The Bookish Heavenly Virtue Tag

Thank you so much to @hardcoverhaven for tagging me! It’s been so long since I’ve done one and I forgot how fun they were. This is a great opportunity to showcase some books I’ve been reading in this strange year 2020.

Chastity

Which books do you wish you had never read?

The Kiss Thief by LJ Shen

Look, when I started this book, I didn’t think it was going to the best thing ever to hit the romance genre. I was just looking for a good time and I was sort of willing to forgive the alpha jealousy personality of the male hero but then THAT scene came on and I kept asking myself, what is happening?? There were so problematic things happening, and then all of a sudden all the little prior things in the story I ignored for the sake of an entertaining story became glaringly problematic and I DNFed the book right then and there.

TEMPERANCE

Which book/series did you find so good that you didn’t want to read it all at once and you read it in doses just to make the pleasure last longer?

Third Shift Society by Meredith Moriarty

This is actually a webcomic that’s been nominated by the Eisner award for best webtoon. It’s about a woman who teams up with a pumpkin man to fight supernatural mysteries in their town together. I tried to pace myself but ended up reading the whole thing in a few hours. I kind of fell in love with its cheesiness and just reveled in the sheer fun. It just reminded me of the days when I would ship couples endlessly on Tumblr and reblog every single interaction gif. Yeah, I’m shipping the two main characters so hard. The art style is easy to follow with its reminiscence to manga. It’s kind of like the Avatar the Last Airbender in art style, with a blend of Western and Japanese manga art style. I also like the supernatural mysteries and side characters. Can’t wait for more! You can read it free here.

CHARITY

Which book/series/author do you tirelessly push on others, telling them about it or even giving away spare copies bought for that reason?

The To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series and The Happiness Trap

A lot of my friends don’t read as much as I do so I always recommend To All the Boys because it’s easy to read quickly (plus it’s cute). I also usually recommend self help books because some of them have actually helped me. My favorite one by far would have to be The Happiness Trap. It helped me through some dark times and helped me form the values I have in my life while offering tips and tricks for how to be mindful.

DILIGENCE

Which series/author would you follow no matter what happens and how long you have to wait?

Scott Lynch – The Lies of Locke Lamora series

I feel like I’ve been waiting for the next book in the series for years now (at least 4 years now). And no sign of when he will publish it…The last book ended on such a cliffhanger too.

PATIENCE

Is there an author/book/series you’ve read that improved with time, starting out unpromising, but ultimately proving rewarding?

The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner

When I first read the first book in the series, I almost coudn’t finish it because to be frank it was kind of boring. The second book, however, was a masterpiece. Reading the second book was like seeing the real Mona Lisa for the first time after seeing a toddler’s depiction of it. This analogy sucks but you get the point. The rest of the series continued to be like that too, only getting richer and more complex with every book. I cannot wait for the last book and will be rereading the series before then.

KINDNESS

Which fictional character would you consider your role-model in the hassle of everyday life?

Kestrel from The Winner’s Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski

Honestly, Kestrel is a queen. I just admire her cunning and intellect and the ways that she sticks to her principles. If you’ve read the story, (without spoilers for nonreaders), you’ll know that she was born to believe in war and conquering other lands. It was a way of life but she grew to develop her own sense of self and the journey was beautiful to read about. This trilogy in general is one of the most underrated YA fantasy series.

HUMILITY

Which author/book/series do you find most underrated?

The Winner’s Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski March series by John Lewis

I wanted to say The Winner’s Trilogy but I mention that series a lot so I’ll say the March graphic novel series. It follows the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. I think why I like this series so much is that it shows the nuances of the Civil Rights Movement rather than showing it was a (literally) black and white issue but more of a gray progression to success. You get an appreciation for how difficult it is to have a movement like the Civil Rights movement, feminist movement etc. despite social stigma and uncertainty of whether it was going to be even successful.

I tag:

Alicia @AKernelofNonsense (when she is back from hiatus)

Rachel @LifeofaFemaleBibliophile

And anyone else who wants to do it!

September 2016 Wrap Up

September was a great reading month considering all the stress I went through (look forward to my stressful September favorites coming your way). Although the consistency of my blog posts definitely suffered. You really can’t have everything can you? Anyways, I read 5 books, a play and 3 graphic novels, so let’s discuss!

The first thing I read I read this month was a really short play called Trifles by Susan Glaspell

Published in 1916 as a hallmark of feminist playwriting, Trifles follows the investigation of Mr. Wright, a farmer who had recently been found dead with a rope around his neck. His wife’s been sent to jail being the primary suspect. But did she really do it and if so, why? This play was beautiful. I loved it and I highly recommend. The entire play happens in one room with Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters trying to figure out why Mrs. Wright would have wanted to murder her husband. The men, seemingly busy finding clues upstairs, interrupts them sporadically throughout the play. It explores the oftentimes dismissal of women and the things they talk and notice about as “trifles”. I loved the unexpected buildup of tension and the ultimate reveal.

We Should Hang Out Sometimes: Embarassingly, A True Story by Josh Sundquist

WSHOS is a funny and endearing YA contemporary memoir that follows Josh Sundquist as he navigates love and life. Each chapter follows one particular girl that Josh became involved with during his teen years and grapples with his ongoing insecurity of having only one leg. I really like the little graphs that litter the book. They added a humorous touch to the book.  And I love his humor. It’s a combination of light sarcasm and truthful but hilarious honesty. It’s a quick fun read but one I probably won’t reread.

same..except lower the bar for math and change “girls” to “boys”

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

The strength of Burial Rites lies in its acute sense of time and place. I felt like I was truly in the living room of a 19th century Icelandic home. I really liked the otherworldly descriptions of atmosphere and inner thought and I loved the beginning half-ish of this book where there was a deep sense of mystery and character and immersion into the story. It felt like someone was telling me a story by the fireplace while it was raining outside. But I was unsatisfied with the latter half of the book. I felt all that buildup of the mystery ended up not being as mysterious as it led me to believe and the main character was definitely not as ambiguous as the story led me to believe. The rest of the characters that had such great buildup just fell so flat, like they climbed up a cliff and just fell down with no warning (figuratively). And the end to all the mystery was not rewarding and soap operay. It just had so much more potential. But if you’re willing to give it a try, the fall months are perfect for reading this.

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

I’m planning on doing a full series review on this series when I’m finished with it. I’m currently on the sequel and will be reading the third and fourth book throughout the rest of the year so look forward to that post.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Kitchen has just the right amount of sentimental and philosophical writing that I love. As with a lot of Japanese literature I’ve read, it’s focused a lot on character’s inner thoughts and it’s such a soothing meditation on death and grief. Kitchen is composed of two novellas about two different people. I feel like both are really similar so I didn’t find them distinctive.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

Americanah is a novel on race, immigration, gender, and identity.
And she makes some brilliant points on race and the daily integration of race in everyday lives but the problem is its characters felt like a platform to express these commentaries. I felt like this could have been written as an essay collection and have been more effective. I also thought sometimes it had a wish fulfillment kind of tone to it and some instances of author insertion which kind of took away from the story for me. I even researched the author after and she had a lot similarities to Ifemelu who was the main character of the book. But this book is very well-received and the writing is solid so I’ll leave it up to you.

Graphic Novels

Oyster War by Ben Towle

Oyster War is drawn in your typical old-fashioned comic book style. The story itself is also old-fashioned in your typical swashbuckling adventure type of story. I love the artwork and the story was simple and enjoyable but nothing more than that.

Monster Perfect Edition 4&5 by Naoki Urasawa

I’m going to be bold here and say that this is one of the best manga series I’ve ever read. Honestly the fact that I’m still continuing should tell you something about it since I’m notorious for not finishing series. It just builds tension so perfectly and the cat-and-mouse chase finds a way to be refreshing even after so many volumes (unlike Deathnote). Highly recommend and I can’t wait to read the rest. And omigosh I just realized as I was putting the pictures together that they make a bigger picture! How cool is that?

The Gigantic Beard that was Evil by Stephen Collins

This graphic novel will literally only take you at most half an hour to read. It’s drawn all in black and white and follows a man who lives in a world where everything is tidy and neat. One day, his beard starts growing at an exponentially fast rate and he can’t shear it, cut it; he can’t get rid it. And the story escalates from there. This story is kind of like the equivalent of a Pixar short film. It’s quirky and eccentric with a feel-good message and a story that you don’t really know where it’s going till the end.

DNF

Magic for beginners by Kelly Link

his short story collection is like the book equivalent of films like Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Structurally and content wise, they combine fantasy and reality together in a way that’s suppose to be treated as normal. They’re very imaginative and offbeat but you always get the sense that the offbeat nature is hiding a purpose but you also always feel a sort of disconnect to it. There are some good stories in here but the other ones are just not to my preference.

 

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

I really wished I had liked this more. It has such a unique main character who is really logical and is an accountant of all things. It’s also unique in that it’s a fantasy that focuses on the economics of war and how to fight a war using money. There’s also a lot of social commentary in here about sexual orientation.There’s also apparently a killer romance between Baru herself and another noblewoman of sorts but the thing is I think the writing is really dry and we do not spend enough time with the characters’ backstory in order to warrant me feeling anything for their motivations so I just stopped reading a third of the way through.

For October, I was planning on doing a spooky reads theme but I realized there was literally no horror books that piqued my interest so I’m going to watch horror movies instead.

What were your favorite books in September? Not so great books? And what are you mostly looking forward to in October? For me, it’s the one and only Crooked Kingdom which I’m currently reading and loving.