Oh December. How I have failed you.
At the beginning of the month, I was all set to go. It’s almost Christmas, I told myself. You will get many books for Christmas! Better catch up on your reading in advance. Did I? No. Total fail.
Book Stats
Books Read: 9 (+5 unfinished.)
Books Bought: 1
Books Borrowed (from Library): 1 (Right? I’m not sure what happened there. I didn’t even read it.)
Books Given: 18 (ARCs) + 7 (Christmas presents) = 25
Money Spent: $13
Books on To-Read Shelf: 36 (GAH.)
You know what I did do in December though? Cleaned my entire house in preparation for Christmas guests. It was a lot of cleaning. So much that we had to have extra garbage pick up day for the additional 14 bags of trash my brother and I cleaned out. And then I finally got to my room and thought I might as well FINALLY finish cataloging my books on GoodReads.com. So I did. It took a couple days. I have 1,286 books on my “shelves”. Probably only 1,100 or so on my actual shelves. Ridiculous. I now have several boxes of books to sell. Powell’s is in my future (additional Xmas present? Powell’s gift card. Aw, yeah.)
So this month I actually read 2 books for a second time. I was starting the series over in prep for the 5th book coming out in two weeks which *someone* has already bought off my Amazon Wish List. I’m guessing my mother. But then I got sidetracked by the cleaning. Anyway, it’s the Karen Marie Moning Fever series. So bad. I’m still looking forward to the conclusion.
I liked this month: Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn and Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead. I also wanted to like NoMansLand by Lesley Hauge.
Troubled Waters is a politically involved fantasy book by Shinn. She writes a lot of that. Also lots of made-up designations for luck and personal attributes in the world building. Which, generally, I get annoyed by but I let it slide this time. I kind of enjoyed their practice of picking lucky attributes out of a barrel, Religious differences are interesting. Anyway it’s got a romance and a decent plot. Worth reading.
Last Sacrifice was the final book in the Vampire Academy YA series I’ve been reading for years. BIG sigh of relief. Over. Admittedly, now she’s going to do some spin-off. Presumably about….well a secondary character who becomes important in this one. I can see how it’s going to go already so I’m leery of it. This was a pretty good end. Not great. And honestly there were at least five glaring editing errors both in easy grammar and continuity that I spotted. There might have been more. That is incredibly annoying and kind of insulting. Can’t they do a better job before publishing? I didn’t pay good money for this but my mom did–(Christmas present).
NoMansLand probably isn’t capitalized that way but whatever. It’s about a post-apocalypse society of amazon women living on an island and the way of life and lies there. It seemed so awesome! But then the writing wasn’t actually great and the end was kind of…lacking. It needed better conflict that was less easily resolved. And more about the society and…well, really it just needed more. It was pretty short.
Books I didn’t like: Bleh. Nothing much to talk about. I will tell you that I tried another Elizabeth Bear novel. Remember I raved about Bone and Jewel Creatures a while ago? So I tried All the Windwracked Stars. Great title. But I was bored and didn’t make it far. Sad. But see it’s good for you that I raved about this author and am now carefully taking back my recommendation. Be leery of her other writing! You never know what might be good. I’ll try another one someday.
I did, of course, also read MY book in December. This would be the NaNo novel I wrote in November. I settled on the title of Book ‘Em. Which is good both for the main character owning a book store and the crime solving aspect. I gave out two copies already to family and have one more. I need to order a couple more copies so I can loan it to people who care to read it. I’m still kind of waiting for a little more feedback before I decide if it’s good enough to loan out though. I think it’s unremarkable. But sophomore efforts aren’t supposed to be sterling, right? Sigh. And on that note, onwards to the year 2010 in review post.