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Bout of Books Day 5

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Day 5

Oh Friday. The traditional evening of productivity.

Wait, no, that’s not right at all. Friday is the evening for couch-cocooning and eating cookies from the bag while staring at a blank wall.

The club can't handle Twilight

Correct

Time Devoted to Reading

I’m sure I spent time reading. I’m sure I spent time eating, too. But somehow it’s all a halogen-lit blur in my memory. Friday is usually the day when my brain stutters, turns over, and dies, and this week was COMPLETELY TYPICAL in that way. At least I didn’t leave my shoes at work, like I did one time last summer.

All of this to say that I remember the story I read, but I can’t tell you if I read it walking down the road, standing in the kitchen, sprawled on the floor, or sitting in the shower. (Note: Book does not appear to have been immersed. Probably was not read in the shower.)

My Goals

I’ve read 4 books of 6, a total of 1409 pages. This sounds really impressive, until I remember that I’m not doing academic reading any more. I’m reading things which WANT to be read instead of text you have you prove yourself against in battle. And my word count is higher. Funny how that works!

Books Read

The Spy Princess, Sherwood SmithFriday I read The Spy Princess, which was not quite the book for me. It covers a fantasy land in the throes of revolution, and some kids who are instrumental in both starting and ending the crisis.

Unfortunately for me, I’ve read very few book for children about revolts, and quite a few for adults, both fiction and nonfiction. So I was reading in fear, expecting appalling things to show up on the next page. The torture, slow executions, inhuman behaviour etc. never happened directly to the characters, but the mentions of things happening off the edge of the page made me more and more sure bad things were going to happen in the next paragraph.

Basically, the experience was like reading an American Girl story, sure it was going to turn into The Lies Of Locke Lamora at any moment. (And I read Lies of Locke Lamora when I was in South-East Asia, learning about the massacres of students and protesters that have happened within living memory, so that book has a particularly terrifying real quality in my imagination.)

Anyways, now I’ve explained why the book didn’t work for me, it’s up for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for children’s literature, so it obviously worked for other people.

And I'll just leave now.

And I’ll just leave now.

Bout Of Books Day 4

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Day 4

A word to the wise: if your milk has the consistency of yogurt, don’t try to make tea with it. Even if it still tastes okay, the bottom of your mug will develop a fascinating gritty texture. Which is exactly what you want to surprise you when you drink half a mug at once right before bed. I know I do.

Time Devoted to Reading

I had the concentration of a tumbleweed and got beat up by a hail storm, and I STILL managed to read for 2 hours.

Boom, success.

My Goals

Three books read out of 6, baby! That’s 1023 pages!

Books Read
Rip Tide, Kat Falls Today I finished Rip Tide, which was EXCELLENT. This one is a sequel to Dark Life, (which I read and loved a few years ago), and the characters, conflicts and tone have all matured since then. While the first one felt a lot like a pioneer narrative, man against a single threat (which makes sense as the characters are undersea pioneers…) this one connects into a wider world with power imbalances a spear gun can’t necessarily solve.

There’s a very interesting running theme of who the bad guys are not being a simple question, and at one point this even implicates the main character.

Also there was a gladiatorial crocodile-human match. And sunscreen application as an art form. So you know I’m all over that.

Bout of Books Day 2

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Day 2

I was going to write this last night and then I went to bed early and stared glassily at the ceiling for an hour. Excellent.

Time devoted to reading

This was probably about 3 hours. For reasons involving the shocking number of cookies I ate yesterday, I was easily distracted. But I managed to wrestle my focus back to my book and finish, triumphant!

My goals
I am now at 2 books read of my 5 book goal.

(With today’s reading being 316 pages, I’ve read a total of 709 pages.)

Success baby

Books read
Prophecy, Ellen Oh This time I read Prophecy, about a girl known as the Demon-Killer in a land very much like ancient Korea. Except for the demons, of course. :D

I’d say this one is very much on the edge between middle grade and YA. Romance isn’t as big of an issue, for example. The writing is a bit clunky, so if you’re an English major, fair warning , this one may not be for you. The setting, though, is lovely, and always feels believably like Asia, not Europe with more dumplings.

Bout Of Books Day 1

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Day 1

It turns out that May 13-19 is Children’s Book Week, so my choice of books is not only excellent, it’s also appropriate. Whew, I’m woozy with tiredness and listening to Carly Rae Jepson to keep myself awake, but I know if I don’t recap now, it’ll never happen. ONWARDS INTO THE RECAP.

iRXk4

This gif has nothing to do with anything, I just love it.

Time Devoted to Reading

Which is to say– did I get my school work done? YES I DID. Kinda.

I didn’t complete it so much as accept that I had failed to complete and was just dragging out the failure longer. The only thing left to do was turn in an incomplete paper so I didn’t get an incomplete course. And I feel pretty worthless about that. BUT, academic failure notwithstanding, I’m free now. Oh freedom, I don’t have any idea how to deal with you any more, and you look so good.

I read for about two hours this evening, while folding myself into progressively more absurd shapes on the couch. It was glorious.

My Goals

Read five books by the end of the readathon: 1/5 complete. A total of 393 pages.

exquisite cat

Books Read

Stolen Magic, Stephanie BurgisStolen Magic, by Stephanie Burgis. Book three in the Kat, Incorrigible series, and hopefully not the last!

I love this series, and I think this is the best book yet. If you’re looking for a wonderful middle grade fantasy, may I point you to this one featuring clever, stubborn heroines, a loyal family that is always there for each other, and regency-era peril involving social drama and smugglers?

I have the brain of a custard right now, so I’m not going to write a full review for this one. That comes later. Right now I’m just going to say that I really appreciated all the little touches in this one which don’t come up when you describe the plot, but which affect the reading so much, like Kat starting to realize how hard her brother’s life must have been for years when he was thrown into boarding school and Oxford as a poor old boy. And how Kat is strongly powered, but it’s not her innate magical power which saves the day, it’s her quick wit, her courage, and her loyalty to her family which pulls her through. And Kat’s FEELS about her mother, sisters and stepmama, which ring so true.

Being 13 is a horrible age, but it’s also an age where you start to see your future looming on the horizeon. And Kat’s future is going to be so bright. I want to go along with her for it.

*throws hat into the ring*

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The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 13th and runs through Sunday, May 19th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 7.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

This is my first time participating in Bout of Books, but how better to celebrate my re-entry into the reading world than a week-long read-a-thon? THERE IS NO BETTER WAY. Thank you. You are correct.

Time Devoted to Reading

Well, you see, I can’t start reading until I’m finished with my (late) school work. I’m TRYING, but my brain is just so mushed. So I will devote ALL my time, once I have time again. Hopefully my time will begin Monday morning, but I can’t, with a good conscience, promise anything at all. Possibly I’ll be staggering to the close of an essay on Friday evening, and only be able to read then.

*shudders in horror*

My Goals

5 books read would make me VERY happy. Both because I would get to read 5 books, and because I would, as mentioned above, be done with my school work early in the week. OH BLESSED DAY COME QUICKLY.

ETA: Oh, let’s try 6 books. Life’s nothing without a little hubris!

Books to Read

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Updates

I’ll be posting individual blog posts, because I’m just that way, but I’ll link them back to here.

Monday, Day 1

Tuesday, Day 2

Wednesday, Day 3

Thursday, Day 4

Friday, Day 5

Saturday, Day 6

Sunday, Day 7

Unnatural Death, Dorothy L. Sayers

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“Ohmigod. Damn. Double rainbow. So intense.”

I presume you’ve seen the video. You know, the guy who’s crying over the rainbow? That is just about the emotional reaction I had to this book. It’s so beautiful… What does it mean?

Ahem.

I used to read mysteries with obsessive, almost irrational hunger. Then I moved into reading Fantasy and writing SF, but that’s another story. What I am talking about is Mysteries.

I’ve read a lot of them.

Until the read-a-thon, I had never read a Lord Peter Whimsey mystery.

This is a criminaloversight. Which I will fix as soon as possible. (Hint: Christmas is coming. The goose getting fat. Please to put a book in the ageless woman’s hat.)

So yes, the book.

It is the third in the series, but I read it with minimal confusion as to who was who. You just dive right into post-war London and environs. Where Lord Peter, who quotes EVERYTHING, is wandering around looking useless and being a genius, his butler is being AWESOME, (seriously, I think the man only had one scene, but I had to do my delighted dance and read it aloud,) the police are being SRYS BYSNS, and the spinster writer who he employs to spy for him, whose name I have forgotten because I thought of her as Maureen Johnson, is off being Catholic and hardcore. (Seriously, it was like a Maureen Johnson cameo. Only written 80 years before mj became the darling of Twitter. TIME TRAVEL?) And there were Lawyers, being delighted and fascinated by words in laws. I like words, so this pleased me. Also, there are a lot of LADIES doing THINGS in this book. Being one myself, I approve of them becoming more than Damsels in Distress or Moral Compasses in stories. And here they were, being Evil, and Stupid, and Clever, and Moral, and Rebellious, and Good, and all sorts of lovely things. (Hint: Christmas is coming.)

The actual murder was delightfully clever, to start. You see, they weren’t actually sure that it WAS a murder until the end of the book. It was only a terribly convenient death, with some suspicious circumstances. But when they started investigating, other people started dying mysteriously too. By the end of the book, the murderer was getting quite sloppy. But we still weren’t sure HOW people were dying until the end.

So yes. I want marry Lord Peter. I gave it four stars out of five. No big deal.

Star Wars: 501st, Karen Traviss

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I said I would review everything I read for the read-a-thon. But next year I’m not going to do that, because when that is just not fair to the book. I mean, I barely remember this one. I started reading it at about three in the morning? And most of the book I spent my time propping my eyes open and muttering “where are the EXPLOSIONS?” at the page. (Hint: there were not as many explosions as I’d like.)

The idea behind the book, as best as I can figure out, is that Order 66 ended, and millions of nerds cried out and said, BUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? They were given this book to silence them. The issue with that, is that I do believe that Order 66 finished off all the plot threads quite nicely. I mean yes, there were things hanging, but they were aesthetically pleasing things. In a terrible way.

I mean yes, there were people killed and others were left in terrible no-win situations. But the story WORKED. That was a good ending point. Now in this book, most of the text is spent on people thinking about the meaning of things, from a religious, moral or ethical perspective. Which might be fine, I was just OUT OF IT when I read the book, (and now when I’m writing this. Symmetry! Hah!)

When I pick up a book with Storm Troopers on the front, I want a heavy dose of action and plot. Regrettably for that idea, Ms. Traviss has spent much of the previous series writing the Imperial Commandos to be darn near indestructible genius demi-gods. So just breaking a few people out of triple zero isn’t such a much. So just to fill up the PAGE COUNT, you need the endless soul-searching. So maybe more flaws would have been good? Or less of a stupid enemy? I dunno. I gave it two stars out of five. I shan’t worry about the characters any more.

The Deadlies: Felix Takes The Stage, Kathryn Lasky

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This is another book I read during the readathon. At the time that I read it I had already been reading for 21 hours and it was six in the morning. And now since then said sister has brought it back to the library. So i’m working from my (very fuzzy) memory.

Felix is one of a family of well mannered, loving Deadly Recluse spiders who happen to be super toxic, and they live in the symphony hall. He has an artistic soul! All he wants is to be accepted and to create! All he wants is to take a ride on the conductor’s baton!

One quick attempt at a ride later, the conductor is being treated for a heart attack, Felix is regrowing a leg, and the Deadlies are looking for a new home, due to their previous home being the domain of exterminators now. Will they ever find a place where they can live without persecution? Will Felix ever find a place where he fits?

I was very confused by the book. I’ll be honest. There was a mom spider, and two sisters I couldn’t keep straight, and Felix. I think what Felix wanted was to not be an introvert, but that is so far outside of my comprehension that I was still going HUHHHH????? The whole time. Also, Mom was all worked up about kindergartens and her children being teased despite being super toxic? Like I said, I was confused. There was a lot of stuff about acceptance, but I just focused on the search for a house, since I could understand that. And that was rather fun, the dramatic cross-coutnry trip, including movies. ^_^

However, the book was fun, and it had fun pictures. :D It was exactly what I wanted at that hour. So I gave it three stars out of five.

2nd Samuel

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I was actually supposed to read 1st Samuel, which makes more sense. !st Samuel is all about how awesome David is. 2nd Samuel is more like LET”S ALL WATCH IT FALL APART.

Thoughts:

  1. Someone needs to stop Joab. He takes his personal vengeance WAY too seriously. I don’t care how good of a general he is. Someone needs to go to David, and say “Dude, this man is stabbing people in front of the whole army. It’s BAD FOR MORALE. And morals.”
  2. Never name your daughter Tamar. That’s just- not a name with a good history.
  3. David is SO BAD with women. I just kept facepalming the whole time, really.
    1. But I still love him. Something about his poetry and way of rallying the troops. :D
  4. There is SO MUCH politics in this book! Seriously! Everyone’s backstabbing and supporting people, and withdrawing their support, and all that junk. It’s CA-RAY-SEE. 
  5. Also, sexism. There’s a lot of it.

Song Of Solomon

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So, for the readathon, two people got me to read books of the bible. Part of the promise was that I would review ALL books I read, so here goes. :P

Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, as it’s also know, was very interesting to read. I mean, it’s about physical love. Between a man and (one of) his wives. Serious I’M TOO YOUNG moments happened frequently. There was a lot of glistening. And myrrh, and spices. And “going down into your garden.”

MAYBE I have a dirty mind. But that seemed an AWEFUL lot like innuendo to me. I’m just SAYING.

But all the don’tthinkaboutitreallydon’tthinkSEEItoldyoutoothat’syourownfault was worth it for these two verses. ^_^

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.
        -Song of Songs 8:6-7

They make me happy.