Top Ten Tuesday: My Ten(-ish) Most Recent Reads

                    "Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

April was actually, for me, a pretty exceptional reading month. The entirety of Spring usually is, as the sunny days start pulling me out of a winter-long reading slump, but these past few weeks proved especially beneficial. In total, I started about ten books, DNFing two of them, and still being in the process of reading two more. Then, in the last 24 hours, I tacked on another title to the list. 

That's not half bad, for someone who managed to finish all of one book back in February! (My success is no doubt thanks to the reading hacks from my Lawful Good and Chaotic Neutral blogposts this past month, too.) 

So, here's a sentence or two each about what I managed to read in the month of April... plus one bonus installment from May that I managed to read in less than a day, because yes, it was, in fact, that great. 

cover to cover

1. Rogue Protocol (Murderbot #3), Martha Wells

Murderbot continues to track down answers to his questions by following the classic "explore the abandoned space station" adventurer's track.

2. Exit Strategy (Murderbot #4), Martha Wells

Murderbot, now with answers, continues to track down his friends and rescue the humans from certain danger... again. 

3. 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice Inside My Head..., Dan Harris (audiobook)

Network news anchor kicks a drug habit and chronic anxiety by getting into meditation; spends the rest of the memoir trying to make Buddhist practices more palatable for Americans. 

4. Kitchen Counter Cooking School, Kathleen Flinn 

Perfect Food Memoir is perfect: when a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef decides to use her forces for good, to train a batch of novice chefs to make their kitchen a healthier, happier place. 

5. Wolf-Speaker (Immortals #2), Tamora Pierce 

Perfect YA Fantasy series is perfect: Daine begins to come into her own powers, while protecting the animals of a region from an environmental threat from the people who rule there. 

last month's sole completed romance read

6. Touch the Dark (Cassie Palmer#1), Karen Chance

The first in a now-twelve-plus installment Paranormal Romance franchise, a Chosen One is tasked with dealing with a bunch of absurdly horny vampires, an insurrection from Rasputin, and entirely too much info-dumping. 

(Read more of my thoughts on this novel and more, by checking out my most recent post here!) 

DNFs

7. My Fair Succubi (Succubi Diaries #3), Jill Myles (20.5%)

A Jessica-Rabbit-style newly-formed Succubus contends with the patriarchy, misogynistic angels, some missing halos, and a love triangle. (I wouldn't know what else happens, because I DNF'd.)

8. Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope, Mark Manson (audiobook, 26%)

Unconventional self-help guru is unable to help much of anyone figure out the sociological implications of Hope, because he's clearly got a lot going on himself. (I wouldn't know what else happens, because I DNF'd). 

still in the process

9. Best Food Writing 2017, ed. Holly Hughes

A collection of articles, introductions, and other similarly snack-sized pieces into a portable reader of some of the best Food Writing from 2017. But you could probably tell that from the title. 

10. King of Scars (King of Scars #1), Leigh Bardugo

Continuing on in the successful - and now Netflix-worthy! - Grishaverse, Prince Nikolai has some monster-adjacent stuff to take care of, with Zoya and Nina coming along for the ride. 

extra eleventh installment because I accidentally read a novel in the last 24 hours oops

11. Cemetery Boys, Aiden Thomas

Everything you've heard about this much-hyped YA Urban Fantasy book is correct. I had so much fun reading about East LA brujx, a ghostly teenage prankster, and a plot to unmask a murderer, that I was able to complete this read in less time than it usually takes me to write a blogpost! 

What's in your Top Ten today? Let me know, in the comments below!

Review: The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle #1)

The world can make fun of the paranormal YA genre all it wants - and yes, I know I'm a culprit, too - but every once in a while, a book comes around that explains why we all fell in love with it in the first place. This is one of those books. 

The Raven Boys - the first in Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Cycle series - follows the story of Blue Sargent, the daughter of a psychic, who is destined to kill the boy she loves, when she kisses him. With that foreboding of a destiny, you'd think things couldn't get much more complicated, but when she sees the spirit of a young man named Gansey on the spirit road on a cold, spring day, it sets off a series of events that lead to the revelation of a mysterious underside of their sleepy southern town. Now the girl who'd always sworn off boys finds herself in the thick of a ancient search, with four of the most difficult prep school kids she's ever met... and that's only the start of their journey.

Truth time: I had a bad experience with a fortune teller when I was 13 (and no, I'm not going to tell you the story.). But because of all this ambiance - from the house full of psychics, where Blue lives with her mother, to the strong sense of ancient mysticism - now I want to go get my cards read. The depictions of the many women of Blues' house and what they can all do are just so darn intriguing.

When it comes to the structure of the narrative itself, the plot can be somewhat cliche, but parts of it are just so oddball, that its endearing. Any kind of predictability is forgiven in the extensive descriptions of  magical happenings, and there are enough abrupt twists to excuse even the most hardened reader hearts. There was an interesting enough mythology behind the magic, and depictions of magical places unlike others I've read before, and that made it unique in the canon of paranormal YA for me.

One of the choices I appreciated was that it's set in the South, in keeping with current YA trends, and something that I wished Libba Bray's The Diviners had been, too. I just feel like the region has this abundance of natural history and mystique to draw off of... it definitely proved a believable setting for the highbrow prep school boys, as well as the objects of their mysterious quest.

There are still a couple of qualms I have, however... like, I don't know, the title kind of reminds me of a boy band? This may be a silly complaint to make, but it's like each of the boys in the four-man-band they've got working for them is the personification of the band boy types - the leader, the rebel, the smart one, the mopey, cute one - and Blue is their ultimate fangirl. It was like if N*SYNC had four members, and suddenly took up a kind of Indiana Jones habit.

But even that was pretty forgivable, because let's face it: they were all still strongly-built characters! 

Truth be told, I was a little annoyed by, was that the novel ends on a cliffhanger... make that a couple. Normally, this might be a pretty sizable turn-off, but bearing in mind that I will most likely be following the rest of the series, it didn't bother me too much. Huzzah, to starting a new series!

Final Verdict: The Raven Boys is a super fun YA paranormal read free from most tropes, with a great vibe, full plot, and fleshed out characters. If this is your home genre, then welcome back.

Review: The Line (Witching Savannah #1)

(This novel was purchased through Amazon's new Kindle First feature, which allows for editor's picks of upcoming ebooks to be purchased prior to their release date. The Line (Witching Savannah #1) will be available on February 1st). 

Alright, I'm beginning to realize how much of a cover snob I really am, after exercises in organizing my review library and some general perusing of Amazon's Kindle Daily Deals... I mean, it's my Kindle! I don't even have to look at the covers, and yet, I will choose a book with a gorgeous cover, even if their contents aren't as in my line of preference, over an ugly one that was practically written for my tastes.

Which is why I borderline started salivating when I saw this fantastic cover for The Line, by J.D. Horn, which actually happens to be both gorgeous, and full of fun twisty plot points and relatable characters and everything else I hold dear in some of my favorite books. And I got it for $1.99? Lord, save me from myself. I was diving into the first few pages mere moments after the contents had fully downloaded onto the device, and I finished the book in one sitting. I'm not joking.

The Line details the story of Mercy Taylor, one of the youngest members of Savannah's preeminent witching family, but sadly one whose twin sister got all the power, leaving her with the family nickname of The Disappointment. Dealing with the scorn of her clan and some very unwelcome feelings of attraction to her sister's dedicated beau, Mercy goes to a Hoodoo witch for some help... and ends up getting into a lot more trouble than she asked for, after the powerful matriarch of the Taylor family winds up dead.

The book has been marketed towards fans of the Sookie Stackhouse series, and honestly, after finishing this book, that fact alone makes me really, really want to get to watching True Blood, because this was awesome. I never really got on board the whole "witch" train - I got bored with a lot of paranormal after people started switching to mermaids, and there's enough of that "bitchy witchy" stuff on even The Vampire Diaries or the current season of American Horror Story - but I guess I'm going to have to re-evaluate my stance, because the mythology of this book straddled just the right line between magic and reality. 

One of the things I loved most about it was the incredibly fast pace: it just thrashes through plot twist after plot twist at breakneck speeds, and successfully builds a captivating world of witches and magic at the heart of the history-wracked Southern city of Savannah. I mean, it's true that sometimes the constant plot reveals can gave you  a bit of whiplash, but honestly, it was nice going through a modern urban fantasy novel where you couldn't guess everything ahead of time. It has a bit of a clunky start, but give it two chapters, at least, before you even think about DNFing, because once you start moving into the actual plot, you're not going to want to put it down. 

Special kudos goes out to our sweet and spunky heroine, Mercy, too, who underwent a spiritual journey of her own, without sacrificing any of the friendliness and moral grounding that made her so appealing in the first place. She's a good kid, which was also nice, because she was written by a guy, so I appreciate the well-rounded character, who can totally kick ass, but still has her moments of insecurity, and always takes the higher ground. A well-written lady. 

But of course, everyone's got their problems, and The Line did have a couple of plot holes and a few kind-of stock characters. But honestly, it was just so much fun, that I didn't even care. 

For a book that's all about magic and mystery in one of the South's sweetest cities, that's short on simmer and big on bang, pick up a copy of The Line, while I go pick up a copy of Charlaine Harris' work.