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