I’m really excited about this blog and I’d love if people would check it out 😊Even though pride month is over, pride should never end, so I should be reading and reviewing a lot of LGBT+ books in the coming weeks 🌈
This month was my best reading month ever! I participated in 3 read-a-thons: RYBSAT, Tome Topple, and Dewey’s 24-Hour. In total, over the course of the month, I read nineteen books!! I’m super proud of that. I read 16 physical books, 2 ebooks, and 1 audiobook. The full list of books I read is below the cut, along with my ratings for each book and link to my reviews.
Sorry my pictures are so low quality. I only had artificial light and my phone camera when I took them. I’m gonna try to step up my photography game in May.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
I read this for RYBSAT and alternated between reading the physical book and listening to the audiobook. 4.5/5 stars
Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
Read for RYBSAT. 3.5/5 stars
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Read for RYBSAT. Loved it. 5/5 stars
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
I’ve had this on my kindle since last August and I finally got around to finishing it. 3.5/5 stars
How To Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
I listened to this one on audiobook, specifically because David Tennant is the voice actor who narrates the book. I plan on listening to rest of the series because Tennant’s voice was made for reading books. 5/5 stars
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Read for RYBSAT and Tome Topple. Read on my kindle while simultaneously listening to the audiobook. 4.5/5 stars
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot By the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
Read for RYBSAT. My first non-fiction read of the year. 4/5 stars
The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1) by Lemony Snicket
4.5/5 stars
Inkheart (Inkworld #1) by Cornelia Funke
Read for Tome Topple. 4.5/5 stars
Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle #1) by Christopher Paolini
Read for Tome Topple. Absolutely loved it. 5/5 stars
The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events #2) by Lemony Snicket
4/5 stars
Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown
My grandma bought me this book a couple years ago and I’ve been meaning to read it ever since. 4/5 stars
Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
Received in an Uppercase Box subscription. 4/5 stars
The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events #3) by Lemony Snicket
5/5 stars
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Read for the Austentatious book club. A new favorite. 5/5 stars
George by Alex Gino
Read for Dewey’s 24 Hour read-a-thon. 5/5 stars
The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events #4) by Lemony Snicket
Read for Dewey’s. 5/5 stars
10 Bits of My Brain by Stuart Jaffe
Read for Dewey’s 3.5/5 stars
The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles #1) by Rick Riodan
I finished a total of six books during this read-a-thon and started two others. I’m quite proud of that, actually! If you can’t tell, I have my bookshelves arranged in rainbow order :) In order that I finished the books, I read:
Mosquitoland by David Arnold
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Snow Flower and The Secret Fan by Lisa See
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (audiobook version)
Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
I started but haven’t finished:
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
I plan to finish this one today
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
Reviews for books I finished in March are here. Reviews for books I finished in April will be included in my April wrap-up at the end of the month or you can check out my goodreads!
I did not know what to do. Everything was a mess. I was in love with my two best friends, and I was making them both miserable at the same time. And there were big horny bugs up above us that were eating the whole planet.
I'm reading Grasshopper Jungle and I'm like 70 pages in. This is the weirdest book I've read and I'm not even a third of the way through it. Also, I don't think in my life I've read the word horny as much as I have since I started this book.
This is my new book blog side blog and I need some blogs to follow! I post reviews, wrap-ups, reblog book aesthetics and photos, etc. If you reblog this, I'll check out your blog! If I decide to follow you it'll be from my personal @parkjimindotjpg
I finished a total of eight books this month, which, after a year of barely reading, I’d say is really good. Three of these books I read for the RYBSAT readathon, and I plan to do a separate wrap-up for that as well once it’s over. Click the read more to view the list of books I read in order of when I read them. Links to my reviews are included.
Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman
A great YA Western with a touch of mystery thrown in. This book got me back into reading after a year long reading slump, which goes to show how much I liked it. 4/5 stars
The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire #1) by Craig Johnson
I was of course inspired by the TV show Longmire to read this book, and although it was nothing like the show, I truly enjoyed it. It’s slow-paced but that’s what I wanted after reading the fast-paced Vengeance Road. I’m looking forward to continuing this series. 4/5 stars
A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire #3) by George R.R. Martin
I started this book over a year ago and had a little less than half the book left when I picked it up again this month. There are a lot of point of views in this book that I didn’t like which is why it took me so long to read. It really started picking up at the end and I ended up really loving it. 4/5 stars
A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire #4) by George R.R. Martin
I tore through this book in about a week, so needless to say I loved it. It left me wanting more of the series, but at the same time, I didn’t want it to end. 5/5 stars
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
I was kind of in the middle with this book. There were some poems I absolutely loved, and some that I really didn’t. It was a nice quick read. 3/5 stars
Mosquitoland by David Arnold
I bought this book with know prior knowledge of it, only knowing from the synopsis that it’s a road-trip book. I loved it. It’s made my list of favortie books. I don’t often like contemporaries, but Mosquitoland isn’t like most contemporaries, in my opinion. 5/5 stars
The Goose Girl (The Books of Bayern #1) by Shannon Hale
Mostly I felt kind of “meh” about this book. I liked it but it didn’t stand out to me or leave me thinking or anything like that. The romance was actually pretty great, better than many young adult novels, and I liked the friendships that developed throughout. 3.5/5 stars
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
I really didn’t expect to love this book as much I did. It wasn’t what I expected and it ended up being very educational in ways I didn’t anticipate. It left me thinking, which to me is always a sign of a powerful book. 4.5/5 stars
Hello PoorQuentyn here's the deal: do you think Brienne is working with Stoneheart against Jaime to kill him? What do you think Stoneheart wants by Jaime, despite the obvious, revenge?
Brienne pretty clearly offered to bring Jaime to Stoneheart in order to save Pod and Hyle, but there’s no way she actually wants Jaime dead. After all, she tried to persuade Stoneheart to give up revenge against him. I imagine she has an escape plan, or will come up with one alongside Jaime, or they’ll just seize an opportunity to try and cut their way free. As for Stoneheart’s motivations, yeah, she’s after revenge. That’s her whole thing at this point:
“She wants her son alive, or the men who killed him dead,” said the big man. “She wants to feed the crows, like they did at the Red Wedding. Freys and Boltons, aye. We’ll give her those, as many as she likes. All she asks from you is Jaime Lannister.”
I wonder if they might be aided by the Brotherhood itself, or at least some subset of it. Thoros seems to make pretty clear that he’s not entirely thrilled with the revenge direction that the (broken) Brotherhood has taken:
“We were king’s men when we began,” the man told her, “but king’s men must have a king, and we have none. We were brothers too, but now our brotherhood is broken. I do not know who we are, if truth be told, nor where we might be going. I only know the road is dark. The fires have not shown me what lies at its end.”
…and then…
“My lady,” Thoros said, “I do not doubt that kindness and mercy and forgiveness can still be found somewhere in these Seven Kingdoms, but do not look for them here. This is a cave, not a temple. When men must live like rats in the dark beneath the earth, they soon run out of pity, as they do of milk and honey.”
“And justice? Can that be found in caves?”
“Justice.” Thoros smiled wanly. “I remember justice. It had a pleasant taste. Justice was what we were about when Beric led us, or so we told ourselves. We were king’s men, knights, and heroes … but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all.”
“Are you saying you are monsters?”
“I am saying we are human. You are not the only one with wounds, Lady Brienne. Some of my brothers were good men when this began. Some were … less good, shall we say? Though there are those who say it does not matter how a man begins, but only how he ends. I suppose it is the same for women.” The priest got to his feet. “Our time together is at an end, I fear. I hear my brothers coming. Our lady sends for you.”
To me, it seems as though Thoros isn’t exactly thrilled with his current situation. He speaks as one that has resigned himself to his current predicament and the inability to escape it. Perhaps his “end” comes in assisting Brienne and Jaime in their escape from Stoneheart.
*nod* I also think that Thoros will be involved in Brienne and Jaime’s escape. (And hopefully Pod and Hyle too.) But there are other possibilities:
the subset of the Brotherhood that already left when Beric died – that is, Edric Dayne and Anguy and others – will be the ones to help (that is, if Edric hasn’t gone home to get involved in the Darkstar-Obara-Areo & Dawn plot)
something very weird will happen, as the Brotherhood’s cave is full of weirwood roots (that is, Bran putting his hand in, like he will with Theon – because Bran dealing with the men who’ve hurt him (in a strangely non-vengeful way) is a pretty important subplot)
a combination of all of the above?
But yeah, Thoros would still be my biggest bet, for everything @unsungvaliance says above.
ya lit meme // Ten series or books (3/10) ➣ The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
But had the queen ever told a nursery story to a room of captivated listeners? Or handled fifty head of geese? Ani smiled at the thought, and then surprised herself by feeling proud.
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