Books of 2017

I read 45 books in 2017! Part of me can't believe it. I've been so busy lately. I'm reading Stephen King's It right now. I had hoped to be done before the end of the year, but nope. I read a surprising amount of Romance this year. It is a genre I used to steer away from. I thoroughly enjoyed each of those stories, which I plan on posting about soon.

The best book I read this year might have been The Shadow Land. I was surprised by how much I loved it. I won it from Goodreads and I honestly don't know if I would have picked it up this year if not for the win. I loved everything about it. The characters were engaging. There was a really interesting mystery. A large part of the book took place in a time and place I wasn't very familiar with, but I ended up learning so much.

Actually, The Shadow Land might be tied with Unless for best book of the year. I loved Carol Shields' novel. I plan on reading it again. I just connected so much with the main character and felt so much for her daughter.

I read a few books from series by Sarah J. Maas. She is one of my favourite authors now. I am eagerly awaiting the next books in the Court of Thorns and Roses and Throne of Glass series.

King's Cage did not disappoint. I had been looking forward to Victoria Aveyard's latest and was beyond excited to read every word.

I started some great graphic novel series, Avengers Assemble, Wonder Woman: The New 52, Lumberjanes, and X-Men '92. I have more books from all of those series. I might take a break from It to read some of them.

The Rules of Magic and Anne of Green Gables both made me cry. 

Brave New World freaked me out.

A Study In Scarlet hooked me on Sherlock Holmes.

I'm really happy with the books I read this year. They called to different parts of me. There was love and magic, family and friends, parents and children. Looking at the image, I would read each of these books again (except one). I might read them all again sometime in the future. 

Plans for 2018? I'm going to finish the Queen of the Tearling series. I got my hands on the 2nd and 3rd books. I'll read more graphic novels. I might start the Ms. Marvel series. I might read something else from Carol Shields. I'm pretty sure I have The Stone Diaries. I will read more Romance, especially the books by Melissa Foster. I'll read some more Captain Underpants with my son. Looking again at the image, I realize I didn't ready any Margaret Atwood in 2017! Last month I got a copy of The Heart Goes Last, so that's definitely on the list too. 

So many reading plans, so little time....and it is only January 1st!

I hope everyone was happy with what they read in 2017 and that they have great books to look forward to in 2018!

Happy New Year!

King's Cage

I opened King's Cage and saw the map, and was just, wow. I loved it. I loved every bit of that image. Rather, I felt it deeply. I looked at that map and after a moment thought, Oh my God, that's going to happen. Then I read Victoria Aveyard's opening quote and just thought, yup, she thinks so too. So, that was the beginning, before the beginning. The end was powerful too. The last line of the Epilogue, the entire sequence leading up to it, was brilliant. It was perfect and I loved/hated it in the best possible way.

This might be just a smattering of thoughts, but I'll try to keep the spoilers vague. I knew something was going to happen with Evangline. Since the end of the first book, in the Bowl of Bones, her surprise, I knew she was going to be someone important, more important than just betrothed to the crown prince.

I missed Cameron. She was wonderful and a nice contrast to Mare. It was interesting to see things from her perspective. She didn't have the weight of everyone's lives on her, like Mare did, but she was feeling some weight, she was growing, becoming her own person, with her own loyalties to consider.

Oh, Cal. I thought he was going one way, but by the end, he was going the other. I knew something would happen. Something good, something bad. He wouldn't see it as bad. I really can't predict what's going to happen to Cal by the end of the series. It could really be anything. He could choose anything, anything could happen to him.

What I think happened is what happened to the Silvers in Montfort? Right? I want to know!

King's Cage was great. The first half was the sequel I expected. By the end, there were some great surprises. I am excited to see how Aveyard concludes this tumultuous series.

Glass Sword

Why did I do this to myself? Why did a read Glass Sword when the next Red Queen book isn't coming out until sometime next year? I wanted a book with excitement, adventure, complex characters and the unexpected. Because what happened at Corros was unexpected. Not all of it, but the big things. Like Elara. Like Shade. Like Mare and Cameron.

Glass Sword is definitely a book about Mare's transformation. She's not the girl, the thief, from the Stilts anymore. She's not "Lady Mareena", the princess they were trying to create. Those girls are gone. Mare is the lightning girl, the rebel, the reluctant leader, a sister, a friend, someone who is hurt and hurts others. She becomes more complex as her role becomes more complex.

As exciting and interesting as the plot is, the characters are what make this story for me. Cal has been through so much, I wonder where he will end up, especially as there are 2 more books coming. I wonder about Mare's family. There's something about her father and maybe Bree. I love Ada, she has so much potential, Cameron too. I wonder about the children, the rescued girl with her teenage guard, though maybe that was just a moment, it's one that stayed with me. Kilorn too, he grows and I'm not sure what he will become, but I think at heart, he will always be there for Mare. I have a prediction about Farley. It's kind of obvious, but I'm sure it's meant to be a surprise in book three. It will definitely change her and probably the Colonel too. There's love, hate, revenge, sacrifice, betrayal everywhere. Anyone can do anything because they're all being pushed to the edge.

I wish Victoria Aveyard would write faster, but that's silly. As much as I'm going to be itching to read the next book in the series, I want it to answer questions, to be every bit as exciting and fun (and sad) as Glass Sword.

Steel Scars

I love Farley. I really enjoyed Steel Scars and everything we learned about the Scarlet Guard, the Lakelanders, Farley, her team, and Shade. There was just so much going on. At every moment, we learned something new about the world Victoria Aveyard created in Red Queen. There's so much going on, not just in Norta, but everywhere. Steel Scars opens up the world, the possibilities for where this series can go; it's not just a Nortan problem, I think we're going to deal with Silvers and Reds on a global scale.

I enjoyed the different perspective too. What was happening with Farley when things were happening with Mare? What really sparked Farley's interest? There's so much depth to the character, more than just the leader of the Scarlet Guard in Norta. She's a friend, a soldier, a daughter. Farley is someone we can root for, someone we can connect with. She has lost and sacrificed. Steel Scars gave so much, it was exactly the story I needed to read.

Queen Song

There will definitely be some spoilers if you haven't read Red Queen. If you have read Red Queen, while you don't need to read Queen Song, it certainly makes the background of the villain more interesting and more diabolical. She was planning for a long time. She's seriously evil. She has no saving grace, just a desire for power. If she ever has a redemptive moment in a future story, I will be shocked.

Queen Song is the first of two companion stories written for the Red Queen series. Victoria Aveyard flushes out Cal's mother, the first wife of the King. Coriane is a kind girl, not made for life at court. We learn that Cal is a lot like his mother. She loves machines, building things, figuring out how they work. She finds her talents wasting away, except for when her father needs something repaired. Coriane and Julian's father is terrible. At best he ignores Coriane, at worst, he trades on her position, to the downfall the of the whole house. He uses her skills, but then scolds her for her dirty hands. Coriane is never allowed to be happy, even once she becomes queen. I also think Coriane would have like Mare.

With everything that happened, I'm left wondering what King Tiberias IV actually died from. Did Robert actually die of a broken heart? If he did, it's so sad. I wonder if he had been around, if Coriane might have lived, or at least might have figured out what was going on. Plus, her guard was definitely helping Elara, right? Basically, this story made me even more suspicious of anything that happens around Elara.

My only problem with the story is that I found the ending a bit abrupt. I knew what was going to happen, but I feel like there could have been a longer descent into madness. A confession of something between Coriane and Sara? I just felt like stuff happened right at the end, then the story was over.

Queen Song was a good story. While the focus was Coriane, I feel like we learned a lot about Elara too. She's in it for the long game. Since I picked up Cruel Crown, I'll be able to read Steel Scar soon and maybe learn what the Reds were doing while this was happening to the Silver Royals.

On The Extra Stories In A Series

I read my fair share of Young Adult Fantasy and Science-Fiction series. They're fun, entertaining and some full of interesting ideas. I ready Adult Science-Fiction and Fantasy too, but I'm going to stick to YA right now. I'm thinking about all these series that have companion short stories. Some are prequels, some are re-tellings of scenes from another character's point of view, some are about what has happened in between novels. Not all series have them, The Hunger Games, for example. It's three novels, that's it, the end. Then there is a series like Delirium with so many extra tales, that though originally published as ebooks (as all these extra tales first are), they published a paperback edition too, though most leave their companion tales as ebooks, like the Grisha trilogy.

Though there are other series that leave out the extra bits (like Uglies from Scott Westerfeld), I feel like there are more who have at least one ebook tale (like Legend, by Marie Lu) and an increasing amount of others who are publishing their multiple ebook shorts in paperback form (Shatter Me, by Taherah Mafi). Why am I thinking about this?  Recently I read Red Queen. It was great, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm itching to read Glass Sword. I own both novels. I picked them up recently (at a very good price). However, Cruel Crown was not available to purchase. If it was there, would I have purchased it? Probably, yes. While I have skipped companion ebook short stories in the past, when there is more than one, I feel more of a pull to get them. What might they reveal about the characters I love, the ones I hate, the history of the world? With Red Queen a recent read, I'm left wondering if I should buy the paperback, the two ebooks separately (a cheaper deal) or just skip the stories.

As I type this, read what I've written, I think I might be feeling companion story burn-out. Why do the majority of series (at least the ones I've read lately) have these extra bits floating around? Some of the short stories I've read have been brilliant, like Leigh Bardugo's The Witch of Duva and Little Knife. Others I've been less fond of, like alternate perspectives, where I know what's going to happen (I like a little tension or mystery in my stories), especially if they don't tell me anything I didn't already know. I have a similar problem with prequels, a story is nice, but I want to learn something. The Assassin's Blade was a collection of prequel stories done right. They had their own plots and we learned a lot about the main character and even had hints about what could happen in future novels. I guess I am just wondering, why can't their be more series like The Hunger Games? A bunch of novels I loved. I'm not saying just trilogies either. Uglies is a series of 4 books. I just... I don't know... There are just so many... I want to be able to pick up the books and read them, without having to search online to see if any other stories exist. (I have to say, I do appreciate the ones that are free.) But why can't it be bam, bam, bam, done? If I hadn't joined Goodreads, I probably would have missed most of these stories (Thanks, Goodreads, for links on where to read them too.) It's just burn-out, that's all it is. Right? Bah! Whatever.

Red Queen

I totally jumped onto the hype-train and picked up Red Queen. It was definitely worth it. I had to pull myself away more than once, so I could deal with real life (those children aren't going to feed themselves). Red Queen was just so immersive, sucking you into Mare's story, wondering along with her about Cal and Maven, thinking beyond her about Cal and Maven, Kilorn and Farley, Shade and so many more. Victoria Aveyard created a complete, full world, that you get to discover as Mare moves through it. As she moved from place to place, I realized that this wasn't just a fantasy world. There was technology present. There was a map of the world from "before". The world changed long ago. It makes you question where the Silver's abilities came from? Were they magic or mutations? Was this world fantasy or dystopian? Both? The more I think of it as dystopian, the more it makes sense, especially if I give it a post-apocalyptic, X-Men spin and imagine Magneto won dominion over the humans.

Some of the relationships in Red Queen reminded me a bit of Shadow and Bone and as with Shadow and Bone, I was hoping I was wrong. I also wonder if we'll have a death scene like at the end of Ruin and Rising, though from what I've seen, the Red Queen series will be more than three novels. The relationships, all the relationships, Mare and her family, the princes, Farley, Walsh, Lucas, were more than what they appeared on the surface. Cal and Maven too, they acted one way, but felt another, about each other and the people around them. I am excited to see how they grow and change over the series.

I know I have compared Red Queen to other stories (I could probably continue to do so). I think that with the media, books and movies, that surround us now, it's easy to draw inspiration from other stories, whether they be comics, fantasy or science-fiction, and everything else out there. It's also easy for a reader to understand a "telkie" or "magnetron's" ability because of those stories. While Aveyard does describe what the characters can do, when she says, a burner controls fire, we really don't need much more information than that to understand what is going on. Maybe Aveyard pulled from everywhere, from every fantastical story to stir together and create this intricate world.

The ending was great and I love a good ending. The novel finishes nicely. The story concludes, but with an ending that makes you excited for the next book. I wouldn't call it a cliffhanger though. It's more of an enticement. This is where Mare is heading, this is how she feels and this is what she wants to do. You want to continue the story with her, but you aren't frustrated by where Aveyard concluded this tale. I think Red Queen was amazing and the perfect read for me right now. It deserves all the hype and praise it gets.