Goose Girl in 6th grade at the book fair and it introduced me to one of my favorite genres (fairytale retellings). And her take on magic is a strong favorite of mine.
Ransom Riggs
He’s only got the one Peculiar Children trilogy so far, but it was so good that I’ve already decided to buy the untitled book he’s got listed for publication this year (hopefully this year).
What sci-fi and fantasy authors do consider worthy of automatically buying anything they come out with?
Darkestwings Reads