Bookish

I like to read.  I've pretty much always liked to read.  My mother would disagree with that statement and bring up the fact that I hated reading when I was in 3rd grade.  That is true, but we won't go into those details because they aren't important.

 

I go through spurts with reading.  I will read a lot.....book after book after book.  Then I won't read for months at a time.  Also, with each one of my kids it took me a full two years after they were born to start reading books again.

 

Last December, right when Elliott was turning two, I decided that it was time to start  the Hunger Games Trilogy.  I had bought it when he was 3 months old, knowing full well it would be more than a year before I could attempt it. 

 

The second movie came out in December though, and I wanted to see it in the theatre.  So, right after Elliott's birthday on the 16th I read the first book in two days, then we watched the first movie and then the next day I started the second book which I finished in three days.  Then about a week later we watched the second movie.  Then I waited about a week and read the third book.

 

They were all fantastic....fast moving plot, good writing and totally engaging.

Book three follows a very different format from the first two books, but I still enjoyed it very much.

This is exactly how I felt after I finished the triology.

 

and this too.

I was so sad to be finished with something that I had looked forward to for so long, because reading a book for the second time is NEVER the same as reading it the first time.

 

After moping around for a while I felt like I needed to read something totally different, so in January I ordered Gone Girl on my kindle.  It was my first kindle book.

 

I knew that there was some sort of twist to the plot, but I did not figure it out until it was revealed.  It's sneaky, sneaky. 

 

I did enjoy this book (especially the first two-thirds of it) and do recommend it.  There are many layers to it and it's fun to peel all of them back and be shocked at what is revealed.  I will admit, though, that the last one-third and the ending left me feeling pissed off and empty.  I walked around a little dazed going, "what just happened?  what the hell was that?" for a couple of days.

Right after I finished Gone Girl I took the kids to the library and saw The 5th Wave sitting on a shelf.  I had read wonderful things about it so I got it.

 

Oh. My. God.  It is freaking fantastic.  I could not put it down.  I would read while walking down the hallway because I just couldn't wait to find out what happened next.  And it's 500 pages. There was a lot of "what happens next" moments.  The book is about an alien invasion and the chapters bounce around and are told from a variety of different people's points of views.  It is going to be a trilogy eventually.  The second book comes out in September and I cannot wait.  It's also being turned into a movie.  It is seriously an awesome read.

After the 5th wave I took a little reading break.  I think it was just a few weeks.  Then I decided that I would read the Divergent trilogy.  I was on the fence about reading it because so many people flat out hated the last book.  I read so many reviews that said that the third book is so awful that it ruined the entire trilogy for them.  It worried me that I was setting myself up for disappointment by even starting, but eventually my curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to make up my own mind.

 

I downloaded he first book on my kindle and a week before Michael and I planned on seeing the movie, I started.  It was incredibly good.  So good that I finished it in two nights and stayed up until 4:45 am the second night because I couldn't wait until the next day to find out the ending.

Michael and I saw the movie a few days later and then I waited about a week to start the second book.  It was also very good, but felt a little forced.  There were a lot of parts where I just shook my head a little, suspended my belief system and plowed my way through.  The magic from the first book just isn't there.

So, once I was done with the second book I decided I was going to put emotion aside and read the third book.  I debated waiting until next year after the second movie comes out so I could see it first, but I knew that story in the third book starts within days of the end of the second book and I just didn't want to wait. 

 

I didn't HATE the third book, but I was pretty disappointed by it.  It's just such a departure from how awesome the first book is.  Allegiant didn't ruin the first book for me, but it did take away from its magic a wee bit.  The third book is written from a dual perspective: one chapter told by Tris and the next told by Four.  The biggest problem is that their narratives are exactly the same and that is just wrong.  I would, often, have to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to see whose words I was reading.  And that is a damn shame, because those two characters' narratives should have never been similar or confused. The whole book and plot feel flimsy and it's about 200 pages too long because the author had to keep adding more and more unimportant details to cover up for the fact that the story was undeveloped and had huge holes. 

 

So basically, I won't say not to read it, especially if you have read the first two, but you have been warned that you will not be happy when it's done. 

After I finished the Divergent trilogy I decided that I would continue on with my long-going theme of "young adult literature about dystopian futures" (which all these books except Gone Girl are) and start Red Rising.  It is about a dystopian future on Mars where there is a caste system based on colors and the Reds revolt.  I am having a really hard time with it because it takes place in the future, on Mars and about 50% of the vocabulary is made-up words relevant to a future Mars.  The reviews that I read said you just have to push through the beginning chapters to get to the good stuff.  I hope so.

So that's it.  Those are my random thoughts about all of the books I have read in the last 4 months.   Now, enjoy some hilarious book and reading humor, compliments of pinterest.

 

 

I may or may not feel this way about somebody or somebodies in one or more of the above books.

I do not want to live in ANY of the worlds of the books I have read in the last four months.  None of them.  Ever.  Especially not The 5th Wave.

 

This is me, every time I read.

 

 

 

April 28th edit: so I totally forgot to add one of the best books from my list to this list.  I wrote an entire post about it, as an apology and love letter to the book. 

 

You can read it HERE.