August: Reading Plans

Buddies! It's really smokey outside. Perfect "weather" for reading lots of great books. I have high hopes that I'll read a lot of great books this month. Making lemonade out of lemons, okay?

The first book I've started reading is Powerless. I picked this one up because Reckless just came out and I am always happy to read a book when I don't have to wait around for the next one. So far, I'm both enjoying it and being thoroughly disappointed. No one told me it is an on-the-nose copy of Hunger Games in romantasy form! It's enjoyable to read if you can get past that. So far, I'm having trouble because she didn't just copy the basic premise. She copied some very specific details. Spoilers: The MFC is a expert with a bow and arrow. The commentator of the games has bright colorful hair. The people of the city have a special gesture they use when someone dies in the games. There's a hedge maze that moves around and tries to squish people (Harry Potter). The author could have written the story without being so obvious with her almost-plagiarism. That aside, if you think of it as fan-fiction and ignore the excessive similarities to Hunger Games et. al., typos, repetitive lovesick inner monologue and stupidity of the characters, you may enjoy this book! I am even enjoying it, much to my shame.

The next book I have in progress is The Priory of the Orange Tree, and if you've seen the hardcover edition, you will understand why I've been struggling to get through it. I've been listening to the audio book. The damn thing is almost 26 hours long.  I don't even know why I put it on the plan for August because I am pretty sure I won't even try to finish it.  It's not because the writing isn't good.  It is well written and the story is intricate.  The problem is that I'm not emotionally invested in the characters. I'm having a hard time caring about any of it. There's so much political drama and a plethora of character POVs. I think a downside to including multiple POVs in a story is that it takes away from bonding time with your main character. I want to buy the physical book and annotate it, but so far I haven't cared enough to actually do it. So I suppose I will plug away at it and maybe wittle away a few more minutes off the audio book this month.

I'm reading Inked during my LIVE sessions on Tiktok. I am on there at 1900 most Thursdays. I do reading sprints during that time (spoiler free). Last week was my second live session and it's going well so far. I've gotten half way through the book, which seems fairly good progress for only two sessions. I have decided that after I finish this book, if I continue going live in the future, I'm going to do lives that may contain spoilers. I really enjoy discussing what I'm reading as I read it. I will try to avoid major spoilers (nothing like .. the MFC dies!), I just want to be able to discuss as I go. No point in doing something unless you can do it in a way that you enjoy!

I've just started The Witchstone by Henry H. Neff. The book features Lazlo, an 800-year-old demon whose job it is to supervise the curse placed on a specific family line. (They deserved the curse, because they burned a witch and had it coming.) Lazlo's been slacking and upper management gives him a week to improve his productivity numbers or he'll be turned back into demon ooze, an extremely painful process. The book is marketed as comedy. I'm 8% in and I am amused but have not chuckled as yet. I'm going to keep going and reevaluate comedic value at conclusion. I'm really hoping this isn't one of those stories where characters of a type don't behave as that type is stereotypically indicated. I like it when my demons act like demons, if you know what I mean. I'm not a fan of demons who wrestle with their consciences and have morals. Belies the title. Plus, I don't really enjoy reading about angels or any other "good" creature. Give me that dark side!

I've been working my way through Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series. I'm on book seven, Impossible Imposter, and hoping to get to that this month. I love her books so much. They have this Sherlock Holmes style of writing and are set in the late 1800s. I love anything Sherlock or steampunk. The only reason I haven't finished this series already is because of the ADHD tendencies. I want to sample new things constantly, and my compulsions to do this usually win over my desire to read from a well-known or well-loved source. So fighting that tendency and attempting to get to this book in August. Keep fingers and toes crossed for me because I'm going to need all the luck I can get.

I have two litRPGs on my plan for the month. Scavengers and Black Dawn . Scavengers is the second book in the Darkthorn Academy Series that I started last month. It's basically Fourth Wing and Harry Potter adventure fiction. The stats jargon is minimal and there is an adorable dragon in the story that I'm coming back for. Black Dawn (by Nathan Ameye) is the first book in a new series for me called Fae Nexus. I haven't even looked to see what it's about, so we will see if I get into it.

The last two books on my plan for August are Whispers in the Deep, which I've not looked into that deeply, but seems to be a lovestory between a human and a merman, and The Book That Wouldn't Burn, which is a book with a bookish title. I have no idea what it's about and I just got it because it acts like it's about books and I love books. I've usually been disappointed by books I've picked up based solely on their cover art or title, so we will see what happens this time around.

Oh! It hardly seems worth mentioning, but I also finished A Ghostly Gift which is a novella by Angie Fox. It's technically the second book in the Southern Ghost Hunter series, but since it's only 98 pages, does it really even count as a book? I promise I didn't read it to get my "read count" up for the month. It was cute, but I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone spend money on it. Totally skip it. Doesn't effect the storyline of the series in any way.

Those are all the books on the official plan, but I've also started listening to another litRPG audio book called One More Last Time by Eric Ugland. I started that one on whimsy because it was free on audible. So far, I'm liking it. I'm on chapter 17. Guy is about to die, gets a phone call from a high level executive buddy who has pulled some strings and "gets him in" to a program where he can continue to live as a game character. There's a moderate amount of stat jargon so far. It's not overwhelming, but its definitely noticable. Not the kind of book you want to read if you want to forget the MC is a pixel character. I'll be posting reviews on all these books as I am able. Please leave me some comments to let me know what you think of them. I would love to chat with you guys.

xx Sam xx