The final part of my reading catchup series in which I discuss Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Winter by Marissa Meyer and Soundless by Richelle Mead. [book-info]Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a new series set in the same world as her Grisha Trilogy, which I loved. One of Bardugo’s strengths as a writer is her worldbuilding – and that continues in this new outing. Instead of a Russianesque setting, the action moves to a place reminiscent of Amsterdam in its Golden Age. The characters were interesting, but in an ensemble book like this, they aren’t always given the time to be as fully developed as a single protagonist novel. I look forward to seeing where the series goes and will certainly keep up with it. I gave Six of Crows four stars out of five. [book-info number=1]Winter by Marissa Meyer is the fourth and final book in the Lunar Chronicles series and was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. This final book was loosely based on the Snow White fairytale and tells the story of Princess Winter of Luna as well as continuing the stories of Cinder, Scarlet and Cress and their attempt to…
And here we go for the second part of my reading catchup in which I discuss Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson, Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff and Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. [book-info]Shadows of Self is the second in Sanderson’s Wax and Wayne series (or the fifth Mistborn, however you like to look at it) and is set in the same world as the Mistborn trilogy only several hundred years later at a point in which the society is on the cusp of becoming industrialised. It has a deliberate steampunk feel to it. Sanderson is known as a master of worldbuilding, plot, pacing and magic systems and that is certainly borne out in Shadows of Self. The plot is imaginative, the pacing excellent and the magic system/worldbuilding outstanding as always. However, the more (recent) books of his I read, the more I realise I’m not very fond of his writing style. For me, personally, the informal style does not match the setting. It could be this is a deliberate choice by the writer – I know from his work on The Wheel of Time and The Stormlight Archive that he can use a more formal style…
Happy new year everyone! I hope 2015 is a good one for you. It’s about time I got on and did my review of my reading year. It was a good year in general. I did have a couple of major reading slumps, which meant that this was the first time in many years that I didn’t make my GoodReads challenge. I had set my challenge at 100 books of which I read 91, which isn’t too bad going, I suppose. My challenge goal didn’t take account of the fact that this year I listened to far more audiobooks than previously. These do take me much longer than reading a Kindle book, but are very enjoyable. Some stats One reason I love GoodReads is that is can give you some interesting stats and a record of your reading progress. Here are some of mine. I read 91 books in 2014. The longest of these was Brandon Sanderson’s Words of Radiance, which weighed in at a whopping 1,088 pages or 48 hours and 15 minutes of listening pleasure. I gave my father-in-law this audiobook for Christmas – it will take him a bit of time to get through it! I rated…