Here is the September post… I realise that I skipped a couple of months there and I am truly sorry, but I have been extremely busy and to be honest the fatigue has been so bad and work/life so busy that I haven’t had the brain power to truly appreciate a book in awhile.
The one good thing about my surgery and the following infection was that I spent a lot of time off my feet with my head in books and I LOVED that part guys, it was so great!
So without further delay… here are Septembers reads…
34. Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
I know, I know, don’t start with me, but it is true, I have never read the Harry Potter books. So I decided to start working my way through them. I believe the books get more complex as we go along so that will be good. I quite liked this first book, I liked it different to the movie though, not necessarily better *she says whilst dodging rotten fruit and veg*.
I’m sorry you guys I think I had myself all worked up about how awesome it was going to be, but let’s be honest it is Junior Fiction and I am an adult. For JF I think it is AMAZING and great world building and I can really appreciate it for that.
I feel my appreciation is only going to grow and I move on through the series so I am looking forward to that 🙂
35. Deception (Defiance #2) – CJ Redwine
I read the first of this series back in March and really liked it. I hope you guys read it because I try not to include spoilers, but it is hard not to when you are mentioning characters that were in life and death situations in the first book so if you don’t want to know skip the rest of this review and number 36 too 🙂
This was pretty good for a middle book, it had its own challenges that were part of the bigger journey and there were some great twists in there. All up it was pretty good. Really I was expecting a LOT of relationship drama in this book because authors can’t seem to avoid putting it in, but there was a lot less than I expected. Logan really stepped up to being a leader and though he was dealt blow after blow I loved the strength of his character, getting back up, reassessing the situation and moving forward again.
Rachel’s character I found a little bit annoying at first – only for one area of her characters development though (man it’s going to take ages to pick this rotten fruit and veg out), to be honest I kinda understood her trying to delete her emotions and not feel and let’s face it it’s pretty realistic to what people do in real life *cough* I mean so I have heard anyways, but so much time was spent on this. This development in the character made more sense as the story went on though and dealing with it/working through it became pivotal to the characters persona so I get it now.
I really enjoyed it and couldn’t wait to start number 3… in fact I believe I started it the next morning. The only good thing about having surgery was all the downtime I had to attack my ‘to read’ pile.
36. Deliverance (Defiance #3) – CJ Redwine
Oompf this was a good end to the trilogy and parts of it hit you right in the feels.
I loved that the two main characters were split up having their own separate journeys in this book, it lifted the final novel to a new level. So many times I thought that Rachel was going to not rise to the occasion and then she did and I was almost proud of her. Which I admit sounds kinda strange, but she has come so far from the first book where she was a girl who wanted to (and in small doses did) rebel. I really liked where her character ended.
All the loose ends were tied up nicely, but the book didn’t feel rushed. The last battle scene is as ugly as it is awesome and not all will be left standing at the end. Very nice end to a series.
37. An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes #1) – Sabaa Tahir
Gorramit! My friend at work the Youth Librarian keeps putting these good books on my desks that have a bitch of a cliffhanger at the end and then it turns out it is book bloody 1 and I have to wait a year for the 2nd installment.
This is a good YA book, I liked the development of both the main characters and enjoyed that we were able to spend time in both their worlds. Some of the things that were discussed happening to the slaves/women and families were quite confronting and mentions of rapes and whatnot leads me to say that this is not at the younger scale of YA Fiction. There were things described in this that mage me cringe.
I thought the trials were good and the plot well thought out. World building was pretty good as well, but realistically limited to what the two main characters would know/experience because the book was from their POVs. I REALLY enjoyed this book you guys and would definitely recommend it, just be prepared for the fact that there are some seriously confronting and ugly scenes in it. It is not a sparkly vampire book, there is some good grit in here!
38. Terrier (Beka Cooper #1) – Tamora Pierce
I haven’t read a Tamora Pierce series since high school so it was beyond time. I don’t know how I have previously missed this series, but that was an error I was happy to fix 🙂
When I first started the book I think I actually groaned out loud and thought it’s in diary form, ugh I don’t think I will like this, just to be clear I do not hate all diary form books… Bridget Jones for instance is great :), but as a general rule I don’t usually enjoy them. Oh how wrong I was. As soon as I got to Beka’s “diary” (you’ll understand the parentheses if you read it) I was swept away. I read the first book in just over a day and couldn’t wait to tear into the second.
The character building is great. Beka’s back story is a good jumping off point and that explanation allows you to throw yourself into the story with her with total understanding of her character. I love the linguistic style of this book, the slang is fabulous and after being immersed in this world for a week I found myself almost dropping into it hahaha. Her informants are literally a different breed and I love the whodunnit style that emerges.
Favourite characters… well it is incredibly hard to choose, but aside from Beka I would have to say Pounce and Rosto. Hmm and many others. What can I say it was a great read.
39. Bloodhound (Beka Cooper #2) – Tamora Pierce
*WARNING – Read the first book before reading this review, there will be spoilers!!!*
This was a great follow up. I was worried it would traipse into “middle book” land, but my fears were completely unfounded. This book is a stand alone and very clever, who would have thought counterfeiting would be so interesting? My only complaint was that it was based away from Corus so we missed out on seeing a lot of the characters I loved from the first book, but I loved the addition of Achoo. Seriously, cats and dogs?! You know I am going to love that. I kind of wanted her to hurt Achoo’s old handler, but I guess as in the real world animal abusers get away with it.
Dale and his friends have an interesting relationship, they seem best of mates, but can they really be? I was into Goodwin and Cooper basically going undercover and found her trying to act the lady to be quite amusing, the addition of Dale as a love interest was interesting too, but I found him ultimately unsatisfying to be honest.
It was a bit of a different story to the first, you are well aware of who has done the crime by halfway through, but the frustration in major part comes from proving it, to be honest I thought this change worked and I enjoyed the book 🙂
40. Mastiff (Beka Cooper #3) – Tamora Pierce
I am not going to lie, the cover of this book weirded me out for awhile, what is going on with her head? Lady is possessed! Call an exorcist!!!
Hmm… to be honest I am not sure how to review this book. I was right there with it the whole way, a solid 4.5/5 in my head. I pretty much tore through this in a day and I HAD to know what happened… and then it did… wtf?! 3/5
I still LOVED the story, it was so strong and the characters so awesome. Once again though it took part away from Corus so none of the characters from the first book are really in it which again is disappointing. Again I LOVE Pounce and Achoo, they are fabulous characters, Pounce was a particular favourite from this book.
Man I am pissed at the ending, let’s just say I felt a beloved character was given a serious injustice. It was BS and I still don’t believe it. In true tanty fashion I forced my Mum to read the series, which was kinda cool because we were both exploring the same world that was different from our own at the same time (cool concept) and she agreed it was BS. Please read the series so you can agree with my outrage hahaha.
What are you guys reading???
Ditch the Bun 