EPBOT Readers discussion

Wow, last check in of the year! Next week will be week one, even though it'll only be the 2nd.

Hope everyone has had a good year, and a good winter holiday so far.

I'm relived to be past Christmas, no more family obligations for the year! Don't think I'm doing anything for new years, been too stressed out to even think about it.

This week I read:

For a Few Demons More -finished this up for the re-read of the Hallows

Descender, Vol. 6: The Machine War - finished up this series, i'd had this for a while but it got packed up during renovations and I only just unearthed it. I liked it, such beautiful art.

Ascender, Vol. 1: The Haunted Galaxy - new series, takes place 10 years after Descender ends. I like it overall, but it really feels like it's taking place decades if not a century or more after Descender. Stuff shifted SO dramatically, it just doesn't feel realistic on a galactic scale. Maybe a single planet would be more believable.

The Mermaid's Voice Returns in This One - loved the previous poetry book i read. Still good, but didn't love it quite as much. Might have been the format though, I got a hoopla download instead of a physical book. It was formatted so all the poems just ran together, instead of one on a page like the last one had. Was harder to read and made them kind of blur together.

The Night Circus - with all the stress of Christmas i just wanted to return to an old favorite. Just finished it up today, love the book so much.

Currently reading:

At the moment just going through some comics. Not sure if I want to do another re-read, just do comics or what. I'll see how I feel day to day, I suppose!.

QOTW:

How are you finishing out the reading year? As I mentioned I'm currently reading some comics. I might do a re read of Uprooted and/or Spinning Silver. I got The Starless Sea for christmas, but I think i might save that for the new year <3

Happy New Year, Bots! the holiday craziness has finally eased up, leading into the endless dark and cold that is January in Alaska while our daylight slowly trickles back. Sounds like the perfect month for lots of reading! This week...

Finished off The Singing Sword, with book 3 The Eagles' Brood queued up next. The POV narrator Varrus is such a rich, nuanced, and noble character, I'd forgotten that he managed to pull it off in only two books. At this point the POV now switches off to Merlyn tagging around Uther (and eventually Arthur) for the next 5 in the series.

Read The Starless Sea. I really love Morgenstern's sense of poetic prose and establishing a surreal space, taking the reader through a dreamland, and Starless Sea was amazing in that regard. I didn't think the plot or characters were as engaging as The Night Circus was though. I'm eager to hear what everyone else thought, as it was indeed a really gorgeous read!

Part way thorough Innocence. Just when this guy's apparent motives and identity couldn't get any weirder. One of his former high-profile yet deep-cover alter egos keeps getting referenced, and I'm finding more and more that I REALLY want a story about how that all unfolded. The series seems to still be underway, so here's hoping!

QOTW: Still working on Innocence, and I have the next two Terry Goodkind novellas (Hateful Things and Wasteland) queued up, so I have plenty to take me through the week and the long lead-up to midnight on New Year's Eve (we really do very little to celebrate, but we live behind a large park so it's loud fireworks all evening. Going to bed at a reasonable hour just isn't going to happen, even with earplugs).

I did not get much reading in over the holidays. We traveled to family, including my 90 year old mother so all time was spent visiting (which includes playing cards and games as much as possible when together). Playing pinochle is one way to unwind at the end of the day for us, and it a great connection and memory for my (adult) children with their grandparents. Very little reading was done.

I am still reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and still listening to The Collapsing Empire.

My husband got 4 books for Christmas that look super interesting. We do a lot of variety puzzles (Saturday WSJ) and often say out loud, "I am so impressed with someone being able to come up with this.". One of the books we both look forward to reading (and I suspect I'll read it first) is Puzzlecraft: The Ultimate Guide on How to Construct Every Kind of Puzzle (this link does not appear to be the exact book, it is a different cover, but is the same two authors).

QOTW: Just still plodding along on what I'm reading. We often do daytime activities on New Year's Eve. This year, for the 2nd year in a row, we're doing an escape room with friends and then we'll go out for a late lunch/early dinner.

Happy New Year, bots!

Since I last posted, I've read Fool's Assassin, which ended on quite the cliffhanger - but I'm resisting the temptation to forge ahead because my other group isn't reading the next one until mid-January and I get more out of it when I read and discuss with others.

I also read Educated, which was a difficult but engrossing read, and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, which is a classic I've been meaning to get to for a long time. Interesting book...written in 1995, takes place in 2026, and the way that Butler envisions what is now the very near future is fascinating. And kind of disturbing. I'll probably read the sequel fairly soon, but I wanted something light to clear my palate so now I'm on to Prudence by Gail Carriger and it's as delightful as I expected!

QOTW: no particular plans - I'll see how long it takes me to finish Prudence and see what I'm in the mood for next.