2014 Book Challenge: Update 2/8/2014

I really meant to update this much sooner but a combination of depression issues and pure laziness has kept me from blogging. I’ll try to update more often going forward but I’m not making any promises.

Now…on to the books!

I took a break in the middle of reading Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb (this is the second book in the Farseer Trilogy) to dig in to some regency romances. That might seem like an odd choice, but my friend came over with a huge bag of books for me and I was in the mood for some light and fluff-filled entertainment. There was a time, years ago, when I considered myself too good to read romance novels. I don’t know why, but I thought of myself as more intellectual than people that read ‘those type of trashy books with half nekkid dudes on the covers’. Then I read a book by Julie Garwood (I was visiting my cousin for the weekend and couldn’t sleep and it was laying around begging to be read) and I quickly told myself I’d been a pretentious asshole and dove head first into the genre and never looked back.

Like any genre fiction, Romance can be extremely formulaic. (And while I would include Fantasy in that, I tend to think that Fantasy has much more range–there are more formulas and tropes that are pulled from then, say, Mystery or Romance which are more narrow in scope in my opinion.) But that doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable. And yes, even books with strong female characters tend to have the woman swooning at the men at some point (I’ve never swooned…am I missing something from my life?). So, on a critical level, I do still find some parts of romance novels problematic in a lot of ways. But, damn they can be fun to read. And sometimes that’s all we’re looking for–to be entertained.

Right now I’m reading a series by Julia Quinn that is about an aristocratic family in Regency England consisting of eight siblings; each book is about one of them finding their happily ever after. A quote on one of the covers compared the author to a ‘modern day Jane Austen’ so I had to eye-roll a bit at that. I don’t think of Jane Austen as primarily a romance writer (although she did, certainly, do that) but as a satirist. And a damned good one at that. So…yeah… But perhaps that’s just my own personal hang-up.

Anyway. I’m quite enjoying these books and have practically flown through them since I started reading them two weeks ago. I’m on the seventh book today and hope to finish that up by the end of the day. Each one has enough unique elements to set it apart from others in the series and some of the characters are not as typical as others in the genre, which I find refreshing.

Below are the ones I’ve read so far. I’ve linked the pics to the author’s site about the books if you want more information about each title.

                 

                

So far this year I’ve seven books (and am in the middle of two others). I feel almost like I’m cheating by using so many romance novels on my bingo card because they’re so easy for me to breeze through, but I read them so they count. And my overall personal goal is much more than this card so I shouldn’t feel guilty and yet…. Oh well. My book bingo card currently looks like:

Massive TBR List of Massiveness

Well, I finally got around to inputting my TBR list into Excel. Woah. Yeah, it’s long. And I’m sure I could add even more to it but I don’t want to overwhelm myself. (too late…?)

Some of the books that I don’t own I’ll probably have to skip over til I can acquire them at some point. Hrm. A couple of those would be really easy reads too…I ❤ those Michelle Sagara books.

The cool thing about Excel is that I can just change around a book’s priority any time I feel like it and rearrange my list without much fuss. And I’ll probably do that from time to time as I read things, and as my mood changes. Also, things can be easily added or dropped from this list. So feel free to rec me books.

I created a separate page for my TBR list (because it’s so massive and also an on-going thing), here’s a link.

2014 Book Challenge: Week One Update

I have not one, but two book challenges that I’m working on in 2014. The first is my own personal resolution to read more books (but specifically to read four a month, or a total of 48 books). Last year I read a grand total of thirteen books (wth???). Or rather thirteen books that were new to me, I also re-read some books but I didn’t count them because they weren’t new experiences.

The second challenge I’m doing (really to help motivate me to finish the first) is the Reading Bingo challenge (brought to my attention by my friends and fellow editors at Way too Fantasy, C.J. Casey and June Faramore). I’m not going to re-post the pic or the rules, you can find out all about it in my post about it from the other day if you want.

The first full week of 2014 has passed so I thought I’d do an update. I’m not sure if I’m going to update every week or not, it depends on how much I’m reading. Hopefully, if I’m sticking to my reading goal, weekly updates shouldn’t be too hard to manage.

Books Read:

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

I’ve been meaning to read this book for about the last nine months or so, but recently several people recommended it to me all at once and I moved it up in my tbr pile. I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a lazy reader and tend to get bored easily (one of the reasons I’ve never been able to get in to Tolkien) so I found the first 150 or so pages really boring. There is some excellent world building accomplished, but I found the set-up to the story really tedious. Perhaps because it’s essentially someone recounting their entire life story, and not every moment of one’s life is extremely interesting. That being said, there was a ton of pay-off for all that set-up.

Once I’m in to a story I tend to get really invested, that’s why one of the most important things for me is good characters. Since it’s written in first person pov there’s a good connection with the narrator of the story, especially as the story goes on you become really concerned with how things are going to turn out for him (even though you know he lives through it all since he’s narrating this as a sort of memoir). There are some characters that are obvious villains, but still have some complexities to them. The heroes of the tale are harder to figure out and infinitely more dynamic than those you’re rooting against.

As for the plot elements, there is plenty of politics and scheming for the throne if you’re in to that sort of thing. Also, a really interesting take on magic…not so much in how or what kind of magic but who it’s wielded by.

Toward the end of the book I had to stop reading a couple of times to gather myself from some really emotional scenes (I may have cried….more than once) and the end of the novel was so suspenseful I was almost afraid to keep reading to see how things turned out.

I recommend this to anyone that loves the fantasy genre; it’s a great read. If’ you’re like me and get bored easily, don’t get discouraged and quit reading at the beginning–trust me, the end more than makes up for the beginning.

Bingo space(s):

This one qualifies for several blocks, but as I’m only counting each book for one space, I’ll have to wait and see what I want to count it as depending on what other books I read. As is this could count for the following: A Book by a Female Author, A Book That is More Than 10 Years Old, A Book With a Blue Cover. (Probably also A Book a Friend Loves)

2014 Book Challenge

This year one of my resolutions was to read at least four books a month. Well, already a week in to 2014 and I’m only a quarter of the way through my first book. I need more motivation!

Well, I have a few friends that are also avid readers and one of them posted this reading bingo challenge on facebook with the intent to finish off the entire card. Well, sign me up. This will give me some direction on giving me ideas of what to read throughout the year (my TBR list is already quite long, so I’m happy to be able to pick through it and shorten the list a bit).

If anyone wants to join in, the rules are at the Retreat by Random House page, or you can just do the entire card along with us. To keep everyone aware of how I’m doing I’ll be posting regular updates here with what books I’ve read. Good luck to everyone in their reading endeavors this year!

Issue Four: Division

Our latest issue is out! Happy New Year!

WWW Wednesday – Dec. 18th, 2013

This is my first WWW Wednesday, yay. Head on over to Should Be Reading to check out what it’s all about.

 

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

 

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

 

What are you currently reading?

Thieftaker by D. B. Jackson.  I’m only a few pages into this book, but it was really the covers that sold me. If it hadn’t been for another author sharing the cover for the latest in the series I may never have found this book. Also, I may have tweeted back something about how I shouldn’t judge books by their covers but I’d buy it based on that, and the author was kind enough to reply to me…I have a soft spot for authors that engage with their readers.

Anyway, it’s an historical urban fantasy novel. Some of my favorite things combined, so really my resistance was futile. So far, I’m loving it.

 

What did you recently finish reading?

Naamah’s Blessing by Jacqueline Carey. Actually, I read all the Naamah books back to back within a week and a half. I love Jacqueline Carey’s world of Terre d’Ange and read all the others in the series some time ago. I admit that I grew bored with the second trilogy of Kushiel books, but this last trilogy brought it all home for me. I loved these characters so much that I was bereft when I finished. I was so lost in the world that I just didn’t want the books to end. I may have even hesitated reading the last few pages for a few hours just to prolong my stay for a little while. I really didn’t want to say good-bye.

Also, I’m so impressed with the research Carey must have put in to building this world. Not only one culture and civilization, but many of them. Not to mention all of the different religious aspects. The thought of everything being connected–that really struck me as profound.

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

 

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. I’ve been wanting to read Robin Hobb, and in particular the Farseer Trilogy, for a while now. I finally picked it up from one of my used book store trips but still haven’t gotten around to reading it. (Those trips tend to yield a lot of books that take me forever to get around to reading.) Within the last few weeks I’ve had two different people tell me I have to read these books, so I’ve moved them up to the top of my To Be Read list. Looking forward to it!