So, I read quite a lot of books in June, for me. I didn’t have anything
else to do. I read most of the books I planned to read and a whole bunch more.
I didn’t finish John Dies at the End cause it made me annoyed and I didn’t
finish Escaping the Delta because I wasn’t in a biography/history mood so I
will finish it when I’m more in the mood.
The books that I did read I will mention very quickly and give a thumbs
up or thumbs down rating.
A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin: I finished that first. It’s
the third book in the series Song of Ice and Fire and it is awesome. I think
the series is amazing and his world is complicated and detailed and beautiful
and even though there are a bunch of characters they are easy to distinguish
and I love it so much. I’m going to go onto A Feast for Crows in July I’ve
decided. So, big thumbs up from me.
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman: I love Philip Pullman so much, he
writes so beautifully and his characters are well-rounded and exciting and they
make me want to hear more about them. I have now started the second book in the
trilogy: the Subtle Knife and I’m excited that I get to learn more about Lee
Scoresby and Serafina Pekkala and I love Will already. Anyway, I loved the
Golden Compass. Big thumbs up.
I continued with more Philip Pullman and read the Good man Jesus and theScoundrel Christ where Jesus is split into two people; the twins Jesus and
Christ. It’s a retelling of the Bible essentially and it is really good. I
liked it a lot. Philip Pullman is a brilliant writer, he writes so beautifully
and yes. So big thumbs up from me.
In conclusion I read three of the books I said I’d read, and then read a
bunch of other books.
I started off with the Windup Girl. It’s written by Paolo Bacigalupi and
it’s a really interesting concept. It’s biopunk science fiction novel set in
Thailand in the 2200s. It’s about a world where electricity is sparse and
people have to use springs to get energy. Global warming has ruined everything
and the way to hold power is through calories. People are using genetical
warfare to create their own niche in the market. The book focuses on five main
characters, one of them is the Windup Girl (Emiko) who is a Japanese-designed
girl. She’s a proper person with a heartbeat, thoughts and the needs of humans,
but she can’t reproduce and she is seen as wrong and different in Thailand,
which she wasn’t in her native Japan. I will properly review the book. I really
really liked it. I got a bit confused in the beginning, because there are Thai
and Japanese words and invented words and concepts, but the story is fantastic
and I liked it so much. Thumbs up.
Fahrenheit 451. Through the magic of YouTube I watch the Vlogbrothers and
Hank said they were doing the nerdfighter bookclub and
reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I wanted to read it anyway so I did
that. I have trouble not talking about this book without turning into a gushing
idiot. I love it so much. He is, was, an amazing writer. His descriptions go on
for several beautiful paragraphs, it was written in -53 and I started worrying
he was psychic and could look into the future. He describes the world like it
is now, and it was written almost 60 years ago, scary. I read it in a day. Two
huge thumbs up.
I also read the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and again, gushing idiot. It’s basically
about a circus that travels around, appears overnight, without warning and it
is like no other circus. And then it disappears again and meanwhile there’s
this magical challenge between two people. The story is really interesting and
fantastic and the setting is so beautiful, the characters are interesting and
weird and funny and I liked. It captured me after 10-20 pages and I loved it.
There are some weird things that when thinking back I don’t get, but I don’t
care. I want to go to the Night Circus and live there. Thumbs up.
I also read Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan. It’s about Nastasya, a girl who is
immortal, and she has lived this hedonistic, irresponsible lifestyle for a
century. And she has a moment of clarity and thinks she can’t do that anymore
and why the fuck is she living this life? And she knows she has another option
so she leaves her friends, people she have hung out with for a century, which
is quite brave. What fascinated me is that while it’s a novel there is no like
all-encompassing story line with a build-up to a climax, it works on
characters, specifically Nastasya’s story and life and relationships. Meanwhile
something else is happening but more in the background, like a normal story line,
and it’s weird, because it comes together at the end and I feel like Cate
Tiernan tricked me. There is something about the book that bugs me. I don’t
know what it is, but I kept reading and picking up the book. There are some
things that don’t make sense and they bug the hell out of me. It gets a thumbs
up, I don’t know what bugs me about it, gah, but I liked it.
The last book I read in June was I am not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells. It totally
freaked me out, because the narrator is a sociopath, a diagnosed sociopath, and
I identified with him and thought “yeah that’s a good point” when he said
totally outrageous sociopath stuff, creepy. He’s 15, and lives with his mother,
who runs a funeral home. The main character, John Wayne Cleaver (good name for
someone who likes serial killers) is obsessed with serial killers. He writes
essays on Jeffrey Dahmer and other killers, and knows about serial killers. He
is worried that he will become one, because of certain things about himself,
and therefore he has made rules for himself. Then something happens in his
neighborhood, people start dying and John is worried and excited that it might
be a serial killer. I was a bit disappointed with it. I can’t explain why
without spoiling it, but the plot and story disappointed me. It made me quite
annoyed and I felt like it was a bit cheap, Wells could have made it so
interesting with his terrifying main character, and he did a cop-out and maybe I
just had the genre wrong. I don’t know, I sort of hoped it would be
psychological thriller-y. So, my thumb is sort of to the side. Mainly it points
sort of up because of John, who is awesome and to the side because of the
story.
