Things I have read recently.
Incarceron by Catherine Fisher was an interesting experience. About 20 or so pages in, I was sitting there feeling pretty sure that Finn was the lost Prince and feeling absolutely sure that Claudia was taken from Incarceron, though I had little to no proof for the latter. And as the book went on, I began to have doubts; first after the Warden tells her about her mother (though it was telling that he said his wife died after the child was born, not after Claudia was born) and again after Attia starts looking through the books of all inmates in the tower and says Claudia isn't in them. And then the end of the book brought VINDICATION.
I enjoyed it. It was a weird book, but I enjoyed it.
Actually, between this and the Snow-Walker trilogy, I think I can safely say that Catherine Fisher writes weird books that I enjoy.
Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy. I've read the first three books in the series at this point; I'm not sure what my opinion about them is other than they are very readable. They bother me a little bit in that the real main character, a teenaged girl named Tiffany (who takes on the name Valkyrie Cain) has Oblivious Parents and Stereotypically Unpleasant Relatives, and the latter bothers me most because really, there's only so much of that I can take after the Dursleys. But they aren't in it much and they aren't really abusive, it's just the whole linking of negative personality/character attributes with certain appearances (fat, in particular) that has started to bother me a WHOLE HECK OF A LOT.
Under the Empyrean Sky by Chuck Wendig. I picked this up because CornPunk. I almost stopped reading a short way in because the main character (who is admittedly a 17-year-old boy and let's be honest, a lot of 17-year-old boys are not the most empathetic) got pissed off when his girlfriend gets assigned to someone else as a spouse and instead of getting angry at the extremely unfair system that doesn't allow the people on the ground much choice about their future spouse (his parents ran away together and this was a BIG DEAL), he decides to get angry at the girl and calls her a slut. DUDE YOU DO NOT GET TO DO THAT AND CONTINUE TO BE SYMPATHETIC. But I kept reading, despite continually being disappointed in the main character's lack of empathy, and I'll probably read the next one. I just hope that we spend more time in the brains of other people in the following books. Like his sister, who seems to be a badass.
I reread The Thief and The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner in preparation for reading the rest of the series, since I had't read The Thief since before The Queen of Attolia came out, and I hadn't read The Queen of Attolia since it came out. I'd... forgotten a lot of the plot points. I'd also forgotten how much I like the magus.
Railsea by China Mieville took a little while to get used to because every and was an ampersand, & that's a little jarring when you're not used to seeing it regularly, & and is such a frequently used word (plus he was making stylistic choices that, perhaps a little, resulted in more occurrences of the word) that sentences look really weird when you're expecting the regular set of letters and get an &. Despite this, I was able to finish the book first go and enjoy it, which is more than I can say for Un Lun Dun. (Discussion of this book lead to sarah-marie reciting "A Letter on Behalf of the Ampersand" by Samuel Kent, which is an excellent poem.)
There were many more and I've forgotten most of the titles from the last batch of books I had out. (About half of these are the current batch of library books, and as I take out 9-11 books each time I go to the library... there are quite a few missing.) I should start a book journal.
I enjoyed it. It was a weird book, but I enjoyed it.
Actually, between this and the Snow-Walker trilogy, I think I can safely say that Catherine Fisher writes weird books that I enjoy.
Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy. I've read the first three books in the series at this point; I'm not sure what my opinion about them is other than they are very readable. They bother me a little bit in that the real main character, a teenaged girl named Tiffany (who takes on the name Valkyrie Cain) has Oblivious Parents and Stereotypically Unpleasant Relatives, and the latter bothers me most because really, there's only so much of that I can take after the Dursleys. But they aren't in it much and they aren't really abusive, it's just the whole linking of negative personality/character attributes with certain appearances (fat, in particular) that has started to bother me a WHOLE HECK OF A LOT.
Under the Empyrean Sky by Chuck Wendig. I picked this up because CornPunk. I almost stopped reading a short way in because the main character (who is admittedly a 17-year-old boy and let's be honest, a lot of 17-year-old boys are not the most empathetic) got pissed off when his girlfriend gets assigned to someone else as a spouse and instead of getting angry at the extremely unfair system that doesn't allow the people on the ground much choice about their future spouse (his parents ran away together and this was a BIG DEAL), he decides to get angry at the girl and calls her a slut. DUDE YOU DO NOT GET TO DO THAT AND CONTINUE TO BE SYMPATHETIC. But I kept reading, despite continually being disappointed in the main character's lack of empathy, and I'll probably read the next one. I just hope that we spend more time in the brains of other people in the following books. Like his sister, who seems to be a badass.
I reread The Thief and The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner in preparation for reading the rest of the series, since I had't read The Thief since before The Queen of Attolia came out, and I hadn't read The Queen of Attolia since it came out. I'd... forgotten a lot of the plot points. I'd also forgotten how much I like the magus.
Railsea by China Mieville took a little while to get used to because every and was an ampersand, & that's a little jarring when you're not used to seeing it regularly, & and is such a frequently used word (plus he was making stylistic choices that, perhaps a little, resulted in more occurrences of the word) that sentences look really weird when you're expecting the regular set of letters and get an &. Despite this, I was able to finish the book first go and enjoy it, which is more than I can say for Un Lun Dun. (Discussion of this book lead to sarah-marie reciting "A Letter on Behalf of the Ampersand" by Samuel Kent, which is an excellent poem.)
There were many more and I've forgotten most of the titles from the last batch of books I had out. (About half of these are the current batch of library books, and as I take out 9-11 books each time I go to the library... there are quite a few missing.) I should start a book journal.