What I’ve Been Reading

Long time no see, readers. School has been [INSERT TORNADO MADE OF PAPER]. But AP exams are over! (They went mostly well, if I pretend the English exam never existed.) And that means blog-time.

While I haven’t been writing much for the past many months… I haven’t been reading that much either. I’m reading Gideon the Ninth right now, which is an absolutely epic book that should’ve taken me a week to read, but I’ve been plugging away at it for a month and twenty days because of exams *groans*. I’ve read more in the past day-and-a-half than the three weeks before that.

There is a bright side to not reading much though (look at me, being an optimist). It’s super easy to review all of the books I’ve read this year in one post! (I mean review in its loosest sense. It’s been a while since I’ve read these so I can’t do in-depth reviews.)

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The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic by RF Kuang

This is a super fun book. I love that it’s based on Chinese history and it’s really well written. I love Kitay and Rin’s friendship.

Five stars for both. I’m so excited for book 3.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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The Crucible by Arthur Miller

I read this one for school, and I appreciate the writing and the satire and all that, but I didn’t really like it. I felt more sympathy for the antagonist than the protagonist, so I couldn’t really get behind the protagonist. I thought it was weird that John Proctor the thirty-year-old slept with Abby the sixteen-year-old and then she was blamed for seducing him.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

It was okay. Too much romance for my taste. I didn’t care that much.

⭐⭐

Rating: 2 out of 5.

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Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

This is currently my favorite book. I reread it two months ago and now I want to read it again. The plot is mindbending and the writing is beautiful, but I love this book for its characters. I love Dodger. I want to read it again. 💚

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

There are actually six stars for this book.

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Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

This series is written like a fairytale and I adore the writing style. It’s the definition of “whimsy”. 💜

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

This is the prequel to Every Heart a Doorway, although you could read it by itself. The writing style makes me swoon. This one’s even better than Every Heart a Doorway. I love the way it explores family relationships.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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Okay, so I’ve read seven books these past five months, and three of them are by Seanan McGuire. In conclusion, read Seanan McGuire.

Middlegame || Spectacular Sci-Fi

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

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I loved this book. So much. It’s a new favorite. It would be good for fans of Vicious by V.E. Schwab.

The writing is gorgeous, but it is heavy on metaphor and imagery. It’s a little hard to read, and I was rereading a lot of passages, trying to figure out what was going on. After a while, I got used to the writing and it went a lot smoother. I’m a little suspicious of the writing, though. I’m prone to drooling over beautiful writing and ignoring what is actually being said.

The plot is intricate and brilliant, but it’s confusing. The story jumps right in without much background information, so it was especially confusing in the beginning. It was also confusing at the end with the time travel. You could say that the plot is layered like an onion, but you could also say that it’s stingy with information. The reader and the characters spend much of the book in the dark.

Middlegame is a long book, and the pacing is slow, especially for the first half. However, I enjoyed the first half more than the faster-paced second half and it was very compelling. I couldn’t put it down.

The characters were lovely, and I especially adored Dodger. Usually, the characters are my favorite part of a book, but in Middlegame, the characters seemed less important than the plot. However, they did have wonderful arcs and I loved seeing them grow up. They were very relatable.

The atmosphere of Middlegame is amazing. It’s mysterious and by the end, it feels like the book has revealed the secrets of the universe.

Rating: 5/5

Mini Book Reviews!

Hello peoples! Due to finals and other life happenings, I haven’t had time to review books, but I have read quite a few books over the last few weeks. Be prepared to be pummeled with book reviews.

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Ready Player One || 3/5

I feel like this book was good, it just wasn’t for me, personally.

One of the main assets of this book is all the references to ’80’s pop culture. But as I’m not particularly well-versed in ’80’s pop culture, I found them somewhat annoying whereas others could love a book that alludes to their favorite TV show as a kid.

This book took me over two weeks to finish. I think more than anything, I found it bland. I liked the plot, but it wasn’t an amazing plot. It was an average plot. The writing was also decent, but not spectacular. Average.

I didn’t like the characters in this book, especially the main character, Wade. He got on my nerves. The minor characters should’ve been developed more. The reader didn’t really get to know them, so I wasn’t attached to them at all and I wasn’t invested in what happened to them.

The plot was also overly convenient.

Let’s move on. I’m even getting bored writing this review.

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Will Grayson, Will Grayson || 3/5

I usually love John Green’s books, but that’s because he is the King of Metaphor. This book, unfortunately, didn’t contain many metaphors, and when you strip John Green of his metaphors, there sadly isn’t much left.

This book, like so many of his other works, lacked a concrete and thrilling plot. Things kept happening without an overall idea holding all the different miniature ideas together.

The characters were (fortunately) developed, but they still felt bland.

I really liked the writing style, though. Especially David Leviathan’s portion of the book.

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This Mortal Coil || 3.5/5

Compared to Ready Player One, This Mortal Coil is what a science fiction should be like.

I loved the idea for this book and the apocalypse-ness of it. The characters were lovely (except for one) and they were developed (ish).

This was an addicting read that I finished in two days full of twists and turns and the writing was beautiful.

I love the concept of the Hydra vaccine and the genetic-coding aspect of it was amazing.

There was a love triangle in this book.

Also, I got a chance to talk to this author (with a medium-sized group of people) over Skype, which was absolutely lovely.

 

*Warning. Mild Spoilers Below*

Usually, love triangles don’t bother me, but this one did. Probably because I didn’t like either of the love interests. Especially Cole. Cole was not his own person with his own hopes and dreams (aside from being an artist, which was briefly touched on). It’s like his whole reason for existence revolves around being the love interest for Cat.

*End Spoilers*

 

Speaking of which, why does there always have to be some undercurrent of romance in YA books? I’m not talking about love stories where romance is the point, but high fantasy, dystopian, sci-fi, and other books where survival is the main point, not love.

I dare you to think of a book where there is absolutely NO romance.

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The Hate U Give || 3.5/5

So. This book.

It was amazing in that it covers an important, heavy topic and it makes you think about society and equality in a different way.

But, for me, it wasn’t as gripping as I expected it to be. The characters were lovely, but the plot was somewhat slow.

I highly recommend this book. It just falls outside of my tastes. See review for Ready Player One above.

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A Court of Frost and Starlight || 3/5

This book was fluffy and light, but kind of boring. It was nice to see the characters be able to relax after the harrowing events of the last three books. But. Usually, I like it when my characters suffer (sorry). It makes for a more interesting read.

From the description, I expected there to be a lot of character development, which I was excited to read, but I was disappointed. It didn’t really talk about how the events of the past books affected the characters. Most of the book was gift-shopping.

A lovely book for Christmas-time, I guess?

It was meh overall.

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Okay, that’s it for today’s segment of Harsh Book Reviews.