Thursday, January 17, 2019

Slayer by Kiersten White

This book just came out recently and I am so happy its out in the world! I had requested this book on Netgalley and I was quite happy that I was able to read it last year!! I used to watch Buffy on TV as a teen, and since then I've renewed my interest in it.

This book is about The Watchers, the ones who are left, and the last Slayer to exist after Buffy. Basically things are in shambles due to what Buffy did (which since I haven't watched the whole show I have no real frame of reference for) and it follows the lives of Nina and her twin sister Artemis who grew up at the Watchers Academy. There are only a small number of Watchers left, and they are focused on being ready when needed for any future Slayers.

Nina gets quite a shock when she discovers she's the last Slayer. Ever.

There's demons, monsters, all the baddies from this world you could think of. There's betrayal, secrets, and anger. It's one heck of a journey.

I read this all at once and I liked it. There were moments where I was wondering why bits were necessary, but I think perhaps there's a larger story at work here and as the series goes, more will be known.

Slayer was well written. I was glued to the page and had to finish it in one sitting! It's just one of those engrossing reads that pulls you out of your everyday life and throws you into an adventure to the point where you forget your troubles. 

I'm happy to have read gotten the opportunity to read this before it was released. It wasn't what I was expecting but it was quite good!

Since I've only just begun to re-watch all of Buffy, I am looking forward to needing to re-read this novel again once I'm finished, and to follow along with the series!

Recommendation: For the lovers of Buffy and vampire/creature type stories. For the lovers of books about finding out who you are and those who just love one heck of an adventure

Thursday, January 3, 2019

I Like Big Books

Towards the end of last year I found myself drawn to the fantasy section at the bookstore and to the thick mass market paperbacks that live there. 

Before picking up The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, I didn't know anything about the Wheel of Time series, or that it even existed. What happened was I picked up one of the huge books on the shelf, saw on the back there were 14 books in the series, and I was hooked. The blurb on the back was a total non-blurb, just a sentence about the Wheel of Time. The cover art was gorgeous and detailed, and there was no way I was leaving without that first book. There were 14 in this series. That was a whole lot of amazingness that I needed in my life. 

Funnily enough, after never having seen these books before in my life, I started seeing little mentions of The Eye of the World on bookstagram, along with mention of the rest of the series. 

So far I am about 250 pages into the book and I am loving it. Having been a fan of fantasy since being a child reading Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall of Pern and David Eddings books that were on my Mom's bookshelf, it was great to come across another series of such greatness. I'm really not sure why I hadn't read anything by Robert Jordan before. 

Since buying the first book, I was finding myself just staring at it. I loved the feel of the book, the weight in my hand, how it looked on my shelf. It was massive as far as I was concerned, and I couldn't wait to devour it. I carried it around with my in my purse when I left the house, knowing I probably wasn't going to get to read it, but I didn't care. It just made me happy. 

I've sense bought the second and third one, and I received a box set of the 4th, 5th, and 6th books from my fiancee this past Christmas. 

Problem was, I had a book goal to get to last year, and The Eye of the World was such a big book. I kept putting it down in favour of faster reads, even though I've been enjoying it. I just couldn't devote the time to it because I needed to reach my goal. Spoiler alert: I didn't even reach my goal last year. 

I was also not familiar with the work of Brandon Sanderson, although I had heard of him before now. I found the first two books in The Stormlight Archive in mass market paper back size and I am in love. I haven't started reading them, but seeing them on my shelf makes me incredibly happy. 

2019 is the year of the big books, the books I want to read, and no big reading goals. I am just going to have fun with things and read what I want, which lately happens to be fantasy! 

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Reading Goals for 2019

First we need to talk about 2018:

For the last couple of years I've been trying to read 100 books in a year. This hasn't actually happened. I think I made it to 50 or 60 in 2017 and then in 2018 I made it to 66 books when my goal was 75, which I thought would be easy.

I tried to read smaller books, ebooks, those that would be quick reads so I could add the book to the list of books I've finished. This was a really crappy way to read, and although I read a couple of good books last year, I don't have any that stand out as must-read-I'll-shout-it-from-the-rooftop books. That sucks. 

I tried to branch out by picking up some popular books, those that everyone else loved, telling myself I need to experience more reads outside of my comfort zone. Guess what? Those books are still sitting on my shelf unread. 

As for the Unread Shelf Project... well I was good for a couple months and then it was like it was never a thing. I acquired a lot of books last year and I still have yet to read most of them. I'm going to go count the unread and take stock of my books later today. 

Here's what I've decided to do in 2019:

1. My Goodreads goal is 12 books. That's one book a month, and more than doable. It's not about reaching a number, it's about reading whatever I want to read and just be happy. 

2. I will be attempting to do the Unread Shelf Project again, with two small changes. I will still acquire free ebooks and review copies, along with the occasional library trip. I will make allowances to buy books I need because they are part of a series I already own and am reading, or if it's one of the new releases I require from an auto buy author. Otherwise, there's no more trips to the book store buying a bunch of books because they sound good and I might like to read them, and I'm going to be "shopping" my own shelves for reads.

3. Catch up on reviews/post more frequently on here. I really do love bookstagram and writing reviews on my blog, regardless if who reads them. I really want to write more than just reviews and this year I'm going to make more time to do just that. 

4. I want to be as free as I can be about what I read, like I used to do. I think the last year or so I was more focused on reading what everyone else was reading, including new releases, when there are so many older books out there I would love to read. Now it's going to be all about what I want to read.

This is my plan and I am excited for all the great reads waiting for me! 

What are your reading goals?