Hello everyone! Yes, I am still alive, and now I have wi-fi again after moving into my new home and not having it for a while. Sorry I have been unable to comment on everyone else’s blogs lately; I hope I get to remedy that soon. I just wanted to do a brief post where I share a few things I’ve read lately and some quick thoughts on them.
Books I read in April and May any my brief thoughts on each:
- Truthwitch by Susan Dennard: Interesting fantasy with complex characters and relationships. Wish there had been a glossary, though I think I mostly kept up with/figured out the terms.
- When We Collided by Emery Lord: An incredibly hard read in terms of content. NOT a love story like I was expecting, not really. But it is well-written.
- On The Loose by Jenny B. Jones: A cute follow-up to In-Between, though the romance was a little weak considering the guy she ends up with in the end spends most of the book dating someone else but obviously somewhat interested in her. Also, the next books in the series don’t seem to go in the direction I want the story to go so I’m afraid I’m stopping here.
- Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter: Cute and fun, and a little stronger than the first Gallagher Girl book, I felt. I’m looking forward to reading book three.
- The Unbound by Victoria Schwab: This was a solid follow-up to The Archived, with enough closure for satisfaction, but a definite possibility for more. I appreciated Wesley more in this book, though I also really liked Cash.
- The Rose and the Dagger by Renee Ahdieh: A pretty good conclusion to the duology. What happened at the end really surprised me, and it resolved in a clever way. However, for some reason the epilogue made the ending a little weaker for me. It would have been fine without.
- Looking for Lovely by Annie F. Downs: This one didn’t capture my heart quite as much as her book Let’s All Be Brave that I read last year, but still a great and very worthwhile read. I’m very glad I got to devour this one while on vacation.
- Love, Lies and Spies by Cindy Anstey: This one was cute and fun, but the writing could have been a little stronger. Another round of revisions or two could have made this one really great, because I loved the potential of a Jane Austen-esque story with spies. Spencer was fabulous.
- The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord: This was a reread of one of my favorite books last year, and seriously, nothing has lived up to it yet this year. I just adore it from beginning to end. Such a me book.
What have you been reading lately?
Yay Truthwitch! I hope there will be more explanation for the worldbuilding aspect in the next book – there’s so much going on with it. I haven’t been by your blog in awhile – congrats on the new house! It’s wonderful that you are settling in and finding a little time to blog. 🙂
Well there hasn’t been reason to come by the blog for over a month, but yes, I’m glad to be getting settled in as well!
Hope you are happy in your new house! I would have loved a glossary in Truthwitch too as I felt the world-builidng was overly complicated and made more so by all the terminology I had to get my head around. Can’t wait to read The Rose and the Dagger soon to see how it all winds up.
Sorry that you didn’t enjoy Truthwitch more, Trish! We really missed hearing your thoughts about it at our meeting too.
Ohhhh that cover for Looking for Lovely is GORGEOUS. Pity it didn’t have such a good story?! AND EEEP I’M SO GLAD YOU LOVED THE ROSE AND THE DAGGER! 😀 I’m currently procrastinating it because I don’t want it to end. XD I know, I know, I’m so weird. But I’m glad mostly all the reviews are saying it’s a good and satisfying ending. 😀 And I also ahve The Archived to read and I can’t wait to devour it! VE SCHWAB IS SO AMAZING OMG.
Thanks for stopping by @ Paper Fury!
Looking for Lovely is actually non-fiction, a memoir of sorts, and I did enjoy it, it’s just the author’s last book just really, REALLY spoke to me big time, and this wasn’t quite the same for me.
I hope your move went well! Moves are SO time consuming, and sometimes I know it feels like the packing/unpacking will never end! It looks like you were able to get to some really great reads during your hiatus at least! I still haven’t picked up my copy of Truthwitch despite having bought in in January…
Thank you, it did! It was hectic but we’re getting settled! 🙂
how funny, I moved at the end of May also. I’m glad you’ve settled in and definitely that you have wifi again 🙂
That was one of the things I noticed about Truthwitch – she throws you into the story and it’s hard to figure out what’s a noun and what’s an adjective and keep things straight when there are two names for the same thing at times. By the end I’m pretty sure I had it all straightened out but for a while there, there was a word she was using and I had no idea it was Merik’s last name (oops).
Hope you’ve gotten settled into your new place too!