The past year was only slightly better than the year before, but improvement is improvement, right? And considering we moved across the country in August, I'm ok with 21 books for the year.
- Quiet by Susan Cain
- Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
- Divergent by Veronica Roth
- The Alchemyst by Michael Scott
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- Carly's Voice by Arthur Fleischmann
- Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs
- Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
- Forever Odd by Dean Koontz
- Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
- Seriously...I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres
- A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
- Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
- Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
- Insurgent by Veronica Roth
- Partials by Dan Wells
- Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs
- Shakespeare's Trollop by Charlaine Harris
- The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
- City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
- City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
To be fair, the only reason I had a bit of a leg up in 2013 is because I had surgery at the beginning of the year that landed me in bed for 6 weeks. Truth be told, given those circumstances, I could have done a lot better, and I had planned to, but I allowed myself to catch up on magazines, movies and television, and I spent the better part of the first two weeks napping every hour or two (those darned painkillers). If I had the chance again (and it's likely I will sometime in the next year or so), I hope that I would take better advantage. But I digress...
There were two books I was truly disappointed with: Dead Ever After and The Looking Glass Wars.
Dead Ever After was typical Charlaine Harris and I do truly love her (one more book and I've read every novel she's written!), but I didn't agree with how she ended the series. Somehow I knew it would go the way that it did, but I couldn't help hoping it wouldn't. In order to not spoil it for anyone else, I can't give any particulars, but I felt something was missing in the writing. And the person she ended up with is not who I wanted her with. Obviously the series is Charlaine's baby and she had that pairing in mind all along, but I didn't feel like she got me there with her. After all the time and heart I invested in the series, it was painful to be so let down in the end.
The idea of rewriting Alice in Wonderland (sort of) was pretty intriguing, and honestly, I liked the cover. The Looking Glass Wars is in my preferred genre (YA, fantasy) and I had high hopes for it. Perhaps that is entirely the problem. My hopes were so very high there is no way my expectations could be met. Or maybe it just wasn't that well written.
The premise was certainly interesting, but the story wasn't very well told. If it hadn't been so close to the end of the year (and I needing to reach my reading goal), I probably would have put it in my "Never to be Finished" pile and moved along. Instead, I made myself finish it, hoping that, at some point, it would turn a corner and be wonderful. Alas, that was not the case. Oh, the wonderful book I could have read instead.
Ah well, I managed to devour a few series' and enjoyed them immensely. Likely to finish up a few more in 2014. Here's to a better reading year!
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