Musing Mondays - Reading RoseBlood and many other things & author I would dine with

Musing Monday, July 17, 2017

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

• I’m currently reading…

• Up next I think I’ll read…

• I bought the following book(s) in the past week…

• I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…

• I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…

• I can’t wait to get a copy of…

• I wish I could read ___, but…

• I blogged about ____ this past week…

I’m currently reading…

RoseBlood
by A.G. Howard

Oooooh today's date is a palindrome! 7/17/17! I love when I notice things like that. Anyway, back to the topic at hand and that is what I am reading now. I may be far too overzealous about the BookBub Summer reading challenge...and my competitive nature may or may not have kicked in (meaning it totally has kicked in, so now Sophia and I keep trying to get ahead of one another, not that I'm bitter about her currently being ahead of me, at least more than a little). Anyways, so yes I am overzealous and competitive so instead of focussing on one book at a time, I am currently trying to plow my way simultaneously through 2 audiobooks, 1 ebook, 1 poetry book, 1 play, 1 physical novel and 1 graphic novel...I normally would NEVER do this but my library holds keep coming in and you only get 14 days with the audiobooks.

I'm not going to subject you to summaries for each of those items that I am currently reading so I will just discuss them and then focus on one to post a summary for. We'll start with the 2 audiobooks. I was waiting for holds to come in so I downloaded Paradise Lost to use as my Presidential Favourite because it was Teddy Roosevelt's. Turns out this is not an audiobook I can listen to while multitasking, in fact, I actually need to have a physical copy of the book in front of me to follow along or it doesn't stick. Not so good for my usual audiobook reading methods, but it works well for working out. I can sit on the exercise bike and then not notice how long I've been pedalling because I am following the story. However, while I was figuring out how I wanted to listen to that my hold on My Brother Sam is Dead (my pick for a book about the revolutionary war) came in so I listened to that one first and then when I finished that I borrowed The Island of Dr. Moreau for the classic I have always wanted to get around to reading category. Then, of course, my hold for The Outsiders (a coming of age story) came in about 2 days ago, so I have about 6 days and 10 parts left to go on my Paradise Lost loan, and then I have to finish Moreau so that I can listen to The Outsiders before my hold expires. Luckily Moreau is only about 4 and a half hours long and I am already up to chapter 5.

As for the ebook, I started A Darkness Absolute a while back, before my phone decided it hated its old memory card, and then after installing a new one the Kobo app deciding it didn't believe I had an internet connection. So that obviously got me fed up and I set it aside even after remembering that my mum had a Kobo ereader she doesn't use and commandeering it. Once I realised that A Darkness Absolute can fulfil one of the BookBub challenges though I realised I need to finish it sooner rather than later. When I finished The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue on Saturday I decided to finish it before I start Kindred which is my library book with the next closest due date. This was a good weekend to do that because I had to stay over in Toronto last night and then I had today off work so I've gotten from about 5% done to about 55% done. I'm also working on the poetry book I picked for the challenge because I thought that would be easy, it's a Shel Silverstein book so I figured I could read it in one sitting, turns out no, I cannot read 203 pages of Shel Silverstein in one sitting...lesson learned. I also started re-reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as my pick for a book with a shocking plot twist and then I also started RoseBlood because the Calendar Girls are doing it as a read along (and it fits BookBub's set in a vacation destination category). However, I am failing the read along quite badly because someone at the publishing house thought it was a GREAT idea to publish an entire book in a dusty pink font which is really hard on the eyes so I can't read it much in one sitting:

Beyond the font issue though, let's talk about this book. I got it in one of my last OwlCrate's before I cancelled the subscription. When I received it I was kind of of two minds about it. You see, I've read A.G. Howard's revision of Alice in Wonderland - I LOVED the first one...and hated the second two so much that I rage quit the series before I could even finish the second book because I could see where it was going in and didn't like it. So I looked at the end of the 3rd, had my suspicions confirmed and set them aside very disappointed. Nothing makes me rage quit faster than a super badly handled love triangle and I think she handled hers very badly and copped out with the series ending. Which broke my heart because I so badly wanted to love the series. So that's the history I am walking into RoseBlood with, I have a bias. Here this book is another revision of a classic story that I personally enjoy, it's a take on the Phantom of the Opera a musical which I have seen live twice, which is I just learned, from this book, based on a book. Because of the problems I'm having with the font colour I am only 55 pages in, but I have to say my hopes are still high, I'm really enjoying it so far and I'm eager to see where she's going with it:

In this modern day spin on Leroux’s gothic tale of unrequited love turned to madness, seventeen-year-old Rune Germain has a mysterious affliction linked to her operatic talent, and a horrifying mistake she’s trying to hide. Hoping creative direction will help her, Rune’s mother sends her to a French arts conservatory for her senior year, located in an opera house rumored to have ties to The Phantom of the Opera. 

At RoseBlood, Rune secretly befriends the masked Thorn—an elusive violinist who not only guides her musical transformation through dreams that seem more real than reality itself, but somehow knows who she is behind her own masks. As the two discover an otherworldly connection and a soul-deep romance blossoms, Thorn’s dark agenda comes to light and he’s forced to make a deadly choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or face the wrath of the phantom who has haunted the opera house for a century, and is the only father he’s ever known.-- via Goodreads

As for the comic book I'm reading, I picked up my hold on Ta-Nehisi Coates's Black Panther : Nation Under our Feet Book One on my way home from Toronto today (it's for the bestselling book from last summer category because issue #1 of this series was a bestseller) and while my mum was in making an appointment I didn't feel like pulling out the Kobo so I started reading it.

        THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: If you could have dinner with one author alive or dead who would it be?

I used to always answer this question with JK Rowling, and honestly, yes given the chance I would of course not turn down an invitation to dine with her! She has been one of my biggest idols, inspirations and heroes ever since I discovered her work. Of course, I look up to her and would love to pick her brain over a meal. But lately I've been finding myself really interested by Margaret Atwood and I suspect that's got a lot to do with the fact that she is a Canadian author, one of the most prolific and well known Canadian authors, and that's kind of the dream for me you know?  Not that I've ever managed anything longer than 15k one year for Nano, but I keep trying because like I said, being a published author, that's the dream. I just think that Margaret Atwood would be really interesting to dine with. She's such a polarising figure and her writing is so wide ranging and diverse. So yes, changing it up for once, not going with Jo, if I could have dinner with any author I'd want to dine with Margaret Atwood.