Goodreads Challenge – Progress Update

While I may not have been keeping up very well with the site, that doesn’t mean I haven’t managed to read a few books this year! I’m still hoping to get more detailed reviews up, but in the meantime this is what my 2018 GoodReads Challenge looks like. I really wish I were the type of person who could do audiobooks, but for some reason they continue to put me to sleep, no matter who the reader is or what I’m reading. If you have a suggestion for me about audiobooks I’d love to hear it! I feel like I could optimize my time better if I were listening along to a novel instead of just filling that space with xyz background noise.

One of my goals this year was to read books written by Canadian authors, and as you can tell by my list, I’ve managed a couple. My favourite would have to be American War, but there’s lots of time left in the year for that to change. I’ve been using CBC reads to find Canadian authors that I’ve never heard of before and so far it’s working out wonderfully.

I love branching out with my book genres and I hope I continue to find amazing new authors that I’ve never read before. What are you currently reading and how is your GoodReads challenge stacking up? I do hope to complete 50 books this year, but with a new baby on the way (due end of July) we’ll just have to see how things go.

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Reading Challenge: 2018

I know, I have fallen behind in posting to this site for many months now, the last one being back in July 2016. I didn’t even write at all in 2017, even though I did read books. I can’t promise that I’ll be any better about it in the upcoming months but I do want to try. I set myself with a new reading challenge over on GoodReads for 2018, last year I managed 30 books which seemed a bit abysmal for someone who enjoys books as much as I do. Sure, things are busy, but even just a few minutes before bed can allow you to get some wonderful reading done.

So this year I’ve decided to aim higher, 50 books. 50 is what I would ‘typically’ read before having children, before moving to a new province, before my life became the complicated mess that it is these days. I am not sure if I’ll actually make it, but I am sure going to try. That’s approximately one book a week (give or take a few days) and so far I’ve managed two books for 2018. I don’t want to force myself, but on the other hand I don’t want to continue to fall so far behind, either.

Along with that new reading goal I decided that I wanted to read more Canadian authors, so I went to CBC Books and looked up what books people were talking about. My first two 2018 books were both by Canadian authors, and I’ll be talking about them more in the upcoming days (hopefully, again no promises). I’m trying to decide what I want to read for my third book of the year, something a bit different than what I’ve been reading I think (I’ve stuck to a lot of plain fiction).

Hopefully putting these goals down in text here on the site will inspire and motivate me to actually get the reading done (and the writing). I’m sorry for slacking so badly over the past year, and I can’t wait to share what I’ve been reading with everyone.

Review: The Wicked Wager, by Anya Wylde

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Remember how I was writing about those books you can get for free every now and again from Amazon, and how most of them happen to be romance? Well, this was one of them. I initially picked it up because the description sounded mildly interesting – and then I got to a line in the first paragraph that made me almost drop the entire thing and not even bother.

“He tilted his head and his naughty ears trembled impatiently.”

Yep.

I don’t mind silly stories, or comical ones, but the writing has to be able to grab me if that’s going to be the case, and I just about found that one line to be too much for me. Thankfully I decided to press on to see if the writing got any better. It did (slightly).

Emma and Richard are meant to be, but before they can they have to convince Emma’s uncle that they don’t need to wait on the wedding and they should be able to get married sooner rather than later. Emma heads over to her uncles place for a few weeks to convince him of their love, and Richard concocts a plan placing him as a gardener within the mansion so that he can be closer to Emma. Of course life never works out that easily, and the couple meet up with lots of complications along the way, including having to convince Richard’s close friend to pretend to be Richard when the uncle invites him over to get to know him better.

The book is an easy relaxing read, but the writing style was not one I was fond of. The bond between Emma and Richard didn’t feel ‘real’ enough, where as the relationship that budded between Catherine and Lord Raikes felt much more ‘real’ (and it felt like there was more focus on them later on in the book even though they were background characters). The book also changed gears towards the end where it felt more like a game of clue (It was Emma in the yard with a candlestick!) instead of being about the various romances going on, almost as though the author got bored of their own story line. I personally wouldn’t classify this book as a mystery since nothing mystery related actually happens until the last 5-10% of the book, but since the author herself calls it that, why not. It just felt a bit out of place and forced compared to the first half of the book.

If you’re looking for a funny, easy read with a bit of romance (all clean) and some mystery, then The Wicked Wager may be just what you’re looking for, especially for the price.

3/5 stars

Review: The Dragon Round, by Stephen S. Power

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This book started out pretty interesting. Tales of swashbuckling adventures, a mutinous crew, and an island where Jeryon and the apothecary from his ship are eventually stranded. The whole first half of the book was about their adventures in survival. Separated at first they find a way to survive and eventually meet up on the island. They create a camp together, and stumble onto a baby dragon hatching. All of these stories I enjoyed a great deal and it reminded me a lot of The Count of Monte Cristo in the way that the first half of the book was about revenge. Jeryon wanted revenge on the ship crew that left him stranded, and he decided to use the baby dragon to seek out that revenge. He starts training it, making plans, plotting his calculated revenge. He gets wrapped up in it.

As much as I enjoyed the first half of the book, the second half left me scratching my head in confusion. Instead of adventures and tales of heroic (and some not so heroic) deeds, it was about politics. Politics of the lands that Jeryon and his apothecary are from. Politics where a war is starting up and people are looking to place blame. The apothecary’s story (her name is Everlyn) is pretty much ignored from this point on and we don’t hear from her any more until the very end. Gone is the depth and personal connection we feel to any of the previous main characters as the focus suddenly shifts without any warning (and in my opinion, without any need). It was so sudden and jarring that a book I would have gladly given close to four stars to dropped down to a 2.5 (I round them up on goodreads). I almost started to wonder if the second half had been written by someone else, or after a long break where the author suddenly decided to change the story. It’s not a smooth transition, and that’s a shame because for the first half of the book there was just so much potential. The abrupt ending, especially, felt (to me) like it was rather slapped on.

3/5 stars

Review: The Song of Kahunsha, by Anosh Irani

299773A friend was giving away some of his books because he’s running out of room, and of course being the book lover I am, I decided to pick out a few to add to my own collection. One of them was this Canada Reads book from 2007 that I had never heard of.

The Song of Kahunsha is about a 10 year old orphan boy who lives in Bombay. One day he learns that the orphanage is going to be shut down, and instead of going that rout he decides to take his fate in his own hands, and sets out to find his birth father who left him on the steps so long ago.

One of the great things about this book is the innocence that Chamdi has, no matter how many hardships he faces. This comes across as a child’s method of coping, and it’s written in a magical way that pulls the reader through his world. His world is one of heartache, pain, and violence but also one of incredibly colours, hope, and belief. He learns that the world is rough, and even though he meets up with two children around his own age, Sumdi and Guddi, things are going to get a lot harder. Together they start collecting money for Anand Bhai, who “turns people into boxes”. Chamdi’s world is further shaken when on the day he is supposed to steal from a local temple, something terrible happens (as if enough had not already happened).

Still, Chamdi finds beauty. He sees things with the eyes of a child and he’s unable to completely give up his child-like ways, even though he sees evils all around him, evils that the reader understands but that the 10 year old Chamdi cannot.

This isn’t a happy ending book but sometimes you need something deeply emotional to shake you up a little and get you out of a reading rut.

4/5 Stars

Suggestions on Where to Find Free E-Books

Books

Reading can be an expensive hobby, especially if you like to read books by your favourite authors as soon as they come out. So what about the time in between those authors when you’re still craving a book to read, but don’t necessarily want to shell out $20+ per book? Don’t misunderstand me here, I certainly believe that authors should be paid for their work, and being a writer myself I understand the enormous amount of work that goes into a publication, but I’ve also always been a big supporter of reading and I believe that it should be made available for anyone out there who wants to read no matter their financial standing – thankfully this day in age, with today’s technology, there are many options for low budget reading. You may not always get triple A reading material, but you’ll certainly find some gems.

One of the first things I did when I got my kindle e-reader was browse through the kindle store. It’s pretty easy to get lost, but they have a nice selection of books that are free for you to read, usually the classics. There’s tons of classics out there. If you’re not a fan of using amazon there are other options. One popular one is Project Gutenberg. A good one for free audio books is LibriVox.

Every day I get an email from BookBub and in this email they typically list a bunch of highly discounted books along with one or two free ones. The free ones are not free forever, they’re usually on some amazon deal that lasts a day, a week, or longer depending on the author. This is where you’ll see a lot of “not so great, but hey it’s free” books listed – and it’s a great place to find potential gems. The books are different every single day and this is probably one of my favourite ways to get free books and add to my e-book collection. If you’ve never checked it out before, I highly recommend signing up. One thing to note, if you check off any of the romance books in your preferences, chances are your daily email will be filled with that type of book. It just happens that there’s a large number of them, and they go free pretty often. I’ve got 14 free books in the lats 6 months according to my amazon orders placed, and while they certainly haven’t all been winners, they’re not always horrible and it’s a great way to do some budget reading. There are also a lot of sites like this one that will list all of the current amazon books that are marked as free.

If you’ve got a book review site, a blog, or even just like to write reviews for Goodreads there are even more options for you. You can sign up for a site like NetGalley and apply directly to publishers to read and review the books they have listed. In this case you’re much more likely to stumble across books you will really enjoy since you’re hand picking which ones you review. The books here are all represented by a publisher, and are not self published. Of course the downside in this case is that you may be declined by the publisher, especially if you don’t match the publisher’s requests. There are rules for this type of review, they have to be done in a specific time, and sometimes location is a factor. Publishers may only be looking for reviewers in the US, or in Canada, based on where their book is being released.

I’ve talked about these options before, but if you’re a fan of bundles, there’s the HumbleBookBundle that runs pretty frequently, though you may need to wait until you see books that you enjoy come up. They change each bundle, and the prices are fantastic. There’s also StoryBundle which supports Indie authors. Their bundles are less frequent, so you may want to sign up so you can get notice of when they run.

Another choice that is slowly making its way across cities is of course – your public library. Now this will absolutely depend on where you live. When I was in Ottawa I was able to sign out ebooks from the library web site and download them to my e-reader. Now that I live in a more remote area, I don’t have this available, and I miss it. Not all books will be available this way, and you still have to abide by library rules (they can only lend out as many “copies” as they own, and there may be a queue) but it’s a newer option that I really enjoy seeing come to life.

Have more suggestions for readers on how to get some budget ebooks? Don’t hesitate to leave a comment with your suggestions below!

 

Review: If I had a Gryphon, by Vikki VanSickle and Cale Atkinson

Sam has a hamster – a typical first pet for any child. Unfortunately Sam is a bit disillusioned with this pet and has grand dreams of something… more. Something more exciting. Something like.. a dragon! Except they would be a lot of work, always lighting things on fire, wouldn’t they.

Sam goes through a whole list of mythical creatures that may be perfect for a pet, but finds a fault with them all and in the end decides that the hamster is perfect.

This book is fantastic for parents to read to their children. It teaches them about creatures that they wouldn’t usually hear about, animals that are not your typical pet. The ending resonated particularly well with me, as Sam decides that the hamster is the perfect pet even after going through the list of mythical ones. A good lesson in the grass is always greener on the other side. I think geek parents would be particularly enthralled with this book, and highly recommend it. My version was in black and white on my e-reader, but I enjoyed the images for what they were. They’re not especially high quality, but I feel that the book doesn’t need it, the story really does speak for itself.

5/5 stars

 
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