Category: Reading

New Year, New Book Challenge! And I’m already behind, of course ;P As I said in my Conclusion to 2016, I’ve raised my goal to 55 books this year instead of my customary 50… Can I really call it ‘customary’ if I’ve only done it two years in row? Oh well, I’m using it! 😀

Here’s the link to my star rating breakdown if anyone needs a refresher. It’s also up in the header 🙂

• What I’m currently reading:
  1. Miles in Love (Vorkosigan Omnibus #6) by Lois McMaster Bujold– I haven’t finished anymore of this yet. I will. I just… haven’t. I have no excuse.
  2. Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer– If I haven’t made any progress on this by next month, I’m taking it off the list, because it’s depressing me. Audrey Hepburn is a lot of things, but ‘depressing’ should not be one of them.
  3. Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1) by Jim Butcher– I finally started the series! Yay! I’m a little disappointed by the narration, but I think that might have more to do with the production than with James Marsden (if that makes any sense?) and the story is pretty good. I think it’s about to get really good, and I’m told things really pick up around Book Three. I think I can stick it out until then. Also, Bob is the best. That is all.

• Books I’ve Finished- None this month, mostly because I’m just failing at life a little bit. This also means that there’s no Book of the Month this month. Sorry, we’ll try again in February 🙂
  

However, I would like to go ahead and introduce a new segment this month:

The Destructive Creativity Corner

Basically, a lovely coworker got me a really neat book for Christmas this year, a book by the same author that created Wreck This Journal: F*nish Th*s B**k, by Keri Smith. The basic premise is that you have found a folder full of half-formed ideas, and now you have to complete the book using your creative intuition. I’ve been thinking about trying out a book like this for over a year now, so it just seems like fate that one has now fallen into my hands. I’m very excited!

Now, the instructions in the book say specifically that I shouldn’t share the results of this endeavor until specifically instructed to do so… but, I couldn’t resist leaking a picture of my gathered materials at least:

I’m really enjoying what I’ve done so far, I’ll post whatever pictures are “leaked” as they become available ;P If you’d like to follow my progress in real time, you can follow my Instagram, @fogisbeautiful.

That’s all! See you guys in February!

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I know this is incredibly late, but we’re going to take this opportunity to make a two-parter out of it! So you’ll definitely get your money’s worth today, folks!

First things first, let’s catch you up on what I’ve been doing since last we spoke!

Here’s the link to my star rating breakdown if anyone needs a refresher. It’s also up in the header 🙂

• What I’m currently reading (in order of Date Started)
  1. Miles in Love (Vorkosigan Omnibus #6) by Lois McMaster Bujold– I’ve gotten into a Civil Campaign! So much is happening and I’m freaking out! This is so good, I might die from the suspense of EVERYTHING!
  2. Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer– I still haven’t finished this. I have no excuse. Sorry. Maybe in 2017?

• Books I’ve Finished 
  1. The Winter Soldier, Vol 1: The Man on the Wall by Ales Kot- Four Stars
  2. Original Sin: Thor & Loki: The Tenth Realm by Al Ewing- Four Stars
  3. Author 2.0 Blueprint by Joanna Penn- Four Stars
  4. Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal- Four Stars
  5. Dictate Your Book by Monica Leonelle- Five Stars
  6. The Dispatcher by John Scalzi- Five Stars
  7. Odd Interlude (Odd Thomas #4) by Dean Koontz- Four Stars
  8. The Clockwork Scarab (Stoker and Holmes #1) by Colleen Gleeson- Four Stars

Fog’s Book Of The Month

The Dark Tower by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. Okay, I have a lot of feelings about this book, not all of them were good (as you can tell, if you kept up with my comments as I was reading), but overall, the ending of this book made up for any flaws in the storytelling. The ending… I had to stop reading and drive in silence for a long time, just to digest it. ‘Ka is a wheel’ was an overarching theme throughout the series, but I never really understood the significance until I read the end. The true end, not the feel-good, make-you-cry, first ending. And Mr. King was correct, I could have just left the book with that first ending and been perfectly content. I considered it, actually. But I’m ultimately glad I didn’t though. Quite frankly, most of the Stephen King endings I’ve read have left a lot to be desired (I’m looking at YOU “Under The Dome”), but I think I know what happened now. He used up all his good ending mojo on this book. That’s what it has to be 🙂

Anyway, it was a great end to a pretty good series, and I’m glad I got them all read this year! 🙂

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Okay, now that we have all that out of the way, it’s the end of the year! That means, it’s time to take a look back at what I’ve accomplished this year and outline what I plan to accomplish in the new year! Here we go!

Despite Goodreads’ passive-aggressive irony, I feel really good about this year! I finished  The Dark Tower series, and managed to  surpass my goal of reading 50 books in 2016! All in all, it’s been a good year, and I look forward to great things in 2017.

My goals for the upcoming year include:

• Read 55 books– I’ve stuck to 50 books for the past two years, and pretty easily surpassed that goal. Time to edge it up a little I think, especially with my new access to audiobooks, thanks to Audible. 55 books is a reasonable stretch. Right?
• Read the first eight books of the Dresden Files series– This is my new series to read in 2017! According to my research, there’s fifteen books currently published (not including all the little in-between books, which I’m currently planning to ignore) and one due for release in 2017, but I’m only going to try to finish the first eight. As my series goals have generally been seven books to a series, I think this fits nicely with my goal to stretch myself a bit. The premise of these books (a modern wizard PI solves paranormal crimes) appeals to me greatly and I’ve heard wonderful things about James Marsters as a narrator. I’m really looking forward to what’s coming up!

And that’s my year! I’ll have a new Challenge up on Goodreads in the new year, and you can check out my to-read list to get an idea of what I might read in the year ahead (fair warning: the list needs to be reorganized, badly. I plan to get on that soon, but it will still give you a pretty good idea of what I have coming up).

See you guys in 2017! 😀

Eep! I’m down to only a single book lead! Well, I guess that’s what happens when NaNoWriMo takes over your life 🙂 I’ll catch up in December, I’m sure.

Also, this is going to be a pretty unusual Reading post because I literally finished only one book this month. As a result, that book is going to be the highlight of the post, as is well deserved because it was AH-MAZ-ING. I gushed about it all over Goodreads, so here you go!

Fog’s Book Of The Month
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I already feel like I need to reread this book, just so I can better appreciate the ending. Or rather, the non-ending. Because it wasn’t what I expected at all. Without spoiling anything, things are not resolved. At least, not in the traditional sense that you would expect things to be resolved in a book like this. What I love most about Cath’s story, is that she doesn’t “overcome”. She triumphs, I’m not saying that. But she doesn’t magically become “better” or “get over” her issues. Instead she manages to find and surround herself with people who care about her exactly as she is, who lift her up and give her the support she needs, without changing who she is as a person.
God, this was such a great story. I was so angry at Wren (I still am, honestly, she was a grade A bitch), but in the end, I think I even got her. I got that she was going through the same things as Cath, she just handled them so much differently, in a way that maybe I can’t relate to, but that I can sympathize with. But Cath was, without a doubt, the character I related to the most strongly. It was literally like Rainbow Rowell crawled up into my headspace and just wrote down everything she found there. I don’t understand how it has taken so long for someone to write a book like this.
I can’t even begin to talk about the rest of the supporting cast, because they were too good for words. I don’t want to spoil anything, but they are all just so, so good. I cannot recommend this book enough.

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There you go! My wonderful gushing about Fangirl! Thanks to Cat Mealer for allowing me to borrow her copy for so long, you’re the best! 😀 See you guys in December!

I’m slowly losing my lead, but that’s okay. As long as I stay steady, I should still make my goal this year, but I’ve got a lot of writing to do, so things are gonna slow down on the reading front.

Here’s the link to my star rating breakdown if anyone needs a refresher. It’s also up in the header 🙂

• What I’m currently reading (in order of Date Started)
  1. The Dark Tower (Dark Tower #7) by Stephen King– I actually got through TWO of my Dark Tower books last month, and now I’m on the last one! THEY’RE SO GOOD, OH MY GOSH!!! I have no idea how things are going to wrap up, no clue! It’s awesome!
  2. Miles in Love (Vorkosigan Omnibus #6) by Lois McMaster Bujold– Still plugging along at this, little by little. Intrigue and mayhem!
  3. Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer– Again, plugging away, little by little. I did find a really great quote that I’ve been posting up everywhere:

• Books I’ve Finished 
  1. Wolves of the Calla (Dark Tower #5) by Stephen King- Five Stars
  2. Song of Susannah (Dark Tower #6) by Stephen King- Four Stars

Fog’s Book Of The Month

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dude! This book was amazing! I loved the tie-ins to other works, I loved the Calla (I’m not joking, I keep catching myself trying to slip into Calla -speak ;P), I loved the story and the reveal of the Wolves. I predicted it, but there were enough twists to make even my prediction interesting 🙂 I’ve already started Book 6, because I HAVE to know what’s happened to Susannah!

For more info, please see my live-reading updates, they’re pretty entertaining ;P

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Short and sweet! See you guys later!

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I am still seven books ahead of schedule! This is excellent! I feel so relieved about this, which is good because I have enough stress in my life 🙂

Here’s the link to my star rating breakdown if anyone needs a refresher. It’s also up in the header 🙂

• What I’m currently reading (in order of Date Started)
  1. Wolves of the Calla (Dark Tower #5) by Stephen King– Oh my gosh, this book is SO MUCH BETTER than Wizard and Glass! Things are actually happening that I care about, and plot, and we’re back into the actual story, and YAY! Not sure how I feel about the shady villagers asking for help (and I kind of wish I’d read Salem’s Lot before this, but I can go back and fix that ;P), but things are happening! Hooray! \o/
  2. Miles in Love (Vorkosigan Omnibus #6) by Lois McMaster Bujold– I’m having a moment of weirdness, because I sort of spoiled myself for the first book in this omnibus, but I still want to know how the thing I know about is going to happen. So I’m in a weird state of anticipation right now 🙂 Also, I’m having feels about this terrible marriage, just FYI…
  3. Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer– Whoops! I sort of forgot I was reading this. Going to try to pick it up and finish it this month 🙂
• Books I’ve Finished 
  1. Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower #4) by Stephen King- Three Stars

Fog’s Book Of The Month

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Miles hits 30. 30 hits back.”

This is the one line description of this book in the timeline, and honestly it’s a much better summary than the one on the back of the book. The back of the book is deceptive, as it implies that you will be living Simon Illyan’s memories, which is not true. This book is probably the most introspective of the Miles books I’ve read so far and, as a result, is also a slower paced book. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t engaging (I read it in about a day), it just means that it was very different from the books that have preceded it. It feels like the transition that it is, a transition from a reckless, careless, hyperactive Miles to a more grown-up version, who thinks about others (and himself) a bit more deeply. It changes him and makes him more aware of himself, something that he has been sorely lacking.

All in all, a very good book, if not exactly what was promised on the package 🙂

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Well, this was a quick post! I didn’t really have much to report this month. Oh well, I’ll leave you on a funny note:

I’m not even sorry ;P See you guys next time!

Alright y’all, I went on vacation and completely forgot about the blog. My bad. But I’m here now, let’s get to it!

You read that right, folks, I am eight books ahead of my schedule! There were a lot of comic books involved, but I regret nothing!

Here’s the link to my star rating breakdown if anyone needs a refresher. It’s also up in the header 🙂

• What I’m currently reading (in order of Date Started)
  1. Wizard and Glass by Stephen King– This. Book. Is. A. Slog. Ugh. Seriously, I could not care less about what’s happening here if I tried. I like Roland for liking the Mayor’s wife and feeling bad for her, but that’s basically the only interesting and surprising element in this plot line, and trust me, it’s not that interesting. I just want to get back to the actual story, that is all I want in life right now…
  2. Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer– I haven’t picked this book up again, but I plan to fix that this week! 🙂
• Books I’ve Finished 
  1. The Superior Spider-Man, Vol 1: My Own Worst Enemy by Dan Slott- Four Stars
  2. Loki: Agent of Asgard, Vol 1: Trust Me by Al Ewing- Five Stars
  3. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon- Three Stars
  4. Original Sin by Jason Aaron- Four Stars
  5. Rocket Raccoon, Vol 1: A Chasing Tale- Four Stars
  6. Rocket Raccoon, Vol 2: Storytailer- Three Stars
  7. Daredevil Legends, Vol 2: Born Again- Four Stars
  8. S.H.I.E.L.D., Vol 1: Perfect Bullets- Three Stars

Fog’s Book Of The Month
All-New, All-Different Avengers, Vol. 1: The Magnificent Seven by Mark Waid

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have three words and an honorific for you: Nova and Ms. Marvel. Their interactions almost completely made this book for me. With a nice side of Miles Morales (who I am now going to have to find more of), and lady!Thor (who was AMAZING with Sam Wilson, I am right with Kamala on this ship). I loved the tiny nods to Sam’s struggle to be accepted as Captain America, and the struggle of the adults to trust the kids while at the same time wanting to protect them. Basically, this book was amazing and I will definitely be reading more.

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And that’s it! Like I said, a lot of comic books, but I’m going to try really hard to read a few more other books now that I’m back home again (if I can ever trudge through Wizard and Glass, oh my god…). Until next time!

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