Hello! Happy December 2nd!
This month, I participated in NaNoWriMo and as a result, both my reading and my blogging took a hit. So this is gonna be a bit bare, apologies. December though, no writing. All reading. All good. <33
Books
Embassytown by China Mieville
This book was a long time coming for me to finish. It was a bit of a weird process. Originally, I began it on audiobook and didn’t care for it. I figured I’d give it a shot as a physical read since the last thing I read by Mieville (Perdido Street Station) I adored. Well, I picked up the physical book and I realized why I hadn’t like the audiobook. The prologue was missing from the audiobook. I had no context from Chapter 1 on. No wonder it was confusing. So then I read the prologue and ended up really liking it.
I actually switched back to audio after that and continued on – basically the only reading I did this month was in the car. I listen to audiobooks on my way to and from work, so I could get a bit in at least, with nanowrimo going on.
I ended up liking this book. I liked it, but didn’t love it. It had a really neat concept and the alien lifeforms were absolutely fascinating, but I think the main problem of this book was that the characters were so flat. I didn’t care about any of them. None of them, to me, really had personalities. The aliens who couldn’t even speak English or lie had more of a personality than our main character did. So reading from her POV the whole book was a tad draining.
The book overall though, was rather decent and I enjoyed it.
3.75/5 stars
Ready, Set, Novel!: A Workbook by Lindsey Grant
Now when I said I read this book, I mean I ‘read’ this book. It’s an activity book used by Nano-ers to prep for their novel. I found it okay, I guess.
I think my main complaint with this book was that it was very structured. Like you had to be writing a certain kind of book to be able to utilize the whole thing. So honestly about half of the prompts in the book went unused by me. I’d say I wasted money on the thing, but I did get some use out of it.
It prompts things about your villain. What if you don’t have a villain? It prompts a linear timeline. What if you’re not going linear? What if you’re jumping around? It prompts for one main character and some side characters. What if you have a cast of mains? You’d have to photocopy the pages and reprint them. I just… I don’t know. I feel like for someone who wants to write the traditional good guy, bad guy, beginning middle end kind of book, this would be great. This would be a perfect tool. But unfortunately my story did not fit that mold. So for me, it was okay.
3/5 stars
r/Fantasy Bingo 2017
This bingo challenge runs from March 2017 to March 2018!
I’m the template provided by Millenium_Dodo here, which you can as well if you’re participating. 😀
Blog Activity
- One Blogmas post
- One Top 5 Wednesday post
- One Currently Reading post
- One Wrap Up post
4 posts total. Like I said. Nanowrimo kinda killed me, haha.
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 – Complete!
- 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 – Complete!
- 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 – Complete!
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (illustrated) by J. K. Rowling – Complete!
- 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: 45/50
Count how many books I own and determine how many are not yet read – Complete! Currently physical TBR: 299
Discard books I don’t like or lose interest in reading – (Ongoing) 1 this month
Read all of the books on my 17 in 2017 list – 9/17 (I’m starting to think this one is a lost cause)
And that’s it! Happy reading! See you tomorrow!
Embuhleeliest 
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