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Cassandra | 52 books in 2018
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May Planned Reading* The Scar
The Will to Battle (due May 29)
* The Windup Girl (due May 29)
* The Alloy of Law (due May 29)
The Best of All Possible Worlds (due May 29)
All the Names They Used for God: Stories (pick up by May 13)
June Planned Reading
Oathbringer
Cassandra wrote: "After a truly crazy 2017, my life is finally in a stable place and I'm excited to get back to reading and chatting about books with all of you. I've missed you all so much!..."
Hey Cassandra, it's good to have you back! Glad to hear things have settled down. Hope you'll have an amazing (reading) year!!!
Thanks so much! I hope you do too. :) Can't wait to see what you read!
Cassandra wrote: "Thanks so much! I hope you do too. :) Can't wait to see what you read!"Thank you :)
Book #1Death Masks by Jim Butcher.
Rating: ★★★
Finished January 2, 2018
432 pages.
I took a little break from Jim Butcher and I'm glad I did. His books are entertaining and they're losing some of the ridiculousness. Harry is still pretty annoying, but the other characters treat him that way when needed, which makes all the difference to me. His world building is top notch and interesting. I especially like the Knights and the Denarians. Looking forward to that evolving conflict.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, Member Tasks, Marathon.
Book #2Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny.
Rating: ★★
Finished January 7, 2018
175 pages.
This book is fine. The main character has amnesia, so you learn about the world at the same time he does. That's honestly more interesting than when you actually know what's going on. I also found the tone to be very inconsistent.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, Member Tasks,
Marathon.
Good luck with your 52 must read books Cassandra! Welcome back.
Thanks, Blagica! I'm glad to be back. :)
Book #3Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished February 11, 2018
1087 pages.
I didn't have quite the "wow" factor with this book as I did with The Way of Kings, since the world isn't brand new anymore. That isn't to say this book isn't still incredible. The story is extremely compelling, with the characters growing in their own arcs. In true Sanderson fashion, a ton happens in the last 15% of the book, setting up Oathbringer to be pretty fantastic. I'm satisfied with the ending. There is enough resolution that it feels like an ending while still leaving some big questions open for the next installment.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, Member Tasks.
Book #4The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished February 15, 2018
160 pages.
The Argonauts is a book that demands a lot from the reader. Nelson's writing is hard-hitting and pithy and she's not afraid to uncover or shine a light on the extremely personal. This is interspersed with deep theory that went more than a bit over my head. If you're okay to go along with those bits, though, the narrative and emotional parts in between reinforce and ground the theory. I was hooked at the beginning, became slightly adrift in the middle, but was firmly on board again by the end.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, Member Tasks.
Book #5Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished February 18, 2018
210 pages.
I was drawn in immediately by the spooky and surreal atmosphere. The first hundred pages or so were just back-to-back "Oh, wait — oh, what?" moments which were super intriguing and spurred me onward. The mystery deepens, but around the halfway mark I realized that this book wasn't going to cough up any explanations. I suspect the rest of the trilogy is there for that. It's a little like the TV show Lost that way, but not nearly as frustrating. There is something powerful and compelling about Area X and the way VanderMeer describes it, and it's well worth the journey.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, Member Tasks.
Book #6The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.
Rating: ★★★
Finished February 25, 2018
536 pages.
This book is a bizarre combination of things. We have a murder mystery with monastic Sherlock Holmes and Watson characters. There is also a backdrop of fierce theological and political debate between the Pope and the Franciscan order. The story isn't exactly a page turner and the coolest moment of deductive Holmes-style reasoning occurs pretty early on. As I read, I wondered to myself what about the book was keeping me moving, and wondering how the very different elements were hanging together. I was somewhat disappointed by the ending, but the journey was unique.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, Member Tasks, Must-Read Books.
You are doing great! Hoping March is a smashing success for you.
Book #7Tenth of December by George Saunders.
Rating: ★★★
Finished March 8, 2018
251 pages.
George Saunders has an interesting style that I originally took to be a quirk of certain characters, and I liked it a bit less when I saw that it runs through each of the stories. The ten stories in this collection each have a vaguely surreal sense to them. There are science fiction elements, but they are used as devices that illuminate something about human character or experience.
Three jump out as particularly well crafted: "Escape from Spiderhead" about a test subject at a facility experimenting with drugs that alter mental state, "Victory Lap" about two teenagers with their own strong character quirks and a terrifying incident, and "Exhortation" which is a corporate memo encouraging employee morale despite the dangerous work.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z.
Book #8The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished March 8, 2018
639 pages.
This book is much more about the characters than it is about the plot, but Chabon manages to weave together such disparate elements as the Jewish golem, the golden age of comics, and Houdini-style escape artistry into a satisfying story. The pacing can be a little slow going along the way, but the journey is interesting. Chabon's style makes for some beautifully crafted passages, although sometimes the story would benefit from some trimming. The key part of this book, though, is the relationship you build with the characters and that they build with each other. I cried more than a little at the ending.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, Member Tasks, Must-Read Books.
Book #9Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson.
Rating: ★★★
Finished March 14, 2018
688 pages.
This book was kind of frustrating for me. I read it because it's important to the story of Oathbringer, but it wasn't a very impressive Sanderson book. The last 100 pages or so were pretty good, not in the Sanderson snowball kind of way, but just because the world become more fleshed out. Characters who had previously been on the side became more important, and that helped. Altogether, it was an interesting idea and a relatively fast read, but somewhat disappointing because I expect more from Sanderson.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, Member Tasks.
Book #10Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer.
Rating: ★★★★★
Finished March 23, 2018
365 pages.
This book is all of the payoff for the setup in Too Like the Lightning. They're really the same book, split into two pieces. No time elapses in between the books. The work as a whole is ambitious and unique and thought-provoking and a little pretentious. It's what science fiction is supposed to be, for me. It's about people and politics and identity. This future has a ton of little weird elements, but they all hang together. The author isn't afraid to make big changes if they make sense for the world and the way the characters would react, which results in a pretty crazy twist midway through the book. Highly recommended!
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar.
Book #11Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson.
Rating: ★★★
Finished March 26, 2018
272 pages.
I liked this novella way better than I expected to. Lift really annoyed me in the Words of Radiance interlude. It's reprinted here, and rereading it was a mistake. It was even more infuriating the second time around, and that colored the first several chapters of the novella. The novella itself was pretty impressive, though. Lift's dialect is dialed back a bit and you understand more about why she thinks the way she does. She ends up hearing about or touching the edges of some pretty important events and shifts in the world, which are interesting to see.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages.
A book is a dream that you hold in your hand. I hope that April brings you more five star reads.
Book #12Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished April 3, 2018
281 pages.
My favorite story in the collection is easily the first one — The Tower of Babylon. I also enjoyed one called Hell is the Absence of God where god is real and angels visit our world regularly and with explosive effects, and a man struggles to understand faith and meaning. Another great one is called Division by Zero, not because of the mathematics, but again the personal struggle. Each of the stories in this collection are varied and I didn't dislike any of them (which is high praise for a collection!)
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A Century of Books.
Book #13Six Months, Three Days, Five Others by Charlie Jane Anders.
Rating: ★★★
Finished April 20, 2018
192 pages.
The title story is excellent — well written, super interesting, and just the right length. The other stories in the collection have interesting premises more than they have well told stories.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z, Member Tasks, A Century of Books.
Book #14The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
Rating: ★★
Finished May 2, 2018
559 pages.
This story overstayed its welcome and I ended up liking it less and less by the end. The tension ratchets up but I completely stopped caring about any of the characters, so it fell flat for me. The writing is beautiful and it reminds me of the rosy gothic style of The Picture of Dorian Gray, but again, the story would have benefited from being more concise.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, A Century of Books.
Cassandra you are doing great! I hope May is a fantastic month filled with books and sunshine!
Thanks Blagica! I appreciate it. :)
Book #15Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey.
Rating: ★★★
Finished May 9, 2018
352 pages.
Short story collections are always hit or miss, but this one is more of a miss for me. There were a couple stories that were compelling (the section Algorithms of Love and Hate) and the Silo stories are great, but most of them were either uninteresting or not well executed.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z, A Century of Books.
Book #16The Scar by China Miéville.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished May 16, 2018
578 pages.
The atmosphere in The Scar is both more weird and more streamlined than Perdido Street Station. Of course, it's the same world and there are small callbacks, but I like that the events of The Scar take place almost entirely outside of New Crobuzon. Armada is super interesting, and the cast of characters is large and varied. In many ways, I liked it better but I don't think that would be true if I hadn't read Perdido first. It builds on the worldbuilding in a different but substantial way.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A Century of Books.
Book #17The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished May 23, 2018
378 pages.
This book series is super ambitious, but it keeps paying off. Ada Palmer commits 100% to her characters and the world that she's built, so that even when things are super weird, they feel like they fit. Nothing is shoehorned in — the story is constructed around the important elements. She's not afraid to make big changes or pivot the story in dramatic ways when it is the thing that fits. I was surprised that there will be a fourth book, but I like that we paused here in the pre-war intrigue for a while.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z, A Century of Books.
Book #18All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva.
Rating: ★★★★★
Finished May 24, 2018
272 pages.
It's rare that I read a short story collection and think that each story is varied and important and compelling, but that's definitely the case for this one. The stories are, for the most part, realistic with a dash (or a little more than a dash) of fabulism. Highly recommend!
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z, A Century of Books.
Book #19Authority by Jeff VanderMeer.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished May 30, 2018
341 pages.
I knew before I started reading that Authority was a different kind of second-book-in-the-trilogy book. I'd been told that it's intentionally boring, and that the grinding, painful bureaucracy was making a statement, and that it's worth getting through to Acceptance. I actually liked this book much more than I thought I would. It's slow burning, but not boring. It doesn't really solve the mysteries presented by Annihilation, but it provides valuable context about the Southern Reach. The ending goes somewhere significant, too, so there's immediate payoff in this book. Expect this one to be different than Annihilation, but just as good.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A Century of Books.
Book #20The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished June 6, 2018
332 pages.
I was both excited and skeptical for the Wax and Wayne Mistborn books. In some ways, I was immediately hooked by small details — Wax uses whiskey in his vials of metal instead of water? The entire book was high action with likable characters, which was great, but it wasn't as satisfying as the original Mistborn trilogy.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, Member Tasks, A Century of Books.
Book #21Jade City by Fonda Lee.
Rating: ★★★★★
Finished June 16, 2018
512 pages.
Jade City is one of the most exciting books I've read in a long time. The magic system — six powers fueled by jade — is extremely interesting, flexible, and consistent. The characters are unique and real, and there are a few really surprising twists that are all the more compelling because they feel like the right thing for the characters to do. The island of Kekon and the surrounding nations are a fantastic setting, with a Republic City vibe from the TV series The Legend of Korra. I'm really impressed and can't wait for the rest of the books.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A Century of Books.
Book #22The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished June 24, 2018
518 pages.
I debated between three and four stars, but I rounded up because of the novelty of a science fiction book where the characters are just people who are generally nice to other people. Some of the characters are irritating (early book Kizzy, especially) but the worldbuilding is solid. There isn't a lot of time spent on the science of sci fi, here, but the aliens all feel distinct and have important cultural differences the characters make a real effort at acknowledging and accepting. Calling this space opera is somewhat misleading because not a lot of far-reaching plot happens in this book, but the minute-to-minute character interactions are still well worth reading.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, A Century of Books.
Book #23The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka.
Rating: ★★★
Finished June 27, 2018
224 pages.
I seem to have had the opposite experience compared to most people — I liked this significantly less than I expected to. I liked the shortest stories, which were lyrical and bizarre and under five pages. I was horrified by In the Penal Colony, but it wasn't really that interesting. I was initially hooked by The Stoker, but it lost me three quarters of the way through. I was relatively unimpressed by The Metamorphosis — Kafka is saying something, but it's not that novel. It might be a little bit of the Seinfeld effect with other Kafkaesque works.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar.
Book #24The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished July 1, 2018
359 pages.
The premise of this book is interesting and Bacigalupi plays it out in excruciating detail. The science feels a little like nonsense and some of it is superstition, but it all contributes to an interesting and very real setting. Emiko is a great character from when you first meet her until you know why the book is named after her. In terms of message, I liked this one less than The Water Knife, but as a story I liked it more.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z.
Hoping July is full of page turning and falling in love with a new book!
Book #25Death's End by Liu Cixin.
Rating: ★★★
Finished July 10, 2018
604 pages.
What a weird book. Every book in this trilogy is different than the one before in a pretty significant way. The first book starts out as "hard sci fi with aliens" and in the second book everything is the worst all the time. In the third book, there is tons of science fantasy and space magic, but the author still attempts to describe it as if it were hard sci fi. There was a also lot of weird sexism and focus on femininity in this book, which made me a little uncomfortable. I wouldn't say I was ever bored while reading it, but I don't know that I'd recommend it either.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z, Light Spell Out.
Book #26Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson.
Rating: ★★★★★
Finished August 21, 2018
1,243 pages.
It took me forever to read this book, but it wasn't boring or a slog to get through. So much happens in this book. There are several really wonderful and deep character arcs, and you learn so much about the world of Roshar. So many questions are answered in this book, but it feels like there's still so much more to learn and experience in the upcoming books. Dalinar is an amazing character and I'm glad that he was the central person of this volume.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, A-Z.
Book #27The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins.
Rating: ★★★★
Finished August, 21, 2018
388 pages.
This book was way weirder and darker than I expected. It's horror as much as it is fantasy. The pace is so quick to the point of being ridiculous at times, but that sort of added to the feeling of how powerful and complex Father and his librarians are. I think this is a book where the less you know about it, the better, so I'll leave it there.
Challenges: Let's Turn Pages, TBR Jar, A-Z
2025 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
The Library at Mount Char (other topics)Oathbringer (other topics)
Death's End (other topics)
The Windup Girl (other topics)
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Scott Hawkins (other topics)Brandon Sanderson (other topics)
Liu Cixin (other topics)
Paolo Bacigalupi (other topics)
Franz Kafka (other topics)
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This year, I've planned a more manageable goal in 52 books, but there are two parts to it:
1. I would like to read at least 52 books this year.
2. I would like to read the specific 52 books that I'm most excited about, including some I have put off for too long. I'll absolutely read other books along the way, since I'll get recommendations and squirrel off, so this part is basically "I'd like to read however many books it takes to get to the 52 I really want to read" (or at least most of them).
I'll be happy as long as I meet the first part of the goal, with the second as a stretch. It's an experiment year. :)
I posted the 52 books list in my member corner if anyone wants to take a look.