Reading Summary: December 2012
Another month is over, and so is this year's attempt at keeping count of the books I've read. I've done this for two years now and had fun with it, but now that I'm using Goodreads properly, I think this will also be the last of these entries.
Anyway. I didn't feel up to reading a lot in December, occasionally skipping reading entirely on several days in a row, but even so I seem to have managed to add eleven books to my list. Granted, one of them I didn't manage to finish and one was a re-read, but even so. Also, according to Goodreads, I've read 171 books altogether this year, which is... not too shabby, I suppose.
30 November - 1 December: Allyson James - Stormwalker (first book in the Stormwalker series)
Comments: Yet another first book in a new-to-me urban fantasy series. It was... pretty decent, really; I liked Janet, the Native American protagonist quite a lot, and the plot was not bad, but there was really a bit too much sex for me to want to continue with this series, especially as I couldn't stand Mick, the love interest, at all, and didn't warm to him either. So probably not a series I'll be reading more of, unfortunately.
2-3 December: Gina Damico - Croak (first book in the Croak series)
Comments: Young adult humour/urban fantasy, with the grim reaper as the supernatural element this time.
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It sort of had all the right ingredients, what with the funny and being set in the contemporary, modern world, and being all macabre and I really like the grim reaper thing a whole lot more than werewolves or vampires, and... Dunno. I didn't like Lex, never warmed to her, and the funny seemed awfully forced at times, like the author had to try really hard to make every sentence hilarious, and it just didn't really work for me.
It was funny, at times, but the ending... meh. Didn't work for me either. [Mild spoiler for the ending]I'd realised who the bad guy was pretty quickly, so that wasn't exactly a shock, and going from funny to tragedy all of a sudden didn't seem either effortless or seemless, just clunky.
Props for the world-building and ideas though. And it's not like it was a bad book - not at all. I mean, I liked it well enough, I just didn't really like it, never mind love it. I might pick up the second book one day, even, but I'm in no big hurry.
4-6 December: Karsten Knight - Wildefire (first book in the Wildefire series)
Comments: YA urban fantasy-ish / mythology-inspired series, which has two things going for it: a very diverse cast of characters (as far as ethnicity/origin goes) and really gorgeous covers. Unfortunately that's about it.
Even rating this book was hard for me on Goodreads. Seriously, there was so much wrong with this book that it's not even funny - and I don't just mean the casual violence (because, hey, I like books with casual violence in them, sometimes).
Unrealistic. And not because of the supernatural elements.
Also, I didn't like Ashline.
That said, it kept me reading, and it wasn't all horrible - I liked some of the concepts and it was decently readable as well as exciting at times. Unfortunately, yes, the unrealistic thing was... meh. And the cast was diverse really only outwardly - they all turned out to be completely boring and same-ish cliché American high school kids.
I have no idea if I want to read the sequel. Not in a hurry to, anyway.
8-9 December: Helen Keeble - Fang Girl
Comments: YA vampire/humour. And a standalone book, I think, which is an oddity these days! Anyway, Fang Girl is pretty much like utterly awesome crackfic - even better, in some ways, as it takes a lot to pull off good crackfic with a setting and characters unfamiliar to the reader.
Definitely one of the funniest books I've read this year. It sort of felt like it started to run out of steam towards the end (or perhaps it was just that there was actually a plot, too, and that plot necessitated a few more serious moments, which didn't mesh with the funny quite perfectly), but overall, it was an extremely enjoyable read.
Recommended to anyone who's ever been in fandom (any fandom!) and likes some unabashed silliness now and again. (Recommended to anyone who's never been in fandom, too, but I do think it's a bonus.)
10-12 December: Kate Danley - Maggie For Hire* (first book in the Maggie MacKay, Magical Tracker series)
Comments: This month's first self-published read and another first-book-in-urban-fantasy, it had some nice ideas and a pace that made sure things never got actually boring, but rather dull characters and lacklustre writing.
Overall, a pretty average read; I didn't feel particularly eager to get back to the book after the first day but when I eventually did, the second half wasn't too bad. Don't regret buying & reading this one, but not going to read more.
14-17 December: Gini Koch - Touched by an Alien (first book in the Alien series)
Comments: Urban fantasy / science fiction, but really paranormal romance with an alien (who was pretty much just a really hot and horny human from Alpha Centauri or something like that). I tried for three days and eventually gave up at 54% in. Life's too short to put up with books I'm neither enjoying nor the least bit interested in.
It sounded funny from the blurb, but as I've said before, humour is subjective and this specific sort didn't really work for me. At all. I was alternatively bored with and irritated by all the characters and once the plot turned into religious stuff, my interest in that waned, too.
15-16 December: Derek Landy - Skulduggery Pleasant (fifth re-read; first book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series)
Comments: Uh, I don't know if I need to say anything about the book any more. :D Anyway, Touched by an Alien was so incredibly dull that I needed a break from it and to do something drastic to get back into the mood for reading at all, so I picked up the first SP book once again. Truthfully, I think reading it six times in two years might have been a bit too much, as I'm getting to a saturation point with this particular book (I've re-read it more than any others in the series), but it was still enjoyable.
22-23 December: Marissa Meyer - Cinder (first book in the Lunar Chronicles)
Comments: Touched by an Alien put me so off reading that it actually took me days of finding enough enthusiasm to start another book. I'd had Cinder in my to-be-read list for months but somehow never felt eager to pick it up. I finally decided to give it a go, and... I'm really glad I did.
Cinder is a YA science fiction retelling of Cinderella, taking place in New Beijing, some time in the future, with Cinder being a cyborg and hated by her stepmother/guardian. And it turned out to be enormous fun; I really enjoyed this one tremendously. I mean, the big plot reveal was extremely predictable, and the whole central "the prince instantly falls for her" thing is, well, wouldn't make sense or wouldn't be to my taste ordinarily, but seeing as it's a fairytale retelling, I didn't really have an issue with it here.
But the plot was clever, Cinder was an awesome protagonist, the writing was great (well, it didn't have anything to turn me off!), I liked the setting, I liked the secondary characters.
I just want to know what happens next! ~has Scarlet, the second book in the series, which is based on Red Riding Hood, on pre-order already~
23-24 December: Emma Jameson - Ice Blue* (first book in the Lord and Lady Hetheridge series)
Comments: Second self-published read this month - this time a police procedural / mystery / romance. Which, to be honest, I only got because it came recommended to those who like their romance with some age gap; the protagonist, a police detective, is in her thirties and her boss & partner (and love interest) is sixty. Which, basically, is also its greatest recommendation; I don't think it was a great book, or particularly well written, or particularly well researched, and I couldn't really buy some of the characterisation (Kate in particular - in any other job, yeah, but I wasn't really convinced by her as a police detective, not with her insubordination and inability to think before blurting stuff out), but...
I still kinda liked it. Something about it clicked for me, so, yeah. It was pretty good fun in spite of all the issues I had with it, and I'm looking forward to reading the next one.
25 December: Jennifer Estep - Crimson Frost (fourth book in the Mythos Academy series)
Comments: Whether it's because this is the first time I've actually had to wait months for the next book in this series or it's because there was genuinely a little less of it (or it was incorporated into the narrative in a smoother way than before), the recaps which have been my major issue with the Mythos Academy books before didn't bother me nearly as much this time.
Some of the usual irritants were still there (I seriously hate it when Gwen uses the by now very tired epithets for her friends as often as their names - really, who goes around thinking of their boyfriend as "the Spartan" all the time?), and really, there wasn't a lot of extra depth or fleshing out of characters in this one...
...but it was just so damn fun. I think the pacing was excellent here, I wasn't bored, the plot, if pretty straightforward, was solid enough, and I'm seriously starting to love Nickamedes. So, yeah, this was a pre-order I'm not regretting, and I can't wait to see what happens in the next one.
27-29 December: Sandy Williams - The Shadow Reader (first book in the Shadow Reader series)
Comments: Another first-book-in-urban-fantasy series, this time with fae. It had some nice ideas and world-building and plot that could have been interesting, but the entire book was ruined for me by the absolutely god-awful love triangle (including insta-love at its worst), which completely overshadowed the plot. Unless the love triangle was the plot, of course, which I sort of suspect it was, in spite of the blurb leading me to think there was more to it.
Urgh.
Not going to read more.
So. Those were the books for December. Cinder was a joy and the highlight of this month but yeah, in general I struggled a bit.
Also, to recap the year...
In no particular order, the ten books/series that made the biggest impression / the books I enjoyed the most in 2012:
Anyway. I didn't feel up to reading a lot in December, occasionally skipping reading entirely on several days in a row, but even so I seem to have managed to add eleven books to my list. Granted, one of them I didn't manage to finish and one was a re-read, but even so. Also, according to Goodreads, I've read 171 books altogether this year, which is... not too shabby, I suppose.
30 November - 1 December: Allyson James - Stormwalker (first book in the Stormwalker series)
Comments: Yet another first book in a new-to-me urban fantasy series. It was... pretty decent, really; I liked Janet, the Native American protagonist quite a lot, and the plot was not bad, but there was really a bit too much sex for me to want to continue with this series, especially as I couldn't stand Mick, the love interest, at all, and didn't warm to him either. So probably not a series I'll be reading more of, unfortunately.
2-3 December: Gina Damico - Croak (first book in the Croak series)
Comments: Young adult humour/urban fantasy, with the grim reaper as the supernatural element this time.
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It sort of had all the right ingredients, what with the funny and being set in the contemporary, modern world, and being all macabre and I really like the grim reaper thing a whole lot more than werewolves or vampires, and... Dunno. I didn't like Lex, never warmed to her, and the funny seemed awfully forced at times, like the author had to try really hard to make every sentence hilarious, and it just didn't really work for me.
It was funny, at times, but the ending... meh. Didn't work for me either. [Mild spoiler for the ending]I'd realised who the bad guy was pretty quickly, so that wasn't exactly a shock, and going from funny to tragedy all of a sudden didn't seem either effortless or seemless, just clunky.
Props for the world-building and ideas though. And it's not like it was a bad book - not at all. I mean, I liked it well enough, I just didn't really like it, never mind love it. I might pick up the second book one day, even, but I'm in no big hurry.
4-6 December: Karsten Knight - Wildefire (first book in the Wildefire series)
Comments: YA urban fantasy-ish / mythology-inspired series, which has two things going for it: a very diverse cast of characters (as far as ethnicity/origin goes) and really gorgeous covers. Unfortunately that's about it.
Even rating this book was hard for me on Goodreads. Seriously, there was so much wrong with this book that it's not even funny - and I don't just mean the casual violence (because, hey, I like books with casual violence in them, sometimes).
Unrealistic. And not because of the supernatural elements.
Also, I didn't like Ashline.
That said, it kept me reading, and it wasn't all horrible - I liked some of the concepts and it was decently readable as well as exciting at times. Unfortunately, yes, the unrealistic thing was... meh. And the cast was diverse really only outwardly - they all turned out to be completely boring and same-ish cliché American high school kids.
I have no idea if I want to read the sequel. Not in a hurry to, anyway.
8-9 December: Helen Keeble - Fang Girl
Comments: YA vampire/humour. And a standalone book, I think, which is an oddity these days! Anyway, Fang Girl is pretty much like utterly awesome crackfic - even better, in some ways, as it takes a lot to pull off good crackfic with a setting and characters unfamiliar to the reader.
Definitely one of the funniest books I've read this year. It sort of felt like it started to run out of steam towards the end (or perhaps it was just that there was actually a plot, too, and that plot necessitated a few more serious moments, which didn't mesh with the funny quite perfectly), but overall, it was an extremely enjoyable read.
Recommended to anyone who's ever been in fandom (any fandom!) and likes some unabashed silliness now and again. (Recommended to anyone who's never been in fandom, too, but I do think it's a bonus.)
10-12 December: Kate Danley - Maggie For Hire* (first book in the Maggie MacKay, Magical Tracker series)
Comments: This month's first self-published read and another first-book-in-urban-fantasy, it had some nice ideas and a pace that made sure things never got actually boring, but rather dull characters and lacklustre writing.
Overall, a pretty average read; I didn't feel particularly eager to get back to the book after the first day but when I eventually did, the second half wasn't too bad. Don't regret buying & reading this one, but not going to read more.
14-17 December: Gini Koch - Touched by an Alien (first book in the Alien series)
Comments: Urban fantasy / science fiction, but really paranormal romance with an alien (who was pretty much just a really hot and horny human from Alpha Centauri or something like that). I tried for three days and eventually gave up at 54% in. Life's too short to put up with books I'm neither enjoying nor the least bit interested in.
It sounded funny from the blurb, but as I've said before, humour is subjective and this specific sort didn't really work for me. At all. I was alternatively bored with and irritated by all the characters and once the plot turned into religious stuff, my interest in that waned, too.
15-16 December: Derek Landy - Skulduggery Pleasant (fifth re-read; first book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series)
Comments: Uh, I don't know if I need to say anything about the book any more. :D Anyway, Touched by an Alien was so incredibly dull that I needed a break from it and to do something drastic to get back into the mood for reading at all, so I picked up the first SP book once again. Truthfully, I think reading it six times in two years might have been a bit too much, as I'm getting to a saturation point with this particular book (I've re-read it more than any others in the series), but it was still enjoyable.
22-23 December: Marissa Meyer - Cinder (first book in the Lunar Chronicles)
Comments: Touched by an Alien put me so off reading that it actually took me days of finding enough enthusiasm to start another book. I'd had Cinder in my to-be-read list for months but somehow never felt eager to pick it up. I finally decided to give it a go, and... I'm really glad I did.
Cinder is a YA science fiction retelling of Cinderella, taking place in New Beijing, some time in the future, with Cinder being a cyborg and hated by her stepmother/guardian. And it turned out to be enormous fun; I really enjoyed this one tremendously. I mean, the big plot reveal was extremely predictable, and the whole central "the prince instantly falls for her" thing is, well, wouldn't make sense or wouldn't be to my taste ordinarily, but seeing as it's a fairytale retelling, I didn't really have an issue with it here.
But the plot was clever, Cinder was an awesome protagonist, the writing was great (well, it didn't have anything to turn me off!), I liked the setting, I liked the secondary characters.
I just want to know what happens next! ~has Scarlet, the second book in the series, which is based on Red Riding Hood, on pre-order already~
23-24 December: Emma Jameson - Ice Blue* (first book in the Lord and Lady Hetheridge series)
Comments: Second self-published read this month - this time a police procedural / mystery / romance. Which, to be honest, I only got because it came recommended to those who like their romance with some age gap; the protagonist, a police detective, is in her thirties and her boss & partner (and love interest) is sixty. Which, basically, is also its greatest recommendation; I don't think it was a great book, or particularly well written, or particularly well researched, and I couldn't really buy some of the characterisation (Kate in particular - in any other job, yeah, but I wasn't really convinced by her as a police detective, not with her insubordination and inability to think before blurting stuff out), but...
I still kinda liked it. Something about it clicked for me, so, yeah. It was pretty good fun in spite of all the issues I had with it, and I'm looking forward to reading the next one.
25 December: Jennifer Estep - Crimson Frost (fourth book in the Mythos Academy series)
Comments: Whether it's because this is the first time I've actually had to wait months for the next book in this series or it's because there was genuinely a little less of it (or it was incorporated into the narrative in a smoother way than before), the recaps which have been my major issue with the Mythos Academy books before didn't bother me nearly as much this time.
Some of the usual irritants were still there (I seriously hate it when Gwen uses the by now very tired epithets for her friends as often as their names - really, who goes around thinking of their boyfriend as "the Spartan" all the time?), and really, there wasn't a lot of extra depth or fleshing out of characters in this one...
...but it was just so damn fun. I think the pacing was excellent here, I wasn't bored, the plot, if pretty straightforward, was solid enough, and I'm seriously starting to love Nickamedes. So, yeah, this was a pre-order I'm not regretting, and I can't wait to see what happens in the next one.
27-29 December: Sandy Williams - The Shadow Reader (first book in the Shadow Reader series)
Comments: Another first-book-in-urban-fantasy series, this time with fae. It had some nice ideas and world-building and plot that could have been interesting, but the entire book was ruined for me by the absolutely god-awful love triangle (including insta-love at its worst), which completely overshadowed the plot. Unless the love triangle was the plot, of course, which I sort of suspect it was, in spite of the blurb leading me to think there was more to it.
Urgh.
Not going to read more.
So. Those were the books for December. Cinder was a joy and the highlight of this month but yeah, in general I struggled a bit.
Also, to recap the year...
In no particular order, the ten books/series that made the biggest impression / the books I enjoyed the most in 2012:
- Derek Landy - Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked
- JK Rowling - The Casual Vacancy
- Jonathan Stroud - The Bartimaeus Sequence (trilogy + prequel)
- Ben Aaronovitch - the Rivers of London series (three books out so far)
- Maggie Stiefvater - The Raven Boys
- Mike Mullin - Ashen Winter
- Scott Westerfeld - the Leviathan trilogy
- Kalayna Price - the Alex Craft series (three books out so far)
- Lois McMaster Bujold - the Sharing Knife series
- Neal Shusterman - UnWholly