2018 Reading Challenge Recap #blogmas (Pt. 1)

All right, it's the last day of December, the last day of 2018, and that means also the last day of Blogmas! I did it, guys! I actually posted every day in December! I am impressed with myself for this feat haha. So because it's the last day of 2018 that means it's time for my annual reading challenge recap, aka the longest post I make all year. How did I do you ask? Well, I set out to do 4 challenges, and I completed 2 of them. Interestingly one of the ones I failed was the one I created myself back at the beginning of the year. I realised in about June that I had been waaaaaaay too over ambitious with my challenges this year and knew I wasn't going to finish them. In addition to the challenge of my own devising, I attempted Book Riot's Read Harder challenge, which is you've been following my Blogmas posts you'll know that I won. I also attempted to do PopSugar, but my over ambition got the better of me there too so I didn't finish that one either. My last challenge was, of course, the annual Goodreads challenge I pledged 100 and ended up at 122. That's down from last year, but it's still the second most I have ever read in a year so I am freaking psyched.

The problem was, instead of doing what I did last year and trying to find books that fit multiple challenges, I was trying to do a different book for every single challenge. And with the way, I'd split out some of them, that worked out to be over 160 books which is more than I read last year. That was daunting and actually impacted my speed because I overwhelmed myself with the sheer amount of things I planned to read and therefore put off reading it. So I went back today and had a look at what books I read that could work for multiple challenges. I still failed, but by a much narrower margin haha.

Onto the recaps! What were the challenges and what did I read for them:

Book Riot Read Harder 2018

24/24 = 100%

A book published posthumously

The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams [published in 2002, Adams passed away in 2001] [7/11/18]

A book of true crime

Who killed my daughter? The startling true story of a mother’s search for her daughter’s murderer by Lois Duncan [17/11/18]

A classic of genre fiction (i.e. mystery, sci fi/fantasy, romance)

Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper [middle grade/YA fantasy] [3/9/18]

A comic written and illustrated by the same person

Hostage by Guy Delisle [8/1/18]

A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa) Android Karenina by Ben H. Winters [Russia] [13/8/18]

A book about nature

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood [8/10/18]

A western

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King [13/5/18]

A comic written or illustrated by a person of colour

Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Marie Liu and Sana Takeda [28/5/18]

A book of colonial or postcolonial literature

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson [described in reviews as “postcolonial redemption story.”] [4/12/18]

A romance novel by or about a person of colour

Winds of Salem by Melissa de la Cruz [paranormal romance by a filipina author] [11/12/18]

A children’s classic published before 1980

Last Battle by C.S. Lewis [first published in 1956] [27/4/18]

A celebrity memoir

Nerd do Well by Simon Pegg [27/12/18]

An Oprah Book Club selection

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson [Oprah’s Summer Reading club] [30/12/18]

A book of social science

Free Speech on Campus by Sigal R. Ben-Porath [29/12/18]

A one-sitting book

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis [18/1/18]

The first book in a new-to-you YA or middle-grade series

Loki’s Wolves by K.L. Armstrong & M.A. Marr [6/1/18]

A sci-fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author

Cress by Marissa Meyer [4/11/18]

A comic that isn’t published by Marvel, DC, or Image

Princeless vol.2: Get over it [Published by Action Labs Entertainment] [29/5/18]

A book of genre fiction in translation

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke [fantasy - translated from German] [27/5/18]

A book with a cover you hate

The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade [2009 Harper Collins Hardcover edition] [22/9/18]

A mystery by a person of colour or LGBTQ+ author

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas [25/4/18]

An essay anthology

Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for Lgbtq Librarians edited by Tracy Nectoux [28/1/18]

A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60

A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie [Miss Marple] [14/7/18]

An assigned book you hated (or never finished)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley [I hated this book when I was assigned it in my undergrad English program] [28/10/18]

Because this post is so long I am inserting a cut. Keep going if you want to see PopSugar. My TBR challenge will come as a seperate post tomorrow because this one is making my browser lag haha.

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: Alif the Useen #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 13: An Oprah Book Club selection (my choice featured on one of Oprah's Summer Reading Lists) 

Alif the Unseen

Author: G. Willow Wilson
Publisher: Grove Press

Published: June 19, 2012
Page count: 433
Genres: scifi, cyberpunk, fantasy, mythology

Date read: December 30, 2018

Number of times read: 1

Format: audiobook/hardcover
Source: Audible/Laurier Library

Summary

In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clients—dissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groups—from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble. He goes by Alif—the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and a convenient handle to hide behind. The aristocratic woman Alif loves has jilted him for a prince chosen by her parents, and his computer has just been breached by the state’s electronic security force, putting his clients and his own neck on the line. Then it turns out his lover’s new fiancé is the "Hand of God," as they call the head of state security, and his henchmen come after Alif, driving him underground. 

When Alif discovers The Thousand and One Days, the secret book of the jinn, which both he and the Hand suspect may unleash a new level of information technology, the stakes are raised and Alif must struggle for life or death, aided by forces seen and unseen.-- via Goodreads 

Review

Written by the author who brought us Kamala Khan as the new Ms Marvel (which is an awesome run, I finally got around to starting it this year haha), this book is very much in the same vein as Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and Homeland which predate this book by a few years. It's in the same vein but it's also wholly original. As I was reading Alif I keep seeing similarities in theme and action to things that happen in Little Brother, they're mirrors of one another tackling the same sort of issues but from completely different directions. Doctorow's book is a decidedly Western treatment, and Wilson's Alif is absolutely an Eastern perspective. One of the central aspects of Wilson's book is Islamic mysticism/mythology. This is the first time I've ever seen science fiction blended with Islamic mythology, it makes me want to email my Islam professor from undergrad, Meena Sharify-Funk, and see if she's read it because I think she would absolutely love it...in fact I am going to take a couple of minutes and do that. And done. 

I really enjoyed this book as it was simultaneously familiar but also very new and different for me. The way Wilson blends modern high technology and contemporary political concerns with the fantastical elements of Islamic mythology is engrossing. She posits a metaphorical link between computer programming and mysticism that is actually really intriguing to think about as someone who only has a moderate level of knowledge about each. I've heard comparisons between scientists and the religiously devout, but never with computer programmers before, but it makes a certain amount of sense to stop and think about. There are a couple of times where it goes very deep with these lines of thought and manages to stay as realistic as something that contains magical jinn can.

One thing I found really problematic was the character of the Convert and her treatment. She is never given a name, she is referred to as the Convert or the other girl or the American from the time that she is introduced right up to her last mention. It's incredibly frustrating and I don't understand the choice on the part of the author, who is herself a convert to Islam. Maybe this was something she herself experienced and so she decided to put it into the book? I don't know but it's not a good choice in my opinion. Other than that one issue I thought it was a very well handled portrayal of everything she was trying to portray. I think it was a smart choice not to give her Eastern security state any specific identity it's just a generic desert town in the Middle East. It's representative of the issues not of any one specific locale.

The Jinn are very interesting. I wish she'd spent more time to focus on them and their society or included an appendix or something about them. We learn that there are many different types and that there seems to be a hierarchy, but beyond that, even though we spend quite a bit of time with the Jinn we never really learn much more about them. We don't learn everything they are capable of and we don't really learn about their society. I can understand that because they weren't the central focus of the book, but I wish there was some way for us to get more information about them.

The book ended at a very abrupt point, we're in the middle of a revolution that started because of Alif's actions and the plot of the book. But we just end on Alif and Dina walking back home after the climax. We never find out what actually comes from the Revolution, and we don't get definitive endings for Abu Talid or the Convert which I find unsatisfying.

Have you ever read a book that mirrored another book that you've read? Did you find yourself thinking about the juxtapositions while reading it?

Overall Rating

4.5 bolts

I did it! I completed Book Riot Read Harder 2018! It was a very near thing this year, but I did it haha.

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: Frankenstein #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 24: An assigned book you hated (or never finished)

Frankenstein

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Narrator: Dan Stevens
Publisher: Audible Inc.

Published: October 29, 2013 (first published January 1, 1818)
Page count: 258 (run time: 8 hrs, 35 min.)
Genres: horror, scifi

Date read: October 28, 2018

Number of times read: 2

Format: audiobook
Source: Audible

Summary

Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever.-- via Goodreads 

Review

I bought this book for a couple of reasons. The first being my friend Debbie. She is the science librarians at the university I work at and because this year marked the 200th anniversary of the writing of Frankenstein she was going to run a program about the book. We're very supportive of one another at my place of work, we like to attend each other's programs. So I knew that was going to mean revisiting this book. I originally read it for an undergraduate course during my English degree. At the time I disliked it so very much. I was not a fan at all. For that reason, I was hesitant to revisit it now. Last year I discovered that the audiobook version of Dracula was much more engaging than trying to just read the book on its own (it was another horror classic I'd had a hard time with in print) and that inspired me to look at the audiobook editions of this. I discovered the Dan Stevens edition fairly quickly. I like Dan Stevens as an actor, and I also really like him as an audiobook narrator. At the time of purchasing this, I had already read two other audiobooks narrated by Dan Stevens and I really enjoyed both. They were Casino Royale and Murder on the Orient Express. That ended up being all the prompting I needed to purchase the audiobook. And I am glad that I did because this time around I absolutely loved the novel.

Shelley tackled an incredibly progressive premise in her seminal novel. It really is impressive that she created this work at the age of eighteen. It speaks to the nature vs. nurture argument. Clearly, she had latent talent for writing, but it almost certainly helped that at the time of writing Frankenstein she was surrounded by a circle of friends and family who were all talented and well know writers in their own rights, including her mother and husband. In fact, her husband helped edit the book when Shelley finished it. As the summary for the Audible edition notes, the questions that Shelley asks with Frankenstein were not only incredibly astute for the era she was writing, they remain important and even more worth asking in the present. My only complaint on that front is that the book is in fact inextricably tied to the time in which it was set instead of being more ambiguous about whether it was the present or the future. I think it can almost be considered magical realism in that way. 

The plot is actually fairly straight-forward, man is introduced, we follow the man as he works on his project, he loses control over his creation, and then he spends the rest of the action trying to regain control. It's a pretty standard structure. It's the story that Shelley wrote around that simple expected structure that makes the book awesome. Victor really is hard to like as a protagonist, especially when you think about things from the monsters view. Now, the monster does definitely do some terribly gory things in his pursuit of revenge but Victor is no innocent victim and no reader should see him as such. Victor and his Monster are indeed both victims of each other. Shelley writes their incredibly complex relationship in such a way that it looks easy. Both the monster and Victor are vulnerable and likeable at times, but not all the time. I applaud Shelley greatly for her use of imperfect characters. That makes them come across as much more real.

I don't really know what else to say except, I am really glad that I revisited this book because I really did enjoy it this time around. I suspect the only reason that I didn't the first go around is because of my hate on for prescribed reading. Also if you can get your hands on the Audible editon do it because Dan Stevens is so good as a narrator, he's got the perfect voice for it.


Do you ever revisit books years after the first time you tried them? Have your opinions changed about them?

Overall Rating

4 bolts

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: A Caribbean Mystery #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 23: A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60 

A Caribbean Mystery

Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: Dodd, Mead

Published: Published 1965 (first published November 16, 1964)
Page count: 246
Genres: mystery

Date read: July 14, 2018

Number of times read: 1

Format: hardcover/audiobook
Source: Laurier Library/Waterloo Public Library

Summary

The delightful Miss Marple is ensnared in A Caribbean Mystery when a retired military man sparks her curiosity with a photograph and a strange story of a murderer.

As Miss Marple sat basking in the Caribbean sunshine, she felt mildly discontented with life. True, the warmth eased her rheumatism, but here in paradise nothing ever happened.

Eventually, her interest was aroused by an old soldier’s yarn about a murderer he had known. Infuriatingly, just as he was about to show her a snapshot of this acquaintance, the Major was suddenly interrupted. A diversion that was to prove fatal.-- via Goodreads 

Review

I know that this is the tenth book in the Miss Marple series, so there is probably a lot of context from the first nine books that I am missing by starting with this one. chose this one though because I had ready access to it as both a physical book and an audiobook which is exactly the combination I was after. Sometimes I like to follow the narrator along with a physical copy of the book I am reading. But I think in this case the context I was missing didn't hinder me too much, which is why the book still got 3.5 bolts. It's a good book though, the mystery actually kept me going for a little bit.

You see there is a reason why I don't read more mysteries and it's because of a talent I've picked up from my mum. I'm not quite as good as her but it's still a problem. I am really good at solving fictional mysteries long before the main character does. But my mum is even faster. One time when we were playing clue, she got the right guess on the second round, not HER second round, she was the second person to play. And on her first turn, she guessed it. Another time we went to a live murder mystery play. And of all the audiences over the course of the three-night run, the group at my table, thanks to mum and me, were the only group to actually solve the mystery ahead of the reveal.

So when I say that this mystery actually staid mysterious on me almost nearly until the end, then that's high praise for a mystery novel. Miss Marple herself is an interesting character, she's a little old English lady who keeps getting roped into solving crimes. Thanks to this book I now want to seek out the whole series. Might have to borrow the BBC DVDs I got for my mm.

Do you read mysteries? Do you often solve them before the main character does?

Overall Rating

3.5 bolts

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: Out Behind the Desk #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 22: An essay anthology

Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for Lgbtq Librarians

Author: Tracy Nectoux (ed.)
Publisher: Litwin Books, LLC  

Published: May 15, 2011 (first published 2010)
Page count: 294
Genres: nonfiction

Date read: January 28, 2018

Number of times read: 1

Format: paperback
Source: Laurier Library

Summary

Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians is an anthology of personal accounts by librarians and library workers relating experiences of being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or queer at work. A broad spectrum of orientations and gender identities are represented, highlighting a range of experiences of being and/or coming out at work.-- via Goodreads 

Review

At the tail end of 2017, I decided to be super ambitious. (Meaning crazy stupid...) I decided that as part of the professional Twitter chat I co-host on library-related issues, we should run a virtual book club! I seem to have momentarily forgotten that I hate being told what book to read when at the time that I came up with that idea...Anyway, I was responsible for picking most of the books and I picked this one for January and then cut it right up until the say of the chat to finish reading it. Not because it was bad or boring, but because of the above hatred of being told what to read and by when. Plus also the PDF I had made for myself (my ILL was due back before I finished the book) was way too small on my Kobo and I couldn't get it to zoom so I had to read less of it at a time because it made my astigmatism act up.

Overall I thought it was a really good anthology. There were a lot of fantastic essays in it and I walked away wanting to learn more and get more involved. To me, that's the mark of good nonfiction. How much does it make me care about the subject it's about, and what does it make me want to do about it. I chose this book specifically because it has a personal interest to me. I'm bi, but I keep that pretty quiet and I don't date so it's never really a topic that comes up unless I'm specifically talking about LGBTQ issues. I've never been involved in the LGBTQ community in a meaningful way but I've always wanted to learn more about it and about how to maybe get involved. So when I found out there was a book out there about the LGBTQ experience in libraries I was very interested in reading it. And I got what I wanted out of it, it was really worthwhile for me. I learned about the history of LGBTQ people in the library profession.

The two major disappointments that I had with this book were mainly with the content. Firstly the fact that it's from 2010/11 means it's eight years out of date, and in the States especially, there's been an awful lot of upheaval in relation to LGBTQ rights and experiences in the intervening years. I'd like to see a sequel done now, I feel like that would be a very valuable book to have, and very powerful. The other thing about the content that really annoyed me is something that annoys me about a lot of LGBTQ content - bi-erasure, it's a thing, I wish it weren't a thing, and it's annoying as all hell. There was little bi content in this book and what there was, was not so great. There was even less relatable content for Trans librarians.

Because I was using this book for a book club I actually took a lot of notes about it. Twelve pages worth of notes to be precise. Looking back at my notes now after almost a year, there are definitely some essays in the anthology that I would probably go back to for reexamination. 

Do you read books about your industry or for your work?

Overall Rating

4 bolts

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: A study in scarlet women #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 21: A mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ author

A Study in Scarlet Women

Author: Sherry Thomas
Publisher: Berkley Books 

Published: October 18, 2016
Page count: 323
Genres: mystery, historical, adaptation

Date read: April 25, 2018

Number of times read: 1

Format: audiobook
Source: Waterloo Public Library

Summary

With her inquisitive mind, Charlotte Holmes has never felt comfortable with the demureness expected of the fairer sex in upper class society. But even she never thought that she would become a social pariah, an outcast fending for herself on the mean streets of London. 

When the city is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths and suspicion falls on her sister and her father, Charlotte is desperate to find the true culprits and clear the family name. She’ll have help from friends new and old—a kind-hearted widow, a police inspector, and a man who has long loved her.

But in the end, it will be up to Charlotte, under the assumed name Sherlock Holmes, to challenge society’s expectations and match wits against an unseen mastermind.-- via Goodreads 

Review

What is Sherlock Holmes was actually a pseudonym for a female detective named Charlotte? That's the question Asian-American author Sherry Thomas used to create this story. When I read this I originally gave it a 4-bolt rating. So clearly I really enjoyed it, the problem I am running into now, coming to this review after 8 months and however many books in between is that I find I can't remember all the details. That makes it hard to review properly, but I will certainly try. The other problem is that I also read House of Silk around the same time period, and that's another Sherlock Holmes adaptation, so I'm worried about getting the details of the two cases mixed up haha.

What fascinated me the most about this take on Sherlock was the character of Charlotte, she becomes the titular scarlet woman. By the Victorian standards of her time, she is most definitely a feminist. And her behaviour is certainly outside of the norm for women of her era in several regards. She is an intellectual(obviously), but she's also sexually adventurous and spurns societal norms and niceties. She finds an ally in the similarly socially spurned window Mrs Watson, a former actress who becomes her business partner in addition to being her close friend. Charlotte and Mrs Watson come up with a creative way for Charlotte to set up her consulting detective business. They create the character of Sherlock Holmes and set Charlotte up as his sister who speaks to his clients for him. They do very well with it until Charlotte has to interact with someone who actually knows her.

It's very interesting to watch Charlotte move through the various aspects of Victorian culture, from running away from home to being chased out of a boarding house, scandal follows her very closely. Even though Charlotte is a woman and ends up in very different circumstances than her original Male inspiration, you can still see Conan Doyle's Sherlock in her personality, and in that regard, it's a very well done adaptation. It doesn't really adapt the story of A Study in Scarlet though from what I remember of that story. It really just takes the name and plays with it well telling a completely different story for Charlotte. This book is very much an origin story and reads as such.

The one thing I would give it lost points on is the actual mystery because it has not stuck in my head, it's the one thing about this book that I can't actually remember.

What do you do when you find yourself unable to recall plot points of a book you remember really enjoying?

Overall Rating

4 bolts

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: The Hunchback Assignments #BookReview #CanadianContent #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 20: A book with a cover you hate

The Hunchback Assignments

Author: Arthur Slade
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada 

Published: 2009 (first published September 22 2007)
Page count: 275
Genres: scifi, steampunk, mystery, historical, adaptation

Date read: September 22, 2018

Number of times read: 2

Format: hardcover
Source: Chapters/Indigo

Summary

A gripping new series combines Steampunk, spying, and a fantastic Victorian London.

The mysterious Mr. Socrates rescues Modo, a child in a traveling freak show. Modo is a hunchback with an amazing ability to transform his appearance, and Mr. Socrates raises him in isolation as an agent for the Permanent Association, a spy agency behind Brittania’s efforts to rule the empire. At 14, Modo is left on the streets of London to fend for himself. When he encounters Octavia Milkweed, another Association agent, the two uncover a plot by the Clockword Guild behind the murders of important men. Furthermore, a mad scientist is turning orphan children into automatons to further the goals of the Guild. Modo and Octavia journey deep into the tunnels under London and discover a terrifying plot against the British government. It’s up to them to save their country.-- via Goodreads 

Review

I hate the cover of this book haha. It's just schlocky and disjointed to me. It's made up of too many disparate elements that don't fit together well in my opinion. So, that's why I chose it for this category. My opinions about the cover don't extend to the story itself, I really and truly did enjoy this book and I can't wait to read the other three books in the series. It's a Canadian written YA series that is predominately steampunk with a mix of mystery. It's also a hint of adaptation, the main character Modo seems to be an adaptation of Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame de-aged and moved to London from Paris. He's got shapeshifting powers in this adaptation too. So Mr Socrates trains him up to be a spy. 

It's a really interesting premise, we spend the first part of the book with Modo as he grows up in seclusion training to be a spy for Mr Socrates's organisation. He has a very isolated childhood with only his tutor and governess for regular companionship, Modo thinks of her as a mother almost. He also occasionally has training sessions in combat with one of Mr Socrates's assets and sees Mr Socrates every now and then. But he never sees himself, they don't allow him to have any mirrors as he grows up so he learns about his appearance mainly through his sense of touch. This situation immediately gives the reader a sense of fellowship with Modo, we can really feel for him and we want to see him come out on top and be happy. It's a good tool for aligning the readers with the protagonist.

The rest of the story takes place once Mr Socrates sends Modo out into the world to fend for himself and he finds himself very well prepared in some ways but very unprepared in others. He doesn't have street smarts, but luckily he hooks up with another of Mr Socrates's agents, Octavia, and she does have street smarts. Together the two actually make a very capable team as they find themselves enmeshed in a plot to destroy the empire. Pretty typical steampunk fair at that point. But it's still handled in a unique enough way to make the plot stand out from other steampunk that I've read. Modo's ability to change his appearance, of course, comes in hand from time to time throughout the adventure. And Octavia is a very interesting character, like many steampunk heroines she's ahead of her time in terms of her politics and she's definitely a badass good girl who can handle herself. She and Modo manage to each rescue each other pretty regularly which is refreshing. It's nice that the guy doesn't always have to come to the girl's aide and that she can teach him a trick or two herself.

It's a really fun start to the series and as I said before I am really interested to finish out the series. 

What do you think of taking public domain characters and putting them into completely new situations?

Overall Rating

4 bolts

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: Inkspell #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 19: A book of genre fiction in translation

Inkspell

Author: Cornelia Funke, Anthea Bell (translator)
Publisher: Chicken House

Published: April 1, 2007 (first published October 1, 2005)
Page count: 655
Genres: fantasy

Date read: May 27, 2018

Number of times read: 1

Format: paperback/audiobook
Source: Amazon/Waterloo Public Library

Summary

The captivating sequel to INKHEART, the critically acclaimed, international bestseller by Cornelia Funke--available for the first time in a beautifully designed trade paperback!

Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of INKHEART, the book whose characters became real. But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater brought into being from words, the need to return to the tale has become desperate. When he finds a crooked storyteller with the ability to read him back, Dustfinger leaves behind his young apprentice Farid and plunges into the medieval world of his past. Distraught, Farid goes in search of Meggie, and before long, both are caught inside the book, too. But the story is threatening to evolve in ways neither of them could ever have imagined.-- via Goodreads 

Review

In the first book in the series we got to see how the fictional characters of a book react and behave when they're brought into the real world. Spoiler alert: it doesn't end well for most of them. The problem with that is that that first story built up so much anticipation about the Inkworld, and we never really got to see it at all in that first book. We only heard about it. Inkspell where we've done almost a complete 180, almost all of the action in Inkspell takes place in the Inkworld. The characters of the fictional work and some of the real world people end up getting drawn back into the world of the book. Obviously, hijinx ensue. Meanwhile, in the real world outside the book, Meggie's parents are trying to figure out how they can get her back or how they can get in to help her. I use real world very loosely in this explanation. This book has done a very, very good job of blurring the lines between fiction and reality. Obviously, Mo and Meggie and Elinor don't realise that they are characters in a fictional world themselves, that would be far too meta, but the reader is aware and so it becomes very interesting. It's actually got a very Matrix-y quality to it, you remember, that scene where Morpheus talks to Neo about the meaning of realness? Well, this whole book is like 655 pages to explore that talking point.

There are some things about this book that annoyed me though, Dustfinger and Farid for one and two. They're both so completely single-minded that they often end up making decisions that I as a reader find frustrating, especially Farid when it comes to the relationship he is trying to cement for himself with Meggie. He doesn't do a very good job of that at all. Fenoglio is by far the most annoying though, sometimes I really just wanted someone to push him out a window. Although I think I want to revise that statement because there is actually someone more annoying than Fenoglio and that character is Orpheus. I have so, so much hate for Orpheus I can't even completely articulate it. Mainly because to explain my hate properly I'd have to give away too many spoilers.

There's an interesting controversy surrounding the title of this book and its translation from the original German. If directly translating it should have been Inkblood to tie in thematically with the title Inkheart. I'm not surprised it was changed in English though because especially in the US there's a whole thing about changing the title of the book if it seems like it's going to cause any form of scandal. Remember what happened with the first Harry Potter adventure? They changed philosopher to sorcerer because they were afraid people wouldn't know what philosopher mean. Luckily Inksspell doesn't go down that route.

This is the book series for anyone who ever wanted to meet their favourite fictional character.

Overall Rating

4 bolts

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: The Dark is Rising #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 3: A classic of genre fiction

The Dark is Rising

Author: Susan Cooper
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Published: October 1 1999 (first published 1973)
Page count: 244
Genres: fantasy, young adult, middle grades

Date read: September 3, 2018

Number of times read: 1

Format: paperback
Source: ...Amazon? I've owned it too long to remember where I actually bought it. I bought a box set of all 5...Nope according to my history this came from a physical bookstore!

Summary

"When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back, three from the circle, three from the track; wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone; five will return, and one go alone.”

With these mysterious words, Will Stanton discovers on his 11th birthday that he is no mere boy. He is the Sign-Seeker, last of the immortal Old Ones, destined to battle the powers of evil that trouble the land. His task is monumental: he must find and guard the six great Signs of the Light, which, when joined, will create a force strong enough to match and perhaps overcome that of the Dark. Embarking on this endeavor is dangerous as well as deeply rewarding; Will must work within a continuum of time and space much broader than he ever imagined. -- via Goodreads

Review

The Dark is Rising sequence is an award-winning classic of children's/middle-grade/YA fantasy. Here are the award credentials of this particular book: Newbery Medal Nominee (1974), Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee (1974), Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction (1973). I'm honestly surprised that it took until adulthood for me to hear about this book series. I was always into fantasy as a kid and I practically lived at the public library but no one ever suggested it to me. At this point, I can't even remember when I bought the box set, it was probably in 2009 or 2010 when I was in teacher's college. What really matters is that I was well into my adulthood before someone mentioned this series to me, probably on Livejournal or Facebook. I'm 99.9% sure it was my friend Rachel. I kept meaning to get around to it and get around to it but I never actually bothered (this is a trend you will notice with books for this challenge). But I was able to find a way to shoehorn all 5 books from the series into a challenge this year, so YAY! I've read 3/5 so far.

I'd say this entry is arguably better than one in that it has more complex characters and a really interesting narrative. Over sea, under stone, was interesting but under-developed comparatively. The thing that lets this book down is that it's nearly a completely different cast of characters with no real explanation as to why we've completely switched perspectives. It does eventually become clear that Will's journey is very much tied to the adventure of the kids in the first story. The Dark is Rising does a really good job of setting everything up for the events that are to come in the rest of the series. Will is such an interesting character, you really come to love him over the course of the book and become invested in him. I was hopeful for the payoff of him up with meeting the original kids, but that doesn't happen until the third book in the series.

This entry in the series does a really good job of worldbuilding and setting the internal rules about magic up for the reader. A much better job than the first book did. The first book was more of a straight-up adventure, this one really delves into the magic and mythology of the world. It's trope-y but not in a bad way. Will is clearly a chosen one, but he's not infallible and fails nearly as much as he succeeds, but he's a kid and he's still learning so they cut him some slack even for his biggest failures. It's a solid book and definitely held my interest and made me want to continue the series, if only for wanting to see Will and the other kids meet up.


An interesting sequel that really builds on the world introduced in the first book and really sets up the stakes for the rest of the series. Don't let the fact that none of the kids from the first book are in this one keep you from reading it. This series entry really ups the magical and mythological elements.

Overall Rating

3.5 bolts

Book Riot Read Harder 2018 in review: Who killed my daughter? #BookReview #ReadHarder2018 #Blogmas

Category 2: A book of true crime

Who killed my daughter? The startling true story of a mother’s search for her daughter’s murderer

Author: Lois Duncan
Publisher: Open Road Media 

Published: August 28th 2012 (first published 1992)
Page count: 354
Genres: true crime, nonfiction, mystery, paranormal

Date read: November 17, 2018

Number of times read: 1

Format: ebook
Source: Kobo

Summary

On July 16, 1989, Lois Duncan’s daughter was chased down and shot to death in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After the police abandoned all leads, Duncan refused to give up her search for the truth.



In this tragic memoir and investigation, Lois Duncan searches for clues to the murder of her youngest child, eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn Arquette. Duncan begins to suspect that the official police investigation of Kaitlyn’s murder is inadequate when detectives ignore her daughter’s accidental connection to organized crime in Albuquerque. When Duncan loses faith in the system, she reaches out to anyone that can help, including private investigators, journalists, and even a psychic. Written to inspire other families who have lost loved ones to unsolved crimes, Who Killed My Daughter? is a powerful testament to the tenacity of a mother’s love. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Duncan including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection. -- via Goodreads

Review

This is one part true-crime saga, one part emotionally driven memoir, and one part narrative nonfiction about psychic phenomena. Being so many disparate things you might not expect a cohesive whole, you would be forgiven for thinking that, because you wouldn't be wrong. It's not entirely cohesive. Overall, it's written in a very narrative style and sometimes you can forget you're not reading one of Duncan's YA suspense novels. But this is very much nonfiction, it's about the as still unsolved murder of Lois Duncan's youngest daughter. A situation very much, as Duncan herself points out, that could have been directly ripped from the pages of one of her works. Indeed there are some eerie precognitive moments in some of her earlier works that are creepily correlated to circumstances surrounding Kait' murder.

Those parts of the book where Duncan is talking directly about the facts of the case, or where you get to experience the pure raw emotion of her as a mourning mother are the best parts of the book. And then she completely breaks the flow by inserting long, rambling, really hard to follow transcripts from a psychic. Yes, a psychic, Duncan and her family consulted with more than one psychic when they weren't getting anywhere with the police. Now, I am not a sceptic, never have been, but these readings drove me nuts. One of the psychics they consulted did something called automatic writing and the transcripts from those automatic writing sessions are the ones that are included in their entirety. They are so hard to read and follow that they really detracted from the book for me. 

The investigation itself was so completely botched you can't help but be completely enraged about it. You can very much sympathise with what Duncan and her family went through and why they did the things they did. Now that's granted that one of the biggest criticisms about this book is that it is one-sided so you do need to consider that. From what I've read the sequel Duncan wrote later delved more into actual evidence from the investigation but I haven't read that yet so I really can't comment on that claim. Just be aware that this book doesn't have an ending, like the leads in the case it just kind of peters out.

If you're a fan of Lois Duncan's fiction then this will be a fascinating and truly emotional read for you. If you're interested in a look at psychic work in a police investigation this could be a good choice. If you're looking for a hard-hitting true crime story then this is not what you're after. And definitely, don't read it if you don't like books that don't have an ending.

Overall Rating

3.5 bolts