A-thon: Day 2

Daaaaaaay 2

Total Pages Read: 574

Finished overall: 2 books + 2 graphic novels + 4 short stories

The Archived
By Victoria Schwab
Pages: 120-321
Challenge: Blue Cover

Totally cool concept. Review here.





Fables, Vol 8: Wolves 
By Bill Willingham
Pages: 1-159
Challenge: Read without letting go

Carrying on with this series. I didn't particularly like this one as much, however, it's a strong installment.




Short Stories:

Strife Lingers in Memory
By Carrie Vaughn
Pages total: 14

Heart-breaking. Real. This story gets you thinking about the heroes after the tale, after the win, after the legendary quests. 



Sandmagic
By Orson Scott Card
Pages total: 17

Exceptional storyteller, of a boy that witnesses a traumatic event and lives his whole life with the darkness of hate feeding his ambition. I didn't dislike the story, but I wasn't ga-ga over it. Card can do no wrong though with skill in writing. The story didn't connect to me though.

Stories from:
Epic: Legends of Fantasy
Edited by John Joseph Adams


Started:

Squire
By Tamora Pierce
Pages: 1 - 183

This is a reread for me. Only to fulfill the shared initial challenge ('P' for me). Seriously, of all the books on my TBR, not one author with a P last name. Apparently, the only 'P' author in abundence on my bookshelf is Tamora Pierce (by design). So of course, any excuse to reread a favourite.

A-Thon: Day 1

Day 1
Quick and dirty.

Total pages read: 399

Finished: 2

Here, There Be Dragons
By James A. Owen
Pages: 220 - 324
Challenge: Blue cover

Review here.






1001 Nights of Snowfall
By Bill Willingham and about a dozen illustrators
Pages: 1-140
Challenge: Read without letting go

Graphic novel. Part of an incredible, 20-something volume series, that takes fairy tale characters and puts them in modern New York City. Please note: Snow White is my favourite character. Definitely check this series out.



Short stories:

The Road to Levinshir
By Patrick Rothfuss
Pages total: 29

Not a short story. A sampling from "The Wise Man's Fear". I guess I should read that now...



The Word of Unbinding
By Ursula K. Le Guin
Pages total: 8

I enjoyed this short story much more than Wizard of Earthsea. A tale of a trapped wizard and what he will do to escape.

Stories from:
Epic: Legends of Fantasy
Edited by John Joseph Adams


Started:


The Archived
By Victoria Schwab
Pages: 1 - 120

This was on last year's TBR. Finally reading it.

Summer Continues

It's Not Summer Without You
By Jenny Han

Belly's summers have always meant going to the cabin that's shared between her family and her mom's best friend's family. Last summer changed forever when a sudden change came to the families (no spoilers because it's book two of the series).

Conrad is now in college, but when he disappears, Belly and his brother, Jeremiah, go in search for him. His disappearance is more than him simply rebelling.

From the first book, this story takes a turn into a somber exploration of the relationships between people. Not necessarily romantic love. The best thing that Han does, is create complex characters with complex feelings. It's never black and never white, always a vast array of gray.

Belly, much like anyone ever, assumes how others feel, sees only how it affects her, and misunderstands cues from other people. It is not a great quality, however, it is a perfectly human quality. Sometimes we get in our own heads and we forget to see the situation from another's perspective. Han does this wonderfully.

Minus one star for the awkward love triangle. I loathe love triangles. However...


The complexness of characters and emotions that this book held encourages me to read the final book of this trilogy.

4/5 STARS

Dragons, Maps, and Quite an Adventure

Here, There Be Dragons
By James A. Owen

A dark and stormy night, three men are brought together, reeling from an unexpected murder. Adventures comes calling when a strange man comes to tell them they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica - a large book filled with maps of imaginary lands. Soon after they are persued by shadowy figures and are forces to board a ship that proves the imaginary lands are anything but.

Having been on my radar for a long while, mainly because of the dragon element, my best friend started reading this and announced I must immediately do so as well.

Every chapter there was a new twist, a new character inspired by age-old stories, and of course, a cliff hanger ending at every end. It is impossible to stop reading this delightful story. Action packed with compelling main characters and hilarious dialogue, I recommend to anyone who wants an old-fashioned, fairy-tale adventure story.

Owen rips off a multitude of stories and, surprisingly, I was bothered not one iota. The author gives us reasons for it and I fully accept them. Because of this reconfiguring of tales I was given that cozy, bed-time story nostalgia feeling the entire time I was reading it. The kind of feeling where you could hear yourself being read to by a beloved family member, curled up under a fluffy blanket, perhaps by a roaring fire.

John, our main protagonist, is fresh from The Great War (WWI) and is plagued by self-doubt and the memories of his fallen comrades. Jack, the youngest, is bright-eyed and energetic ready for any adventure. Charles is our constant - steady and unchanging, quiet and unassuming, but none-the-less important.

Most importantly, this book never lagged. Each chapter was an adventure unto itself. The story is bursting with borrowed and original creativity.

I was lucky enough to read the edition with illustrations, by the author himself. They added that charming old-world element like the old books with illustration plates. 

As I read this I thought, this book is perfect for older readers as much as it is perfect for the younger. The older reader can read this and experience the nostalgic feeling as they encounter much-beloved characters and hints at borrowed plot lines from a host of legendary stories. For a younger reader, this may be the first time they are meeting these characters or stories, thus when they encounter the original they might experience a backward nostalgia for this book from their childhood. That is the magic of this tale.

Bring on book two.

5/5 STARS

THERE ARE DRAGONS!

Book-Tube-a-Thon 2015

!ANOTHER BOOK-aTHON!

Hi Book-Sniffers and Librocubicularists,

The Book-Tube-a-Thon starts tomorrow Aug 3rd and runs until Aug 9th.

The 7 Challenges

Read....
1. a book with blue on the cover
2. an author with the same first initial of last name as you. For me 'P'
3. someone else's favourite book
4. last book acquired (library, haul, borrowed...)
5. a book without letting go until it's finished (hold it until it's done)
6. a book you REALLY want to read
7. 7 books

Instead of giving myself a TBR, which I tend to derail anyway, I've got a stack of book and I'll pull from them as I will. All I've decided on is that for challenge #5 I will read a graphic book. Don't know what one yet though!

Good luck to all participating!!!