May Reads
First off, this was a good reading month with a completion of my goals. In addition to the TBRvatar books, I joined an online book club that’s reading a Terry Pratchett book every month this year, which I am totally down for. I joined in time to re-read Equal Rites, the first Witches novel. It’s a study in feminism and was a perfect place to dive back into Discworld. I’d read it before and gave it three stars, but by the end of this reading I’d bumped it up to four stars.
The first book in the TBRvatar list is the Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho. It’s a queer Asian wuxia-inspired fantasy about a rag-tag band of bandits and a nun from the Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water that joins them. I have to be honest, I liked the twist at the end, but the names confused me for the first half of the novella, and I seriously considered putting it down. The ending paid off for me, but it was a struggle to get there.
Then I read The Dresden Files Graphic Novel, Ghoul Goblin, which was okay. Nothing stands out about it at all, but it was a quick read that I finished in about two hours.
The third selection was a horror novel, which is outside my wheelhouse. I happened to have Horrorstör, by Grady Hendrix, on my TBR shelf because I absolutely loved the book design and bought it on a whim a few years ago at con. The plot is basically a ghost story that takes place in an IKEA-inspired big box store with a group of employees that must work overnight to catch a mysterious stranger that is messing up their showroom after hours. Then everything goes horribly wrong. I liked it enough to add some of Grady Hendrix’s other novels to my TBR list. I love the book design even more after reading it because so much thought went into the entire package.
The next two books didn’t go so well. I tried to read both and just couldn’t do it and ultimately replaced the books used for the prompts. The first was to read a contemporary novel, and I chose The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, a much touted Japanese novel told from a cat’s point of view. I discovered two things very quickly; I didn’t like the Japanese translation and I don’t care for books told from animal perspectives. Maybe it was the translation or maybe the story lacked depth but the use of simple sentences throughout made me feel like I was reading a middle grade novel. The simplicity also made it hard to connect to the cat and care about what happened to it. Maybe that was the point and I’m a book snob. I don’t really care. In the end, I gave up and DNF’d it out of sheer boredom.
Then there was The Colorado Kid by Stephen King. I stopped reading King 20 years ago for a reason, and I was quickly reminded why within the first two sentences of this “hard-boiled” novella. I did not like it at all and DNF’d that POS after about thirty pages of nonsense. Good riddance.
I replaced the contemporary cat book with the award-winning LGBT novel, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz and was much happier. This is a tender and heartfelt coming of age story about two Mexican boys growing up in El Paso, Texas in the 1980’s. I found aspects of the story to be too optimistic and unrealistic for Texas of the time, but I quickly ignored it and just let myself fall into the story and beautiful prose.
Lastly, I replaced the Stephen King novel with The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. Hubby had bought it in e-book format at some point, so that qualified for the prompt. This novel was a Hugo and Nebula nom a few years ago, won the Locus award, and was wonderful. It’s a vivid court intrigue set in an imaginative fantasy world from the view of the unwanted and forgotten half-goblin heir to the throne, Maia. Through circumstances explored in the book, he becomes emperor suddenly and must quickly learn to navigate the different factions of Elven court and find his own way of governing. I loved it and am looking forward to the upcoming sequel!
My June TBRvatar pull is as follows with some additions. In addition to the Discworld novel, I might read another book club selection if I can get a copy from the library before the end of June. If not, I will ignore it. I’m also adding a “Clean Out the TBR Closet” challenge in which I’ll try to prioritize books from my Goodreads TBR list added before 2020.
42 Water Bending Scroll – Read a Paperback book - The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (TBR CLOSET)
9 Earth Secret Tunnel, skip ahead - Cabbage Merchant – Book that keeps getting dropped off your TBR - The Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone (TBR Closet)
32 Jasmine Tea – Read Whatever Book You Want with Relaxing Tea - Castle Shade (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #17) by Laurie R. King (I’m so excited to get my hands on this one!)
22 Sokka – Read a book under 300 pages – Mort by Terry Pratchett
44 Air – Ty Lee – Read a Pink Book - The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Ngi Vo
55 Koh – Read a Retelling - Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
49 Air – Zuko’s Lost Ponytail – Read something 150 pages or less – Fangs by Sarah Anderson 103pp
Discworld Book Club – Mort by Terry Pratchett
Book Club Maybe – The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (if a library holds clears before the end of month)
The first book in the TBRvatar list is the Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho. It’s a queer Asian wuxia-inspired fantasy about a rag-tag band of bandits and a nun from the Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water that joins them. I have to be honest, I liked the twist at the end, but the names confused me for the first half of the novella, and I seriously considered putting it down. The ending paid off for me, but it was a struggle to get there.
Then I read The Dresden Files Graphic Novel, Ghoul Goblin, which was okay. Nothing stands out about it at all, but it was a quick read that I finished in about two hours.
The third selection was a horror novel, which is outside my wheelhouse. I happened to have Horrorstör, by Grady Hendrix, on my TBR shelf because I absolutely loved the book design and bought it on a whim a few years ago at con. The plot is basically a ghost story that takes place in an IKEA-inspired big box store with a group of employees that must work overnight to catch a mysterious stranger that is messing up their showroom after hours. Then everything goes horribly wrong. I liked it enough to add some of Grady Hendrix’s other novels to my TBR list. I love the book design even more after reading it because so much thought went into the entire package.
The next two books didn’t go so well. I tried to read both and just couldn’t do it and ultimately replaced the books used for the prompts. The first was to read a contemporary novel, and I chose The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, a much touted Japanese novel told from a cat’s point of view. I discovered two things very quickly; I didn’t like the Japanese translation and I don’t care for books told from animal perspectives. Maybe it was the translation or maybe the story lacked depth but the use of simple sentences throughout made me feel like I was reading a middle grade novel. The simplicity also made it hard to connect to the cat and care about what happened to it. Maybe that was the point and I’m a book snob. I don’t really care. In the end, I gave up and DNF’d it out of sheer boredom.
Then there was The Colorado Kid by Stephen King. I stopped reading King 20 years ago for a reason, and I was quickly reminded why within the first two sentences of this “hard-boiled” novella. I did not like it at all and DNF’d that POS after about thirty pages of nonsense. Good riddance.
I replaced the contemporary cat book with the award-winning LGBT novel, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz and was much happier. This is a tender and heartfelt coming of age story about two Mexican boys growing up in El Paso, Texas in the 1980’s. I found aspects of the story to be too optimistic and unrealistic for Texas of the time, but I quickly ignored it and just let myself fall into the story and beautiful prose.
Lastly, I replaced the Stephen King novel with The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. Hubby had bought it in e-book format at some point, so that qualified for the prompt. This novel was a Hugo and Nebula nom a few years ago, won the Locus award, and was wonderful. It’s a vivid court intrigue set in an imaginative fantasy world from the view of the unwanted and forgotten half-goblin heir to the throne, Maia. Through circumstances explored in the book, he becomes emperor suddenly and must quickly learn to navigate the different factions of Elven court and find his own way of governing. I loved it and am looking forward to the upcoming sequel!
My June TBRvatar pull is as follows with some additions. In addition to the Discworld novel, I might read another book club selection if I can get a copy from the library before the end of June. If not, I will ignore it. I’m also adding a “Clean Out the TBR Closet” challenge in which I’ll try to prioritize books from my Goodreads TBR list added before 2020.
42 Water Bending Scroll – Read a Paperback book - The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (TBR CLOSET)
9 Earth Secret Tunnel, skip ahead - Cabbage Merchant – Book that keeps getting dropped off your TBR - The Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone (TBR Closet)
32 Jasmine Tea – Read Whatever Book You Want with Relaxing Tea - Castle Shade (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #17) by Laurie R. King (I’m so excited to get my hands on this one!)
22 Sokka – Read a book under 300 pages – Mort by Terry Pratchett
44 Air – Ty Lee – Read a Pink Book - The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Ngi Vo
55 Koh – Read a Retelling - Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
49 Air – Zuko’s Lost Ponytail – Read something 150 pages or less – Fangs by Sarah Anderson 103pp
Discworld Book Club – Mort by Terry Pratchett
Book Club Maybe – The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (if a library holds clears before the end of month)
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