5. September 2019 Reading Wrap Up

September 2019 Reading Wrap Up
books reading wrap up

  • So I’m really quite late on my September Wrap Up, but I figured I may as well still post it. I didn’t read quite as much as I was hoping to in September, but I was bound to run out of steam eventually, lol. Hopefully things pick up this month because I have too many books out from the library to fall back (edit from me of now: they have picked up a little bit).

    saga 7 saga 8 Saga 9

    Saga 7, 8 & 9

    As you can see, I continued with the Saga series this month and to my shock, I discovered that #9 was not the last in the sci-fi graphic novel… saga. Not to mention that it ended on an unpleasant cliffhanger. I’m not entirely sure whether I’ll be continuing when/if the next issue comes out, because though they’ve been fun, interesting reads in terms of the creative concepts, I find the characters to be quite two-dimensional and the plots to be cliche. So, in other words, I think the concepts have so much more potential than these books are finding in them. Of course, an average of 3/5 stars for a series is by no means a bad rating, but at this point, things are just dragging out too long. We’ll see if I change my mind by the time issue #10 rolls around.

    six stories Orange World Jade City

    Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski

    This adult crime thriller left me with lots of mixed feelings. The story is all about the death of a teenager that occurred twenty years ago - the catch is that the story is mostly told in podcast form with interviews from people involved in the teenager’s life around the time of his death. In between the six podcast episodes, the book also includes small chapters from character called Harry. I honestly found these chapters so superfluous. They were short, boring and confusing. I often had no idea what the timeline was; if the events taking place were in 1995, 1996, 1997 or 2017, particularly because Harry’s chapters jumped around in time from paragraph to paragraph. I did like the imagery in the novel, however - I could very clearly picture the setting of the book, and I liked the creepy urban legends included. But unfortunately, they were the only redeeming qualities of the book for me, being that I didn’t like any of the characters and found the “twists” to be predictable. I was just glad this was a quick read.

    Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell

    In a collection of short stories, it’s always unlikely that you will love every single tale included, so it is no surprise to me that whilst I loved some of the stories in this adult magical realism book, there were some I didn’t care for at all. My favourites were Black Corfu and Madam Bovary’s Greyhound, whilst I didn’t really like The Bad Graft or Bog Girl. The writing was stunning throughout, I can’t fault that, but of course there were just some plots that resonated with me more than others. I won’t give you a synopsis of all the tales, partly because I don’t remember them all now and partly because I think an integral part of the short story experience is discovering exactly what it is you’re reading about. I don’t think you would be disappointed if you picked this up.

    Jade City (The Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee

    It took a couple of chapters, but I absolutely fell head over heels in love with this adult fantasy and am so excited to get to the next in the series. It’s been described as kung fu movies crossed with the Godfather, and considering I’m not very familiar with either of those, I can only assume the comparison is correct. The story follows the Kaul family, leaders of one of the two major clans on the island of Kekon, and their feud with the Mountain clan. Both these clans hire people that have the ability to wield jade - rare stones that give them certain magical powers. The distribution of jade is heavily regulated, and of course some people aren’t particularly happy about that. I’m trying to pick out the biggest strength of this novel, but it is impossible to choose between the characters, the plot and the action scenes. I was constantly on my toes, afraid for my favourite characters. The way the story shifts and changes over the course of the book kept me coming back for more and it was refreshing to have the chapters rotating between different characters. It’s one of my new favourites of the year, in case you haven’t picked up on that lol, and I highly recommend it.

    poison study the raven boys wilder girls

    Poison Study (DNF) by Maria V. Snyder

    I only read about 70 pages into this one. Honestly, I think it would have been okay in the end, maybe about 3 stars? But I couldn’t get myself to continue with it knowing it couldn’t have been anything more than that. The story follows a girl who has been offered the position of royal taste-tester (in case of poison) in exchange for her life (she was to be executed for committing “murder”). I could see the way most of the plot was heading and I just wasn’t in the mood for it. I did see myself enjoying the romance, though after I’d put the book down I realised there was more than 10 years between the protagonist and the love interest, and considering this is a YA fantasy, that put me off a bit.

    The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1) (reread) by Maggie Stiefvater

    This was very hard to rate, because I definitely enjoyed this book more the second time around. But that’s not because of the book’s merits, only because I feel like I know and love these characters so much better now, having finished the entire series in the past. In case you are unaware, The Raven Cycle is a young adult book series about a tight knit group of friends, magic and the search for a long dead Welsh king. It’s set in the real world, so I hesitate to call it fantasy, but it feels wrong to label it as paranormal. It’s something in between. I absolutely love the author’s writing style and the way she has of describing her character’s feelings. She has a way of making me feel like she can see into my soul, making her one of my favourite writers of all time. Having said that, this first book is very slow moving plot wise, which I remember irritating me the first time I read it, and I know this is the main reason that people who don’t like this series… don’t like this series. Anyway, in my opinion, it’s hard to beat the characters, atmosphere and writing style of this series, so I think you should give it a go 🙂

    Wilder Girls by Rory Power

    I picked up this YA sci-fi horror with the misguided belief that it would be like Annihilation (the movie, at least, I haven’t read the book yet - which in hindsight, is probably what I should have done instead of reading this one). It takes place about a year and a half after a school for girls situated on an island is put under quarantine due to a disease outbreak. The disease killed most of the teachers and a lot of the students, whilst the ones that remained exhibited strange and different symptoms, mostly of the mutation kind. You can’t blame me for thinking this book would be interesting. Unfortunately, it turned out to be more boring and there was very little pay off for struggling through the parts that did not interest me. I wish less of the focus was placed on the relationships between the characters and more on the effects of the disease and the mystery surrounding it all. I feel like this concept had so much potential and the book barely scratched the surface of it.

    the turn of the key

    The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

    My overall impression of this adult thriller novel is that it is way more overhyped than it needs to be. The twists were so underwhelming and predictable and they way the “big” one at the end was revealed was not as impactful as I wanted it to be. I did like the creepy vibe of the book - it’s about a nanny watching kids in a smart home that starts going haywire, so you can imagine - but it was not enough to bump up my rating any more. I didn’t like the protagonist, which is usually not a problem for me, but we were clearly supposed to be rooting for her, which is why this became an issue. She made some deeply stupid decisions. It was for sure filled with tension though, so although I was let down by how everything resolved, it was still okay.

    And so there we have it - my September wrap up. Finally. On the 25th of October. Happy Halloween 🙂 Are you reading or doing anything spooky?

    PS. sorry The Turn of the Key is so big

    Battle of the Books
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    Comments (2)
  • Top Sets

    I really want to read Jade City too! Glad you enjoyed it!

  • Battle of the Books

    @teodoramaria98 It's so good, you have to read it! 🙂

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