Title says it all really. To give you all a chance to know what books I’m into – and to give me a chance to talk about some awesome books – I’m making this post.

To encourage myself to read more widely, I decided to challenge myself with a book bingo card last year. I searched for a card that seemed like fun, and came across a huge card on a blog called The Girly Geek Blog (http://the-girlygeek.blogspot.com.au/). The card in question is from Maddie’s 2015 Bookish Bingo Challenge, which can be found here; http://the-girlygeek.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/bookishbingochallenge.html

I didn’t officially sign up for the challenge though. Partly because I suffer from ‘perpetual lurker’ syndrome, and also because I wanted to make some alterations to the card. I merged the “read a book by an author with your initials” tile with the “read a book by an author with your first name’ into one tile, and added a ‘read a collection of short stories’ tile to it. I had (and still do have) a lot of unread short story collections in my book cupboard. I thought it would be better to put one of them on the list than to do two name based challenges.

This year though, Maddie has released another Bookish Bingo challenge, and I do indeed intend to sign up officially. But I’ll make a post about that later. For now though, I want to talk about all the books I read last year. Of course, I don’t want to spend all this year talking about what I read last year, so I’ll do the most mini reviews ever. Book reviews in twitter format. A bit like this: https://twitter.com/books140

 

Title: Doctor Sleep

Author: Stephen King

Book Bingo Tiles: None

Stars: 3

Sequel to The Shining, but very different from it. Still good and hard to put down, but not as scary as the shining.

 

Title: The Windup Girl

Author: Paolo Bacigalupi

Book Bingo Tiles: Book Set in the Future, Book with an Asian Main Character

Stars: 4.5

Future Thailand Water levels high no fossil fuels biotech companies control food production. Very real, very disturbing, very good.

 

Title: Gunpowder Empire

Author: Harry Turtledove

Book Bingo Tiles: Strong Sibling Relationship, Set in Parallel Universe

Stars: 3

Roman Empire never fell and has guns now. Teens from our universe live in this universe and realise how shit the past was. Lots of war.

 

Title: Maze Runner Trilogy (The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure)

Author: James Dashner

Book Bingo Tiles: Second Book in a Series

Stars: 3.5

Boys in maze working out WTF is going on. Then in ruins and labs. Page turner 3rd book loses some momentum. Movies may be better this time.

 

Title: The Seventh Miss Hatfield

Author: Anna Caltabiano

Book Bingo Tiles: Written by Someone Under 30, About Time Travel,

Stars: 3

Girl drinks from the fountain of youth. Then goes back in time on a mission and has romance. Room for improvement, but watch author.

 

Title: 2312

Author: Kim Stanley Robinson

Tiles: Set Somewhere I want to Visit, LGBT Main Character, Over 500 Pages

Stars: 5

Mobile city on Mercury, terrariums and orgies in asteroids, visit Saturn, Venus terraformed. The Solar System is awesome. Earth kinda sucks.

 

Title: Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (the poems section)

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Tiles: Poetry Book

Stars: 3

“Poe’s Poems Pwn Posers”* I don’t usually like poetry, but I got most of these. The raven was really good; lives up to the hype.

*Quoted from Epic Rap Battles of History.

 

Title: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Author: Stephen King

Tiles: A Memoir, Based on True Story

Stars: 4

Half writing guide, half Stephen King life story, all good book. King has had an interesting life, and his advice for writers is gold.

 

Title: On Basilisk Station

Author: David Weber

Tiles: Kickarse Female Heroine, Set Outside Earth

Stars: 3.5

Capt. Honor Harrington and the RMS Fearless patrol an outpost and must stop an invasion. Like if Star Trek was written by George R.R. Martin

 

Title: The Brick Bible

Author: Brendan Powell Smith

Tiles: About a Curse or Prophecy, A Retelling, Has Supernatural Powers.

Stars: 5

The Holy Bible. With Lego. Mini-figure Jesus. Buy it.

 

Title: EDGE

Author: Koji Suzuki

Tiles: Written in Different Language, One Word Title

Stars: 2.5

People disappear, the value of Pi changes, really creepy stuff happens. Good ideas, good characters, plot drags in parts. Unsatisfying end.

 

Title: Hocus Pocus

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Tiles: Found on Goodreads, Published in the Year of my Birth

Stars: 3.5

Diary entries tell story of Gene Hartke. Disjointed, dark satire, full of trivia, but good. Surprisingly addictive.

 

Title: Fear Nothing

Author: Dean Koontz

Tiles: Purple Cover, Non-Human Characters, Set in a Small Town

Stars: 4.5

Chris Snow can’t go out in sunlight. His Dad dies and he meets a talking cat and evil monkeys. Creepy, cool, funny thillar.

 

Title: Dragonflight

Author: Anne McCaffrey

Tiles: Main Character Same Age as Me, Has a Dragon

Stars: 3

Pern has dragons that teleport and time travel. Dragons fight space Threads. Good worldbuilding forgettable characters.

 

Title: Reader on the 6:27

Author: Jean-Paul Didierlaurent

Tiles: Published a Month Ago

Stars: 4.5

Guylain reads outloud on morning commute. People dont find this crazy. He finds diary of a woman and falls in love with her. Very quirky

 

Title: Flashforward

Author: Robert J. Sawyer

Tiles: Has been Turned into a TV Series

Stars: 4

The whole world blacks out for 2mins & see 20 years in the future. CERN feels responsible. Are visions true? Many questions, all answered.

 

Title: The Silver Locusts

Author: Ray Bradbury

Tiles: Short Story Collection, Colour in the Title, Has Robots

Stars: 5

Stories about Mars colonization. Humans still suck at going to new places inhabited places. ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ is chilling.

 

Title: Remnants Vol. 1

Author: K. A. Applegate

Tiles: Reread a Book from Childhood

Stars: 4.5

The world is doomed due to asteroid. Some escape on a spaceship. Jobs attempts to warn his crush. Hit me harder than it did years ago.

 

Title: Mission of Gravity

Author: Hal Clement

Tiles: Has Water on the Cover

Stars: 3

Hard SF. Catpillar sailors travel a planet with gravity 700x Earth. Cool world, problems solved by physics lessons rather than swashbuckling

 

Title: To Kill a Mockingbird

Author: Harper Lee

Tiles: Pulitzer Prize Winner, Author Shares my Initials, Modern Classic

Stars: 5

Scout lives in Racistville & dad Atticus defends an innocent black man. Hype is deserved; nice to read while not being forced to 4 school

 

Title: Ancillary Justice

Author: Ann Leckie

Tiles: n/a

Stars: 5

Breq is a ship, and is stuck in a single human body and on a revenge quest. Start of a fantastic series. Very different very awesome

 

Title: Into the River

Author: Ted Dawe

Tiles: Banned Book

Stars: 3

Suspected some fantasy at start but standard YA. Sad seeing kid fall into wrong crowd but interesting. Expected more drugs&Sex due to ban

 

Title: The History of Mr. Polly

Author: H.G. Wells

Tiles: Chosen Because of the Cover

Stars: 3.5

Lifestory of Mr. Polly. Takes a while to get into cuz Mr. Polly isn’t very likable at 1st; But Wells makes you care about him. Not SF.

 

Title: Silo Series

Author: Hugh Howey

Tiles: Self Published Book

Stars: 5

Juliette live underground. She gets banished into the poisoned outside. Awesome character & so fun to watch her stay alive. Shift bit slow.

 

Title: A Doll’s House

Author: Henrik Ibsen

Tiles: A Play

Stars: 3.5

Nora lives an ideal life, until blackmailed happens. Is she really alive? Or just going through the motions? Id watch a performance of this

 

Title: Princess Bride

Author: William Goldman

Tiles: Has Pirates

Stars: 4

Start the flamethrowers I dont think it lived up to the hype. Still awesome & fun xcept for the Buttercup’s Baby part. A goodbits fairy tale

 

Title: Death Note

Author: Tsugumi Ohba & Takashi Obata

Tiles: Comic or Graphic Novel

Stars: 4.5

Light kills by writing in notebook. Detective story where cops acknowledge supernatural stuff. Very addictive, even when you know the end.

 

Title: The Man in the High Castle

Author: Philip K. Dick

Tiles: None

Stars: 2

Nazis won WWII and split USA with Japan. Good concept; chilling mad world, but I didn’t get this books hype. Characters & plot lacking 4 me.

 

Title: The Forever War

Author: Joe Haldeman

Tiles: None

Stars: 4.5

Get drafted 4 interstellar war. Battle. Come back and everything has changed thanks to time relativity. Powerful metaphor for Vietnam War.

 

Title: Ancillary Sword (sequel to Ancillary Justice)

Author: Ann Leckie

Tiles: None

Stars: 4.5

Has middle book syndrome but still great. Breq is fleet commander & goes to Athoek. Cultures & characters feel real. Sets up last book well

 

There were a few more in there, but I think you get the picture. I’ll come back later and talk more in-depth about a few of the books here. The Ancillary Justice series I’m particularly eager to show more love to.

Until then, stay awesome people. Oh yeah, there are a couple of people reading this now. So nice to know I have an audience. Thanks guys.

~ Lauren