Book Talk: December Wrap Up

Happy New Year! I hope you had a fun and safe celebration. It's 2016! It's hard to believe this is my twelfth monthly wrap up and I'm really glad I started xo, Yvette and used it as a way to keep track of my reading. Now I'll be able to remember why I liked the books I did. I also hope you're able to use this as a reference if you need some recommendations or wanted to know what I thought of a book. This was a very successful year for me in terms of my Goodreads 2015 Reading Challenge because I reached my goal of 80, bumped it up ten more books, and reached that goal too! Will 2016 be the year I finally read 100 books?! I guess I'll have to read and see. For now, check out what I read in the final month of 2015 under the read more!

Stats:

• Books read: 8
• Genre:
• Science Fiction: 2
• Fantasy: 6
• Total pages: 2,930

Books:

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff 

Okay, whoa. Illuminae is everything I wanted in a sci-fi novel. There's space travel and a great survival story and a unique storytelling method. That's, like, all my favorite things. Amie Kaufman is also the coauthor of one of my favorite series, These Broken Stars, and I'd say that Illuminae is These Broken Stars but backwards. Instead of being on a huge luxury spacecraft and crash landing on a deserted planet, the characters in Illuminae, Kady and Ezra, have to evacuate their planet that's literally being bombarded and escape on these massive spaceships. Of course, nothing can be smooth sailing. In fact, anything that could possibly go wrong did. It's actually literally my worst nightmare (and then put in space) (space is not part of my worst nightmare). Now on top of dealing with the grief over the loss of their friends and family from their home planet, they also have to find a way to stop these megacorporations from destroying everything in their turf wars. Oh, right. There's also a virus that'll essentially melt your brain and make you ultra violent (was that a Lana Del Rey reference?). Let's recap: there are megacorporations at play (incredibly influential and have the means to get what they want), a super-bug turning people into zombies (deadly biochemical warfare), and did I mention there's an AI system that has a mind of its own? Sure, that's what it's meant to do, but shut down means shut down, buddy. We don't need to add rebellion of the robots to this list, do we? It's a lot to take in. Thankfully, Illuminae is organized in a way that makes all this information very palatable. The authors have created a dossier of information and within that, there are different formats of text and illustrations such as medical files, military reports, audio transcripts, and instant messages. This is definitely a book to be read physically. As I was reading, I had no idea how they were going to make a sequel and the last hundred pages or so dragged me through the entire gamut of emotions but I am very pleased with the ending. The end set up the next book, Gemina, perfectly and I watched an interview with the authors where they confirmed that all the characters that made it to the end of Illuminae would have a role to play in Gemina. 

Sort of irrelevant to the content of the book (but it's about the formatting and formatting is what makes the book unique), I liked how the page numbers at the bottom were __/599 so I never forgot how many pages were left to go. That saved me a lot of page flipping and math. 

Saga, Volume 3 by Brian Vaughan & Fiona Staples

Now that we've come to the third volume, things are getting real. There are two volumes left (as far as I know) so this isn't the climax but it is well on its way. I can't give much away because there are obviously two volumes that come before it, read what I had to say about Volume 1 and Volume 2 by clicking on those links! In this third volume, the story lines are crossing over big time and it filled in the gaps the previous volume left. There are some interesting character developments and some more new characters were introduced so I'm intrigued to see how all of these elements will pan out in the fourth volume. I have no idea how this story is going to end and I'm really appreciating the originality of the worlds Vaughan and Staples bring us to. So much happens in each volume that it feels like I've read more than three. I'm guessing Volume 4 will expand on the story lines for the new characters and focus a little more on the story arc that we've set aside for a while. 

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Steifvater

The Dream Thieves is the sequel to The Raven Boys and I'm gonna say straight away that I enjoyed The Raven Boys more between the two. A lot of The Dream Thieves was focused on Ronan and his newly revealed abilities which is great for the character development of Ronan but the rest of the crew kinda felt left behind to me. They were by no means stagnant but I think they could've made more progress. We're introduced to The Gray Man, who's this hitman/bounty hunter type guy on a mission to track down a mysterious object. He was a cool addition to the cast but I didn't really understand why he was there. I don't want to give anything away but by the end, what I thought was his purpose in the story had completely unraveled. I liked that we were able to really get to know Ronan and his backstory but one of the things that made The Raven Boys so good was the interactions between the characters and when the main character is the most closed off of the group, you don't get much of the interpersonal development. The writing style was a bit slow and I don't think we've made much progress with Gansey's quest to find Glendower so I didn't love the book but I appreciated what it accomplished. Overall I was left with more questions than answers. I guess I'll have to keep on reading to find out how everything falls into place... I'm just hoping my two ships start making some headway soon. 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

I remember watching this movie as a child and I hadn't realized at the time that it was based off a book. I was stuck in a bit of a rut and turns out some children's fantasy was the perfect thing to get me through finals. Another reason to pick up this book was for my Christmas Book Recommendations. I didn't know what I was going to get out of the book but, based on my memory of the film, the story followed really closely to the novel. If you aren't familiar with the story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it follows four siblings who are staying at the Professor's house for the summer. The house is dreadfully boring so to amuse themselves, the siblings play hide-and-seek. During one of their games, they stumble across a wardrobe full of fur coats that doesn't seem to end. They find themselves in a fantastical land called Narnia and thus their adventure begins. The whole experience feels magical and I'm glad it's short enough that the film was able to stay true to the book. If I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a child, it would've been one of my favorites for sure.

Irredeemable, Vol. 4 by Mark Waid & Diego Barretto

You're probably tired of hearing me say "I can't tell you much about this volume because of spoilers" every month but you're gonna hear it at least six more times before this series is done. This volume provided us with lots of action and the plot goes through some serious thickening. When I read the previous volume there were a lot of new characters introduced and I was hoping that we would get to learn more about them in this volume but no such luck. To be fair, there was no way they could've included in this volume without sacrificing the pace or length. I wasn't joking about the thickening plot. The team is falling to pieces and we've got another villain on the scene tearing them apart. You're really going to have to read to find out more but I'm excited to carry on the series. There's a lot to come. 

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

If you haven't heard of Queen of Shadows, chances are you haven't read Throne of Glass. If that's the boat you're in, you need to drop everything and start this series. This story has woven itself into its own being. There are so many moving parts and they're finally coming together. It's gotten to the point where the storylines are all beginning to intersect and I'm loving it. I'm not going to go into specifics because, obviously, spoilers, but I honestly couldn't do it if I tried. It's so complex and you could write pages on any one detail. Right from the start every single character had me clutching my heart and crying over all my children. The action was so epic and the relationships between all the characters were so ace I love it so much oh my goodness. It's really hard to articulate my thoughts on such a complicated book with so many puzzle pieces but the ending was so perfectly bittersweet. I'm really happy with the ending for the ladies in this installment (Kaltain's strut of death is my favorite thing). The guys had a little more of the bitter but that was just because it was heart wrenching. I'm curious to see how Aelin's kingdom comes together and how the whole deal with the witches will play out. Talking around the plot points is actually rather frustrating because AGH I want to discuss all these things so I'm going to stop here for now and ponder it on my own. We've got two more books to go and anything can happen. 

The Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz

However excited I was going into this book, I had low expectations. I mean, a prequel to a Disney Channel Original Movie kinda feels like a stretch and definitely was a ploy to make money. I don't know what the sales number looked like but I can tell you this book, as a marketing tactic, did its job. Having read it, I am more excited than ever to watch Disney's Descendants. If you're unfamiliar with the premise, the movie follows Mal (Maleficent's daughter), Jay (Jafar's son), Evie (the Evil Queen's daughter), and Carlos (Cruella de Vil's son) on their venture from the Isle of the Lost, the home of the villains, to Auradon, the kingdoms where the heroes reside. The Isle of the Lost takes place before the events of Disney's Descendants and it really surprised me. This is a lot better of a book than I thought it would be. Set aside the fact that when I finished I was confused as to why I wasn't actually immersed in everything Disney and looking at the book itself, there is some fantastic world building and character development. The book is told from the four's perspective but it also has a viewpoint from Auradon in the form of Prince Ben (King Beast and Queen Belle's son). I found this to be the most interesting part of the book. The events on the Isle are a smidge predictable but serve their purpose well. I cared about the characters and you can see the progression of character development. In Auradon, however, Prince Ben is training to become king and he has to deal with the sidekicks that feel like they have been taken advantage of by the heroes. This is easily my favorite part of the story. It's so interesting hearing about the politics of this kingdom -- which is where the world building comes in -- and it also showcases how not everything is perfect in Auradon, as one may be led to believe. The Isle of the Lost perfectly depicts how everybody and everything has a good and a bad. Two sides of the same coin. I haven't seen the movie yet but I feel like I've been properly prepared, and if the characters stay true to what de la Cruz has so carefully crafted, it's going to be up there with Teen Beach and High School Musical. 

Ice Like Fire by Sara Raasch

I wasn't planning on finishing Ice Like Fire before the 2016 but at around 8pm New Year's Eve I only had 130 pages left to go and I figured why the heck not. Earlier in the year I read Snow Like Ashes and I fell in love with it. The world was so cool and, as awesome as all the characters are, they're flawed. Everything is so well-written it's easy to immerse yourself in the adventures and the politics of Primoria. Each of the eight kingdoms has its own personality and they really shine in this book especially, since Meira has visitors in Cordell and Autumn and visits Summer, Yakim, and Ventralli with her court. It's interesting to see how each kingdom interacts with the others based on their personal values and beliefs. It was really cool to me to see how each move any kingdom made had underlying political motives and how Meira was processing them, since she is still so inexperienced. There was a plot twist that pulled the wool over my eyes at the end but I can see how one would catch on earlier in the book. My personal favorite part was obviously learning about each kingdom but we're set up for a very interesting third book, Frost Like Night (I don't love the title and I hope the book has something to do with night (maybe the whole thing will take place at night?!) but I guessed the frost part and that's all that really matters). I really love how these characters are shaping up and they never seem to catch a break so I hope we get a little bit of that in the final book. It's going to be quite a tense one. 

What a solid end to the year. There wasn't much in terms of genre variety but at least I rounded out the year reading what I loved. It was quite a satisfying month and I'm thankful for the graphic novels and children's books for giving me a break in between bigger books, especially during dead and finals weeks. I'm also glad I didn't read any bad books this month, or many this year, even, but I'll get more into that in my Top 5 Books of 2015 & 2015 Wrap Up. Goodreads helped me compile my Year in Books (it's like an infographic!) and I'd love to see yours! Also, let me know if you read any of these books or are planning to because I'd love to talk about them! I'm on a bit of a book high...


Talk to you soon!

xo, Yvette