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What I’m Reading: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

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Book Review: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

I had this book on my shelf for about a year before my mother told me that she had read it and that she liked it. As a library technician, my mother knows books. So I knew I should pick it up and read it soon, and I’m glad I did.

The Bear and the Nightingale takes place in historic Russia and is full of folk and fairy tales. It consumes you, bringing you into the past and a deeply detailed life of a family struggling to survive the winter. Before reading this book, I vaguely remembered the tale of the Bear and the Nightingale from my childhood love of fairy tales, and I think I thought that this book would be as simple and straightforward as a five-page fairy tale, but it was much more intricate than that.

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I love the characters, especially Vasya, the strong heroine. But the book was slow to start and took me a good fifty to seventy pages to get immersed in, but once I was over that hump, the book flew by. I can’t wait to read the next one (I just have to wait for my mom to finish with it first!)

Have you read The Bear and the Nightingale?

5/5 Stars

JEH

What I’m Reading: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

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Young Adult Book Review: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

I finished this book a long time ago, but am terribly behind on book reviews, so you’ll actually see what I thought of the entire Raven Cycle series in very short order (hint: I loved it).

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The Dream Thieves, picked up right where The Raven Boys left off. If you haven’t read the first book of this series, you should do so right now. You can find my write-up on the first book here. Don’t worry, my reviews are never long because I absolutely detest spoilers (I’m the kind of person who sticks fingers in my ears and hums so that I don’t hear anything I don’t want to know). What I will say is that The Dream Thieves is just as good as The Raven Boys, and expands more deeply into the main characters (the book is shared among many), and the magic of the world. It’s beautiful.

I actually listened to The Dream Thieves as an audiobook, and it was fabulously read by Will Paton, who does the entire series. This is great for continuity. Paton is great at voices without over doing it, and I can listen to the book without feeling dozy (Although that might also because of the fast-paced adventure).

5/5 Stars.

JEH

What I’m Reading: Breathe The Well-being Special

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Today I thought I’d write about reading something different. Obviously I read a lot of Young Adult Fiction and fantasy, but I also read short stories, poetry, literary fiction, general fiction, science fiction, romance, mystery, horror, children’s books, you name it, and I will read it! Recently, I saw this issue of Breathe in the store and purchased it. I love it. The best part is that it’s a magazine with no advertisements (the drawback to that being that it was really expensive). BUT, I love it. It’s the kind of magazine that I’ll keep like a book.

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Sometimes it’s just nice to read something unexpected. To read something that is unlike all the other things you’ve read lately. That’s why I occasionally pick up a murder mystery, or an issue of National Geographic. I love reading, but to keep it fresh, I need to read outside of my box of favourites.

What have you read lately that’s been a different fit for you? Did you like it?

JEH

What I’m Reading: Their Fractured Light by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

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Young Adult Book Review: Their Fractured Light by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Sometimes the problem with borrow e-books (or audiobooks) from the library is that they expire and if I haven’t read them fast enough then I need to go on the wait list to borrow them again. This happened with Their Fractured Light.

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Their Fractured Light is the third and final Starbound novel. I was pleasantly surprised by the first book in the series, but was a bit disappointed to find that each book in this series has two different main characters. Their Fractured Light follows Sophia and The Knave on their fight to save the galaxy. While the story does intersect with the characters from the first two books, this story is mostly about Sophia and the Knave.

All in all, the book was solid. I liked the experience of seeing a new world, getting to know a different piece of this galaxy, but I didn’t like the characters quite as much as I did in the first two books, probably making Their Fractured Light my least favourite book in Starbound. Still a solid read and enjoyable book. I plan to one day read more books by Amie Kaufman and Meaghan Spooner, especially Unearthed, which was just released this month.

4/5 Stars

JEH

My 2017 Reading Roundup

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Today is the last day of the year! That means it’s time to take a look at how I’ve done over the past year, and to look at my plans for next year.

I set my Goodreads goal to 60 books for 2017, and reached that goal last week. I’m currently sitting sitting at 62 books finished, and may finish the gigantic Oathbringer before the end of the night (my New Year’s Eve plans consist of dinner with wonderful friends and their families, and coming home early to read), which would put me at 63 books!

My most favourite read of the year was The Girl Who Drank The Moon. I seriously love this book. One of my all time favourites.

My second favourite read was An Ember in The Ashes. I’m hoping to start A Torch Against The Night, and to finish this series when the final book is released in 2018.

My third favourite read was Lost Stars. This book, set in the Star Wars universe really surprised me. But it’s also stuck with me, and I’m actually kind of hoping Disney turns this one into a movie. And no, I never did get around to posting about this book, and this is the only picture I took of this read.

I am, of course, loving Oathbringer, but as I have 75 pages left, it wouldn’t quite be fair to place it in my list of favourites yet, though I’m sure it would be.

My favourite cover and book picture was of Jane Eyre. I also loved my day trip out to Crooked Bush, and just had to share this picture again.

What were your favorite reads of 2017?

Tomorrow I’ll update on my goals and plans for 2018. Happy New Year everyone!

JEH

What I’m Reading: Star Wars Aftermath Life Debt by Chuck Wendig

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Okay, first off I’m going to admit that it’s been a while, a long while, since I’ve blogged about anything. Somehow, I fell into a blogging summer vacation. I imagine it was all the sun and the hot weather that pulled me away. The good news is I have a lot of catching up to do, and I’ll start with a review of a book I finished reading just yesterday: Star Wars Aftermath Life Debt by Chuck Wendig.

Prior to the new Star Wars reboots, I had almost all of the old Star Wars fiction, which is now Legend. Between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, there is a large gap of time, and I’m the kind of Star Wars fan that needs to know what happened, and this new trilogy, written by Chuck Wendig is how to find out. Life Debt is the second book of the trilogy, and while the first book was fairly slow and a bit too meandering, the plot of the second book is much tighter, and has more of a purpose, so it seems. It also has much more Han, Leia, and Chewy.

The ending was a bit of a cliffhanger, so I’m hoping to get the third book sooner rather than later, but I have a few books that I need to get through first for an upcoming writing conference.

Overall, this trilogy has been satisfactory. Can’t wait to see what’s next.

4/5 Stars

JEH