Books
When I was a kid, I was a voracious reader and writer. I loved to read new books and re-read old books again and again. I would write stories (though I'd rarely finish them) purely for fun.
I'm not sure exactly when this changed, but it was at some point in high school. In middle school I recall writing horrifically shitty stories (yes, worse than Twilight) and gobbling up every Weis and Hickman book I could get my hands on. At that point it was still fun. Reading wasn't something I "should get around to." Writing wasn't work. It was pure enjoyment.
I don't know why it all changed in high school. I'm not sure if it's because I grew up or if it was because suddenly I had to do so much reading and writing for school that I didn't feel like doing it for fun anymore. Every time I thought about picking up a novel, I realized that I still had a bunch of reading to do for history class, and if I was going to read something it should be that. It's a stupid thought, of course, because I would go and do something else and not read history either. But that attitude followed me through high school and college. As for writing, well I still did that for fun (as some of you are all too aware), but my heart wasn't in it the same way. It became a chore too.
Why am I rambling about this? Well, last year I started picking up books again for fun. I've started to realize how much is out there that I haven't experienced yet, thanks to Sam and my sister who have both recommended excellent reading for me. At any rate, since the start of the year I've always been reading something, and it no longer feels like a chore to read. It feels like it did when I was a kid.
I don't use Livejournal for much anymore, so I thought I'd use it to write about the books I've been reading and what I thought about them. I like to keep track of these things, and maybe someone who reads this is looking for a recommendation.
At any rate, here are the books I've read so far this year, in order, and what I thought of them:
EDIT: Now with genre!
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
Humor/Nonfiction
I picked up this book out of pure curiosity from seeing it on the shelf. I hadn't heard a thing about it, but the concept looked interesting: A man raised with basically no religion (though he's ethnically Jewish) decides to live a year of his life taking the bible completely literally. It turns out that he meant mostly the Old Testament, which works out great for me since I'm Jewish and am more comfortable with that particular testament anyway. I read this entire book on a plane ride from Indianapolis to California (about 6 hours) and did not put it down for a second. I adored it. It was cleverly written, thought-provoking, and above all entertaining. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone. I would go further into what I got out of it, but that would spoil the book and would take me several more paragraphs.
Arbitrary Rating: 5/5
Warrior Angel by Margaret and Lizz Weis
Paranormal Romance
Haha okay, I'm a little ashamed that I read this, but how could I not? Margaret Weis is the co-author of all of the best Dragonlance books and is without a doubt my favorite author. I have never read a book she's written and disliked it. However, this particular book was not quite the fantasy that I was used to from her. This book was a paranormal romance. Yes that's right, the same genre as Twilight except not written for teenagers. At any rate, I told my sister about it and she ran out to buy it almost immediately. The next day she called me up and said she finished it in a day and it was so incredibly awful that she INSISTED I borrow it from her and read it when I came to visit. So I did. She was right. It was garbage. I hope (and suspect) that Margaret Weis just slapped her name on her daughter's book (maybe after editing it) because she knew it would be automaticaly published that way. But seriously, it was really awful. The main female lead was a "No-nonsense, I don't need anyone" typical romance novel woman, and the main male lead couldn't keep a consistent personality because he was trying to hard to be the perfect man (he was supposed to be a Knight Templar sent to earth to guard this woman, so it didn't make sense when he was being all goofy and fun with her so that the authors could say that he made her laugh. Of COURSE the perfect man would have to make her laugh!) At least there was only one trashy sex scene. At the very least, it was a fast read and it was bad enough to be entertaining for its badness if for nothing else. It wasn't torture to read, like Twilight. I couldn't even finish Twilight, but this, strangely, I didn't want to put down.
When I was done it felt like I'd just spent the day on the couch watching Jerry Springer. I was entertained, but what the hell did I just waste my day doing?
Arbitrary Rating: 1/5
Bones of the Dragon - Book 1 of Dragonships by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Fantasy
Weis and Hickman is more like it. This is the pair that wrote my favorite books, the ones I've read at least 3 times. The only books they've written that I haven't read are the Death Gate Cycle, which I tried to read but couldn't get into. At any rate, I had high expectations for this new series that they've just started, and I was beside myself with excitement when I found an uncorrected advance reading copy of this book at the comic store in Philly where Sam used to work. They let me have it (I donated a couple of dollars--they can't sell it legally), and I got to read it before everyone else! YAY!
Sadly, I was a little disappointed. It was still a fun read and I'm still going to buy the next book, but it's just not up to par with what I was expecting from Weis and Hickman. First of all, the writing seemed a little...amateur. I've always praised this pair for writing so well that you don't even notice the writing, but there were several glaring mistakes here. Now, I had an uncorrected copy. Maybe the mistakes were fixed in the final print (I'm sure the typos were, though there were many), but if so then I have to re-evaluate my opinion of these authors. Just how much of the wonderful writing I'm used to from these two is thanks to their editors?
Also, the main character in this book was kind of a douche. I get that they gave him flaws and that he's going to grow and change, but I think his flaws are too severe. He steals the position of Chief of Chiefs from his father, he constantly ignores good advice and puts his people in danger, he lies and treats his friends like garbage, and he tries to rape a woman he "loves" who doesn't love him. I don't know. It's hard to like him. His only strong point is that he's really brave. It's not enough.
I feel like their hearts just weren't in this series. I remember hearing them talk about it at a panel at GenCon, and they'd already had plans to license games based off of this series when it hadn't even been written. It's planned for 5 books, I think, so there's time to redeem it, but I'm just left disappointed and feeling like they wrote this series to make money rather than for love of the story. Realistically I can't expect more, but you can really feel the difference between this and their early work on Dragonlance. Still, it at least has potential, and hopefully the next book will be better.
Arbitrary Rating: 3/5
This is taking longer than I thought, so I'll add more book reviews later.
EDIT: Eh I'll make these public, why not?