I am also not reading these in a certain order and I hope Beth doesn’t mind. She’s been trying to get me to read this since it came out. Want to know how I know? I have Beth’s hard copy of this book; she loaned it to me ages ago and it’s just been in a stack of TBRs near my bed since then. So, I thought maybe I’d start with this one and then I could give it back to her when I see her next.
Fine. Kate has already read Cinder and Shatter Me. So I’m changing two of her books.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. Written by Laini Taylor, who wrote the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. Which we both love. Some characters more then others. *wiink* Strange the Dreamer is nothing like anything that I have read. It’s lush and complicated. It’s full of trauma and hope and really quite beautiful. I’m sure nothing about this will get me in trouble with Kate at all. First in a Duology.
Seafire by Natalie C. Parker. This one I know you haven’t read yet because I only read it this year but totally up your alley. A crew of female pirates out for revenge against those who murdered their family. It’s all about sisterhood and friendship and what makes a family but also our own destructive behavior. First book in what I believe is a trilogy.
As we take a look back at 2018 we started some really great series but we also sadly had to say goodbye to others. It’s always a bittersweet reading the final book. On the one hand you finally get to know how it ends but on the other hand sometimes you are not ready to let go quite yet. So let’s raise a glass to the books that have entertained us over the last couple of years and who knows, maybe our favorite authors will one day return to your fave characters.
I really don’t know the best way to describe this book or this series as it’s so lush and unique. It’s also kind of a hard read because pretty much every character is a victim of terrible abuse and trauma and the events of the book are the direct result of all the trauma. The people of Weep spent years under the threat of kidnapping and rape and even 15 years after they killed the “Gods” responsible the citadel where it all took place still stood as a reminder of what they endured. The Godspawn lived in fear of being discovered for fear of what happened to their fellow children would happen to them. This all came to a crashing half when our hero Lazlo discovered who he really was and brought them together. Even the villains of this piece were acting on their own traumas. You knew what they were doing was wrong at times you couldn’t really blame them either. In the end it was an act of compassion that saved them all. Sarai used her power to listen and understand what was the issue and finally talk them down. I highly recommend that everyone read Strange the Dreamer and the Muse of Nightmares because they are so lush in descriptions of Weep and the other strange lands. It’s truly beautiful story that is also timely to today’s me too movement.
A return trip to Weep.
Summer is over and now it’s to look forward to some fall reading. So get your pumpkin spice latte ready as here are some of the books I can’t wait to read this fall.
What are you looking forward to reading this fall?
What books can you not wait to read in 2018? I have lots of course but here are 10 that I really Really can’t wait to read next year.
According to GoodReads.com I read 20,948 pages from 57 books. So you can imagine how hard it was to narrow down to only 10 for the best books I’ve read this year. There were so many good ones! I think I ultimately went with these 10 was because while I may have liked some of the other books more or given other’s better reviews or more stars, these 10 books stuck with me longer after finishing reading them. I would like to think that our Diverse Lives, Diverse Stacks: Diverse Narrators reading challenge is working for me because half of the books were written by Women of Color and they contain protagonists from very diverse backgrounds. That’s exciting to me but enough of this, let’s get on to the list.
So these are my favorite books of 2017. What are yours?
Our Mom is visiting me in Brooklyn this weekend. When she comes I always look for things that we haven’t done before so when I finally realized that BookCon was going to be at the Javits Center while she was going to be here we decided to go. Both of our parents inspired our love for reading. Mom has already 81 books in 2017. Putting my 25 books to shame. She’s never been to anything like this before and my only convention experience was at BookRiot Live. Which was tiny compared to this. The Javits Center is huge. Not surprising since this is also the home to New York Comic Con. We decided first to explore the vendors as we got our bearings. Pretty much every major publisher was there with a mini store and most a signing area. Now there were signing areas that you had to sign up for ahead of time and then smaller ones that you had to line up for. It was kind of confusing what was what. Also, we seemed to always miss all the free giveaways the publishers were handing out but that’s ok. I’ll live. After we had a quick bite to eat we headed to hear Rainbow Rowell talk. I’ve read all of her books but Mom hasn’t. Before the talk began, Mom asked if any of her books would make her cry and I was like yes but I’ll lend her Attachments because of all Rainbow’s books that seems to have the less tears. I think. She was just a delightful as I imagined her to be but the one comment that stuck me was talking about Eleanor and Park and sad it is that having a fat female protagonist was somehow revolutionary. We all know someone who is overweight. We have seen them in relationships, married and have kids so why wouldn’t they have their own love stories? After Rainbow, we went back to the vendor floor. We each bought a few books, tote bags and shirts before heading down to hear Jeffery Tambor. The Arrested Development star has a new memoir coming out and after seeing him I want to read it. He was funny, smart and completely honest. We then went to our final panel of the day with Maggie Stiefvater, Kami Garcia, Laini Taylor and Marissa Meyer about Magic and World Building moderated by Daniel Jose Older. I adore all these authors books (Mr. Older’s book are on my to read list) so it was interesting to hear how they all go about crafting their stories. The most interesting part was talking about you are always building a world no matter if you are making a world from scratch or drawing from the real world. I’ve never thought of that. Maggie said that authors talk about how if they were to assign each of them to write about this room they would all write it differently because they are writing from their perspective their view and how that is reality but not completely real. It was an interesting talk. It was then that we decided to leave as it was a full day of books and fun. I’m glad we did it because it was something new and different. My one complaint was that it would have been better if they had clearer signage of where things were because it was kind of hard to figure out where things were. We had to wander around to find things. Either then that it was a fun day.
I’ve been looking forward to this since I finished The Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy.
2 Women, So Many Books 