Reading challenge wrapup 2013 - Mount TBR

One of my stated goals for 2013 was to make a serious dent in my To Be Read list. I set myself the goal that at LEAST two of the books I read every month should be from said list, and preferably purchased before 2012 even.

So this reading challenge, where the goal was to read only books written or purchased before 2013, and owned by me (no borrowed books) seemed like the perfect solution. Originally I signed up to complete the Mont Blanc, a modest 24 books over the course of the year. As the months went on, and I kept reading, I kept being able to upgrade my reading goal, until I completed the last of my books on the 28th of December, having read a total of 60 books from my TBR list - so I completed Mount Kilimanjaro. Sadly, I probably added twice that number to my TBR list again just from the various "Best of the year" lists in December, but that's a challenge for next year. My books were as follows:

1. Firelight by Kristen Callihan
2. The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
3. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
4. The Snow Queen by Mercedes Lackey
5. The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King
6. The Assassins prequels by Sarah J. Maas
7. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
8. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
9. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
10. Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
11. The Mislaid Magician by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
12. Turn Me On, Damn It by Olaug Nilssen
13. The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand
14. One Eye Red by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
15. Seduce Me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas
16. Tempt Me at Twilight by Lisa Kleypas
17. Married by Morning by Lisa Kleypas
18. Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas
19. The Figwort Family by Lars Saabye Christensen
20. The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman
21. Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
22. Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede
23. Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
24. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
25. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
26. Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge
27. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
28. First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones
29. Little House on the Praire by Laura Ingalls Wilder
30. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
31. The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
32. The Umbrella Academy: Dallas by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
33. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
34. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
35. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
36. Little Town on the Praire by Laura Ingalls Wilder
37. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
38. The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
39. Beauty and the Spy by Julie Anne Long
40. Summer Knight by Jim Butcher
41. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
42. Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu
43. The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
44. Flowers From the Storm by Laura Kinsale
45. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
46. Where She Went by Gayle Forman
47. Death Masks by Jim Butcher
48. Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar
49. Scoundrel's Kiss by Carrie Lofty
50. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
51. Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone
52. Blood Rites by Jim Butcher
53. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sarra Manning
54. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
55. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
56. Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
57. Bigger Than a Bread Box by Laurel Snyder
58. Zel by Donna Jo Napoli
59. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
60. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

#CBR5 Book 156. "Clean Sweep" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 181 pages
Rating: 4 stars

It's my last book of the year, and I'm feeling a bit worn out after a LOT of blogging, so I'm taking the liberty of letting the authors themselves summarise the book (it's self published), because Ilona writes way better than I:

On the outside, Dina Demille is the epitome of normal. She runs a quaint Victorian Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town, owns a Shih Tzu named Beast, and is a perfect neighbor, whose biggest problems should be what to serve her guests for breakfast. But Dina is...different: Her broom is a deadly weapon; her Inn is magic and thinks for itself. Meant to be a lodging for otherworldly visitors, the only permanent guest is a retired Galactic aristocrat who can't leave the grounds because she's responsible for the deaths of millions and someone might shoot her on sight. Under the circumstances, "normal" is a bit of a stretch for Dina. 

And now, something with wicked claws and deepwater teeth has begun to hunt at night... Feeling responsible for her neighbors, Dina decides to get involved. Before long, she has to juggle dealing with the annoyingly attractive, ex-military, new neighbor Sean Evans - an alpha-strain werewolf - and the equally arresting cosmic vampire soldier, Arland, while trying to keep her Inn and its guests safe. But the enemy she is facing is unlike anything she's ever encountered before. It's smart, vicious and lethal, and putting herself between this creature and her neighbors might just cost her everything. 

Clean Sweep began as a side project for Ilona Andrews. A free serial where they would post a new instalment every week or so, until their workload forced them to slow down, they describe the creation of the book "like writing in front of an audience". The readers would comment with editing suggestions, proof reading and/or comments about what worked/didn't work for them. Once a chapter was up on the website, they couldn't go back and edit too heavily or rewrite, and to their audience interested, they needed to hook readers quickly, and keep them reading, usually by ending chapters on cliffhangers or teasing excitement yet to come. The serial became immensely popular, and they were persuaded to self publish the work. Once the main story was completed, they took the serial offline and promised that the final part of the last chapter, and the epilogue, would be included in the e-book version for sale. Finally released in a variety of e-book formats and as print on demand in early December, the authors have sold more of their initially free book than they had ever hoped for.

I'm very glad that this has proved a success, because I thought it was a wonderful thing for them to do in the first place, and a lovely bonus project for their many and loyal fans. Long-time readers of my blog know that I'm a huge fan of both the Kate Daniels series (among my favourite paranormal fantasy series currently running) and their now completed Edge series (loosely interconnected fantasy novels with a more romantic focus). Hence I was never not going to buy this book, and I already knew that I liked it. Andrews writes great characters, with distinctive personalities. They have tense and exciting action set pieces and very witty dialogue. I'm amazed at how quickly they play with paranormal/urban fantasy expectations, establishing a new world with a fairly contemporary American setting, but with "bigger on the inside" buildings with portals to other worlds, and common urban/paranormal tropes like vampires and werewolves, but suddenly announcing that these are actually aliens from other worlds, and that the myths our world has about these creatures have very natural expectations.

Like their other heroines before her, Dina is a very capable and pragmatic protagonist. The makings of a love triangle are introduced, but while Dina doesn't mind looking at pretty menfolk, she also learned that if you want something done, you might be better off doing it yourself, and that intergalactic space travellers, even of the hunky and charming variety, may not want to settle down running a B&B in small town Texas.

Due to the great success of their first volume, Ilona and Gordon have promised that there will be more Innkeeper Chronicles to come, and have posted teasing snippets that suggest that maybe all those fans complaining that they finished off the Edge books may see further appearances of supporting characters from those books making appearances in future stories. I'm very glad I chose this as my final book and concluding Cannonball review of 2013. Triple Cannonball completed!

#CBR5 Book 155. "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Louise "Lou" Clark works in a cafe, and likes it, helping her parents out with whatever money she can. Her mother spends most of her days taking care of Lou's grandfather, who's recovering from a stroke, so can't work, and due to the recession, there's threats of downsizing at the factory where her father works. Her younger sister, the "smart one", had to drop out of university when she was accidentally knocked up, and now works as a florist, while her five-year-old is minded by her and Lou's mother after school. Lou has also dated the same man for the last seven years, and they have a comfortable sort of a relationship. But since Patrick got into his triathlons, he's more and more focused on exercise than anything else.

So when Lou is told by her boss that he's closing the cafe and moving back to Australia, leaving her with three months' pay and nothing to do, the entire family panics a bit. There's not a lot to do for a twenty-six-year-old with few qualifications, and after a few disastrous short term engagements at a chicken processing plant and in some fast food joint, the options open to Lou are pretty much pole dancer, adult phone line operator or care assistant. So when an high paying opening to be the care assistant for a young man, with assurances that Lou will not be expected to do anything involving personal hygiene or medical care, she doesn't really have a choice but to show up for an interview.

Despite not having any sort of formal qualifications suitable for the job, Mrs Traynor, the patient's mother agrees to give her a chance. It turns out that Lou will spend her days as a companion to Will Traynor, a thirty-year-old former businessman turned paraplegic after a random accident. Having been extremely physically active, travelling all over world before the accident, Will is deeply miserable in his new situation, and while Lou doesn't discover it right away, he's tried to kill himself once and has pressured his parents to agree to let him travel to Switzerland to be allowed assisted suicide. They're desperately hoping he will reconsider, and employing Lou, who despite her family troubles is cheerful, optimistic and very unorthodox, is one of the ways in which they're trying to improve is mood. Will, however, is surly and hostile for much of Lou's first months as his assistant, making her parents' financial worries and the limited six month contract the only reason she puts up with him.

As she starts demanding he treat her with more kindness and respect, their relationship starts to change into something closer to friendship. Will challenges her to try new things, like classical music, subtitled movies and acclaimed novels, which she tends to initially label as "not her thing". Hence, when Lou discovers the true reason why she's only employed for six months, she is sorely tempted to quit, refusing to accept that the Traynors are letting Will commit suicide. She wants to show Will all the things he will be missing out on, and plans a series of elaborate experiences to make him change his mind.

While the book deftly handles difficult issues like severe disability and the moral grey areas around assisted suicide, it doesn't in any way judge one way or the other, and the most important story isn't the romantic feelings that start developing between Louisa and Will as the novel progresses, but the blossoming that Lou does once she overcomes the initial months of her contract, and starts finding some common ground with him.

Having always seen her younger sister as the prettier, smarter one, and putting up with good-natured teasing from her family and boyfriend about her looks, and colourful dress sense, Lou has never really challenged herself to be anything else or reach for more. She got the job in the cafe on a bet, and stayed there until it closed down, quite happy for nothing to change. While Patrick is no longer the man she actually fell in love with, it's easier not to confront the fact that he's far more caught up in his own fitness regime, with no plans to ever propose to her or even ask her to move in with him, and so they stay in a fairly depressing holding pattern. She stopped using the library when she graduated high school, she's never really travelled outside the confines of the little town, and she's never really even dared to dream about anything different or bigger. Will, who is now trapped in his own body and unable to go anywhere without assistance, challenges and questions her choices, refusing to let her just maintain the status quo because it's easier or more comfortable.

Will is hostile, surly and miserable for a reason. Reading about the life he had before his accident, and the way he's viewed by almost everyone when he leaves the house, Moyes makes a very good case for why he may want to choose to end his own life. In making her grand list of adventures, Lou goes online to a variety of message boards and forums, and it's clear that there are people with severe disabilities who find that they have things left to live for, and are able to readjust their expectations in life, but it's also clear that this may not be enough for everyone. It's a moving book, and very sad in places, dealing with serious issues in a very non-preachy way. I also appreciated that the book ends on a very hopeful note. Thank you, Jen K for giving me the book in the Cannonball Book Swap this year!

#CBR5 Book 154. "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan

Page count: 305 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Having lost his job as a web developer due to the recession, Clay Jannon finds a new job as the night clerk in the titular bookstore, belonging to the mysterious Mr. Penumbra. Not that he sells all that many books. As well as the normal shelves, with its somewhat eclectic selection of novels and non fiction, there is what Clay calls the "wayback" section of the store, huge shelves of unique volumes, not to be found in any search engine, a sort of strange lending library for the odd individuals who show up with a laminated cards, returning a volume and fetching another at random intervals. Clay is asked to keep a log, describing the appearance of each of the customers and the state of mind each new customer was in when they come to swap a book.

Clay starts using his web developer skills to make a 3D-model of the store and the "wayback" section on his computer, trying to see if there's any pattern, rhyme or reason to the strange regulars and their lending patterns. He also works on trying to lure new customers to the store, using all the tools available to him in social media to advertise its location. Once he meets Kat, a young lady working at Google, his plans to map the mysterious patterns of Mr. Penumbra's store really take off, and soon he and his friends are involved in a mysterious quest involving a global conspiracy, a secret organisation, code breaking, data visualisation on a massive scale and possibly the secret to eternal life.

As someone who loves books, a book about a mysterious book store and a mystery surrounding reading sounded pretty enticing, but like so many other books, this ended up on my TBR shelf and languished there for a long time. It ended up being a very different book from what I was expecting, and I can see why it's not everyone's cup of tea, as it's very clever in slightly knowing and self referential way, combining the story of an ancient secret society trying to decode books with digitalisation, e-readers and Twitter. There are so many geeky references here, to role playing and gaming and various types of programming and web developing. Some might describe is as a "Hipster quest narrative", and they wouldn't be too far off the mark.

I think the book may have gotten a bit too clever for its own good in places, and the conclusion of the story doesn't come together as well as it began. I'm not sure I believe certain of the developments the story took, and that some of the characters got a bit lost in the main thrust of the excitement of the denouement. Still, it's a fun book, with a rather unusual premise, and I enjoyed reading it.

#CBR5 Book 153. "The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards" by Kristopher Jansma

Page count: 272 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is such a very difficult book to review, as to give away too much of the plot, or say too much about the characters would ruin the reading experience of those yet to read it.

Each chapter starts with a quote from a famous author about the art of writing, the art of creating fiction or just lying. "The truth is beautiful. Without doubt; and so are lies." is the first one. In the first section of the book: "What was lost", our unnamed narrator starts telling us about his childhood, waiting in Terminal B of an unnamed airport for his flight attendant mother to come back from wherever she'd gone to next. We're told how the twenty-two page adventure story he wrote (with illustrations) was lost when the man who ran the watch repair suddenly collapsed, and the book was thrown away. He tells us about going to a debutante ball because the brother of the girl he fancied was injured on a golf course shortly before, about going to college and starting to write in earnest, striking up a friendship and life long rivalry with the mysterious and charismatic Julian. At college he also meets the glamorous Evelyn, a promising actress, who may or may not be the love of his life.

In "What was found", we may finally have discovered the name of our narrator, or have we? He's had a disastrous falling out with his two closest friends, and is now travelling the globe, making a living from spinning clever and believable lies in one way or another. This section really spans the globe, set in parts in America, Dubai, Sri Lanka, Iceland and a wealth of other locations and continues to explore the nature of truth, lies and the art of storytelling. Can we trust our narrator, or is he always going to be unreliable? Is he still "telling us the truth but slant" as he learned in college? Does it actually matter?

This book first came to my attention when Joanna Robinson, one of the staff writers on Pajiba raved about it, saying it was one of the best books she'd read all year. That made me notice it in a number of other places, and other Cannonballers and online reviewers have rated it very highly as well. It made it a natural choice for "a book everyone but you has read" in my Book Bingo challenge, and it also worked nicely in my A to Z challenge. I read it pretty much in one sitting, while on the plane back from Marrakesh after Christmas. It was one of the only things that took my mind off the churning nausea raging in my belly, and for that I am very grateful. I may not have loved it as much as Joanna, but I can highly recommend this clever book to anyone who likes a more unusual read exploring the joys of fiction.

#CBR5 Book 152. "Vampire Science" by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman

Page count: 288 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

In 1976 a young med student named Carolyn meets the eight Doctor and his teenage companion Sam, while they're trying to stop Eva, a vampire, from killing a young woman. Having never realised that there was such a thing as vampires, time travel or exciting individuals like the Time Lord and his companion, Carolyn's word is forever altered, but despite an unspoken invitation to join the Doctor on his continued adventures, Carolyn chooses to take the injured woman to the ER and worry about her upcoming exam instead.

Twenty years later, there are clearly vampires in San Francisco again. Carolyn is a doctor herself now and has made great strides to fulfil her dream of finding a cure for cancer. She has a good life, and a dependable lighting technician boyfriend, but when the Doctor and Sam appear again, barely changed from when she met them two decades ago, she starts to wonder if she made the right choice.

There's been a number of mysterious deaths, and the Doctor and Sam are there to stop them. It turns out that not all the vampires necessarily want to hunt humans, some are trying to find alternatives to drinking human blood. Then again, one faction of the San Francisco vampires are more than happy for things to remain the same, and they don't feel that the Doctor, Carolyn, Sam or even UNIT are enough of a threat to keep them from declaring war on humanity.

It seems very likely that the writers of this book originally intended Carolyn to be Grace Holloway, from the 1996 TV movie. The film was set in San Francisco, and her character was a doctor. Due to rights issues, they needed to change things, and the beginning of the book has a lot of really rather clunky info dumping, as well as the rather hurried prologue, probably inserted to desperately give Carolyn some back story with the Doctor and more of a characterisation than would have been needed if they could've just used Grace. Sadly, James, her lighting technician boyfriend barely gets any characterisation at all until the book is nearly over. Having just been reminded with Night of the Doctor that the Eight Doctor, played by Paul McGann, was by far the sexiest of his many incarnations, I'm not the least bit surprised that Carolyn would be tempted to drop everything and run off with him in the TARDIS.

There are a lot of clever nods to all sorts of previous vampire stories, including Anne Rice, Dracula, and there's even a mention of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, although most likely the movie version, as the book seems to have come out before the TV series started airing. There are some amazing revelations as to what forms the "vampire science" of the title have taken, including some really very funny attempts at turning various animals vampiric. A quick enough read, it is still by far the weakest of the Doctor Who novels I've read, and unless you're very into vampires, there are better ones to check out first.

#CBR5 Book 151. "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell

Page count: 408 pages
Rating: 4 stars

In 2060, disgraced Jesuit priest Emilio Sandoz is the only survivor left after an expedition to the planet of Rakhat. He's grievously injured, both physically and mentally, and refuses to speak to the investigators who are desperate to find out what went wrong, far away on the alien planet. Sandoz stands accused of some pretty terrible crimes, and slowly the story of what took place several light years away is revealed.

Proof of extra terrestrial life is discovered in 2019 in a small and fairly insignificant listening post in Puerto Rico. While the United Nations and other global powers are still trying to figure out what to do about the discovery, the Jesuits organise a scientific mission in secret, sending eight people to the newly discovered planet, Rakhat, hoping to establish communication and peaceful relations with the aliens whose heartbreaking songs proved their existence on Earth. Emilio is one of the eight, and at least six of the other members of the exploration crew are close personal friends of his. "They meant no harm" is the final line in the prologue, and it's such an ominous hint of what's to come in the rest of the novel.

The Sparrow is not an easy read. It was one of three books suggested to me by Jen K to complete a square on my Book Bingo card, and I must admit, I ended up reading it both because it was the shortest of the three, because I've seen it so highly rated elsewhere for years and because I keep trying to make myself like science fiction, something that only rarely seems to work out. The book reveals pretty much in the opening section that all the characters we keep reading about in 2019 are no longer alive in the sections that take place in 2060. That made me depressed throughout the book, and bracing myself for the worst, long before it's actually revealed what actually happened, and what "harm" the well-meaning Earthlings actually caused.

Once the truth of what had happened to Emilio and all his friends was finally explained, it was also more tragic and even worse than I had imagined, and really very unpleasant indeed. It's a very well written book, and it deals with a a number of philosophical, metaphysical, moral and religious questions without providing any easy answers. I can totally understand why so many people rate it very highly. Unfortunately, I didn't actually enjoy reading large parts of the book. While it was great to see how the various members of the Stella Maris expedition came to meet and befriend each other, and their wonderful discoveries on the alien planet, I knew from the start that all of them except Emilio were doomed, and it was very clear from early on that he wished he'd died, as well. So I don't think I'll be reading the sequel, and I really wish that the book hadn't scarred me, because that's the only word I can think of to describe it, as much as it did.