Disliking Everyone's Fav || Ready Player One DNF Review

I don't think I've ever written a review for a book that I did not finish.

After all I rarely give up on a book-- or if I do, often times my feelings are more apathetic than strong and I don't feel the need to write them down.

But, since I was /so excited/ for this book and waited /months/ to get a hold of my library's audiobook, I thought I would explain why Ready Player One did not live up to my expectations.

Ready Player One is set in the not-so-distant future where the world sucks, everyone's destitute, and there is only one escape from the horrible realities of life: the OASIS. The OASIS is a virtual reality world you log into and contains everything from malls to schools to brothels.

I love sci-fic and the premise of the book drew me in. That and the fact that Wil Wheaton was narrating it totally sealed the deal.

I was ready for a fast-paced innovative tale which featured futuristic technology. I was ready to marvel. I was ready for action.

I was not ready for complete and total boredom. However that is what Ready Player One delivered for the first seven chapters. Something finally happened in chapter 7 but we didn't have interesting conflict until later.

So. What happened during those first seven chapters, you might ask?

An entire expose of the 1980s. The plot was comprised almost entirely of a kid doing research on 1980s games, songs, fashion, etc. And what's more boring than doing that research?

Reading about it.

After seven chapters things picked up a little but the entire book remained listless and boring. When my loan ended and the audiobook disappeared off my phone I couldn't muster up any disappointment.

Finally. I thought. don't have to keep listening to that.

Let me say that Wil Wheaton is my fav and he did a great job at narrating-- the issue lies in the complete lack of an engaging plot. The author springboarded off other games and technology and the book features very little of his own originality.

All in all? Skip the lines and try another sci-fic book (such as Binti or Conservation of Shadows or Long Way to a Small Angry Planet).

Let me know-- have you read Ready Player One? Did you, like everyone else it seems, love it??

Traveling through time Austen-style || The Jane Austen Project

I'm a sucker for time travel novels. I love watching characters get thrown into a completely new world; struggling to understand how daily life actually occurred in a time so drastically different than their own.

So when I heard of The Jane Austen Project, a novel that promised to combine both Jane Austen and time travel, I knew I had to give it a try.

The Jane Austen Project is an interesting, fast paced novel about two people who are sent back in time with one goal: to meet Jane Austen. In the present time, a unfinished novel of hers was just discovered, and the time travelers are tasked with the difficult prospect of befriending Jane Austen and discovering how the book ended.


The narration was precise and almost clinical at times-- and seeing how the narrator was a doctor, that made sense. It was interesting to watch the characters struggle to blend in, worrying that with any misstep they would be exposed as frauds.

The way the author dealt with the subject every time traveler writer fears-- paradoxes-- was...interesting but not really logical. The way she dealt with the possibility of paradoxes was a paradox in and of itself.

But that didn't really detract from the book itself. Overall, the novel was a fun, easy read perfect for fans of Jane Austen. 

What about you? Have you ever read The Jane Austen Project? 

5 Star Reads I Found Through Other Blogs

Today I thought I would talk about one of the things I love most about book blogging: discovering amazing reads through other blogs. When I first started this blog I expected mainly to shout my love of literature into the void and...well that would be that. However literally from day one I found myself immersed in this vibrant, active community of other book lovers and I couldn't be happier about that.

So without further ado, here are five 5 star books I found from reading other people's blogs!

What: Long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers

Where: Greg's Book Haven

Why: This amazing sci-fic novel blew me away. I love how the author imagined all the complexities of the interaction between various alien cultures. This is also, coincidently, perhaps the only book I've ever convinced my friends IRL to give a go (and they loved it as much as I did!).












What: Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Where: I Wish I Lived in a Library (I think?)

Why: This lyrical book is everything I ever want from magical realism. I can't believe it took me so long to try! I bought it at a thrift store a year ago, but it was only after reading rave reviews that I decided to finally give it a try.

What: The Witches of New York by Ami Mckay

Where: Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Why: I adored this historical fiction novel with a magical twist. It was inventive, it featured the strength of female relationships, and it was just overall brillant.
















What: The darkest part of the forest by Holly Black

Where: A Magical World of Words (I think?)

Why: *sigh* Ahhh, this book. Dramatic. Lyrical. Novel. It was kind of amazing. And by kind of I mean TOTALLY.

What: The lost city of Z by David Grann

Where: Port Jericho 

Why: One of the most surprising things that has happened this year is my new found love of nonfiction! Back at the beginning of the year I decided to participate in the Nonfiction Reading Challenge and let me tell you, I was not looking forward to having to make my way through one nonfiction book a month. Ew. However something completely unexpected happened as I began to seek out NF books-- I found some really amazing ones! This book, review pending, is a gripping tale of a 19th century English explorer who, towards the end of his life, mysteriously disappeared into the Amazon. It was a page turner and not only was it engaging it was clear just how much research the journalist author put into this tale. Seriously. Go read this.

That's it for me! What are some of your favorite novels you've discovered through other blogs?

5 Beautiful Blue Book Covers

This post brought to you by the Top Ten Tuesday series over at That Artsy Reader Girl! 

This week's prompt for Top Ten Tuesday was books with your favorite color on the cover. After rummaging through my Goodreads shelves, I've come up with five books that not only (a) have my favorite color on them (b) are in and of themselves GORGEOUS but also (c) are amazing books.

What more could you want?

                                           

                                                                

Click on the covers to go to Goodreads!

All of these books are amazing (or expected to be amazing). Binti, Conservation of Shadows, and Record of spaceborn few are all science fiction, All the Light is historical fiction, and Sing a New Song is actually a devotional I picked up through NetGalley a while back. Also apparently I am now playing a game to see how many times I can talk about Record of a Spaceborn on this blog. Can you tell I'm excited to check it out? 

Have you read any of these books? What are some of your favorite book covers? 

Top Ten Tuesday: 4 Hidden Gems

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's theme is hidden gems, books that you believe have unjustly flown under the radar. To be far, it wasn't easy to figure out which books I've read that are 'well-known' vs 'obscure'. I'm still too young of a book blogger to be really in touch with what's popular (story of my life, amiright??). So, I picked four of my favorite science fiction/fantasy novels that I haven't seen featured on other blogs. I hope you give at least one of them a try!

Uprooted by Naomi Novik


“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley"

Why: This is a delightful, dark fantasy novel that I read a couple years ago and feel very quickly in love with both the story and the writing itself.







Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee

“What was a shadow, after all, but a shape in the moving world reduced to a projection of possibilities?” 

Why: Part of the problem with coming up with weekly lists is that there are bound to be repeats. I have raved on previous lists how much I adore this dark, complex, and inventive collection of sci-fic short stories.








A Madness of Angels by Kate Grifftn

“Where there is life, there will be magic; the one generates the other.” 

Why: The is an amazing urban fantasy a la American Gods novel  finds magic in the neon lights and in the humming of electrical wires. One of my favorite books of all time.










The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

“Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books.” 

Why: Jasper Fforde is in a class all of his own, and his books really deserve their own genre. He's witty and writes wildly speculative stories that are brilliant and quirky. Sometimes boarding on the absurd, his novels are always a blast to read.








What about you? I know I called these hidden gems but have you heard of any of them before? What are you favorite fantasy/sci-fic hidden gem novels that I need to discover?

Review: A Closed and Common Orbit

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

Genre: Science fiction

Rating: 9/10

[[because apparently I have moral objections to 10/10s??]]

When I read the first book in this series, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, I knew that I had stumbled upon something special. The plot was intriguing and the world building was skillful. Becky Chambers excels at imaging all the mundane (and critical) complications of interspecies interactions. From having different trains for different species (they all require different types of chairs!) to imaging how other species would view child rearing (ranging from getting degrees in parenting to viewing children as lesser than adults due to lack of life skills), she creates this massive world, and then shares with you a small, beautiful part. 

A Closed and Common Orbit is a beautiful, heart-breaking, intriguing book that deals with complex topics without ever feeling bogged down by them. The main character is an AI who find herself in a 'body'. We follow her struggle, as she tries to adapt to a life that she was not programmed for. At the same time, we catch glimpses of her caretaker and friend's toubled childhood. 

That was part of what I loved most about this novel-- how realistically the author depicted Jane as she progressed from child to teenager to adult. When she was a child it was written in a child-like way, when she was a teen, everything and everyone was super annoying and insufferable and she just wanted to sleep goshdarnit. 

PLEASE NOTE that this is technically book number two in a series. This novel has an entirely new cast of characters from the first novel so it is almost a standalone read. However, there is one decently major plot point that reading this book first would spoil for you. You do you. 

My (very minor) complaints about book #1 were not a problem in this novel. The cast of characters was remarkable smaller this time around, so there weren't any subplots that fizzled out, or characters that got left behind. 

Once again I loved Chambers' use of transmedia, interspersing normal narration with snippets of conversations from chat rooms and emails. She made the world come alive by peppering the text with these conversations. I loved how real the chat room discussions felt-- yes they were discussing self-aware AI but also it felt like a chat room discussion that I could read on the internet today (except for less vitriolic). 

Overall, this was an amazing book which lived up to my admittedly high expectations. You should probably read the first book in the series, but it wouldn't be confusing if you were to just start with this novel, as the characters are almost all new. 

What about you? Have you read this novel? Were you as blown away as I was? 

Top Ten Tuesday: 5 Novels set in Boarding School

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's theme is, surprise surprise, a back to school free-for-all. I interpreted this prompt as novels set in schools, actually now that I look at my list, all of them are set in boarding schools! Read on for five books set in boarding schools that I highly recommend.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman 

Why: This is like a grungy adult version of the Harry Potter series, where finding out that magic exists doesn't make all of your other problems just disappear. It's the first in a trilogy and definitely one of my favorite books of all time.

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You by Ally Carter

Why: So I read this one years ago, but I remember it being a fun, YA read. It's set in a secret agent boarding school, so how could it not be fun?

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs 

Why: It took me ages to actually read this novel, but when I did, I wondered why I had waited so long. It's interesting, odd, and all together an enjoyable read.

The Secret Place by Tana French

Why: You have probably heard me fangirl about Tana French before-- she is, hands down, my favorite murder mystery author of all times. This novel, which is technically part of a really loosely defined series, centers on a group of friends who go to a boarding school where a murder takes place.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 

Why: Okay, I admit, this one is a little bit of a stretch as the entire book is not set in school. However, this dystopian memoir does spend time talking about growing up in school, so I thought I would add it to the list. It is my friend's absolute most favorite novel-- my feelings were a bit more tangled than that. However, it is a hauntingly beautiful book and well worth the read.

What about you? Have you read any of these novels? If so, what did you think??

Top Ten Tuesday: 5 Must-Read Books for Scientists

((and everyone else!))
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

It's back!

Top Ten Tuesday is back! It's a weekly meme that has been on summer break but now, just like back-to-school events and fall themed lattes, it's reappearing in our lives.

This week's prompt was ten five book recommendations for any specific group of people-- so I choose scientists, though of course, I believe that everyone would enjoy this books!

What makes them for 'scientists'? I picked out books that were really inventive-- mostly sci-fic, where the technology is unique, with inventions that just blew my mind and sparked my imagination.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

"Tribal: that’s what they called humans from ethnic groups too remote and “uncivilized” to regularly send students to attend Oomza Uni."

Why: This is a beautiful, fascinating story which feels, at the same time, both wildly inventive and universal. It's a coming-of-age novella which casually throws in interesting ideas of technology and space travel.





Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee


“There are too many shapes of love to be counted. One of them is forgiveness.” 

Why: Conservation of shadows is a collection of short-stories that never failed to blow my mind. Yoon weaves in mesmerizing mix of magic and technology with grace, crafting stories that are a delight to read.




The Long way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

 “That’s such an incredibly organic bias, the idea that your squishy physical existence is some sort of pinnacle that all programs aspire to.”

Why: I mean, just check out my review to hear more fan-girling but in short, I loved this sci-fi novel. I loved the way that the author complexly imaged other species, the attention to detail she paid to the clashing of alien cultures.


Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh

"I keep expecting this to get easier, that it will start to feel as if I'm going to sleep. But it doesn't. Maybe it's not possible to get used to dying."
Rob reached out to comfort her, then remembered it was forbidden and drew back. If not for the surveillance, Rob would have reached under the silver cover and taken her hand, cold and stiff as it would have been.”

Why: I read this book years ago, but I remember really enjoying it. It has such an interesting, novel premise. When a young woman is killed in a car accident, she wakes up not in a hospital, but in a cryogenic dating center.

The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Clark

“Finn stood, his narrow body unhinging at the waist. He handed the jar to Cat and smiled, but Cat grabbed the jar and pushed through the door, out into the cool, dampening night. The fireflies glowed again. She could hear them knocking against the glass. 
"How lovely," said Cat's father.
"Lovely," repeated Finn, as though the meaning of the word alluded him.” 

Why: I adored this book. It's a really intriguing mixture of literary fiction and sci-fic, very reminiscent of Never Let Me Go. There are many things going on in the periphery of this novel, self-away AI, drastic and deadly climate change-- but none of those issues are the main point of the novel.

Review: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet  by Becky Chambers

Rating: 9/10

Genre: Science Fiction

Spoiler alert: I loved this book. We're talking about devoured every page can't wait to get the sequel type of love here. I went into the book with only the barest idea of the plot-- some woman hiding her identity gets onto a some type of spaceship. For me that's all I need to know. Often times summaries give away all the fun plot twists and rob me of the fun of finding things out as I go along.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is an inventive sci-fi novel that manages to create the feeling of an expansive universe, of which the novel comprises only a small corner. I love when novels can set up such a fully fleshed out world. The author had thought of complexities of inter-species interactions that many authors gloss over. Space is complex-- miscommunication would be often and with deadly consequences. Not every species shows love or respect the same way, not every species has the same familial expectations and often times the aliens in novels are close approximations with humans with only a few features changed. The complexity of different cultures that evolved on different planets is something this novel excelled at.

The plot doesn't have a racing tempo but the tempo fits the (no spoiler alert here) long journey the ship is on. Interspersed with the narrative are other types of communication-- meeting notes or personal logs or chapters from textbooks. One of the things I'm passionate about is using transmedia in modern story telling-- I'll have to devote an entire post to the novel transmedia techniques used in the Lizzie Bennett Diaries, a modern vlog-style version of Pride and Prejudice. Anyway! The point is print novels are really limited in their transmedia abilities, so I love when a traditional narrative is augmented by additional methods of communication.

I suppose I should address the things I wasn't so in love with-- because they did exist, even if they are far outweighed by the things I loved. The novel handles subplots with variable success. Something I expected to be a major plot point slid into a subplot and actually dwindled out, with only sporadic references to resolve the issue.

The characters are lovable and complex. I loved how different the captain was from a lot of captains-- more passive than aggressive more concerned about his crew members than his image. I feel like the author jumped around a tad bit too much in terms of character development. It would have perhaps been better to focus on one character for a bit longer and not jump around so much.

But all in all I recommend this novel whole heatedly to anyone who will listen. It was a fun read that never dragged and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I can't wait to pick up the sequel at my local library.

What about you? Have you ever read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet? What sci-fic novels do you love? Let me know!

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books in 2017

This post brought to you by the Top Ten Tuesday series over at The Broke and the Bookish.

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Oh how could I ever choose I moaned to myself when I first saw this topic. I mean I've just read so many good books this year! 

Then I sat down at took a hard look at my read-books list on Goodreads. Yes, I've liked most books I read this year but really, which books did I love? Which books did the authors truly excel at the art of writing, the devilishly difficult task of intricate plots and exciting twists??

And then there were three. Three books that earned the difficult 5 star Goodreads rating on my account. Three books that I adore not only because I enjoyed reading them, but because they were so artfully created.

Let's get to these special books, shall we?




Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

If 1984 and Catch-22 had a child, and that child went through a rebellious teenage phase, then the result would be this stunning, witty, and expansive novel. Part dystopian, part political satire, all amazing, this novel kept my eyes glued to every one of the 400 pages.  It's hilarious and depressing and fascinating all rolled into one.This type of novel was what Jasper Fforde was made for-- I can't imagine what it would be like to be in his mind.



Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

I'm not sure where I first heard about this short story. Maybe a John Green recommendation? Either way I'm so glad I stumbled upon this sci-fi tale. I love my science fiction to be inventive, to think of other civilizations and technologies so different from our own, and then to craft a story out of their foreignness and Binti was all of that and more. Clearly taking it's roots from the author's own Nigerian roots it is both wildly inventive and universal in all the right ways, as a young woman leaves her village to travel thousands of miles through dead space to claim her spot at a prestigious university.



Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

This is a novel I'm sure many of you are already familiar with, so I shouldn't have to work too hard to convince you of its beauty. It's medieval fantasy but without any of the heavy boring elements that can drag down other novels of that genre. It's fast paced-- honestly the 662 pages flew by in a matter of days. The writing is beautiful, the story line intricate without being confusing, and the characters are at once both intimate and foreign. I know it sounds like I'm just throwing words at you (and in some part I am) but I am trying to find the best combination of words that can explain how much I enjoyed this novel. Better yet, just go read it for yourself!


Whew!

That's wasn't as hard as I feared-- once I took a critical eye to my books these three books easily outshone the other novels I've read in 2017. Somehow, they all managed to have sequels-- the one for the Jasper Fforde novel won't be published till next year (maybe?), but the sequel to Binti was amazing and I can't wait to read the sequel to The Name of the Wind.

What about you?? What were your favorite books of 2017? Let me know in the comments and link to your post if you also participated in this series!

Review: Best of All Possible Worlds

                                                     

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

Rating: 8/10

Genre: Sci-fi

Where do you go, when your home planet is destroyed, when the majority of your civilization is wiped out? How do you keep your culture, everything you've known and loved, alive when most of its citizens aren't?

The Best of All Possible Worlds takes place on a planet that is a melting pot for all sorts of cultures and peoples who have no where else to go. Maybe their home planet was destroyed in war, maybe their home star expanded and engulfed their planet-- point being, they've got to find a new place to live. This novel follows to journey of one such stranded race, the Sandari, who go to this planet to help build a new colony, a small group of survivors intent of preserving their culture against all odds. 

I loved this book. The premise was interesting-- the main character works in the bureaucracy that it takes to run such a melting-plot planet, No one ever thinks of the red tape and paperwork it would take to run such an endeavor!

Is it derivative? Sure. Can you see what media (*cough* Star Trek *cough*) influenced the author's creation of the Sandari? Sure. Did that detract from my enjoyment of this novel? Not at all. 

I enjoyed the writing and felt that the romance was artfully done, even if it was something that could been seen from miles out. Have you ever read a book where you just knew that character A and B were going to get together, but that didn't stop you rooting for them and waiting for that to happen? 

The pacing had some issues, it stopped and started, months would pass suddenly and catch me off guard. The narrator was a bit immature at times, but I only rolled my eyes like twice so hey, easy enough to overlook. 

All in all, if you looking for a new sci-fic read, be sure to check out The Best of All Possible Worlds and let me know what you thought!

What are some of your sci-fic recommendations?