For this months book club we read The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
So let’s talk about this.
I had heard great things about this book before it came up as a book club book. So, I must admit, I might have had high expectations for actually reading it myself. I’m happy to admit this book mostly lived up to those expectations.
It did have it’s drawbacks for me. Spoilers ahead (sort of) so be prepared for those.
The first 47% of this book is told from one sister’s perspective. I know because I was reading it on my kindle. And that’s before it jumps into her daughter’s perspective. But then it jumps into the other sister’s perspective and then into HER daughter’s perspective.
We don’t see a lot from the one sister’s POV. We do see what happened to her and what she went thru for her life. It takes up a lot of emotional space if not physical.
And when I say emotional space, I mean emotional space. The sisters went thru some stuff. They would probably benefit from some therapy, if therapy was something that they did back in the day.
They would also benefit from some better communication skills with each other.
Just sayin.
I was also waiting for one thing to happen that never actually did. Which was annoying. But that was more me wanting there to be something more to the book.
I did find myself internally cringing at some points. Mostly at the horrific racism of the south in the 50’s. People were terrible. And that was part of the point I imagine.
Pacing was good. The flow never felt slow or forced.
Plot was fantastic. Really, A+ plot.
World Building was great. Britt Bennett paints a vivid picture of the past.
Character development was great. I did have some problems with one of the daughters. She never felt fully fleshed out, despite the book giving her a full life. It could also be that I just didn’t like her.
That may be it.
When all is said and done I gave this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.
Well, I said I wasn’t going to do it, but I did it. I bought Legendborn.
I don’t regret it. Do I have questions, yes. Absolutely.
Do YA books always move the plot along so quickly? Especially at the beginning? I don’t read a lot of YA fantasy so I don’t know.
These are the questions that the internet is good for!
So let’s get on to the actual review.
I’m not gonna lie, I had some misgivings about this. I haven’t read a YA book in years. I had, in fact, written off the genre about 7 years ago because the books I was reading just weren’t all that good to me. I don’t even remember them, that’s how memorable they were.
But this book had an interesting enough premise that I couldn’t resist it.
See, I’m a sucker for a good King Arthur story. They just, well, make me happy. This is even though I haven’t read all of Le Morte D’Arthur. I have it, I just haven’t read the whole thing. That’s a big, dense, book.
But this book isn’t a retelling, it’s an expansion of the myth. It’s what happens if the descendants of Arthur and his Knights survived to modern times.
I’m not gonna say I went nuts over it, cause I didn’t, but I did enjoy it enough that I would pick up book two. Because cliffhanger!!!
The plot for the story was great. I enjoyed the way it twisted and turned as it went. And followed it to its, for me anyway, unsurprising conclusion. Maybe it’s because I’m not the target audience and have been reading fantasy books for over 25 years? Maybe? And I did have a problem with how our main character just walked up to a door and was like, “hello, I’m here for the thing”.
And they let her in! She didn’t even know what the thing was!!!
The world building was really great. I thoroughly enjoyed the painting the author created with her story. It is magical realism, given that it is set in modern day North Carolina, and I sometimes have a problem like that, but not here.
Characters were good too. There were sometimes where people just accepted things a little too easily, or got angered for no reason other than “oh look, she’s here”.
Pacing was a bit frantic as the author tried to fit as much in the beginning as she possibly could, but it did level out into smoother waters as the book went on.
All in all I’d say this book has earned a good 3.75 out of 5 stars from me!
I want a few books that are coming out over the next two months. Two hundred dollars worth of books. I can’t buy all these books.
So basically they are going on my Christmas list.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn Sep 15, 2020
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.
Skyhunter by Marie Lu Sep 29, 2020
Talin is a Striker, a member of an elite fighting force that stands as the last defense for the only free nation in the world: Mara.
A refugee, Talin knows firsthand the horrors of the Federation, a world-dominating war machine responsible for destroying nation after nation with its terrifying army of mutant beasts known only as Ghosts.
But when a mysterious prisoner is brought from the front to Mara’s capital, Talin senses there’s more to him than meets the eye. Is he a spy from the Federation? What secrets is he hiding?
Only one thing is clear: Talin is ready to fight to the death alongside her fellow Strikers for the only homeland she has left . . . with or without the boy who might just be the weapon to save―or destroy―them all.
Bestiary K-Ming Chang Sep 29, 2020
One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterward, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth—and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny.
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse Oct 13, 2020
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.
Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
The Burning God by R.F. Kuang Nov 7, 2020
After saving her nation of Nikan from foreign invaders and battling the evil Empress Su Daji in a brutal civil war, Fang Runin was betrayed by allies and left for dead.
Despite her losses, Rin hasn’t given up on those for whom she has sacrificed so much—the people of the southern provinces and especially Tikany, the village that is her home. Returning to her roots, Rin meets difficult challenges—and unexpected opportunities. While her new allies in the Southern Coalition leadership are sly and untrustworthy, Rin quickly realizes that the real power in Nikan lies with the millions of common people who thirst for vengeance and revere her as a goddess of salvation.
Backed by the masses and her Southern Army, Rin will use every weapon to defeat the Dragon Republic, the colonizing Hesperians, and all who threaten the shamanic arts and their practitioners. As her power and influence grows, though, will she be strong enough to resist the Phoenix’s intoxicating voice urging her to burn the world and everything in it?
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow Oct 13, 2020
In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the Eastwood sisters — James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna — join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote — and perhaps not even to live — the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive. There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik Sep 29, 2020
I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life.
Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans.
I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts, I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world.
At least, that’s what the world expects me to do. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that’s crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school itself certainly does.
But the Scholomance isn’t getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone’s idea of the shining hero, but I’m going to make it out of this place alive, and I’m not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either.
Although I’m giving serious consideration to just one.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab Oct 6, 2020
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever―and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Sep 15, 2020
Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
Well, there you have it, all the book that I want to buy over the next two ish months.
So this is a review of a trade paperback of Faith from Valiant Comics and written by Jody Hauser.
The Premise: Faith has recently left her old superhero team to go solo. Secret identity and all. By day, mild mannered blogger, by night, high flying Zephyr! But psionts all over town have started going missing, and it’s up to Faith to find out why.
I should say I went into this with a lot of hope. A plus sized super hero? What’s not to love? We love some good body positive representation around these parts.
That being said, this book felt like I was coming into the middle of the story. And it’s because I was. This book makes up Comics 1-5 of Faith’s first stand alone book. Which means she has had her backstory already explained in someone else’s book. She has had other adventures that I haven’t gotten to read about.
Now this book did try and explain a few things about her past with her previous team, but it felt less like exposition and more like someone singing their “shoulda coulda woulda’s” out at times. Which, to be fair, I guess was the point. I just kinda hate whiney characters right now in my life I guess.
Maybe it’s the pandemic?
The overall story for this opening salvo of books was good. I liked how they used Hollywood and comic stereotypes and the nice twist was just that, nice. Not terribly exciting if you’ve read a lot of comics, but still a fun twist.
The art by Francis Portela, Terry Pallot, Andrew Dalhouse, and Marguerite Savage was perfectly fine. The cover art by Jelana Kevic-Djurdjevic and Stephanie Hans was lovely.
Overall I’d say I give the book a solid 3 out of 5 stars.
Well, I said I wasn’t going to buy any books in September. Turns out I am a dirty, dirty liar. Why, because I forgot I pre-ordered a few. And I had to buy one or two for book club. And I just felt like buying all the books okay!
Don’t judge me!
Fine, you can judge me a little.
Shadows in Death by J.D. Robb
This was a Kindle purchase. Yes, I have read all previous 50 titles in this series. No, I don’t have a problem. Except where I do?
The premise:
While Eve examines a fresh body in Washington Square Park, her husband, Roarke, spots a man among the onlookers he’s known since his younger days on the streets of Dublin. A man who claims to be his half brother. A man who kills for a living—and who burns with hatred for him.
Eve is quick to suspect that the victim’s spouse—resentful over his wife’s affair and poised to inherit her fortune—would have happily paid an assassin to do his dirty work. Roarke is just as quick to warn her that if Lorcan Cobbe is the hitman, she needs to be careful. Law enforcement agencies worldwide have pursued this cold-hearted killer for years, to no avail. And his lazy smirk when he looked Roarke’s way indicates that he will target anyone who matters to Roarke…and is confident he’ll get away with it.
Eve is desperate to protect Roarke. Roarke is desperate to protect Eve. And together, they’re determined to find Cobbe before he finds them—even if it takes them across the Atlantic, far outside Eve’s usual jurisdiction…
The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett
This was a Kindle purchase for one of my book clubs!
The premise: The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart
And another Kindle purchase. Are you sensing the theme for this month yet?
The premise: The emperor’s reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire’s many islands. Lin is the emperor’s daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic. Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright – and save her people.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
Oh look. Another Kindle book.
The premise: One thing any Librarian will tell you: the truth is much stranger than fiction…
Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it’s already been stolen.
London’s underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested—the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something—secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself.
Now Irene is caught in a puzzling web of deadly danger, conflicting clues, and sinister secret societies. And failure is not an option—because it isn’t just Irene’s reputation at stake, it’s the nature of reality itself…
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
And again with the Kindle books. Though in fairness this one was quite a bit cheaper that the physical copy.
The premise:
“As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure.”
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
I wrote a review of this on my Goodreads page. You can find it here.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Once more for the people in the back: it’s a Kindle book!
The premise: Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others.
The Long Way To a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Would you look at that, another Kindle book!
The premise: Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.
Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.
And these are the physical books I picked up.
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
The premise: Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They’re even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie’s doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.
It’s a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody’s gotta do it.
The House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
The premise: Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He’s tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world.
Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.
The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.
The premise: When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.
However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.
The Road Not Taken by Susan Rubin
The premise: A woman suddenly widowed at 50, left with money but no direction to her life, deep in transition from suburban housewife moves back to the West Village where she grew up. When she meets a woman who appears to be her identical twin, she discovers the Lost: a group of 100 fully-formed people dropped off on Earth as it cooled down they have lived on the planet as it developed the many species and geography of today. The Lost show her the myriad dimensions of Spacetime, taking her to ancient Egypt, Weimar Germany, and planets without inhabitants, and reuniting her with loved ones she has lost to death. Through a casual affair with Osiris, god of Egypt, and her friendship with Vincent Van Gogh, she lives many truths that are new to her and learns who she needs to become to walk the road not taken.
Fangs by Sarah Anderson
The premise: Elsie the vampire is three hundred years old, but in all that time, she has never met her match. This all changes one night in a bar when she meets Jimmy, a charming werewolf with a wry sense of humor and a fondness for running wild during the full moon. Together they enjoy horror films and scary novels, shady strolls, fine dining (though never with garlic), and a genuine fondness for each other’s unusual habits, macabre lifestyles, and monstrous appetites.
House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
The premise: Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life-working hard all day and partying all night-until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths.
Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose-to assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.
As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City’s underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion-one that could set them both free, if they’d only let it.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
I’ve already read this particular book. You can read my review of it here.
We also picked up physical copies of the first two books in the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. We have the books on, well, what else, Kindle.
Well, if my August reading experiment taught me anything it’s that I really love books. So much so that I bought 7 books in the month of August.
I mean, let’s be honest, I already knew I loved books, this just gave me an excuse to buy more books.
Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. This is the story of Achilles and Patroclus. The two forge an unexpected bond after being brought together by chance. But can they fight what cruelty fate has in store for them?
Recursion by Blake Crouch. An epidemic like no other is sweeping the world, driving it victims mad with visions of a life they haven’t lived. In NYC, Det. Barry Sutton is close to finding the truth, and in a remote lab Dr. Helena Smith unknowingly hold the key to finding the truth.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers. Thanks to synthetic biological supplementations, humans have mastered spaceflight. Ariadne O’Neill and her crew mates are fifteen lightyears away from Earth on a mission to survey habitable worlds. But as they work, Earth has changed.
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason. Rory Thorne is a princess with thirteen fairy blessings. She is also the oldest child and heir to her fathers throne. But then her father is assassinated, her mother gives birth to a son, and she is betrothed to a prince from a far off world.
Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne. There is a Chosen One, but he is not like any Chosen One you have ever heard about. And there’s this faraway kingdom, but nowhere is quite like the magical world of Pell. And when their quest goes wrong, it’s up to the talking goat, a mighty warrior, an assassin whose afraid of chickens, and a cursed bard to make everything better.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Agnieszka loves her quiet village home. But the terrible Woods lie on the border. She and her people count on the cold wizard known to them only as the Dragon to keep the Woods in check. But the village must pay a terrible price for his help. Every ten years a young woman is sent to serve him.
White Fragility, Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Race by Robin DiAngelo. This one is pretty much about what it says in the title.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. Set in the 90’s, this book is about Patricia, who is attacked on night by her neighbor after leaving her book club. This brings her neighbors handsome nephew, James, into her life. But when children go missing, Patricia begins to suspect James, who turns out to be a new kind of monster.
Well, there are all the books I got in August. Not counting the ones I pre-ordered. Or the 24 I have left in my Amazon cart. Book tube and Book tok making me want to buy all the books!
Let’s talk about this. Because this is by no means an easy feat to undertake. it’s hours of your day that you would sometimes wish you were doing other things with. Like playing Animal Crossing. Or knitting. And I don’t knit.
And, on top of that, I was listening to the Audiobook of the book my book club was reading this past month.
Yup. I’m a genius.
That’s all fine and good, but lets get down to the nitty gritty of the situation. How did I feel doing it, and how did I actually do it?
Let’s break it down week by week.
Week 1: This first week was easy. I had read all of these books recently and they were quick to get through. I started each book around 3 in the afternoon with a two hour break for dinner! Because food! I would usually finish these books around midnight. Which is my usual bedtime, so no sleep lost.
What I did loose was my leisurely hours spent on Animal Crossing, watching You Tube, playing around on Facebook. Those kinds of things.
Week 2: I tried to get started a bit earlier in the day so I would have some free time to, you know, sit around and watch Tic Tok videos about books later in the evening.
Those videos are great. I’ve had to start making lists of all the books I want to get. Go BookTok!
Where was I? Oh yes, reading. This week I found it a little harder to accomplish my goals. I was regularly up until 1:30 in the AM trying to finish these particular pages. While watching videos on You Tube.
I can multitask!
Week 3: Week three started off spectacularly. The power went out in our town due to a storm, and luckily, it was restored again the next morning. I had to read by lantern!
Luckily my discomfort didn’t last and I was able to stay on track. I managed to roll a little more smoothly this week, jumping ahead again and starting around three for each book. Except for the day I had to go villager hunting in Animal Crossing. That day I started after dinner and ended at 2 am! I might have been a little sleepy the next day.
Maybe.
Week 4: The beginning of this week found me wanting to buy all the books. Like, all of them. I had a hard time choosing between them I wanted to buy so many. Let’s just say, don’t be surprised if there is a book haul for you soon.
This week was really all about some of my favorite books in the Heralds of Valdemar series. The Last Herald-Mage trilogy and The Mage Wars trilogy. I love these books to the point where one of them is held together by packing tape because the cover was starting to come off. Nope, I haven’t read The Black Gryphon a lot. Not at all.
I started reading these books a lot earlier, around 1 in the afternoon. Which made for leasuirely time in the evening that I hadn’t really accounted for. So I spent it doing other things. Like reading the short story Binti by Nnedi Okorafor.
I don’t have a problem, I swear.
Week 5…ish: This week only has three days in it. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda want to read something else now. Not that reading all the Mercedes Lackey hasn’t been fun, because it has. It’s just that now I really want to tackle my TBR. And I found an online book club called Literarily Wasted that specializes in sci-fi/fantasy books so now I’m in two book clubs.
My first day reading this week started off great. I woke up later than anticipated and didn’t get started reading until after dinner. Go me.
My last day however. Geeze. That was a struggle bus.
Part of the problem was that I wasn’t really enthused about the book I picked for the last day. Its why I saved that book for the last day.
Final thoughts: Thank God it’s over!!!!
No, but seriously, it was fun, it was hard, but now it’s time to read something that I’ve never read before. Do I think I could do this again? Nope. I think once is enough. Also, there aren’t that many authors that I like with enough books of appropriate lengths to make it work again.
But was it fun? Yes. Absolutely. And it definitely got me out of my reading slump. Which is why I did all this in the first place.
In August the book club I am a member of picked Thin Air by Lisa Gray to read. I decided to listen to the audio book.
Why did I decide that?
Narrated by Amy Landon, I found her voice to be a tad too soothing to fit a thriller style book. I wish to be tense when finding out who the killer is, not relaxed!
In fact, I had so much of a wish to be tense that I switched to the e-book version of the book for the last few chapters.
As for the book itself, I found the character development to be well done, though some of the twisty character bits I saw coming. The plot was very well done and the ending was satisfying. And although I enjoyed the book, I’m not running off to read the rest. I think my experience of the book was colored by the bad narration, so I didn’t get as much enjoyment out of it as I hoped to.
I think I may give this book another try in about a year and see how I enjoy it then as an actual book, not an audio book, when it’s not so fresh on my mind. Maybe then I will like it better.
To make a blog post short, don’t listen to the audio book on this one, stick to the book you actually lay eyes on. You might enjoy it more.
So I should mention before I start this review that I am a huge Heralds of Valdemar fan. From way back in the day. Been reading them for years. Also I’m doing a reading challenge with the books this month.
That being said I have felt like, in the last five books or so, the writing had started to suffer from the dreaded series fatigue. You know. The thing that happens when a writer has been writing the same universe or characters for so long.
That being said, this book gave a much needed breath of new life into the series.
That was quite a nice surprise.
The basic premise of the book is a prince and his best friend (who are both spies in training) are called upon to go rescue a skilled assassin from the clutches of a evil neighboring nation. Of course, this being a Valdemar book means there is magic and demons and a whole host of other fantastical things you might not otherwise see in a book with that plot.
The book does start out off a little slow, but not so slow that you loose interest. For me it picked up speed and had me excited to see how it would end.
If you haven’t read from Foundation onwards, a few things won’t make sense. And yes, that is a lot of books to read (at least ten). This book does, however, provide a brief synopsis of the backstory and why it’s important, so you can skip all that extra reading if you want to. But why would you want to?
All in all, it’s a good book. I was pleasantly surprised by how it turned out. It’s a good lazy afternoon’s (and evenings) read!
So I’ve been in a reading slump lately. I’ve had the same three books on my Goodreads currently reading page for months!
So I decided to try something.
I’m a pretty decent reader. I can work my way through a 300 page book in one sitting no problem. So what if I challenged myself to read a book a day in August?
I can do it, right?
Yeah, I got this.
I decided, since I’m going to nail this, to keep all the books between 350 to 400 pages. I also decided to read all the Heralds of Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey. There are something like 36 books in the series, so I should be good for choices here!
My first book was Foundations. The story of Mags, a child slave at a gem mine who gets Chosen by Dallen to become a Herald of Valdemar, thus changing his life forever.
Next up was Intrigues. That’s the further adventures of Herald trainee Mags.
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Lauren Corcur 