May 2015 TBR
All the books I’m hoping to get through in the month of May! I’m still in a Fantasy kick so I picked these books up and decided (last minute) to read at least one non-fantasy novel, so Caitlin Moran’s book is a bit out of place in this list!
Credits: Summaries and quotes taken from Goodreads.
1. The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard #1) by Scott Lynch
I’ve seen this book around a lot and I’ve been meaning to read it a few months back but I wasn’t compelled to pick it up until after I finished Mistborn book 1 by Brandon Sanderson and I decided I needed more fantasy books in my life.
Summary: Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld's most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful — and more ambitious — than Locke has yet imagined.
Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi's most trusted men — and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr's underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game — or die trying...
“Someday, Locke Lamora,” he said, “someday, you’re going to fuck up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that the sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee. And I just hope I’m still around to see it.” “Oh please,” said Locke. “It’ll never happen.”
2. The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2) by Brandon Sanderson
I’m almost finished reading this one, and it’s still as action-packed as the last book but even better.
Summary: (Warning: may spoil previous book) Stopping assassins may keep Vin’s Mistborn skills sharp, but it’s the least of her problems. Luthadel, the largest city of the former empire, doesn’t run itself, and Vin and the other members of Kelsier’s crew, who lead the revolution, must learn a whole new set of practical and political skills to help. It certainly won’t get easier with three armies – one of them composed of ferocious giants – now vying to conquer the city, and no sign of the Lord Ruler’s hidden cache of atium, the rarest and most powerful allomantic metal. As the siege of Luthadel tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.
“Elend: I kind of lost track of time… Breeze: For two hours? Elend: There were books involved.”
3. A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas
To be honest, I’m quite nervous to start this one since it’s a new release and the sequel won’t be available until next May, plus Sarah J. Maas is known for amazing and cruel cliffhangers and heart-wrenching plot lines. I think my nerves are well justified.
Summary: When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.
As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.
“I was as unburdened as a piece of dandelion fluff, and he was the wind that stirred me about the world.”
4. Cress (Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer
Having read Cinder and Scarlet, I’m eager to continue on to this book but also slightly doubtful because Winter is months away and I’m not sure I can handle another cliffhanger right now?
Summary: (Warning: may spoil previous books) In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.
Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.
When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.
“She dreamed of deep soul connections and passionate kisses and daring escapades. She was certain that he simply had to meet her, just once, and he would feel the same way. It would be like those epic love affairs that exploded into existence and burned white hot for all eternity. The type of love that time and distance and even death couldn’t separate.”
5. How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
The only non-fantasy book on this month’s list. This book was an impulse buy for me. I was feeling something funny and apparently this book is really funny.
Summary: What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn't enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and bad heroes—and build yourself. It's 1990. Johanna Morrigan, fourteen, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there's no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde—fast-talking, hard-drinking gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer. She will save her poverty-stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer—like Jo in Little Women, or the Brontës—but without the dying-young bit. By sixteen, she's smoking cigarettes, getting drunk, and working for a music paper. She's writing pornographic letters to rock stars, having all the kinds of sex with all the kinds of men, and eviscerating bands in reviews of 600 words or less. But what happens when Johanna realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw? Is a box full of records, a wall full of posters, and a head full of paperbacks enough to build a girl after all?
“Because I haven't yet learned the simplest and most important thing of all: the world is difficult, and we are all breakable. So just be kind.”