Additional Reading Challenges

So it's obvious to anyone who visits this blog that I read a lot. This is my fourth year participating in the       Cannonball Read, I do the 24-hour Readathons, I took part in the R.I.P read last autumn. I like reading challenges. Thanks to one of my main Cannonball rivals, Jen K (seriously, she reads so much, and so fast, I don't think I'll be first to 52 this year, to put it that way), whose blog I follow, I discovered three very interesting looking ones, that I've now signed up for.

The Mount TBR Reading Challenge is basically doing what I'd set out to do anyway - trying to reduce my To Be Read list a little bit. The rule is that you can only read books bought before 2013, and there are a number of different levels to the challenge, from 12 to 150+. As I'd promised myself I was going to read at least two books a month from my ever growing TBR pile, I've signed up for the Mt. Blanc challenge, which is at least 24 books over the course of the year. It's ok to upgrade, but not to downgrade. It wouldn't be a challenge if you didn't have to work a bit for it. It would be fun if I could manage more, I'd certainly feel less guilty about all the books I buy.

The Monthly Key Word Challenge  gives you a list of ten key words every month, and the challenge is trying to read at least one book with that word in the title (or closely related words) that month. The key words for January are winter, snow, silver, white, cold, shiver, smoke, fire, freeze and breath. I've already made a list of potential titles I can read, and at least three of them are on my TBR shelf. It's a win win situation, really.

The third challenge should be a doozy, considering how much historical romance I read in any given year. I've signed up for the Medieval, which is 15 books, but considering I've already read one book this year which qualifies as historical (although what exact time period it's set in is not entirely clear), I may well upgrade to Ancient History, which is 25+ books, as the year progresses.

Now, the real challenge will be trying to combine all three. Reading historical fiction books with the monthly key word in the title which is also on my TBR shelf. I'm pretty sure I can do it for at least one month, but it'll be fun to see if I can manage more.

#CBR5 Book 4. "In Bed with a Highlander" by Maya Banks

Page count: 368 pages
Rating: 1 star

I was going to start this review by presenting some facts about how big a sub-genre of historical romance the Highlander romance is, but it turned out that it wasn't easily found by just briefly searching Google, and this book isn't worth the effort to actually spend a lot of time researching the odd quirks of romance literature. Suffice to say, there are a whole bunch of sub-genres to historical romance.

There's Regency - which is when Jane Austen wrote her books, this is a huge sub-genre. Victorian, Medieval, Pirate, Western, American Civil War - usually the hero and heroine are on opposite sides, oh noes, how will they ever make their romance work? Then there is Highlander. There's a bafflingly huge number of romances with covers featuring half-naked men wearing kilts and/or tartans. Just look up and over to the left, to the cover of this book. Tartan, all over the place, despite the fact that the hero never wears any (probably because a huge amount of these books are pretty much Medieval romance set in the Scottish Highlands, when tartans were NOT what Scotsmen wore, I don't care what Braveheart made you believe).

Anyways, you want to hear what this book is about, do you, not hear me rant about the historical inaccuracies of romance novel covers? Mairin Stuart is the illegitimate daughter of the former Scottish king and niece of the current one. She's been hiding in a convent for years and years because she doesn't want unscrupulous Scottish men marrying her for her huge dowry and possible political influence. Then she gets kidnapped by one such unscrupulous Scottish Laird, who beats the snot out of her when she refuses his proposal, and because she's sheltering a charming plot moppet she rescued while being taken from the convent to his stronghold. She's helped to escape by some of his servants (no good explanation given as to why) and takes the child with her.

He's the runaway (and conveniently motherless) son of another Laird, who fortuitously for Mairin is the sworn enemy of her kidnapper. He's happy that she rescued his son, and once he discovers her true identity (which thanks to her dear old Dad, who branded the royal seal into her thigh as a baby (!) is easily verifiable), he decides that the best way to save her from evil kidnapper Laird is to marry her himself, which would of course mean that he could strengthen his impoverished, but oh so noble clan with her generous dowry.

Being a woman in Medieval Scotland, Mairin basically has the choice between marrying her abusive kidnapper, or the overbearing lummox whose castle she ended up in because she happened to save a wretched child from being beaten for horse thievery. Having spied on Ewan (widowed single dad Laird) and his brothers swimming naked in a nearby Loch, and being kissed a couple of times (Ewan thinks that kissing her is a good way to shut her up when she's trying to have her say, he's charming like that), she clearly decides that better the devil you know, and all that.

There's a bunch of complications where Mairin keeps being nearly killed in attempt on Ewan's life, and then another complicated plot by Evil Kidnapper Laird to claim he married her first, so he can claim her dowry for his own. Mairin keeps being wilful and trying to do her own thing, and gets yelled at a lot by Ewan. They have a lot of sexy times in between the shouting at each other and Mairin's near death encounters.

Everyone in the book has pretty much one character trait. Mairin is spirited. Ewan is brawny and protective (these go together). His two interchangeable brothers who are heroes in the rest of the McCabe-trilogy are very loyal. I don't even remember their names, and I finished the book about half an hour ago. Evil Kidnapper Laird is evil. Plot moppet is an 8-or 9-year-old boy, who despite his age keeps sneaking in to sleep in Mairin's bed, both before and after her marriage to his father. I found this creepy and inappropriate, but I'm pretty sure the author was aiming for adorable and charming.

I read this book because it's the alt read in January's Vaginal Fantasy Hangout, and I re-read the main pick, Outlander, just last year. It became clear quite quickly that the book was dreadful, but I decided to see if it got interesting or the characters actually developed as the book progressed. No suck luck. I'm pretty sure this will be a top pick for my 2013 Worst of the Year List, so there is that.

#CBR5 Book 3. "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

Page count: 285 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the first time I read The Hobbit myself. Many years ago, while the husband was still my boyfriend, he discovered that while I had read The Lord of the Rings several times, and in more than one language (Norwegian, then English), I had never actually read The Hobbit. I was never a huge fan of the long preface that explained about hobbits in LOTR, and frankly am one of the many people who think the first stretch of book, where they walk and walk and nearly get eaten by a tree and then walk some more (before Aragorn shows up, frankly) is dreadfully boring, and I didn't really see why I'd want to read a kid's book all about hobbits. More fool me, right?

Having already spent several pleasant weeks reading The Wind in the Willows to me, the now husband decided to read me The Hobbit. At the time, I was living in Edinburgh and he was still at University in St. Andrews, so we didn't see each other more than every other weekend or so. It meant that the reading took quite some time, but was totally worth it. Read out loud a chapter or two at time every time we saw each other, I totally fell in love with the story of the book (even though it features NO women whatsoever - seriously Tolkien, I still hate you for your lack of female characters).

Do I really need to summarise the plot, what with the movie being in the cinemas and all right now (don't get me started on why they needed to make a nearly 3 hour movie to adapt 94 pages of book, by the way, it'll get ugly). Here you go, one paragraph:

Bilbo Baggins is a staid little hobbit living a life of relative comfort who gets whisked away on an action-packed and frequently dangerous adventure with a band of mostly merry dwarfs, on a quest to reclaim their ancient home and treasure from a big and evil (but totally super cool) dragon. Along the way Bilbo finds a ring that will become really significant later in Middle Earth history, and discovers that he is braver and cleverer than many people thought.

Upon re-reading, I discovered some things I had completely forgotten. Bilbo is cooler than I remembered, and Smaug is pretty awesomely evil. I had no recollection of what a greedy and selfish douche Thorin was though. Seriously, dude, mountain full of gold and you won't share a tiny bit with the people whose village was destroyed and who helped you actually secure your treasure. For shame. Also, most of the dwarfs really are nothing more than a string of names, with no characterisation whatsoever. They're just an interchangeable band of dudes with beards, and pretty useless the lot of them. When they're not being rescued by Gandalf, it's Bilbo who has to save the day. These things took away a bit of my enjoyment. It's still a cool story though, made all the better because not all the walking is described in as much detail as in LOTR. 

#CBR5 Book 2. "Jane" by April Lindner

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 3 stars

What if Jane Eyre was a young college girl forced to drop out after her parents' death, and take a position as a nanny to make ends meet, and save up enough money to finish her degree? What if Mr. Rochester was a world famous rock star with a tempestuous past working towards a comeback?

Spoiler warning! If you haven't read Jane Eyre, a novel that is more than 160 years old by now, this review will contain some spoilers, and you should probably skip it. However, you should also go find a copy of Jane Eyre and read it, because it's great.

Still here? Ok, then. Jane Moore is an art student at Sarah Lawrence, but can't afford to pay tuition after her parents die, leaving her almost destitute. She takes a position as a nanny at Thornfield Park, taking care of rock legend Nico Rathburn's daughter from an ill-advised and brief relationship with a French starlet.

Nico Rathburn seems demanding, gruff and arrogant at first, but is clearly pleased with Jane's efforts to take care of and nurture his daughter. Working towards the release of his new album and a subsequent world tour, Rathburn isn't even around that much at first. As he spends more time at Thornfield Park, however, Jane can't help but grow closer to him, even as he seems to be wooing the glamorous celebrity photographer Bianca Ingram to be his new wife. And what are all the strange noises coming from the restricted area on the third floor? Why is no one allowed up there? What exactly is Nico hiding from the world?

April Lindner is a professor of English at a University in Philadelphia, and says that Jane Eyre is her favourite novel, that she teaches at any opportunity given to her. So it's not a surprise that this is a very faithful adaptation of the classic novel. While there's not as much time spent dwelling on Jane's absolutely awful childhood, the modern take on Jane still had a pretty rotten upbringing, with self-centred parents more concerned about her older siblings. She's an art student, shy, introverted, plain (not as obsessed with her appearance as the original, God I want to shake that girl for all her whining about how unremarkable-looking she is).

Mr. Rochester has become Nicholas Rathburn, former bad boy rocker with all manner of womanising, alcohol and drug abuse and partying in his past. Now clean and sober, he's launching his comeback album and planning a massive tour with his band. Blanch Ingram is instead a sexy fashion photographer, and the mad wife in the attic is his deeply unstable, schizophrenic first wife who he refuses to have institutionalised.

Lindner clearly knows the novel so well that I'm pretty sure that if I could be bothered to go to the shelf and find my copy of Jane Eyre, I would find that the plot for each chapter is pretty much faithfully recreated, just updated to a modern setting. It's actually very well done, and I won't deny having been engaged by the story and swept along by the drama on occasion. I read the book in two days, so it's not like it was boring or a lot of hard work. I'm just not entirely sure why the adaptation needed to be made. Still, there were no zombies or ninjas or sea monsters or vampires, it's just a very accurate modern take on the novel for a young adult audience (although those faint of heart should know that there are some smexy times, if not very graphic - get ready to clutch your pearls). As someone who's very ready for that fad to be over now, I guess I should be grateful. I will also confess to being curious about the author's next novel, which is a modern take on Wuthering Heights. Maybe she can make me hate that book a bit less by modernising it?

#CBR5 Book 1. "The Rook" by Daniel O'Malley

Page count: 512 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

This book appeared on a lot of various book bloggers' Best of 2012 lists (including more than one Cannonballer's), and I totally see why. It's the first book in a long time that I was reluctant to put down and stop reading, even for short periods, and that I stayed awake until stupid o'clock in the morning to finish reading.

A young woman stands in a park in the rain, surrounded by fallen bodies of people wearing latex gloves. She's beaten and battered, with no memory of who she is. In her jacket pocket, she finds two numbered envelopes. "Dear you, the body you are wearing used to be mine." starts the first letter. The writer of the letters is Myfanwy Thomas, a woman with unusual powers, highly placed in a top secret supernatural government agency known as The Chequy. New Myfanwy is given the option to create a new identity for herself, take a large amount of money and disappear completely. She can also, should she choose to do so, take the written instructions that the mysterious letter writer gives her, and continue being Rook Thomas.

Myfanwy is one of two Rooks, outranked by only six people in the Chequy. The organisation has operated in Britain for centuries, working to keep the country and much of the rest of the world, safe from supernatural threats. In the letter, Myfanwy is warned that some other member of the Court (a Lord, a Lady, two Bishops, two Chevaliers and one other Rook) is behind the plot to steel her memory and kill her. New Myfanwy has to try to assume the many and complex duties of Thomas (as Myfanwy comes to think of her), and try to figure out who is conspiring against her, to prevent it from happening again.

As her job involves overseeing the workings of a highly complex government agency, her closest counterpart happens to be not one, but four distinct and different bodies (three men, one woman) governed by one mind, our heroine's task is a daunting one. Thanks to the wealth of written instructions, however, Myfanwy seems to manage to cover up her memory loss quite well, although several people around her seem to be surprised by the more assertive and outspoken role she's taking.

The book has a brilliant way of delivering exposition, as at the beginning of the story, Myfanwy is as blankly ignorant as the reader. Every single aspect of her life has to be explained, and is slowly revealed throughout the story whenever there is the most need for it. Through the many letters, and the comprehensive file old Myfanwy leaves for herself, we discover the history of the Chequy (and of their American equivalent, the Croatoan), their inner workings, get the biographies of all the court members and those people Myfanwy works with most closely.

Myfanwy discovers that while her closest colleagues can spread their consciousness and independently control four bodies, manipulate and reshape metal any way they want, invade people's dreams and control them and all sorts of awesome things, the old her mainly rose through the ranks based on the terrible potential of her "superpower" and her meticulous administrative abilities. While Rook Thomas could take control over other people and make them do whatever she wanted  or cause all sorts of damage with a mere touch (make them shoot or stab themselves, blind them, deafen them or make them lose all control of their bodily functions), she was apparently very reluctant to use these powers for the good of the Chequy. Old Myfanwy was, to all intents and purposes, just the perfect and never tiring civil servant, freeing the other members of the Court up to deal with the more exciting aspects of stopping supernatural threats.

New Myfanwy has no such scruples about her fascinating abilities, and also discovers that she necessarily need to be touching the person in question, just be in close proximity to them. Wisely, with someone in the Court plotting against her, she keeps this knowledge secret. As well as doing her best to cover up her amnesia and maintaining her every day duties, while trying to figure out which of the members of the Chequy Court had her memory erased and tried to have her killed, Myfanwy's new life is further complicated by the return of a centuries old Belgian menace that requires the Chequy and the Croatoan to join forces.

This book grabbed me from the very first page, and wouldn't really let go. While there is a lot of action, and actually a fair bit of gory and unpleasant bits, there are also quieter bits which are nonetheless fascinating because Daniel O'Malley's done such a great job not just with Myfanwy as a character, but with the entire supporting cast, from the multi-bodied Gestalt down to the lowly foot soldiers of the organisation (like Lil' Pawn Alan) and the world building in general. I loved the idea of the Chequy and the supernatural threats to the world in general, which is riffing on Torchwood, the X-men, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the X-Files and a whole bunch of other fantasy and sci-fi ideas, while still doing something entirely new and very fresh with it. A tremendously fun and suspenseful read, that keeps you entertained and interested all the way through, The Rook was a great way to start my reading year.

New Year, new Cannonball Read

Another year, another reading challenge. If any of my blog readers would like to join in the fun, and read and review books for themselves, there is still time to sign up for Cannonball Read V.

As you can see from the counter on the right hand side, I've reset it to show 52 books, as that is my initial goal. My Goodreads goal for the year is for 104 books, because it would be awesome if I managed to complete another double Cannonball.

Happy New Reading Year to you all - and thanks to all those of you who read my blog!

End of the year review 2012

There's less than half an hour left of the year, and it seems like a good time to reflect on the reading year I've had. Thanks to Goodreads, I'm able to keep track of all my books, both reads and re-reads, and my To Be Read list keeps steadily growing. I cleared my schedule for two 24-hour Readathons, one in April and one in October. I took part in my third Cannonball Read, and this year succeeded in my goal of reading and reviewing 52 books first of all the participants. Not only that, but I was first to complete a Double Cannonball of 104 books with one month to spare.

Obviously, I will be participating in next year's Cannonball Read as well. For those of my blog readers who feel inspired to join in, registration is open now. We read and review for a good cause, in the memory of a lovely woman, and to raise money for cancer charities. I already have enough unread books on my Reader to complete at least a double Cannonball, and that's not counting the many books coming out in 2013. Obviously my goal is to once again be the first to finish my 52 reviews. May the best reader win! I will not commit to a Double Cannonball yet, but we'll see. 

Inspired by the great ladies over at The Book Smugglers, who are currently doing their Smugglivus, I'm going to post my best of 2012 list, and also links to some of the books I'm most looking forward to in 2013. I'm linking to Goodreads, because that way you can read not only my review, but those of countless others for each book, thus giving you a better impression about what the internet at large think and feel about them. 

The 2012 Best of (in the order of which I read them, not preference):

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
3. The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery (thanks, Lydia!)
4. A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare
5. Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty
6. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
7. Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews
8. Ashes of Honor by Seanan McGuire
9. Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
10. A Kiss for Midwinter by Courtney Milan

Nearly made the list:

Grave Dance by Kalayna Price

The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

I'm not kidding when I say Courtney Milan is the best romance writer currently on the market. I adore her.

Over on Pajiba, a whole bunch of Cannonballers have listed their best and worst reads of 2012, so I had to look through my review and see which books I disliked the most. I'm posting them here, as well, to warn any readers of this blog away from them:

1. Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris (thankfully the final book is out in 2013, and I'll be free)
2. Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson (how this has an average rating of 4.43 is beyond me)
3. I Only Have Eyes for You by Bella Andre (so very boring) AND
3. At Your Pleasure by Meredith Duran (who wrote one of my top 10 books of 2011. So upsetting)

Books I can't wait to get my hands on in the first half of 2013:

Ever After by Kim Harrison - Rachel Morgan #11

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer - Lunar Chronicles #2

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger - the first in her new Finishing School series

Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs - Mercy Thompson #7

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse #13 - because I just need closure now

Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare - Spindle Cove #4

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - needs no explanation

Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews - Kate Daniels #6

Total pages read in 2012: 56 270 pages

Re-reads: 20
Comic book collections: 10
Novellas: 13
New books (as in books I'd never read before): 121
Total: 164

Not at all bad, considering my goal for the year was to read at least 100 new books and 130 in total.

Breakdown of genres:
Romance: 42.7 %
Young Adult: 16.5%
Urban/paranormal fantasy: 13.3%
Fantasy: 6.7%
Mystery: 5.4%
Science fiction: 4.3%
Contemporary/historical fiction: 3.7%
Non fiction: 1.2%
Comic books: 6.2%

E-books: 72.8 %
Old fashioned dead tree books: 27.2 %
I think it's safe to say that e-books are winning, at this rate. It's just so incredibly convenient to be able to carry hundreds of books on one little device.

So that's my reading year. Next year, I'll be reading a lot more Norwegian, because of the course I'm taking, and my goal is to read at least two books a month from my ever increasing To Be Read pile. I keep buying books that sound awesome and don't get round to reading them because something even newer and shinier distracts me. So I will try to challenge myself a bit more in 2013.

Happy New Reading Year!