Happy August! 😀 Yesterday, August 1st, I got married! And as this post is published, I’ll be on a plane to Hawaii for honeymoon! Therefore, this marks the beginning of my pre-written posts. I don’t know how my internet will be, so please forgive me if replies are delayed by a couple of weeks.
Onto the post though – this month, I actually read a decent bit!
Books
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
I finally did it, I finally read this book… and honestly I was very underwhelmed. I’m going to commit treason here and say the movies are far far superior to the books. I’m going to forgive the fact that there are zero female characters by falling back on the ‘it’s a dated book’ excuse… but yeesh, for all the talk I’ve heard about Tolkien’s detail and flowery writing, I didn’t see any of that, man. If anything, I feel like there wasn’t enough detail. Events went way too fast, there was a lot of hand-waving… it was really disappointing.
Case in point (mild spoiler): At one point, they were chased out of a cave, climbed a tree, threw some rocks (or potatoes or something) and then were swept away by giant birds. The writing more or was written exactly how I wrote it, plus maybe 100 words. It was a very quick scene that should have been way longer. And to top it off, the whole birds thing has something like ‘Birds that Galdalf saved that one time swooped in and saved them all’. What? This is classic writing? This is considered a hallmark? WHAT?
It was not great. 2.5/5 stars
Orange: The Complete Collection vol 1 by Ichigo Takano
This one, unlike the previous book I just mentioned, was a pleasant surprise. I picked this up on a whim because I had been seeing it around and found myself rather enjoying it. Aside from the goofy naming convention (The Complete Collection vol 1, what?) this manga was a breath of fresh air! It was cute and fluffy and light-hearted… and kinda grim at the same time. It was a weird combination and I really dug it.
4/5 stars
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
This one… was an interesting read. Some parts of I really really liked. Other parts I didn’t. I think my main biff with this story was the whole ten-minute explanation of all the magical realism elements at the very end. It was like ‘Wow wow wow all this neat stuff happened! I wonder how it was possible!” “Oh, it was totes this”. The End.
It was a lot of build up for such a big let down and it really made me dislike the book as a whole if that’s the explanation they decided to go with without taking the time to fully set it up. Yikes. I mean, the plot of this book is really good – that I really liked. The exposition of it was not great. I wrote a review on it if you’d like to know my full thoughts.
3.5/5 stars
Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb
This book, this book killed me. I adored this book, mostly because it was a wonderful ending to a three-book series. Endings are make or break and this book made it so, so bad. It was wonderful!
I have a full review on this one written up and scheduled for next week, so I won’t go into more detail here. But gah ❤ It was so great. 😀
4.5/5 stars
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r/Fantasy Bingo 2017
I’m the template provided by Millenium_Dodo here, which you can as well if you’re participating. 😀
LOOK I made a bingo!! 😀
Blog Activity
11 posts created
- One Wrap Up
- One Currently Reading
- Top 5 Wednesdays
- One Tag
- One haul
- One Monthly Recs
- One readathon post
- One blabber
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
A regular posting schedule (plus or minus some) works wonders, yo.
Reading Goals
Progress on 17 in 2017:
- A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin – Complete!
- The Kiss of Deception by Mary E Pearson – Complete!
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss – Currently Reading
- Caliban’s War by James S. A. Corey
- The Traitor Comorant Baru by Seth Dickinson – Complete!
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
- The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
- Weaveworld by Clive Barker – Complete!
- Queen of Shadows by Sarah J Maas
- Dragon Wing by Margaret Weis
- 14 by Peter Clines
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki – Complete!
- The Edge of the World by Kevin J Anderson
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (illustrated) by J. K. Rowling – Currently Reading
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (illustrated) by J. K. Rowling
Progress on 2017 Reading Goals:
Complete a Goodreads Reading Challenge of 50 Books: 33/50
Count how many books I own and determine how many are not yet read – Was complete, need to do again.
Discard books I don’t like or lose interest in reading – None
Read all of the books on my 17 in 2017 list – 5(7)/17
And that’s it! Happy reading! :”D
Embuhleeliest 
Great wrap up 🙂 out of curiosity, how does it take make these wrap up lists? They look great!
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The first time I wrote it, about an hour or so. Now though I just copy and paste the skeleton and update it to this month. So now it takes maybe 30 min depending on how much I write about each book.
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Oh ok. I’m always looking for ideas on how to strengthen my blog. I’m always learning stuff lol
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Welp, skeletons are definitely your friend, haha
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