December Round-Up
Here are the reviews posted during December. Please note, this is not a comprehensive list of books I read in December, but rather the books I had the time to review before month's end.
1) Carolyn Crane: Mind Games: 5 - It's a Gamble
2) Bill Willingham: Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland: 5 - It's a Gamble
3) Cherie Priest: The Inexplicables: 7 - Good Read
4) Troy Denning: Star Wars: Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen: 6 - Worth Reading, with Reservations
5) Martha Wells: City of Bones: 4 - Problematic, but Promising
6) Troy Denning: Star Wars: Dark Nest III: The Swarm War: 6 - Worth Reading, with Reservations
7) Catherynne M. Valente: Deathless: 8 - Excellent
8) Stephenie Meyer: The Second Short Life of Bree Tanner: 5 - It's a Gamble
Total Number of Books Reviewed: 7 books and 1 graphic novel.
Total Number of Books Read: 7 books.
Usually, I end up going into overdrive at the end of the year and reading like crazy. This year, that didn't happen. Some of it was certain books really dragged for me, but the other was that this holiday season was CRAZY BUSY, and I didn't have the TIME to devote to reading like gangbusters this year. That's okay. I'm pretty happy with my year end totals, despite being bummed about how long it took me to finish things last month.
Favorite: Based on ratings alone, Catherynne M. Valente's Deathless. Of course, it's Valente. I tend to love her work.
Most surprisingly enjoyable: No surprises this month. Well, not GOOD surprises….
Biggest disappointment: Martha Wells' City of Bones. It's an early work of hers, and I can see shades of the author she becomes in The Cloud Roads, but despite some cool world-building, this book bored me to pieces, which was super-disappointing because I enjoyed The Cloud Roads so much.
Mount TBR Stats: I completed Mt. Kilimanjaro by knocking 50 books out of my TBR pile, so woot! But it's a new year, a new mountain to climb. I signed up for Mt. Vancouver, which is 36 books. To date? I've only knocked off 1 book. :)
Reading Goals: Let's see, I'm still going to be rotating between old and new purchases for 2013, because that system seemed to work really well for me last year. Of course, I still count 2012 purchases as "new" because they were received at the very end of the year, so there's that. :)
Anyway, what were YOUR favorite reads from December? Which books did you love most? Which books, if any, were huge disappointments? Got a review list? Lay it all on me! :)2012's resolution is to RECEIVE no more than 72 books a year, which boiled down to no more than 6 books a month! With December over, it's time to see how I REALLY did, and how those stats shook out. And in December, I kind of went a little crazy, bringing my total up to 71 books thanks to the Star Wars spree I went on. Here's how it REALLY looks:
January: 6 books
February: 4 books
March: 4 books
April: 2 books
May: 5 books
June: 4 books
July: 4 books
August: 5 books
September: 9 books
October: 4 books
November: 6 books
December: 17 books (4 non-SW)
So I made my resolution, yay! But as I said in my year-end post (which you can read here), it doesn't quite count….
1) The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells (Kindle)
2) Every Day by David Levithan (Christmas Gift)
3) vN by Madeline Ashby (Christmas Gift) **
4) Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson (Kindle) **
** = already read, review forthcoming
See, if you take out the Star Wars books, I only got 4, which brings my year end total to 57. WHICH ROCKS. Two of those books were Christmas gifts, and the other two were impulse purchases because Amazon discounted the hell out of the Kindle copies and I couldn't resist. So in THAT regard, I did really well.
But why not count the Star Wars? Used to be, when a new SW novel came out, I bought it immediately. It didn't matter if I didn't read it right away, it went to the TBR shelf until I could read it. Back in 2006, I'd finally reached the breaking point where I wasn't reading any of the new stuff, couldn't justify buying MORE new stuff, and also, there was SO MUCH new stuff coming out that I threw in the towel. Now that I'm wanting to catch up on the SW novels, I'm going back and getting the books I missed through any method possible. Which means, in my twisted way of thinking, these books SHOULD have been part of my TBR pile all along. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.
However, I know most of you don't give a flying fig about Star Wars novels, so I'm going to put that image and list behind a cut, okay?
1) Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss (Paperback Swap)
2) Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury by Aaron Allston (Abe Books)
3) Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Revelation by Karen Traviss (Abe Books)
4) Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Invincible by Troy Denning (Abe Books)
4) Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn (Paperback Swap)
5) Star Wars: Darth Bane: Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn (Paperback Swap)
6) Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Abyss by Troy Denning (Abe Books)
7) Star Wars: Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine by Voronica Whitney-Robinson (Paperback Swap) **
8) Star Wars: Choices of One by Timothy Zahn (Abe Books)
9) Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen by Christie Golden (Abe Books)
10) Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller (Christmas Gift)
11) Star Wars: Riptide by Paul S. Kemp (Christmas Gift)
12) Star Wars: Shadow Games by Michael Reaves & Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff (Christmas Gift)
13) Star Wars: Scourge by Jeff Grubb (Christmas Gift)
** = already read, review forthcoming
Yeah, that's a lot. Originally, I was just going to go in the order of the books I was missing. I had most of the Legacy of the Force series and lacked the final three, and I wanted to get all of the Old Republic/Clone War timeline stuff that was published in the meantime too, because after all, I'm reading this stuff in publication order. But I got a little crazy with the rest, and I'm trying to find super-awesome conditions of hardcovers, so yeah… and the Christmas gifts are more recently published titles, but I wanted to put mass market titles on the list because I'm picky about the condition of my hardcovers, but mass markets are hard to screw up until you read them.
So that's what I did. :) It feels like it'll take FOREVER to get through this stuff, but I'm looking forward to it. :)
We're officially in a new year, which means new goals. My purchase limit for 2013 is 60 new-to-me titles, not including SW books. I've already made my first massive pre-order for the year on Amazon, and boy, is it a promising year: Neil Gaiman and Guy Gavriel Kay both have new novels, and then there's Gail Carriger starting her YA series set in the Parasol Protectorate world. Oh, there's so many good things! I don't have any pre-orders coming in for January, which hopefully means I can get a head start on my TBR challenge for the year, but I may pick up some sequels that I've been putting off, like N.K. Jemisin's A Shadowed Sun and Maria V. Snyder's Scent of Magic, but we'll see. I still have a few 2012 new purchases to get through, and those have priority over anything I get in 2013.
That's my December. How'd you all do?
1) Carolyn Crane: Mind Games: 5 - It's a Gamble
2) Bill Willingham: Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland: 5 - It's a Gamble
3) Cherie Priest: The Inexplicables: 7 - Good Read
4) Troy Denning: Star Wars: Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen: 6 - Worth Reading, with Reservations
5) Martha Wells: City of Bones: 4 - Problematic, but Promising
6) Troy Denning: Star Wars: Dark Nest III: The Swarm War: 6 - Worth Reading, with Reservations
7) Catherynne M. Valente: Deathless: 8 - Excellent
8) Stephenie Meyer: The Second Short Life of Bree Tanner: 5 - It's a Gamble
Total Number of Books Reviewed: 7 books and 1 graphic novel.
Total Number of Books Read: 7 books.
Usually, I end up going into overdrive at the end of the year and reading like crazy. This year, that didn't happen. Some of it was certain books really dragged for me, but the other was that this holiday season was CRAZY BUSY, and I didn't have the TIME to devote to reading like gangbusters this year. That's okay. I'm pretty happy with my year end totals, despite being bummed about how long it took me to finish things last month.
Favorite: Based on ratings alone, Catherynne M. Valente's Deathless. Of course, it's Valente. I tend to love her work.
Most surprisingly enjoyable: No surprises this month. Well, not GOOD surprises….
Biggest disappointment: Martha Wells' City of Bones. It's an early work of hers, and I can see shades of the author she becomes in The Cloud Roads, but despite some cool world-building, this book bored me to pieces, which was super-disappointing because I enjoyed The Cloud Roads so much.
Mount TBR Stats: I completed Mt. Kilimanjaro by knocking 50 books out of my TBR pile, so woot! But it's a new year, a new mountain to climb. I signed up for Mt. Vancouver, which is 36 books. To date? I've only knocked off 1 book. :)
Reading Goals: Let's see, I'm still going to be rotating between old and new purchases for 2013, because that system seemed to work really well for me last year. Of course, I still count 2012 purchases as "new" because they were received at the very end of the year, so there's that. :)
Anyway, what were YOUR favorite reads from December? Which books did you love most? Which books, if any, were huge disappointments? Got a review list? Lay it all on me! :)2012's resolution is to RECEIVE no more than 72 books a year, which boiled down to no more than 6 books a month! With December over, it's time to see how I REALLY did, and how those stats shook out. And in December, I kind of went a little crazy, bringing my total up to 71 books thanks to the Star Wars spree I went on. Here's how it REALLY looks:
January: 6 books
February: 4 books
March: 4 books
April: 2 books
May: 5 books
June: 4 books
July: 4 books
August: 5 books
September: 9 books
October: 4 books
November: 6 books
December: 17 books (4 non-SW)
So I made my resolution, yay! But as I said in my year-end post (which you can read here), it doesn't quite count….
1) The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells (Kindle)
2) Every Day by David Levithan (Christmas Gift)
3) vN by Madeline Ashby (Christmas Gift) **
4) Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson (Kindle) **
** = already read, review forthcoming
See, if you take out the Star Wars books, I only got 4, which brings my year end total to 57. WHICH ROCKS. Two of those books were Christmas gifts, and the other two were impulse purchases because Amazon discounted the hell out of the Kindle copies and I couldn't resist. So in THAT regard, I did really well.
But why not count the Star Wars? Used to be, when a new SW novel came out, I bought it immediately. It didn't matter if I didn't read it right away, it went to the TBR shelf until I could read it. Back in 2006, I'd finally reached the breaking point where I wasn't reading any of the new stuff, couldn't justify buying MORE new stuff, and also, there was SO MUCH new stuff coming out that I threw in the towel. Now that I'm wanting to catch up on the SW novels, I'm going back and getting the books I missed through any method possible. Which means, in my twisted way of thinking, these books SHOULD have been part of my TBR pile all along. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.
However, I know most of you don't give a flying fig about Star Wars novels, so I'm going to put that image and list behind a cut, okay?
1) Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss (Paperback Swap)
2) Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury by Aaron Allston (Abe Books)
3) Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Revelation by Karen Traviss (Abe Books)
4) Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Invincible by Troy Denning (Abe Books)
4) Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn (Paperback Swap)
5) Star Wars: Darth Bane: Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn (Paperback Swap)
6) Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Abyss by Troy Denning (Abe Books)
7) Star Wars: Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine by Voronica Whitney-Robinson (Paperback Swap) **
8) Star Wars: Choices of One by Timothy Zahn (Abe Books)
9) Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen by Christie Golden (Abe Books)
10) Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller (Christmas Gift)
11) Star Wars: Riptide by Paul S. Kemp (Christmas Gift)
12) Star Wars: Shadow Games by Michael Reaves & Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff (Christmas Gift)
13) Star Wars: Scourge by Jeff Grubb (Christmas Gift)
** = already read, review forthcoming
Yeah, that's a lot. Originally, I was just going to go in the order of the books I was missing. I had most of the Legacy of the Force series and lacked the final three, and I wanted to get all of the Old Republic/Clone War timeline stuff that was published in the meantime too, because after all, I'm reading this stuff in publication order. But I got a little crazy with the rest, and I'm trying to find super-awesome conditions of hardcovers, so yeah… and the Christmas gifts are more recently published titles, but I wanted to put mass market titles on the list because I'm picky about the condition of my hardcovers, but mass markets are hard to screw up until you read them.
So that's what I did. :) It feels like it'll take FOREVER to get through this stuff, but I'm looking forward to it. :)
We're officially in a new year, which means new goals. My purchase limit for 2013 is 60 new-to-me titles, not including SW books. I've already made my first massive pre-order for the year on Amazon, and boy, is it a promising year: Neil Gaiman and Guy Gavriel Kay both have new novels, and then there's Gail Carriger starting her YA series set in the Parasol Protectorate world. Oh, there's so many good things! I don't have any pre-orders coming in for January, which hopefully means I can get a head start on my TBR challenge for the year, but I may pick up some sequels that I've been putting off, like N.K. Jemisin's A Shadowed Sun and Maria V. Snyder's Scent of Magic, but we'll see. I still have a few 2012 new purchases to get through, and those have priority over anything I get in 2013.
That's my December. How'd you all do?