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Welcome to the Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout Challenge

By Brookelorren on 15 Comments

Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout ChallengeWelcome to the Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout Challenge, hosted by The Candid Cover.  It is the chance for you to get some of those books off of your Want to Read list.  Signups will be going on until July 5th.  Plus, you could win a prize just for signing up!  Good deal, yeah?

I have set a goal to read 10 books between now and when this challenge ends, on August 12th.  That’s about two per week.  If I read more, great!  If not, The Candid Cover is going to come to my house and flog me (well, not really; this is a low-pressure challenge).

So what am I going to read for the summer TBR challenge?  I’m not 100% sure, but I am on the waiting list for several books at the library and Amazon is delivering a few more.

Here are the book series on my waiting list.  If they become available, I will read them:

  • Throne of Glass Series – 6 books
  • Mortal Instruments Series – 5 books (I read City of Bones already, you can read my review here)
  • Red Queen Series – 4 books
  • Caraval Series – 2 books

I’m currently reading Origin by Dan Brown and will probably finish that in the next day or two.

I checked out Ever the Hunted from the library and am on the waiting list for Ever the Brave by Erin Summerill.  I’m #5 on the waiting list for the second, so it may not become available during the Summer TBR Wipeout, but if it is, I’ll probably end up reading it.

With part of my birthday Amazon credits, I recently bought:

  • Batman: Nightwalker – Marie Lu – I am normally not into superheroes or anything, but I like every other book that she has written, and I guess I’m wondering if she could do the superhero theme justice.
  • Rora – James Byron Huggins – this has been on my TBR for more than 5 years.  I figure I should probably read it.
  • This Savage Song – Victoria Schwab – it looked interesting and it was on sale for $1.99, so I figured that I should get it.

Outside of the books listed above, I don’t have any top priority books at the moment for the TBR Wipeout Challenge.  There are a  few books coming out on September 18th that I want to read fairly badly, but they’re not out yet.  So, for the most part, I will probably let serendipity be my guide as I pick books to read.  I’m trying to read about one pre-release ARC per week, so I’ll probably pick out books from there that sound good at the time.  Lately, I’ve been seeing quite a few sale announcements on Twitter for books I want to read (I’ll try to remember to post them here when I see them); if I see a book that I’ve been thinking about reading and I can get it for cheap, I’ll probably end up getting that.

I hope you join me for the TBR Wipeout Challenge and get some of those books off your TBR list!

This Savage Song ON SALE

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

This Savage Song coverToday, This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab is ON SALE for $1.99 (ebook version)!  I don’t know how long this sale is supposed to go on, but for all I know, the sale might end tonight, so if you’re interested in it, now would be the time to get it.

I haven’t read it yet, but it looks interesting, and one of my Twitter friends alerted me to this deal, so I figured I’d probably want to read it.

From Goodreads:

 

There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

If you’re interested in reading this book, I hope this finds you before the sale ends!

Legend is One of My Favorite YA Trilogies

By Brookelorren on 7 Comments

Legend coverLast week I wrote about Marie Lu’s latest book, Warcross; today I’m writing about her debut trilogy, Legend.  The series consists of three books: Legend, Prodigy, and Champion.  If you haven’t read them yet, you are missing out.  Go read them right now.  I’ve read them several times myself, and I love this universe so much that I have published three fanfics about it on Archive of Our Own (with a fourth sitting unfinished on my desktop).  Since this is a completed trilogy that I’m not reading for the first time, I’m reviewing the trilogy as a whole, and not the books as separate entities.

Plot

The story begins on November 28, 2031 (which is a Wednesday, in case you’re curious).  Legend begins with the memorable line “My mother thinks I’m dead,” which immediately hooks you into the story.  Daniel Wing, now known as the notorious criminal “Day”, is hanging out with his best friend Tess.  They both live on the streets, eking out a living as best as they can.  The plague patrols are coming through, and Day is watching his family’s house, worried that his family might be sick.  It turns out, his younger brother Eden does have the plague.  Being the loving brother that he is, Daniel breaks into the hospital in order to try to steal some plague cure, setting off a chain of events that will change his life (and the country) forever.

June (our other protagonist) is a brilliant girl in her final year at the military academy.  She doesn’t fit in with the rest of her classmates because over the course of her childhood, she’s skipped several grades, and everyone around her is older than she is.  Her family is also about as wealthy as Day’s family is impoverished.  When tragedy strikes her family, she is sent to track down the person responsible.  In the process, she ends up meeting Day, and they develop a relationship with each other.

The trilogy deals with political corruption, deception, love, and war.   It deals with the problems caused by class disparities when the privileged aren’t aware of the plight of those that are less fortunate than them (while I was reading Never Stop Walking, I thought about this story and how there are people living lives similar to what Day had, except in reality, not fiction).  If I go into too much detail, I’ll give away spoilers, but there is a lot going on in this story; you’ll just have to read it until its exciting conclusion.

Characters

The story is told from Day and June’s points of view.  These two characters (as well as the supporting characters) make the story come alive.  Day is street smart and agile, able to climb buildings in a single bound (okay, that’s a little of an exaggeration).  He suffers from a few physical problems (courtesy of the government), and when his world intersects with June’s, the cultural differences can cause a few problems.  June is wealthy and wickedly smart.  She has an almost obsessive-compulsive fixation on time and minute details (which is why I can tell you when the story begins, even though the book never outright states it).  She’s a good fighter, and her attitude can sometimes get her into trouble.

The supporting characters are also great.  Tess, Day’s best friend, is a caring healer.  Metias, June’s older brother, teaches June not to judge people just by their life’s circumstances.  Thomas, Metias’s friend, is a soldier that is blindly loyal to the government.  Joining them is a whole host of other characters.

Themes

The Legend trilogy has many themes underlying the story, which is one of the things that makes it so enduringly lovely.  It speaks of sacrificing your own wishes because of your love for other people.  It speaks of not holding someone in judgement just because they’re not as well off as you.  It speaks about how blind loyalty to a cause can be dangerous.

I guess that one of the themes in this story can be summed up by these two lines of dialogue between June and another character:

“I will die with honor for sacrificing everything — everything — for my country.  And yet, Day is the legend, while I am to be executed.”

June’s response to his confusion about why Day, a criminal, was being held up as a good guy, and why the other character was being sentenced to death for following orders, was “Because Day chose to walk in the light.”

One Final Note

Legend has a very… complex… ending.  It’s not a story where the ending leaves you seeing flowers and rainbows and puppies and kittens, but it’s also not an ending that leaves you crying as you crawl into bed at 4 in the morning (yes, I’m still talking about you, chapter 50 of Allegiant!).  When I initially reviewed Champion on Goodreads, I gave it four stars.  I have since upgraded my review to five stars, because the ending grew on me a little (it helps that I write fanfiction in this fandom).  After reading the ending, I wanted more, which is why I chose to create more on my own.  I didn’t want to let the story go as it was.

If you like dystopian YA stories and haven’t read this one yet, you’ll want to read these.  All three of them.  I absolutely love this trilogy, and I think you will too.

Series I Want to Finish Someday (And One I Don’t)

By Brookelorren on 34 Comments

Today is Top Ten Tuesday, sponsored by That Artsy Reader.  Today’s theme is Series I’ve Given Up On, but since I don’t really have many of those, I’m modifying it a bit, and am doing Series I Want to Finish Someday (And One I Don’t).  Since a lot of the series that I have been reading have recently finished, I don’t have a full 10 to give you, but I’ll give you what I have.

Ace of Shades CoverI just recently finished reading Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody (I hope to review it next week).  This is the first book of a planned trilogy.  Since the other two books in the series aren’t out yet, I can’t exactly read them yet.

I don’t know if I will buy the follow-on books or get them at the library yet, however.  I only paid $1.99 for the first book on my Kindle; although I do plan on reading the remaining books in the series, I don’t know if it’s a book I want to read over and over and over again, like some of the books that I buy.

City of Bones CoverCity of Bones is a series that I am currently on the waiting list for at the library.  I’m currently #7 on the waiting list for the next book, City of Ashes.  At some point I’ll get to the top of the waiting list and I’ll probably review a bunch of books from these series in quick succession.

While I didn’t give this book a five-star review, I did enjoy it, and (I peeked ahead) I’ve read some excerpts from her later books and am looking forward to getting to them.  Someday…

An Ember in the Ashes CoverAn Ember in the Ashes is the first book of Sabaa Tahir’s tetralogy.  I just read her first three books for the first time this month, and I absolutely love them!  I’m looking forward to the last book coming out next year, especially since the characters are still in distress, and I’m hoping that Ms. Tahir helps them save themselves and at least lets them be a little happy (if not, there’s always fanfiction).

I definitely plan on pre-ordering this one as soon as it becomes available.  Since the last book in the series A Reaper at the Gates, just came out, I don’t know when that will be.

Warcross coverWarcross is the first book in Marie Lu’s latest series.  I pre-ordered this on April 10th this year (only reason I know is because it was the day that The Fates Divide came out, which was another book that I eagerly looked forward too).

Out of the three series that I’m looking forward to reading, this is the one that I’m looking forward to the most.  Fortunately, I only have to wait until September to read it (less than 3 months now!).

The One Series I Don’t Plan on Continuing…

I won’t say that I will never read the rest of the Illuminae series, but I don’t have any plans to do so any time soon.  If I do continue reading these, it will not be on the Kindle.

This book was really difficult to read on my Kindle.  The concept is pretty cool.  There are different files to read, and it is very graphic.  It doesn’t translate to the Kindle well at all, because I wasn’t able to resize the pages, making it hard to read.  There were graphic pages where the words swirled around, which were also difficult to read on a Kindle.

I think what disappointed me the most about Illuminae, however (the Kindle visual problems are quite easy to fix by reading these books in hardback) was how in the very middle of the book, the story completely pissed me off.  I can’t say why without giving away spoilers, but I went to google the ending in order to find out whether it was worth finishing or not; even then, I put down the book, went to bed, and finished it the next day.

As far as I know, the next books aren’t continuations of this story, but tell the story from a different angle, I don’t think I’m going to finish.  I’m not interested enough to continue reading this book at the moment.

Never Stop Walking Was Great!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Never Stop Walking CoverNever Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World, by Christina Rickardsson, is an outstanding book.  It is a story that everybody with a heart should read.  This book may even cause you to see the world in a different light.

Never Stop Walking is the true story of a girl who grew up on the streets in Brazil and was later adopted by a family in Sweden.  In a way, it is a literal rags-to-riches tale.

Christina’s telling of her childhood growing up, first in caves, then in the slums of São Paulo, is fascinating.  She witnesses horrors that most first-world adults couldn’t even imagine.  In order to survive, she witnessed (and caused) violence, endured extreme hunger, and was treated worse than most people treat animals.  After she is adopted, she has to deal with fitting in with people that have no clue what she’s been through.  Her story ends as an adult, returning home to find out the truth about her family and what actually happened.

Never Stop Walking is a story that should make you think.  What Christina went through as a girl is still happening today.  There are still desperately impoverished children in Brazil, even today.  There are places in the world, like Venezuela, that are becoming more and more like the world of this story.  People are being displaced from their homes through war and terrorist activity; what are their lives like?

This book is not one of despair, however.  Never Stop Walking is, above all, a story about how love can carry people through even the most difficult of situations.  The love of Christina’s friends, of her mother, and even from the occasional caring adult, kept her from being completely torn up and destroyed, even after all that she had been through.  Most of us will probably never have to worry about being rounded up and shot by the police, or will have to fight over scraps of food after not eating for days, but when we do go through difficult times, the people around us can help us through.  We can care for others and help them through their difficult times.

Never Stop Walking is a book that made me feel thankful.  Bad things happen to everybody, but if you’re reading this book review, you probably will never have to go through what people living on the streets of Brazil go through every day.  I enjoyed reading this story, and I feel like I am a better person because I read it.  I hope you like it as well.

City of Bones was… Good

By Brookelorren on 16 Comments

City of Bones CoverSo I’m late to the party.  I just got around to reading City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, which is an 11 year old book.  I found it to be… good.  It’s not great, but it’s good.

I saw this book while looking through Goodreads 2018 releases, and found that Clare’s Queen of Air and Darkness is listed as highly anticipated.  I can’t start in the middle of a series, of course, so I clicked around and found this book which started it all.  Fortunately, my local library had it (although now I’m waiting to read book #2 and I’m tenth on the waiting list).

The book is about a girl, Clary, who stumbles upon a murder that only she could see.  Shortly after that, her world is completely upended when she discovers that the world that she believed to be true isn’t all there is.  Not only are there demons, werewolves, Nephilim, and vampires, but her family is a part of that world.  Over the course of this book, she discovers the truth about this world around her, and about her family.

I did enjoy this book.  Enough that I immediately got on the waiting list at the library to read the second book in the series.  I’ll probably end up reading all of the books, although that might take a while, since there’s quite a few books in this series, and there’s a waiting list at the library for most of them.  I didn’t enjoy the book enough to go out and buy the entire series.

There were a lot of things I liked about this book.  I liked the characters and their relationships.  I liked the imagery and the world-building.  I enjoyed the plot and kept wanting to read more.  The mythology was interesting.

There were some things that this story could have done better, however.  This wasn’t one of those books that sucks you in and grabs you and won’t let you go.  I’m not going to be fangirling over this book years from now after I’ve read it for the fourth or fifth time.  There were a couple of things that I found a little odd — the main character’s life was uprooted over the course of 24 hours, nearly everything she had is gone — you would think she would have a stronger emotional reaction to it.  The mythology was a little mishmashed, and that could have been better.  The final thing that I think could have been written better was, towards the end, where the characters are finding out these big revelations and… I would think that their emotional reactions would have been a little more pronounced.

This being one of Clare’s earlier works, I’m looking forward to continuing on with the series and seeing her develop as an author.  Since I’ve waited so long to read the first book, I can quickly catch up.

Warcross: The Best Book I Read in 2017

By Brookelorren on 22 Comments

Warcross coverIt isn’t often that you can say that a book was the best book you read that year.  In fact, you can only say that about one book a year.  Warcross, by Marie Lu was the best book that I read in 2017.

The whole premise of Warcross, for me, was exciting.  A book about gaming and hacking and tracking down criminals?  Yes, please!  I already knew that Marie Lu could write in more than one genre and make them good: j’adore the dystopian world of 100 years from now in Legend (words in English can’t even express how much I love it, so I have to switch to French 😉 ), and the medieval fantasy world of The Young Elites was amazing too.  A book about a hacking bounty hunter should be great as well, right?

I was not disappointed.  Warcross kept me enthralled from the first chapter until the end.  Then I wanted more.

The main character, Emika Chen, is an amazingly complex character, like so many of the other characters that Lu has created.  Emika is brilliant, but she can’t use her genius to create a comfortable life for herself because she has a criminal record.  Before you go on judging her for that, you have to read the book, because there’s a really good reason for it.  Her past has been difficult, really for no fault of her own, and you just want to root for her and wish for her best.

In this world, everybody likes to play a game called Warcross.  It’s not only a virtual world where you can hang out and chill, it’s also a world where you can join a team and battle against other teams.  Like the real-world game of Overwatch (which my daughter likes to play) there are professional teams that people will root for; only in this book, Warcross is way more popular than Overwatch.  Everybody is involved.  Warcross is so integrated in society that your level in Warcross can determine whether you can get into fancy restaurants (much like the real-life social scoring program, Zhima Credit, can get you perks in China).

In this world, Emika is on the verge of homelessness.  In a moment of desperation, she initiates a hack that will change her life forever.

As she tries to hack into the International Warcross Championships, she accidentally is seen by nearly everybody in the world.  Whoops.

She thinks she’s in trouble.  The creator of Warcross, Hideo Tanaka (whom Emika has been fangirling after for years), gives her a call.  He wants her to come to Tokyo.  This creates one of the best lines in the book:

“I’d love to, but my roommate and I are actually about to get evicted from our apartment tomorrow, so…”

A billionaire that you’ve been fangirling over for years wants to meet you in Tokyo and that’s your reaction?  It seems like something I would say.  In fact, once when I was in Jack in the Box, my boyfriend said to me “let’s go get married” and my response was “I thought we were going to go buy a computer today.”  We ended up getting married, and never did go buy that computer, LOL.

Instead of getting in trouble, Emika gets a job.  She goes on adventures.  Finds danger.  Maybe finds love.  You’ll just have to read it to find out.

This book almost feels like it could happen in the next five or ten years.  Even today, there is a Dark Web.  There is an assassination market.  Artificial intelligence and virtual reality are already here, and they are getting better every day.  The world of Warcross is one that has all of these elements, which are already here, and are only getting more prevalent in our lives every day.

In addition to being a great book, Warcross asks ethical questions, although not overtly.  Is giving up freedom for security worth it?  Who determines right from wrong?  Should we let the powers that be keep us from doing what “they” think is wrong?  It’s not just a fun book, it’s a fun book that makes you think.

I don’t think I can say enough good things about this book.  If you haven’t read Warcross, get it now; and while you’re at it, pre-order Wildcard, which comes out September 18th.  While I can’t say that Wildcard will be the best book I read in 2018 (I haven’t read it yet, and there’s still 6 months left in the year), I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a great book as well.

Should You Fear A Reaper at the Gates?

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

A Reaper at the Gates CoverA Reaper at the Gates is Sabaa Tahir’s third book in the Ember in the Ashes Quartet.  It is another outstanding book in the series.  I read the three books in three days, and now I feel like I’m stuck in the Waiting Place until 2019 when the final book comes out.

This review contains spoilers for An Ember in the Ashes and A Torch Against the Night.

When we last left our fearless characters at the end of A Torch Against the Night, Elias had died, but in exchange for his life, he had agreed to become the Soul Catcher, which allowed him to return to the mortal world and help Laia and his friends in the outside world, when he wasn’t working with the ghosts.  Darin had been busted from Kauf prison, but he wasn’t like his former self.  Laia had discovered that she was gifted with the power of invisibility, and was starting to become a leader (although she didn’t want to admit it).  Helene’s family had been killed, with the exception of Livia, who was now married to the sadistic emperor.

Can things get any worse?  I asked that while I was reading A Torch Against the Night too.  Unfortunately for these characters, things continue to get even darker in the third installment of this series.

Like the last book, A Reaper at the Gates is primarily told from the perspectives of Laia, Elias, and Helene.  A lot of the time, they are dealing with their own battles, so it makes sense to follow these three.  The Nightbringer also has a couple chapters from his perspective.

After she accidentally gave away a piece of the Star to the Nightbringer (dumb dumb dumb!), Laia goes on a quest to prevent him from getting the final piece.  She’s also trying to help the scholars rage against the machine (the Empire, that is) and not get killed.  Meanwhile, her brother wakes up, and she needs to help him get back to work making Serric steel weapons.

Elias has his own battles to face.  He’s taking over as the Soul Catcher, but he’s still trying to help Laia, whom he loves.  If he doesn’t do his job as Soul Catcher well enough, there could be disastrous consequences.  Unfortunately, there is a tug at him to give up his care about the world in order to do his Soul Catcher duty.

Helene is dealing with politics in the Empire.  Keris Veturius is trying to undermine her at every step, and there are enemies trying to wage war on the Empire.  Meanwhile, her sister Livia is in danger, both with the Emperor and with Keris.

A Reaper at the Gates is even darker than A Torch Against the Night.  The characters deal with court intrigue.  They learn secrets.  Many of them grow as people.  Some of them seem to be fighting a losing battle.

One of the subplots of the series is the relationship between Elias and Laia.  If I were to give this relationship a tag on Archive of our Own, it would be sloooooooow burn.  At least they finally realize that they love each other in this book, and are willing to admit it.  There are a couple of really nice scenes between the two regarding their love for each other, but with Elias’s new gig as Soul Catcher, is their relationship doomed?  You may or may not find out the answer in this book.

At the end of A Reaper at the Gates, the characters don’t run off into the sunset and sing Kumbaya.  They still have a lot to deal with.  You may finish this book and, like me, feel like you will be stuck in the Waiting Place until 2019 when this book concludes.  I’m personally a little scared though… I really hated chapter 50 of Allegiant, and I hope to not see another repeat of that.  However, the darkest hour is just before the dawn.  Perhaps there was a little foreshadowing involved when Laia said what Nan once told her “as long as there is life, there is hope.”  While things will look bleak when you finish this book, you will want more, and fortunately, there is one more book to hopefully set this world right once again.

Other books in this series I have reviewed:

A Torch Against the Night Kept Me Awake

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

A Torch Against the Night CoverA Torch Against the Night is the outstanding second book in Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes Quartet.  I started reading this series a couple of days ago, and finished all three books in three days.  They were that good.  I was fortunate in that my library had an extra copy of this book on their shelves.  Once I realized that this book was available, I rushed to go pick it up.

The following review may contain spoilers for An Ember in the Ashes.

In the first book, our heroes, Elias, Laia, and Helene, were tried in various ways.  As A Torch Against the Night begins, Elias and Laia are running for their lives, and Helene has sworn an oath to the foul Marcus to be his Blood Shrike.  Could things get any worse for these people?  Oh yes, they can.

Elias has promised Laia to go to rescue her brother, whom we discover is in the Kauf, the worst prison of the Empire.  Along the way, they run into all kinds of trouble, but they also find the help of allies, and discover that they can show kindness to others, even when they are in all kinds of distress.

Helene has been tasked to track Elias down.  If she doesn’t, there will be consequences for both her and her family.  As a result, she is put into a very tough predicament.  Will she become a completely different person in pursuit of her duties?

When we last left our cast of characters at the end of An Ember in the Ashes, we were left with questions about who is going to fall in love with whom?  Will Elias and Helene get together while Laia and Keenan find love?  Or will it be Elias and Laia?  If you read the first book’s description, you already know, but by the end of this book, there will be no doubt about who loves whom in this series.  Whether they end up happily ever or not… remains to be seen.

Like the first book, A Torch in the Night has beautiful scenes, great characters, and a lot of action.  If you’re looking for a feel-good book, this is not it; however, if you’re looking for a book with a lot of excitement and magic, this series is great.  I highly recommend this series for people who are interested in this genre.

Other reviews in this series:

Ember in the Ashes Sale on Today!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Just thought that you might want to know, the Kindle version of An Ember in the Ashes is currently on sale TODAY for $2.99 (I know that it says $9.99 next to this paragraph, but if you’re reading on June 15, 2018, it’s actually $2.99).  I posted a glowing review for it yesterday, so if you’re interested, now is the time to get it.

Sabaa Tahir’s Twitter feed says that the sale is for today, so I wouldn’t count on it being this price tomorrow.

Since I picked up the copy that I read at the library, I took advantage of this offer myself.  I’ll probably eventually want to get the entire series in hardback, but for now, at this price, it’s hard to pass up.