This is a look back at the books I read in August,
with a quick look at why I liked them, or why I didn’t like them. I read a lot
of different books this month, and here we go.
Patrick Rothfuss is evil. I would like to have that
said before I start. He is an evil, evil man, because the third book has no publishing
date and I hate him. Here’s the thing, the copy I have is over 1300 pages, but
I still want more now that I’m done. Yeah. This is the second book about
Kvothe. He continues his search to find out what happened to his parents, to
find the Amyr and the Chandrian. He gets into trouble at school so he goes away
so that things can calm down a little. He travels to the other side of the
continent, he helps a guy marry an annoying bitch (sorry, but she is), helps
him get not poisoned. He then goes out in the world to fight bandits, he meets
one of the Fae, he goes to be with the Adem to learn their ways. It’s over 1300
pages, a lot happens. I think I liked it even more than the first one! It’s not
that the first one is bad, or worse, the Wise Man’s Fear is just so GOOD! Yeah.
I love Patrick Rothfuss a little, with his awesome books and his glorious
beard. Seriously, Google him. I want the last one now, sir. Please?
BAH! I don’t have any of the words. Alright, I’ll try
to explain what I liked and why I loved it. Eleanor & Park is about a girl
named Eleanor and a boy named Park (duh) and it’s a love story set in 1986. I
don’t read a lot of contemporary, or romance, but I loved this. I think Rainbow Rowell is magic. Park is half Korean,
he’s short and skinny and he likes comic books and awesome music. He feels sort
of displaced in his own family, but he is accepted in his school because his
family has lived in Omaha since there was nothing else there. He’s from a
regular middle class family. Eleanor is new in Omaha, she’s big, poor and has
recently moved back in with her mother and her abusive stepdad and her four
siblings. She comes on the school bus one morning and sits with Park and their
relationship develops from there. And it is just so beautiful and honest, and
it’s so full of teenage angst, and teenage love, and family relationships and
it’s just beautiful. And it’s so wonderful. It’s told from both of their
perspectives, so you get to see both his and her anxiety, and insecurities. The
thing is Rainbow Rowell can make me both cry and laugh, so I love her. It was
AMAZING! And I’m done.
It’s just really good. This is the second book in the
first Mistborn trilogy. I’ll try not to spoil the first book, but there might
be some, but I won’t say too much about the story, suffice it to say that after
what happened in the first book Elend and Kelsier’s old crew have taken control
of the city of Luthadel. Their position is precarious though, they have an
Assmebly being all grumbly, and two armies with kings who think they can run
the city more smoothly than Elend. It’s great. It is very interesting to see
how Vin and Elend grow and evolve together. It’s very interesting to see how
they manage without Kelsier. It’s very interesting to see how they try to
develop government. There was one thing I did think was a bit… bad? I’m not
sure what word I’m looking for, unfortunate is probably a good word. So Elend
has created this Assembly, consisting of him and 23 other dudes, 8 noble men, 8
merchants, 8 skaa, to run the city. And when I say dudes, I mean dudes. There
are no women on the Assembly. Actually there aren’t a lot of women in the book
at all. Vin is obviously the main character, and she’s strong and badass.
Tindwyl does advise the king, and she’s awesome, and there is Allriane, who is
in the book for 400 odd pages, but she comes across as annoying and silly. And
those three are it. The other women don’t really have names, they’re whores, or
slaves, or servants. It’s really weird. I realize that this is a new
government, and all, but they don’t even make reference to it. It upsets me a
little. It’s still good. It’s so good, but it bugs me. Still, I love it, and
I’m really looking forward to The Hero of Ages, because we’re left with a huge
question at the end.
I quite liked part of this book. If you take legends,
fairy tales and mythology and smush them together I’m pretty much sold. This
book is about Sophie and Josh, twins who are in San Francisco for the summer.
Josh works at a bookshop, for a guy named Nick Flemming, and his wife Perry.
One day a guy named John Dee attacks, and it turns out the Flemmings are
Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, and they’re both about 700 years old. Dee steals
the Codex, an ancient book with the instructions for making a philosopher’s
stone, thus giving yourself eternal life, and lots of other awesome stuff. Dee
doesn’t get the two last pages though, the pages that would help him restore
the Elders (old gods, like Hekate, Bast, those charmers) and essentially bring
about the end of the world. Josh and Sophie save Nick, while Dee takes
Perenelle. Nick realizes the twins have dormant magical powers and he takes
them, and the last two pages of the book, to keep them safe, so Dee can’t get a
hold of them. It’s fun, there’s magic, legends, craziness. There was stuff that
really bothered me though. Mr. Scott didn’t really have any clear perspective.
Which means that when they switched perspective the characters did not have
distinctive voices and I got really confused. And it pissed me off, because
it’s annoying, and it’s sloppy. Other than that I’m curious to see what happens
next, so I might keep reading. I might borrow the books from my sister though,
rather than buying them.
Saga, volume #2 and #3 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona
Staples
I’m not sure what to say about these, but I love them.
The art is fantastic. The story is interesting. I love Gwendolyn, she’s
amazing. I really like Alana, and Marko, they’re great. And I read them on my
iPad, which was pretty cool. They were really crisp and good. And I really like
that I can read graphic novels on my iPad. I’m gushing about apple, this isn’t
where I meant to go. Yeah, they’re real good, I wants more.
It’s weird. Weird is the word, is the word. We is set
in the 26th century, in a sort of dystopian Russia. People don’t
have names anymore, they have numbers, and the main character is D-503, who is
a mathematician and he is working on the Integral, a spaceship they’re sending
out to bring happiness to the rest of space. Everything in this society is
ordered and decided for the people by the government. They’re cut off from
nature by a Green Wall, everything is too a schedule, sleeping, waking up,
working, sex, everything. They have
abolished freedom for happiness, and true happiness can only come from order
and focus. Our main character is originally paired up with a woman, O-90, but
then he meets another woman I-330, who makes him question, and everything sort
of changes. It is the book Orwell used as inspiration for 1984, and I
definitely saw that when I read it, although 1984 is a bit gloomier I think,
it’s darker, and more police state-y. I really liked it. Also, he wrote it in
1920, and it seems surprisingly modern. I was impressed.
I put this on my TBR because of Misty the BookRat. And
I read it this month because she did a cootie catcher book thing, and I got
Jellicoe Road, and she got so excited, and I got excited. It’s about a girl
named Taylor Markham who lives at the Jellicoe school by the Jellicoe Road. She
was left there by her junkie mother when she was 11 and she was sort of looked
after by a woman named Hannah, who lived by the school. Hannah has been
Taylor’s touch stone the last six years, and now she’s disappeared. I’m not
entirely sure why I loved it so much. It’s really… odd. Ostensibly it’s about
this girl Taylor being made the leader of the House heads at the Jellicoe
school. Her duties involves her keeping up the school’s boundaries against the
townies and Cadets, who have a six week camp out near the school. The factions
have been doing this for going on 20 years. When Hannah disappears she only has
a manuscript Hannah has been writing. It’s just really beautiful. Taylor is so
angry, and so flawed, and she has trust issues, and anxiety, and she’s so
weird. And I love her. I loved her backstory with Griggs, the leader of the
Cadets. It’s a bit weird in the beginning, and it was a little slow, but
suddenly I loved it, and all the feels. I found Raffela and Chaz’s relationship
really interesting. As was the relationship between Taylor and Griggs, I love
that they have backstories and histories, and it’s gorgeous. And I loved it.
I feel like it was a bit meh. It was okay. It’s about
a group of soldiers who have come back from the war and are now moving to an
island to become farmers. And we get to hear their story of the planning, and
the buying stuff they might need. We also get to hear how they marry random
chicks in their village. And we also get to hear their backstory from when they
were in the army. It was fine. I didn’t really care. I feel like it wasn’t
moving towards anything interesting, and pretty much all of the like main
characters were awful people. Teuche Kunessin, who had the idea, and was their
leader, spent his army days shamelessly stealing from his both dead and live
comrades. One of them, Muri, is pretty much the kindest, most hardworking
person in the book and everyone is a complete arsehole to him. No one listens
to him, his wife is awful, it’s just. It was fine. I’m a bit annoyed, but now I
never have to read this book again.
My resolutions
As far as 70-book challenge is concerned I am
absolutely fine. The fact that I’ve started reading more graphic novels is
obviously helping. As far as the Mount TBR I’m not doing great. I should be on
24, but there it is, I’m at 20. I’ve read another classic, which obviously
helps. As far as authors of color I am failing miserably. I’ll have to move it
on to next year. I’m a dumbo. Maybe if I get money or amazon gift cards for
Christmas I will buy only works by people of color. There’s a resolution, far
into the future, easy for me to cop out of. Yeah, that’s how I roll.
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
Jellicoe Road by Malina Marchetta