Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

 I thought it might be fun to look at my reading challenge from last year and look at what I enjoyed the most. I picked my top 5 favorite books from 2022 to highlight one more time. Choosing only five was actually more difficult than I imagined, since I had a lot of favorites. It was also hard to rank them if I'm completely honest, but here is my list! #5 - The Girl Who Drank the Moon  by Kelly Barnhill I loved this book. I loved the whimsical storytelling style and the plot. I loved the characters and how they were developed. I loved how the author carefully crafted the foreshadowing and how she carefully guided you through the mystery of Xan's memories. Overall, this book was so well written. Even though it was a middle grade book, I found myself unable to put it down. #4 - I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys If you've followed my blog, then you probably know that I don't usually care much for Ruta Septys's writing. It's not that I dislike the stories she tells,...

 I read Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson years ago, and it's a series that I'd love to finish at some point. It's also one that I find students enjoy. Mitosis  takes place soon after the end of Steelheart . The Reckoners have set up a government in Newcago and are welcoming people into the steel city. David and Abraham go to greet some of these newcomers, only to be faced by an Epic: Mitosis. Mitosis can make copies of himself, and begins to do so, spreading them throughout the city. His target? David, nicknamed Steelslayer. Will David be able to outwit this Epic as well? This short novella (only five chapters) was well-written, and for some reason, I feel that it has Brandon all over it. I can practically hear his voice coming through David's character, which I found interesting. I thought that this was a clever interlude in between Steelheart and Firefight , and I'm wondering if it leads into Firefight ? Since I have finished the original trilogy, I'm excited t...

 I think this is the book that I was the most excited to read. I got it for Christmas, but I had to reread the first two in the series. It took far longer than I wanted because, as I said in my last post, I took a slight break to read The Hawthorne Legacy  in the middle. Cytonic  picks up right at the end of Starsight , and overlaps a little to refresh the cliffhanger that Starsight  ends on. Spensa jumps through the portal into the nowhere, but instead of going home, she makes a decision that plants her in the Belt, the very edge of the Nowhere that borders the Somewhere. She is told that she must find the Path of Elders and learn about the Cytonics and the Delvers. Upon arrival, she is immediately attacked by pirates who occupy this portion of the Belt, ever looking to increase their numbers. Unable to escape, she's captured, but before they can take her prisoner, a man rides through the jungle on a dinosaur-like creature to save Spensa. He introduces himself as Ch...

So sorry for the absence of reviews. I caught up with what I had finished, and I've started back for a new school year, so things are super busy, but I finally finished  Slaughterhouse-Five . This once again as a book club read. The BBC has a list of 100 books that they bet most people haven't read, and this is one of them. I had never read this book, so this was my first time through. Billy Pilgrim is unstuck in time. As the story progresses, it is quickly established that the story is nonlinear. At times, Billy is in Germany as a prisoner of war. At other times, he's in his house in 1950, talking with his daughters. At other times, he is on an alien planet called Tralfamadore. These memories all lead up to the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, a real event that Kurt Vonnegut himself lived through. This book is very complicated. It is clear that the nonlinear structure of the novel is very intentional. The order of the experiences we read is exactly how Vonnegut meant them....

 As an active World of Warcraft player before the Battle for Azeroth expansion, this was almost required reading. BFA is over and the next expansion came out like a year ago and I'm just now finishing this book. That should tell you all you need to know about how I feel about it. Before the Storm  by Christie Golden tells the untold story of what happens in the aftermath of the Legion's invasion of Azeroth. Faced with the death of his father, Anduin Wrynn must regroup the Alliance. Sylvannas has become ruler of the Horde, and with the discovery of Azerite in Silithus, she begins her plans. Neither faction can afford a war, and yet it is brewing on the horizon. Can Anduin bridge that gap and establish peace between the Horde and the Alliance? I... didn't like this book. Pretty much at all. I wanted it to answer more questions about why Sylvannas did what she did, but we STILL don't have all the answers to that, even an expansion later. It didn't answer my pressing qu...

 This is my second time through Artemis . I read it before resurrecting this blog, so here I am, reading it again to review it. Artemis by Andy Weir imagines a society on the moon. Jazz Bashara has lived in Artemis since she was six. She has a successful smuggling side hustle alongside a legitimate porter job. Artemis is full of all kinds of people, from the very wealthy to the very poor. As Jazz says, "I'm one of the little guys." That's all about to change when Trond Landvik, one of the very wealthy, offers her a million slugs to pull a job. All she has to do is sabotage the mining operations of the city's oxygen supplier, Sanchez Aluminum. After a botched job, and a double murder, Jazz finds herself far over her head and the next target of a powerful crime syndicate. Can Jazz outwit O Palacio and mend broken relationships to save Artemis? This is a fun story. Jazz's narrative voice is hilarious. I love her personality and her depth. I love the amount of sci...

 Again, this is another novel that I read with my students. I LOVE this book. I always thought that it would be scary, and initially, I was terrified to read it. Everyone paints it as such a horror story, and of course, we all have Halloween. Frankenstein  by Mary Shelley is considered the quintessential horror book. Victor Frankenstein had what he considered a perfect life. He had a happy family and close friends in Geneva. Victor was fascinated by the sciences from a very young age and pursued the philosophies of the alchemists. After being mocked mercilessly by a college professor, Victor eventually gives up these beliefs, but not for long. He discovers the secret to life. Creating a being out of the remains of the dead, initially, he is thrilled by his creation, but once he finally bestows the spark of life, he is terrified at his creation and abandons it. The monster is then left to fend for itself, learning morality from works like Paradise Lost , and observing a French ...

I had the privilege of attending the launch party for this novel last November. While I had a blast, I hadn't yet read Skyward , so my excitement for this book was... limited. The hype and the release party have so much more meaning now that I've finished both books. Starsight  by Brandon Sanderson picks up not long after the conclusion of Skyward . Spensa and her friends are still fighting the Krell, whose attacks have seemed to be getting more aggressive. The DDF has also started trying to reclaim Detritus' outer defenses, hoping to be able to protect themselves. An old recording is found from the humans that built the Detritus shell. They are attempting to harness cytonic power, and summon a terrible being from somewhere in space. Cytonics like Spensa are now rare, and yet she manages to call out to one from another planet, who then crash lands on Detritus. Spensa must now take the alien's place at Starsight, the base that's sending the Krell to attack Detritus. ...

Skyward  by Brandon Sanderson follows a rebellious girl called Spensa. She has spent her entire life looking up to her father; a man who the military government of their underground settlement has labeled a traitor. Her homeworld, where their ship crash-landed before Spensa was born, has been under attack by strange aliens for her entire life. In order to clear her father's name and bring glory to her family, Spensa gets into Flight School. But even with the honor of being in school, she's not allowed to stay on the base with the other cadets. She stumbles upon a cave where a strange ship has been parked in the cavern for years with stealth technology and a sassy AI. Can Spensa repair the ship? Will she ever be allowed to graduate flight school? Can she clear her father's name? I loved Skyward . I don't know why it took me so long to pick this one up, but I'm grateful I got around to it. Brandon Sanderson is a master of character rotations (writing in the third pers...

This book is relatively new and came highly recommended by all of the reviews I had read of it. I initially bought it for my sister-in-law, then our department book exchange for Christmas last year, but I hadn't read it myself. I decided that I would and purchased it on Audible. The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe  by Allie Condie is about a girl named Poe who is set for revenge against the people that killed her boyfriend while on their first voyage out of the settlement. Poe creates weapons against the savages that inhabit the forests outside of her city, meant to protect the mining ship as it treks up the river harvesting gold. The city is sending out its last ship, and Poe is chosen as captain. She must confront the dangerous reasons why she was sent on this mission, deal with a mutiny on board, and figure out where her loyalties truly lie. In all, I really enjoyed this book. Ally Condie did a great job keeping readers engaged with giving just enough information to keep you reading w...