Friday, December 09, 2011

12 in 12 Reading Challenge

0 comments Posted by Rhinoa at 2:19 PM

I've been thinking about this challenge for a little while and what I want to do about joining. It's hosted at LibraryThing here and I really like that you can pretty much do whatever you want structure wise. I looked at a lot of interesting challenges and figured the best thing to do would be combine all of them in this one sort of...! What I am proposing to do is read 12 books in each of the following categories :

1. Vampires
2. Werewolves
3. Witches/Sorceresses
4. Faeries/Fair Folk
5. Wizards/Mages/Magician's
6. Other Shapeshifters excluding Werewolves
7. Angels and Demons
8. Steampunk
9. Ghosts and Spirits
10. Humans with Special Powers e.g. telekinesis, mind reading etc
11. Psychics/Clairevoyants/Mediums
12. Other Supernatural eg Succubus/Incubus etc

The twist will be that a single book can fit into more than one category. For example a Sookie Stackhouse book could potentially fit into 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 and 12. Some books will only fit one category, but others could potentially be all 12. This means I will be reading anywhere between 12 and 144 books. Make sense? I am also not going to pick out what I read beforehand, just see where my supernatural reading takes me.

Anyway I'm looking forward to starting in January once I finish up a couple of challenges this year. I have one more challenge book and then I'm all done for 2011.

 

Labels:

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Three Book Reviews

0 comments Posted by Rhinoa at 9:32 PM


Rating : 3.5/5
Number of Pages : 341
Series : #1 Xas
Format : Novel
Reason for Reading : Challenge with Mariel 2011


Sobran Jodeau is a vinter living in France when one year he meets an Angel named Xas. The novel begins in 1808 and follows up every year charting Sobran's life as well as those around him including his yearly visits from Xas. Sobran takes over the family vintner business making wine and selling it. On the advice of the angel he begins to proposer and his family benefit from his success. He believes the angel brings him luck. Over the course of the book we learn more about Xas and his backstory and things are not quite what Sobran first assumed.

It took me a while to get into this book and I'm not sure why. By the end though I was really drawn in to the lives of Sobran, Aurora and Xas. Some of the twists and turns in their everyday lives were too obvious. There are some murders that occur and it was simple to figure out the truth of them for instance. What was really interesting though was the relationship between the three central characters, watching them develop over the years was fascinating. It's quite charming with beautiful language.


Rating : 5.0/5
Number of Pages : 272
Format : Fantasy Novel
Reason for Reading : Mariel Challenge 2011

Pico is a librarian who is born of the winged people but for some reason he is born with none himself. The winged live alongside those with none but the two don't really mix. He falls in love with a winged girl, but she leaves him as he isn't fully one of them. He sets out on a journey to find his wings through the Book of Flying, following whispers of legends across many different lands.

I don't know where to start with this book. I completely and utterly fell in love with it. There are some uncomfortable parts, but the magic was so beautiful. The language is so immersive and I couldn't get enough of this story. I really need to get a copy of The Book of Fire.



Rating : 2.5/5
Number of Pages : 373
Series : #1 Thursday Next
Format : Science Fiction, Crime Thriller Novel
Reason for Reading : Challenge with Mariel 2011

Part crime thriller and part science fiction novel, this is the first in the Thursday Next series. It's set in a kind of alternate reality. The Crimean War never ended and the ending of Jane Eyre is different from what we know and love in our reality. Evil genius Acheron Styx starts kidnapping characters from novels and changing their stories. It beings with a Dickens character, but his main goal is to kidnap Jane Eyre. It is up to Thursday to stop him and save the literary world.

Sadly I didn't really enjoy this. I'm not a big fan of sic-fi or crime thriller which probably didn't help. I liked the premise, but not the follow through and how it came across in print. Maybe later ones in the series are better, but frankly I'm not inclined to read further.

 

Labels: , , , , ,

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)