I greatly deviated from my TBR for February, but I stumbled my way into some great reads and hope to soon revisit the books for which I ran out of time!
Stats:
Books read: 6
Pages read: 2,065
Favorite read: Atomic Habits! I think everyone should read it!
Completed TBR?: Not even close. I dragged my feet through Legendborn and had timed commitments for a couple ARCs, so I ran out of time for most of my list.
In order of reading:
Interior Chinatown: Kindle book. Purchased for book club and not one I would have normally chosen, but I loved the unique presentation and timely subject.
Atomic Habits: Borrowed from the library via Libby. Easily applicable and motivating! This came along at a time I greatly needed the extra push. I was so glad to learn practices I could put into use immediately.
Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse #12) and Dead Ever After (#13): Audiobooks borrowed from the library via Libby. Not my favorite books in the series, but I finally finished it!
Legendborn: Hardcover. This wasn’t my favorite “Bookstagram made me buy it” read, but I loved the lore and inclusion so I still plan on reading the sequel when it comes out.
Ms. Adventure: eBook ARC from Netgalley. I need to read more books by badass womxn scientists! This was such a fun read with elements of science, travel, and anecdotes.
We’ve only started 2021, but I think Ms. Adventure is going to be the nonfiction read to beat for me this year. Thank you so much to Netgalley, Timber Press, and Jess Phoenix for gifting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Jess Phoenix is a badass geologist and fills Ms. Adventure with stories of her research, education, travel, and life. From research in Death Valley to encountering drug cartels in Mexico onto filming a TV show that tried to incorporate more stunts than science and running for office, her life has not been boring. It’s a short read with each chapter consisting of a new site visited.
I loved Jess’ story telling style. She incorporates science that you don’t need to be a geology student to understand and takes you along on her adventures as though you were riding along with her. Her tone is casual, friendly, and frank. It was wonderful to be able to read some of her journal entries from expeditions at the ends of certain chapters, making her encounters that much more interesting. Even in these journal entries, she has a true flair for writing.
Jess’ honesty about her experiences is what I found most engaging. She talks about her journey to discover her interest in geology, something I found wholly encouraging. Whether your interest lies in geology or another field, it’s a wonderful reminder that it’s never too late to pursue your passions. She didn’t gloss over details of struggles in her work or pass off each assignment as being absolutely fascinating; in fact, she is straightforward that sometimes science can be boring, but it’s necessary to get through the boring bits to appreciate the discoveries.
I wasn’t expecting the closing chapter to involve a political discussion, as politics were never brought up earlier in the book, but I enjoyed seeing a scientist’s take on the previous election and hearing the fears many of them shared as a man took office who worked to discredit science. Some of the fears I was familiar with as I had them myself, but there were several others that hadn’t even occurred to me. It was encouraging to see a young scientist interested in pursuing a public office in an attempt to quell those fears and encourage public support of the science community. She’d absolutely have my vote!
Finally, I think Jess’ encouragement to stay curious and not let society strip you of your need to discover is crucial, words everyone can benefit from, which stayed true with the tone of the book. Ms. Adventure can be enjoyed by a wide-ranging audience, whether you’re looking for travel writing, scientific writing, adventure, or a memoir. Rarely have I been saddened to see the end of a nonfiction book. I would gladly immerse myself into more of Jess’ stories and hope this will spark a trend of more published works by womxn scientists.
A friend convinced me to revisit the Sookie Stackhouse series recently. I was going to read them all, but after discovering the audiobooks and really enjoying Johanna Parker’s portrayal of Sookie, I decided to listen to them. I’ve been a fan of Charlaine Harris for years, discovering her Sookie Stackhouse series when True Blood was being filmed then going back and reading her other series. I don’t think it’s any secret that the endings of most of her series are weak, but the stories themselves are still enjoyable. This series is no exception.
When True Blood was airing in 2008, I wanted to read the books before watching the show. I read the first one, then immediately went out and bought the box set of the first 7 books. I was hooked but didn’t read beyond the seventh book. Looking back, maybe that was the right call, minus the inconclusive ending. Around the ninth book the series begins to taper off and just drags along until the anticlimactic ending in book thirteen. You can tell when Harris suddenly lost interest in the series.
This is a stereotypical paranormal romance series: unremarkable girl is the paramour for multiple supernatural folks (vampires, a variety of were-creatures, fairies), gets herself in boatloads of trouble and needs the dashing supernaturals to rescue her. They’re fun, have minor romance scenes that don’t get terribly descriptive until about halfway through the series, lots of action, and a variety of supernatural characters. They’re cohesive within the series which I prefer over having each book able to be read individually. Perfect for the beach or if you don’t want something too involved.
I was coming off reading the Anita Blake series when I found Sookie Stackhouse; Sookie being quite tame by comparison. At the time, I thought they were quite similar; I was over the graphic descriptions in the later Anita books and wanted another bad ass human woman dealing with supernaturals. Looking back on these two series, that wasn’t the case. There’s really nothing bad ass about Sookie. She’s gentle, mild-mannered, polite, virginal, everything Anita is not, and I think in any other setting she wouldn’t stick out in the least. I often see these series listed together, but they are so different.
I found the men to be quite intriguing. Eric has quite a history that I would have loved to delve further into. Bill clings to his humanity more ardently than most vampires in literature. Sam is sweet despite his wild nature, and predictable to everyone except Sookie.
Also worth noting is the way Harris throws in nods to her other series. The characters are minor in the Sookie Stackhouse books, but it was fun seeing Lily Bard from the Shakespeare series again and revisiting Barry Bellboy who also makes an appearance in her Midnight, Texas and namedrops Sookie.
If you can get past the milquetoast protagonist and enjoy the supernatural element and action, this can be a really enjoyable series. And, hey, at least the vampires don’t sparkle.
I’m going to preface this review by stating that I don’t think Legendborn was a bad read and I do understand why it’s quite popular; however, a combination of things contributed to me feeling a little shorted by what this book could have been.
In Legendborn, Bree attends an early college program hoping to escape her feelings of loss at home after her mother’s death. Her first night on campus, she witnesses something she shouldn’t and is thrown headfirst into a campus organization straight out of Arthurian legend. She soon learns the organization may have had a hand in her mother’s death and infiltrates the group, hoping to find out what really happened. As she’s initiated, a mystical war is brewing in which she’ll have to pick a side – will she fight for the Legendborn or take them down to discover the truth?
Firstly, I love all the inclusion! Here we have a wonderfully fantastical storyline led by a black female protagonist who is joined by LGBTQ+ characters. Tracy Deonn didn’t gloss over black history and I truly appreciated the way she put us in Bree’s head as she encountered racially charged situations. Though we’ve seen other black protagonists, I have yet to read one that even comes close to touching on how this affects their day-to-day life. I would love to see this become more of a trend in literature; it can be uncomfortable, but it also helps us grow, particularly readers like me who haven’t experienced those situations first-hand. As for the LGBTQ+ characters, they had important relationships with Bree and were central to the story, so we saw they quite a bit, but nothing felt forced. They were real people who weren’t solely included for the sake of having a token LGBTQ+ character. Their genders and sexualities are part of the character development, but they aren’t questioned or explained in full, they just exist as they are which was really beautiful to see.
Speaking of character development, the characters central to the story were well-fleshed out. It was easy to understand their motivations and personalities and I loved seeing all their backstories unfold. Development is good; it’s just unfortunate they were all a bit annoying. I think the only people I didn’t find annoying were Greer and William. Bree was immature, which I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on seeing as she’s only 16, but she felt like a strange mixture of adult sexuality but childlike immaturity. Alice was selfish and, despite her intelligence, it took her ages to realize it’s ok for people to change but she still seemed to only be ok with it if they changed to suit her expectations. Sel was the stereotypical moody, bad boy with the complicated familial history. And Nick, oh Nick, willing to completely alter his life after knowing Bree for all of an hour, always having to be the knight when I would have loved to see her save herself. Greer on the other hand was mature, had a sense of humor, was honest about their situation and experiences while finding ways to combat prejudice against them.
I think a strong portion of my disappointment with Legendborn was all the hype surrounding it online. It’s very highly rated on GoodReads and I couldn’t go a day without seeing multiple posts raving about it on bookstagram. I don’t know that it’s one I would have normally gravitated towards if it weren’t for all the hype, but at no point did I feel like it lived up to it. The action sequences were solid, but they were split by long, drawn out sections of info dumping.
I love Arthurian lore, so seeing a retelling led by a BIPOC protagonist was so exciting! I’m hoping some of the hiccups were solely because Legendborn was a debut novel and will be sorted out in future books in the series because I think this storyline has amazing potential!
The Age of Republic graphic novel duo is a great place to start in Star Wars canon if you have little idea who any of the main players are or what drives them. If you’re even moderately versed in Star Wars lore, you can skip these two volumes and not miss anything.
The Heroes volume introduces us to Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala, Mace Windu, Jar Jar Binks, and Captain Rex. While I enjoyed getting a sampling of each of the main heroes, I was a little bored with the content and the illustrations didn’t wow me as they have in other Star Wars graphic novels. I did not learn anything new from this volume, but I did appreciate the articles between issues. These had interesting tidbits from the head of George Lucas, input from the actors, and examples of how roles carried over between different types of media.
I got a bit more out of the Villains volume and therefore enjoyed it a bit more as it wasn’t all information I already knew. In the Villains volume, we’re introduced to Darth Maul, Jango Fett, Count Dooku, General Grievous, and Asajj Ventress. I was introduced to villains I was only vaguely aware of, and it had the same types of articles between issues that go further into the depth of each character.
These volumes only covered the main characters of both the heroes and the villains and one or two supporting characters from each side, but it would be interesting to see another volume focused exclusively on other supporting characters that wouldn’t necessarily be considered part of the main cast but appear in several pieces of canon media.
