My eyes have still been bothering me, so I’m still limiting screens, which means I haven’t been able to comment on as many blogs as I want to. Or be on the internet as much as I want to. Or watch as much TV as I want to. In short, it still sucks. But I have read a bunch again, so that’s good.

This past week, I finished:

Shadows of Sherwood by Kekla Magoon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, that was delightful. Great characters, excellent premise, delightful set up for the rest of the series. More gender and race swapped retellings, please and thank you.

Read Harder 2016: middle grade, first book in a series written by a person of color

 
Alex + Ada, Vol. 1 by Jonathan Luna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beautiful artwork and it was actually kind of sweet. Aw.

Alex’s grandmother is the best, naturally.

 

 

Giant Days, Vol. 1 by John Allison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this. It’s kind of random even as each section does have a through line. Very vignette-y, which is a thing I dig in stories because that’s how life goes sometimes.

Plus also, female friendship is at the very core.

I do find the cover a bit misleading, though.

 

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Soooo, this was basically like reading two different books. The first half or so of this novel is about a college kid interviewing a convicted murderer and learning something about the man and himself. The second half is a suspense/thriller.

I much preferred the first half.

Mostly, too, the shift in the second half took the focus off of (view spoiler)[the dead girl and her trauma, the Vietnam vet and his trauma, the main character and his struggle with his mom and brother, and Lila and her trauma and instead made it all about how inexplicably resourceful (and dumb!) the main character is as well as how crazy the actual bad guy was. (hide spoiler)] SO DISAPPOINTING. Alas.

 

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Note: if you’re doing Read Harder, Giant Days and Alex & Ada both qualify for the graphic novel category.

 

Also, I know it’s not a book, but I finally jumped on the Hamilton train this week. I have many thoughts about it, but the one I’ve been thinking the most is that this is why you should write the story you want the way you want. Or why I should. Talk about permission to write a story. Man.

As of today, I’m reading:

 

 

So, I’m still listening to Crazy Rich Asians, and I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end before the audio is due back to Overdrive, so I may have to switch to the print version.

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to Yes, Chef, but I found that it wasn’t working for me, so switched to the print version. I am enjoying it much more in print and will probably finish it soon.

I also started Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 1 by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Michael Gaydos. I like the storyline so far, but I am not loving the art. I know they were going for dark and gritty, but this particular style doesn’t work for me.

I hope everyone else is having and/or anticipating a good reading week.

A lot is what I’m reading. My eyes have been killing me from looking at the computer screen, so I spent this past weekend on a no-screen diet (…or a very limited screen diet), which included no computer, no phone, and no TV. Which meant lots of books.

This past week, I finished:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really liked the first part of this book (once I got past the introduction), but the last half dragged. Yes, yes, family history, etc. But I wanted more Oscar, Lola, and Beli. Also, probably more Yunior, too. (Yunior!)

View all my reviews

 

Recovery Road by Blake Nelson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can’t remember if I found out about this or the TV show first. Either way, I read it, and I dug it. I’m looking forward to the show.

ETA: Added this to my to-read in 2013, so that answers that. Probably the TV show caused me to bump it to the top of the list.

View all my reviews

 

I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is solid. Fun mystery, interesting characters. Bonus: no romance. It’s allllll about the power of friendship.

View all my reviews

 

 

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is all about friendship, which is definitely my happy place. This probably would have been five stars except I didn’t really care for the second person section, though I did like the material/situations covered there. Bonus points for being sex positive in an age-appropriate way.

View all my reviews

 

Last week, I posted:

[wrap-up-posts week=”2″ year=”2016″ listtype=”ul”]

 

As of today, I’m reading:

 

I started The Shadows of Sherwood by Kekla Magoon today, so should be done with it tomorrow. I like it so far. I especially like that it’s a Robin Hood retelling that recasts Robin as a black girl, the Sheriff of Nottingham as a woman, and some of the other characters’ roles have either been reversed gender- or race-wise. I’m not that familiar with Robin Hood, but so far, I am digging this more than the other Robin Hood retellings I have encountered.

I am still listening to Crazy Rich Asians. I really like the narrator, but I am having a hard time keeping all of the characters straight. Also, this book is LONG. I have been listening to it for about a week (off-and-on, to be fair), and Rachel STILL hasn’t made it to Singapore yet. I thought I was much farther along in the book than I actually am.

 

Okay, my computer/writing time is up for the day. I hope by this time next week, I am feeling a lot more relief eyeball-wise. If not, I anticipate finishing a lot of books again before my next post.

Happy New Year, everyone! So far this year I have finished one book.

 

If you’ve ever read the Humans of New York FB page or blog, then you know what that’s about. It’s pretty great, actually. Highly recommend.

I am also making my way through Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary Wolf. And, yes, that is the book that the delightful Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is based on. Spoiler alert: the movie is better.

My biggest issue is that the writing style is terrible. For example:

“He made my money vanish with a skill that would have impressed Mandrake the Magician and gave me a duplicate of the long, hard going-over I get from patrol cops when they catch me hanging around a decent neighborhood at an indecent hour.”

AND

“His gumball flipped back and forth between his cheeks like he had two competing Mister Tooth Decays in there engaged in a cannon battle over his few remaining molars.”

Both of those are from the same page. So. You can see how the prose can be annoying. However, I am intrigued enough by the book to keep reading.

I also checked out Marcus Samuelsson’s autobiography to listen to as part of the Read Harder challenge (which I haven’t posted about which challenges I’m doing yet, but, well, that’s one I’m doing).

 

He narrates it himself! So I’m looking forward to that. His voice is melodious, so I hope his narration is good.