I really don’t read ahead, or I would have noticed that favorite movie comes up twice. So I’m changing it!
Well, I have a whole page of books I like here. My favorite book as a kid/tween was Martin the Warrior, by Brian Jacques. It has five stars on Amazon, you should probably read it. It’s about a talking mouse with a sword.
I promise there will be a real entry soon, maybe even later today. But first, books I have read since the last book entry (that I haven’t forgotten about), mostly in the order I read them:
YTD Total: 57
Edit: I forget to mention that if you haven’t read the Chrestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones (#10-15) and you like the Harry Potter series, you should! Like, RIGHTNOW. Credit to the lovely Brandy Egli for bringing this up.
I slacked on updating my books read list, but I want to get back on track, so here’s everything (hopefully) that I’ve read in April, May, & June so far. In no particular order, because I have no idea what order I read them in!
Okay, I think that gets me caught up.
YTD Total: 42
March Books:
YTD Total: 27
As you can see, I’m in to cheesy Christian romance at the moment. :)
February Books:
YTD Total: 15
Stolen is the sequel to Bitten, which I read last month. It was pretty good, but not nearly as good as Bitten was. It was a lot weirder, and there was a little more action than I like. I liked the new characters and am looking forward to reading more about them in the other books.
I’ve been wanting to read the Octavian Nothing book for awhile now, so we finally got it this week. I’m about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through right now, and I’m LOVING it. Lots of people complain that it’s hard to read because the language is archaic, but I don’t find it that challenging at all. In fact, it really adds to the story. I can’t wait to finish it!
Edit (2/9): Okay, Octavian Nothing was AMAZING. Everyone should read it. Especially Kirsten & Hannah! Get to it! I can’t wait to get my hands on volume 2!
January Books:
In progress:
I thought Brisingr was pretty “eh”. It definitely reads like the first half of a book that was split in two. I think Paolini needs to get some better editors. There was plenty that could have been pared out of this behemoth and I think it would have been more enjoyable with the rest of the story. As it is, it’s far too long, the pacing sucks, and the ending is crap. Basically, it limps along for 748 pages and then stops. There’s not much of a climax or ending. The books switches back and forth between Eragon (the main character) and Roran (his cousin) for most of the story. Eragon’s story takes a lengthy (probably at least 200 pages) sidetrack with a trip to the Dwarves that seems like nothing but a device for Paolini to tell us all the various things he has made up about Dwarvish culture and politics. It’s ridiculously boring. Roran’s story follows him around as he completes various quests with the Varden’s army and is ridiculously violent and bloody. There are many lengthy descriptions of the various ways he kills people. I think “gore” must be Paolini’s favorite word, as it is always splattering across things, and dripping off weapons.
This whole story cycle is supposed to be about Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, so it would have been nice if we just stuck to him the whole time, even though Roran is a more likeable character. Both of them spend pages pondering the morality of war and killing throughout the book and it gets old, fast. Basically, they’ll spend five pages thinking about how horrible killing is and how it’s only okay because they’re going to save the world from Galbatorix, blah blah blah, and then go off and take joy in bashing in the heads of an entire company of soldiers. Riiight. Despite the book’s many obvious flaws, it was just barely good enough to make me want to know how the story ends. Hopefully the last book will have a little more plot.
I’m pleased to report that I thought Dragon Harper was lovely and enjoyable, though. I haven’t liked the latest Pern books nearly as much as the older ones, but they’re still enjoyable. This one was a little predictable, but I nearly cried anyway. I think I might have liked reading all these later books in chronological order, though, because reading about Kindan’s life in mixed-up order is odd.
Free Land was pretty good. It’s written by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter and covers some of the same sorts of things that the Little House books did, only with fictional characters and a more adult tone. I’d recommend it to anyone else who is a Little House nerd, but probably not the general public. I’m going to read Rose’s other book about pioneer life next, and I think it’s going to be better.
Bitten is a book that Kirsten gave me a while ago that I started, but never got into. I picked it up again last night and read quite a bit of it and I’m really enjoying it so far. Also, it spawned a Twilight conversation in my class, which makes it more awesome! :)
Update (1/27): I finished Bitten on Sunday night and it was excellent. I’ll have to borrow more of those books from Kirsten. :)
Update (1/29): The Graveyard Book is amazing and everyone should read it. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down!
I really liked the Coraline book, so I’ve been excited about this movie since Neil started talking about it on his blog.
Kirsten says that I should keep track of what I read on here, because it’s fun. So I decided to try it. I was going to start at the beginning of December, because I could note everything I’d read for November and keep track for this month, but then I never got around to it. Hopefully I can remember everything I’ve read so far this month…
And right now I’m reading Dragon Harper (another Pern book), listening/reading through Brisingr (the 3rd Eragon book), & reading Free Lane, by Rose Wilder Lane, which I got from Aimee for Christmas. I’ll probably finish one of those in the next few days. I think I forgot a book or a series of books that I read this month, but I just can’t figure out what! Oh well. Sometimes I listen to audiobooks or do a combo of listening to it and reading when I don’t need to listen. I’ll include those too. I like audiobooks for when I’m in the car, because it makes the trip go by faster, and I can’t read in the car even when I’m not driving. I get car sick. :(
First, a link to a hilarious comic about Mary-Sue characters in Harry Potter fanfiction.
Next, a hilarious video of a Twihard watching the new Twilight trailer for the first time. If you watch the whole thing, it’s hilarious, but I can understand if you can’t stand 9 minutes of squee-ing.
And for more Twilight fun a hilarious recap/commentary on Breaking Dawn. If you’ve read the book and have a sense of humor, you’ll love it. If you haven’t read the book, but are bored, it’s probably worth your time. I promise. A short preview: (This should be obvious, but serious spoilers ahead, yo!)
Okay, so. Previously on As the Vampire Sparkles, emoteen Bella Swan moves to a tiny little depressing rainy town and won’t shut up about it. There she meets a mysterious boy who turns out to be a 100+ year-old vampire who literally sparkles “like diamonds” in direct sunlight and reads minds (but not hers), and after three hundred pages of Bella wondering why he’s so mean to her and why he’s so weird and why he’s not being mean to her anymore and what his deal is and if he likes her and if he actually loves her and how much he loves her and how he could possibly love as someone asMary Sueplain and boring and clumsy as she is and if his vampire family will like her, a plot finally shows up, but it doesn’t last very long. And then they go to prom. In the second book, Edward the sparkling vampire leaves Bella for her own good, and she spends most of the book trying to kill herself with motorcycles and cliff-diving. Sort of. And then her best friend falls in love with her and turns out to be a werewolf, but Bella runs away to save Edward from committing suicide by public sparkling in Italy. In the third book, Jacob the best friend/boyfriend wannabe/werewolf turns into a total asshole trying to force himself on Bella, and a vampire with a grudge from the first book is trying to kill her, but more importantly, Bella and Edward argue about whether they should have sex, get married, and/or vampirize Bella, and in what order.
Hand to God, I did not make one word of that up. Twilight means never having to say you’re kidding.
Go read the whole thing when you have time. I promise that it won’t let you down. (Well…unless you are a huge Twilight fan who takes the books seriously. If that’s the case, I don’t think I want to know you…just kidding!) Then go read the ones for the first three books! Seriously.
I just recently found out that the first twelve chapters of the next Twilight series book, Midnight Sun, were leaked onto the internet. Yeah, I’m behind the times, I don’t keep up with Twilight stuff, really. Anyway, Midnight Sun is Twilight from Edward’s (the main vampire) perspective. I’m going to go read it soon. I’ll definitely be posting my reaction here. I expect it to be…amusing.
Edit: You can find the leaked chapters of Midnight Sun on Stephenie Meyer’s website (along with her commentary about the situation). She decided to post it so that fans wouldn’t have to illegally read it. She also threw a big fit and decided to put the book on hold, which I forgot to mention earlier. Yeah, it totally sucks that someone you trusted leaked your book, but seriously, it’s not like there’s anything you can do about it now. Just finish the darn book and publish it. There are plenty of fans everywhere who will buy it. Heck, I’d even buy it. I bought the rest of the series and I’m not even a big fan!
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