Tag: reading

January and February Update

Hello friends, and happy spring. Warm weather seems to have finally arrived in the D.C. area after a winter which was long and cold, and then not cold, and then cold again. The last couple months in particular, where we’ve swung from almost summery conditions back to the depths of winter weather have been a bit rough. But the warm weather has arrived, and the Covid numbers are a bit better, at least for now, so I’ve been tentatively stepping out of my apartment again to see friends and go to in-person barre classes (the barre requires vaccinations, and I’m testing before seeing friends).

January and February were pretty hectic months, which is why I haven’t posted recently. I moved to a bigger apartment at the end of January. I was just moving to a new apartment in the same building, so it wasn’t the hardest move I’ve ever done, but most of the month was still taken up with packing and getting through the administrative work of moving. And then I’ve been unpacking and organizing my new space throughout February. It’s been a lot of work, but I have a den now that I’ve set up as my cozy writing space, and the rest of my apartment is bigger too, so it’s overall a lot more comfortable. I also have more windows, so it’s even sunnier than my old apartment, which was an unexpected bonus.

I had so much going on in January and February that I hit a bit of a reading slump, which for me means I read about six books each month, for a total of twelve books by the end of February (I’m not exactly sure how much I read each month). Eight of the books I read were new, and four were rereads. I know this still sounds like a lot of books for two months, but I also didn’t really enjoy many of them until the end of February. A lot of them were fine, but not as special as I wanted them to be.

Of course, there were a few standouts. First was The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart, sequel to The Bone Shard Daughter. This series, The Drowning Empire, is so rich and creative, and I adore the characters. It follows a number of very different people, the emperor’s daughter, a wanted smuggler, a woman with amnesia (best description I have), the daughter of an island governor, and a resistance leader. There’s also strange and wonderful and terrifying magic. I’m being vague because first, it’s hard to describe, but second, it’s such a joy to discover and I don’t want to spoil it. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend, and if you have, I would love to talk about it.

The second book that really stood out to me was Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez. This book is about Sal and Gabi, two seventh graders at a school for the arts in Miami who, well, break the universe. Literally, Sal can create wormholes, and he keeps accidentally reaching into alternate universes to, say, put raw chickens in bullies’ lockers, and to bring alternate versions of his dead mother back into his universe. Everything about this book was just so vibrant and fun and loving, and it gave me so many feelings. This is another one you simply must read!

While I didn’t feel like I got a lot of reading done in the last couple months, I did get a lot of writing done. At the beginning of December, I gave my middle grade fantasy book to a set of totally new beta readers, and I got their feedback at the end of January. It was all super useful and really helped me crystallize what the problems were with the project. I have since taken all their comments, broken it down into categories, come up with solutions to the problems identified, created a revision outline, and started revising. These haven’t been easy revisions: I’ve rewritten my opening, cut a number of characters, reordered a number of plot events to streamline the events and fix pacing issues, added some new stuff to fill in some missing pieces, and I still have to rework my climax and ending. But I’m so far really happy with what I’ve done, and hopefully I’ll wind up with an even stronger book.

Otherwise, work has been busier than ever. I’m being given a lot more responsibilities, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s hard to believe I’ve been at this job for two and a half years, and two of them have been during the pandemic. I’m definitely looking forward to getting back into the office and getting to know my coworkers again, but at least with the bigger apartment, I’m enjoying teleworking more. Who’d have thought extra space would help that.

I hope everyone’s keeping well. I’m planning to post again soon with some thoughts on researching historical fiction, assuming, of course, that I can wrangle those thoughts into something coherent. In the meantime, enjoy the start of spring.

December Reading Roundup

Happy 2019 everybody!

I spent the last week in Florida with my family. We went kayaking with dolphins and hiking and biking and museuming. I got a bit crispified, and I’m not sure Neutron was a fan of all the heat, but we had a great adventure. And now we’re back in the cold and rain and snow.

I am all fired up about my 2019 goals. I’ve written every day of 2019 so far, and I’m trying to keep that momentum going. I’m starting my J-term patents class on Monday, and while I’m not totally ready to go back to school, I’m well-rested and my stress is much lower, at least at the moment. I got one of those wake-up lights to get me up and moving in the morning, and I feel like I’m ready to get into the swing of things. And I just finished my reading for Monday, and I actually understood most of it. Could I have finally reached some kind of law school enlightenment?

Before I totally dive into the new year, I have one more reading roundup post for 2018 for you. I read 21 books in December, which is a record for me for the year. Many of them were short books, and I got through a lot while studying for finals. I did not finish all the series I was in the middle of by the end of the year, as I’d hoped, but I finished a bunch.

First, I finished Rick Riordan’s The Heroes of Olympus series. In December, I read the fourth book, The House of Hades, and the fifth book, The Blood of Olympus. The House of Hades is definitely one of my favorites in the series. It features my favorite characters—Percy, Annabeth, Leo, and Hazel—and they are having some cool adventures and doing awesome stuff. Percy and Annabeth are racing through the Underworld, trying to get to the Doors of Death before the monster army, while the rest of the crew of the Argo II are fighting their way across the Mediterranean to meet them on the mortal side of the doors. It was just a really fun read. After that, The Blood of Olympus was a bit of a let-down. It basically exemplified all the problems I had with the series—mainly that there were too many point of view characters and that we were with the wrong characters all the time. Also, there was no Percy point of view, and this really upset me. But the ending was great, and it did wrap up the series well. On the whole, this series definitely isn’t  as good as the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, but it was still a lot of fun.

Next, I read Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan. This book actually follows a magic harmonica as it passes from child to child—from a German boy with epilepsy facing Hitler’s sterilization program, to a pair of orphans in Great Depression Pennsylvania, to the daughter of Mexican immigrants looking for Japanese spies while her brother is fighting in World War II. There is a lot of music in the book, and if you like audiobooks, this is definitely one to listen to, because it actually has the music, and it does a really good job of it. I really enjoyed listening to this book. The one thing that I will say is that it annoyed me that we left each point of view character right when everything in their stories was coming to a head. You find out what happened in the end, but it was a bit frustrating while I was reading it. Other than that, this was a great book.

I continued the WWII trend with City of Thieves by David Benioff. This book takes place in Leningrad, during the siege. The main character—I can’t even remember his name—is caught stealing alcohol from a downed German soldier. He thinks he’s going to be shot, but he and a deserter are instead sent by the commander of the secret police literally on a wild goose chase to find a dozen eggs for his daughter’s wedding cake. Leningrad is, of course, starving, so there are no eggs to be had. I did not like this book. I couldn’t tell if it was trying to be comedic or satiric or weirdly serious. Whatever it was, it was just plain wild, and it was not my cup of tea.

After that, I read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl, the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This was another really weird book. They take the great glass elevator into space, face down some aliens who have taken over the space hotel, rescue an American space ship, and then there’s this whole craziness with turning all the grandmas and grandpas into babies to get them out of bed. It made no sense, and Charlie was just sort of along for the crazy ride. Suffice it to say that while I enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and that will always be special to me, this was just a little too weird for my tastes.

I finished the Julie of the Wolves series with Julie and Julie’s Wolf Pack by Jean Craighead George. I liked Julie a lot. It dealt well with the fall-out from the first book. Julie’s Wolf Pack was fun too, but it basically continues the story from the point of view of the wolves, so it read more like a series of events. While I enjoyed these books, they weren’t nearly as powerful as I found the first book to be, and I’m not sure they’re necessary to wrap up the first book. To me, the first book stands well on its own.

I finally finished The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century by Amanda Hesser, which I’ve been working my way through since the summer. This isn’t just a cookbook. Or at least, it wasn’t just a cookbook to me. It covered New York Times recipes from the 1870s to the present, and I really enjoyed seeing what people ate in all the different time periods, the variations in preparations, what has stood the test of time and what has disappeared. It was fascinating. I have not tried all the recipes in this book, but the ones I have tried so far have come out really well. Since it covers so much, it is a bit of a brick, and I’ve bookmarked a whole bunch of recipes I want to try. Looking forward to diving into those in 2019.

Next, I finished The Raven Cycle with The Raven King by Maggie  Stiefvater. Blue has her mother back now, and  the kids are closing in on their sleeping king, but there are a whole bunch of other crazy things going on. The strength of this book and the whole series is the characters and their dynamics together, which I’ve said before. I’m a big fan of large ensemble casts, and this series does such a wonderful job with it. Some of the reviews I read complain that Maggie Stiefvater didn’t pull everything together the way they wanted, but this book was pretty much a perfect end to the series for me.

Next I finished my reread of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket with the twelfth and thirteenth books, The Penultimate Peril and The End. I really enjoyed The Penultimate Peril. It reminds me of the scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where everyone is all together in the Room of Requirement. Yes, the adults are still useless, but it feels like we’re finally closing in on Count Olaf, until everything goes horribly wrong, of course. The End—which already loses points for not having an alliterative title—was a huge disappointment. We’ve been building everything up for the last three or four books, at least, and now we’re all just going to go hang out on a super peaceful island? Really? And not answer any questions? Sorry, minor spoilers, nothing is explained. The last book didn’t ruin the series for me, but it was definitely a disappointment. Now that I’ve finished rereading the books, I’m ready to watch the last season of the Netflix show, which I hope will pull things together in the end better than the last book did.

After that, I finally finished the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson, which I’ve literally been plugging away at all year. In December, I read Nevermore and Maximum Ride Forever. While the last book was, surprisingly, better than the last like five books put together, you’d be better off stopping after the third book, Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports, because the rest of the series isn’t worth the time it will take you to read them, even if that time is really short. Enough said about that.

The rest of the Rose series by Holly Webb carried me through finals week. I read Rose and the Magician’s Mask during breaks from studying for my corporations exam, and Rose and the Silver Ghost while studying for administrative law and writing my communications law paper. I adored Rose and the Magician’s Mask. They’re going after the villain of the second book, who is terrifying indeed. Rose is getting good at magic. She has all her friends back. I love Bill to pieces. Oh, and in this book they travel to Venice and do battle with magicians whose masks have fused with their faces to give them more power. I love Venice, and I love how delightfully creepy the whole thing is. Rose and the Silver Ghost was not as good as I’d hoped. First of all, I think it would have been better split into two books and both conflicts developed better. The first big chunk of the book is Rose trying to find her mother. This is pretty good, though I have to admit I was a bit disappointed with what the truth turned out to be. The world is set up in these books so that it’s only the rich families who have magical powers, because magic is so expensive. So Rose, a poor orphan with strong magical powers, is kind of rocking the boat a bit here. I didn’t want her family history to be resolved. Or, I wanted her parents to be poor fishermen. I wanted to rock the boat a bit more. I did not want Rose to be the long lost daughter of some crazy rich magical family. But so it goes. And the reveal and the climax around that is sufficiently intense that it was still really good, even if it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. Then, at the end, they cram in all this stuff about stopping the Talish invasion of Britain. I felt like this deserved a lot more attention than it was given. So while the last book wasn’t everything I was hoping for, I did really enjoy this series.

When I finished finals, I started my annual Harry Potter reread. Unfortunately I started too late to make much headway in the series before the end of the year, but I did read Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets. I’m working on a whole post about my annual reread, so I won’t go into all my thoughts here, but these books make me so happy and were the perfect post-finals treat.

While reading Harry Potter, I also sped through And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman. It’s a novella about a grandfather struggling with the knowledge that he is losing his memories with his son and grandson. I love this little novella. It’s so sweet and tender and heartbreaking, and I found it to be really profound and powerful. So much so that I bought it for my mom for Christmas and both she and my dad read it while we were in Florida. My dad actually wants to read it again, and it’s a minor miracle if he finishes a book the first time, which says a lot about this book. It’s a sad book, definitely, but I highly recommend it.

Next I read Lost by Sarah Prineas, the second book in The Magic Thief series. This was a good sequel to the first book, but I did kind of hate all the characters for not communicating with each other. Also, there was just something so formal and stilted about all the characters’ interactions that kept me from getting into the book. At this point, how I feel about these books really depends on how the rest of the series goes.

In December, I also read The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Nickerbocker Glory—More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Muggles and Wizards by Dinah Busholz. This was a lot of fun to read, because it goes through all the food in the Harry Potter books—and there’s a lot of food mentioned. It talks about the significance of the food in the books, as well as the food’s historical and cultural significance. And then we get the recipes. I haven’t gotten to try any of these yet, but some of them look really delicious. Some, like the steak and kidney pie, I think I’m going to pass on trying. I’m only so adventurous. Also I just have to say wow! I cannot believe that the characters actually ate like this every day. But this book gave me a new perspective on the Harry Potter books. As I’ve been rereading the books, I’ve noticed the food a lot more. Even if I don’t try any of the recipes—and I did bookmark a bunch to try—it’s definitely a lot of fun to read, especially if you’re an extreme Harry Potter nerd like me.

I finished off 2018 with Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. I really enjoyed this book, but as I said before, I’m a nerd. The book goes through the big theories of astrophysics, from the big bang and the formation of our galaxy, solar system, and planet, to the size and shape of the universe and theories about its life cycle, to the search for life on other planets. It was a small book, but I found it to be thorough and clear. I did read some Goodreads reviews that complained that it would be hard to follow if you didn’t already know some of the science, and that’s probably true, especially if you’re reading quickly. But if you’re interested in astrophysics, this is one to read.

In total, I read 176 books in 2018. I’m a little bit in awe of this number, and kind of horrified with myself. Did I do nothing but read in 2018? Sometimes it feels like it. I’ve never read so much in one year. I’m definitely still processing how I feel about some of these books, so I’ll be back next week with my top picks for 2018. Until then, happy new year! And happy reading!

May Reading Roundup

May was a crazy month. I finished up finals and moved down to Gaithersburg, Maryland for my first internship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. They’re keeping me busy at NIST, and I’m really enjoying the work. The public transportation in this part of the world does leave something to be desired, and I have never ever had allergies like this (at least I’m hoping they’re allergies), but I can get back and forth to work and I can get food, so it could be worse. I’ve been writing again too, slowly but surely, and finishing up critiques I promised people forever ago.

 

I also read twenty books this month. Which means I’ve read ninety books this year. I’m probably going to reach my goal of a hundred books this coming month. The question remains: should I increase my goal for the year? Or should I just bask in my victory for the next six months? Opinions welcome.

 

Many of the books I read this month were relatively short. I only read one book in Braille, because most of my reading time is while I’m doing things like cooking and laundry and such, and audio works better for that, obviously. Working full time tends to cut down on your ability to chill on the couch with a book. I made progress on a couple series I’ve been working on, read three series completely, started another new series, and read a couple stand-alone things. As usual, I’m clumping series together in this posts, and keeping my thoughts as spoiler-free as possible. And so, without further ado, here’s what I read in May and what I thought of it.

 

First, I read all three books in the Delirium series by Lauren Oliver—Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem—as well as the collection of Delirium stories: Hana, Annabel, Raven, and Alex. I enjoyed these books. They weren’t fabulous, but they were very decent. It’s a YA dystopian series set in a futuristic America where everybody undergoes a procedure to cure them of the ability to love, which is viewed as a deadly disease. So of course, our protagonist, Lena, goes and falls in love a month before her scheduled procedure. There were a lot of things that I liked about these books. The world building was pretty solid, and I really enjoyed Lena’s journey from a scared believer in the system to an awesome resistance fighter. I also like that Lena is just an ordinary girl within the system. She’s never even such a big part in the resistance, though she does do a lot of good things for it. It was kind of refreshing compared with the YA dystopians where the hero is always the unwitting or even unwilling figurehead of the rebellion. I also thought Lauren Oliver definitely stuck the ending. A lot of people on Goodreads disagree with me on this, but I liked it. I was worried about it, given the split point of view in the third book. But it worked for me. All that being said, the books were pretty predictable. I knew what was going to happen way before it happened, particularly with the romantic side of the story. But this was still a fast-paced, fun series to read.

 

On our drive down to Maryland, my mom and I listened to Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan. I really enjoyed this book. It’s about a Mexican girl who immigrates to America with her mother after her father dies and works in a migrant camp during the Great Depression. There were times when Esperanza was a bit of a brat, but it’s also totally understandable and watching her journey of becoming self-sufficient was great. I would definitely recommend this book.

 

Next, I continued my journey through the Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins with the next two books in the series: Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane and Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods. I am absolutely loving these books. They’re middle grade novels, but they tackle some really important issues, like racism and biological warfare. In the second book, Gregor and his little sister Boots return to the Underland to go on a quest to kill the evil rat overlord. In the third book, Gregor and Boots go back to seek the cure for a plague. Gregor is such a great protagonist. It’s also really interesting to read these books after reading the Hunger Games series, because you can see similar plot structures, characters, and themes handled in a completely different way. This gave rise to an interesting conversation with my writing friends about authors using the same or similar pallets for different projects. I haven’t finished the series—knowing Suzanne Collins it’s going to get darker from here—so I can’t speak for the series as a whole, but so far I am loving these books.

 

After that, I read the entire Breadwinner series by Deborah Ellis: The Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey, Mud City, and My Name is Parvana. These books are about a girl in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban, and when her father is arrested, she disguises herself as a boy to support her family. Each of these books was very short, and I could see it working better as one longer novel with more detail rather than four separate shorter ones, but I think it was written this way because it’s a middle grade series. But the whole series put together is fabulous, and I highly recommend.

 

After that, I read Four: A Divergent Collection by Veronica Roth. It was interesting to get Four’s point of view before and during Divergent, but on the whole it was kind of meh. I already knew how it was going to turn out, and I’m not sure it added anything new to the series.

 

Then I caved and reread The Call, and the sequel which just came out, The Invasion, by Peadar ó Guilín. i read The Call last year, and I hated it viscerally. The writing was terrible, the characters’ motivations made no sense, and it was just bad. But I was intrigued by the premise for the sequel, so I got both books from the library and plowed through them. I still disliked the first book, but the second book was pretty creative, and putting them together they make a not-completely-terrible duology. I still wouldn’t recommend them, though.

 

I finally started the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. I read the first three books this month: The Lightning Thief, Sea of Monsters, and The Titan’s Curse. I’ve been meaning to read these books for a while, and I am so glad that I finally did. My sole regret is that I haven’t read them until now, because where have these books been all my life?! They are so much fun. This is a middle grade series about the children of the Greek gods going on adventures to avert wars and rescue friends. They are good fun, but also serious in all the right places. Basically everything I want in an upper middle grade novel. Also, kind of unrelated, but it’s really interesting to be reading this series and the Underland series simultaneously, because there are some very interesting similarities in the plot structure, and Gregor and Percy have some similar characteristics as protagonists.

 

And finally I continued my rereading of the Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket. This month, I read books 6 through 8, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, and the Hostile Hospital. Honestly, these books are starting to wear on me. I’m glad that the orphans have more agency now and are actively trying to solve the mystery themselves, but the mystery is moving so slowly, and the adults are just the worst. I’m hoping things pick up in the last five books.

 

And that’s it for May. If you’ve read any of these books, I would love to hear your thoughts. Happy reading everybody!

March Reading Roundup

I know, I know, it’s not March anymore. I was all over posting this last week, but my computer seriously died, and that slowed me down a bit. But I’m back now with my March reads.

 

I didn’t read as much last month as I did in January and February. This is partly because I realized I was listening to audiobooks at almost double speed in January and February, and in March I decided to turn that back to normal speed. I also spent a week at home and my family and college friends who visited didn’t let me live constantly in my cave of books.

 

Still, I read fifteen books in March. Four of them were Braille books; the rest were audiobooks. One of them was nonfiction. I continued the series I’ve been reading and started a few new series. I also read a few stand-alone books. I’m now more than halfway to my goal of reading a hundred books this year.

 

Like my previous reading roundup posts, I’m grouping these books by series, for sake of clarity, and I’m trying to keep these thoughts as spoiler-free as possible.

 

First, I continued James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series with the fifth book, Max. At this point, I’ve lost a lot of enthusiasm for the books. We seem to have lost a lot of character development and plot in favor of political messages about global warming. I understand that authors can and do send political messages in their books, but you can’t do it at the expense of, well, basically all the reasons I want to read a book in the first place. I feel like James Patterson tried to get things back on track with this book and fix some of the problems with the last book, because Max’s mom is kidnapped and the kids go off on a submarine to rescue her. But it didn’t work for me. So much of it just strained my willing suspension of disbelief—like the giant sea monsters and the characters gaining crazy new skills whenever it’s convenient for the plot—and it just made the book less fun to read. I’m a completionist, so I’ll keep going, but after book three this series has gone way downhill.

 

Next I read Inkheart, the first book in Cornelia Funke’s Inkworld trilogy. I read this book a long, long time ago, like middle school long ago, but all I remember is that I really liked it. I still really liked it now. It’s kind of a bookworm’s paradise. Meggie’s father can read characters out of books—and people into books. Ten years ago he read the villains out of the book Inkheart and read Meggie’s mother into the book—all accidentally of course. Now the villains are back, and they want Meggie’s father and the book that could be the only way to get her mother back. Reading the book now, I will say that I really wished that Meggie had more agency, because for a lot of it she’s just sort of along for the ride, but I still really enjoyed it and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book.

 

Next, I read The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. This was a fabulously fun book. It’s the book that the movie Home is based on, but I haven’t seen the movie so I can’t compare them. I will say that I had so much fun reading the book. Gratuity—tip—has to write about what the alien invasion meant to her for school, and she has quite a story to tell. When the aliens invaded Earth, they abducted Tip’s mother and sent all the humans in North America to Florida. Tip decides to drive herself and her cat rather than taking the alien transportation. Along the way, she meets an alien who has gotten himself into trouble with his own people, and thus begins a great cross-country road trip in a flying car. This book was just a blast. The plot was strong. The characters were strong. The world-building was strong. The only thing that isn’t my favorite is the framing device of the school essay contest, but the rest of this book was so great that I don’t really care.

 

After that, I read the next towo books in Madeleine L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time series, A Swiftly Tilting Planet and Many Waters. Honestly I didn’t like Swiftly Tilting Planet too much, because it really just felt like watching a series of events throughout history, all with characters named the same thing, and our protagonists weren’t obviously doing anything to save the world and yet somehow the world was saved. I liked Many Waters better, partly because it’s one of the more coherent stories in the series and partly because it’s about the twins, who have so far been the normal side characters of the series. Yes, the religious aspect of the book is a little over-the-top for my tastes, but the twins take the time to learn the rules of the world where they have found themselves, and they use the rules to come up with a way to get home. Definitely an enjoyable installment in the series. And I’m looking forward to picking up the final book in the series.

 

Next, I continued the Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley. This month, I read books seven and eight in the series, The Everaf War and The Inside Story. These books were so intense, but they still maintained the fun adventure tone of the previous books in the series. Still, I was devistated by the big reveal in The Everaf War and the characters’ decisions in The Inside Story. I just got the final book in the series from the library, and I am so excited to read it, but also sad that this series is coming to an end because I have enjoyed it so much.

 

This month’s book club book was Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. I listened to the audiobook, and I regret it, because the audiobook was really, really confusing, and based on what I gathered from the book club discussion, I may have actually enjoyed the book if I read it in Braille. It’s written like a play, sort of. It’s complicated. The audiobook had about a hundred and fifty narrators, and it only said the names of who was speaking the first time. The premise is that a bunch of ghosts, for lack of a better word, are trapped in the graveyard where they were buried, like a kind of purgatory. Then Willy Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son, comes along—because he dies. Children can’t stay in the graveyard, and if they do, terrible things happen to them, but Abraham Lincoln comes to the crypt and spends the night holding his son’s body, and Willy Lincoln hangs around, and the other ghosts have to try to get him to move on. Because I was so confused, I really didn’t like the book, but I could recognize how you might like it, if you read it instead of listening to the audiobook.

 

Next, I read War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars by Richard N. Haass. This was another book for my Negotiation and Diplomacy class. I was only assigned half of it, but I read the rest because it was so interesting. Richard Haass worked at the State Department during both Iraq wars. This isn’t a political book, but a comparison of the behind-the-scenes decisions in both wars. My AP American history class—the last history class I took—ended before the first Iraq war, so I admit that I didn’t know much about it. And even though I lived through the start of the second Iraq war, I didn’t really understand what was going on because I was eleven, and everything I did hear was filtered through people who disagreed with the war, so it was interesting to read about both wars and both presidential administrations. If you’re interested in the diplomacy—or lack thereof—during these times, this was an interesting read.

 

Next, I read Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce. This is the first book in Tamora Pierce’s new series, the Numair Chronicles, about the childhood of one of the main characters in her Immortals series. I’ve been looking forward to reading this for a long time, and I was not disappointed. It was really interesting to read about Numair’s early years, before he was even called Numair. I never thought I would like Ozorne, who we know will grow to be the evil emperror in the Immortals books. But I did like him in this book, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens to make him change so much. I do wish this book had a bit more of its own plot. As it is, it’s a bit meandering and feels like a lot of setup for what’s to come. But it’s definitely a promising start to a series, and I’m looking forward to the next book.

 

After Tempests and Slaughter, I got back to the Divergent series and reread Allegiant by Veronica Roth. This is every bit as much of a mess as I remember it being. Actually, this time through, it seemed like even more of a mess. The world-building, the plot, the characters, the ending, everything fell flat for me. I could rant on and on and on about this, but I’ll spare you. I will say that I appreciate what Veronica Roth is trying to do with this series—or at least what I think she was trying to do. It’s a really cool idea that with each book, we learn more and more about the world, like piecing a puzzle together. Unfortunately, I don’t think it worked as well as it could have. But I still really like the first and second books in this series, and Allegiant is just going to be one of those things—like the ending of How I Met Your Mother or all of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—that I’ll just pretend never happened.

 

Next, I read the third book in the Giver series, Messenger by Lois Lowry. I really liked Messenger. It pulled everything together from the first two books—The Giver and Gathering Blue. I liked the mystery and the build-up of suspense, and that ending was just heartbreaking and perfect. (Note that I do think it is possible to pull off this kind of ending and still have the book be meaningful, because Lois Lowry did it here, unlike another book I read this month, which I won’t name because of spoilers. If you’ve read both you’ll know what I’m talking about.)

 

Next, I reread The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Susanne Collins. I picked these up again because I was looking for something that had inspired me to write in the past, and rereading these books did in fact give me a little spark of inspiration, so at least I’m thinking about writing again. Now I have to actually write. But rereading these books was a lot of fun because I was able to remind myself just how much I love the first book in the series. The world is rich, the characters are well-developed, and the plot is fast and gut-punchy. And I just adore the ending of the first book—it lands so well. Catching Fire is pretty good too. It definitely has some pacing issues, but I think it deals well with Katniss’s actions at the end of The Hunger Games and also is does a great job creating a plot that is both similar and different from the first book.

 

Finally, I started rereading A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. I finished The Bad Beginning at 11:45 PM on March 31, just to give you a sense of how down-to-wire I was getting. I started rereading this series because a friend recommended that the second book might give me some ideas on ways to edit a chapter I seem to always be stuck on. Basically, in this chapter, the main character, who is an orphan and who has been passed from one abusive foster family to the other, is finally in a place where she thinks she might be able to be happy. The problem is, going from running for her life to sudden happiness is a huge drop in tension. So this friend recommended I reread The Reptile Room—book 2 of the series—because it might give me ideas on how to keep up tension while important happiness is taking place. And of course, because I’m me, I said well okay I’ll just reread the whole series. The new season is coming out on Netflix too so this seems like a great idea. I really enjoyed my reread of The Bad Beginning. It does a good job establishing all the characters and their talents. The tension ramps up appropriately. And it was fun. Looking forward to continuing with this series in April.

 

And that’s it for March. Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?