July Reading
This was a good month for reading. I really enjoyed so many of these. Even The Selection series which I have some complaints about was very absorbing. I got a little too involved with it. Lizzie Bennet was fun and I am loving The Lunar Chronicles which I’m still reading (Cinder is the first book). And Blue Like Jazz was just beautifully written.
As for the Divergent series. I just want to be clear (and without giving anything away to those who haven’t read it) that I know a lot of people are mad about the way it ends. But it wasn’t really the ending itself that upset me. In fact I rather liked the way Veronica Roth tied up her themes. What I didn’t like was that by the middle of the third book (even somewhat in the middle of the second book) the plot takes over from the characters. You know when you are watching a soap opera and there’s that point where they are just: “You accidentally married your brother’s half-sister’s best friend’s hairdresser’s husband but you don’t remember it because you had amnesia, but don't worry his other wife is cool with it because she was abducted by aliens who have wiped her brain and are turning her and your brother's half-sister's best friend into mutant zombies bent on world domination, provided they can get enough Cheez Its to power their spaceship's ray guns …” And you just stop buying it anymore. You don’t buy the characters or the premise … You don't care. That’s what happened to me by the end of the Divergent series.
Total: I read 13 books/audiobooks
- 9 Books
- 4 Audiobooks: Abhorsen, Divergent, Across the Universe and The Selection (hint: All the re-reads were audiobooks - plus one new read)
Click on a title or cover to read my longer review on GoodReads (where available):
What I read in July
Glitches
by Marissa Meyer
Cinder
by Marissa Meyer
I loved this!
Allegiant
by Veronica Roth
I thought long and hard about this. And I almost pushed this up to 3 stars. I might later. But at the end of the day I just have to go with my gut feeling. And my gut was totally bored starting about 200 pages from the end of the book. I...
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
by Donald Miller
Beautiful!
The Selection Stories: The Prince & The Guard
by Kiera Cass
The One
by Kiera Cass
So I've finished the series (still need to read "The Guard"). And overall I can say that I really enjoyed it. Although I found the first book a little flat and there are elements of Cass's writing in all the books that are in need of imp...
The Elite
by Kiera Cass
I judge books by how much I enjoy them and I judge them on their own merits within their own genre. Keeping that in mind, I did enjoy this book. Did I have major problems with the writing, the characters, the concept etc ... you bet. But...
The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet
by Kate Rorick
I still need to write a full review of this one. And although I really did enjoy this book on it’s own, separate from the web series, the diary format as a literary form still bothers me. It very rarely works and it only sort of works here. It kept distracting me.
The Selection
by Kiera Cass
Maybe 3.5 Stars. First off let me give you the key to enjoy this book. As a dystopian novel it is a complete failure and there is a disturbing mild air of mysoginism about the whole concept, but if you want to read a sappy romantic stor...
Insurgent
by Veronica Roth
I'll add more thoughts later. But now I have a new problem. I'm on vacation and I left book 3 at my house. So I'll have to wait for next week to start book 3.
Divergent
by Veronica Roth
Re-read: I still need to put in a full review of this. Of course now that I’ve read the whole series I’m sure my perspective has changed in some ways. And even though I didn’t like the 3rd book, I still love this first one.
Across the Universe
by Beth Revis
Re-Read: I absolutely love this series. I’ll need to find time to re-read the other 2 books.
Abhorsen
by Garth Nix
Re-Read: Now I’m all set to read the new prequel Clariel.
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