What I Read Last Week:
I can’t believe I forgot to mention that we finished The Amulet of Samarkand last week — it is one of the best audiobooks we have listened to so I highly, highly recommend it. We were planning to save the sequel for our drive up to Maine next month, but we couldn’t resist and downloaded it immediately.
I (finally) finished The Death Cure (YA, dystopian) by James Dashner. It’s the final book in the Maze Runner series and it has been in my pool bag for 3 weeks. 125 pages into this book I was ready to give up, but the story picked up a little and I finished the rest in one afternoon. I’ll post a full review on Goodreads later this week… but the bottom line is that the ending was not satisfying so if you didn’t love book 2, you probably won’t love book 3 either.
Seeds of Discovery, Roots of Insight, and Thorns of Decision (MG/YA, indie, realistic fantasy, portals, romance) by Breeana Puttroff
Needing a quick, light read, I picked up the first three books of The Dusk Gate Chronicles by indie author Breeana Puttroff. Seeds of Discovery got off to a slow start — the first 25% was frustratingly slow and repetitive. Once Quinn followed William through the portal, the story really picked up. Books 2 and 3 were much stronger than book 1 and made me glad I didn’t abandon the series — they were very quick and enjoyable pool-side reads. Roots of Insight was my favorite book of the three. I had become very fond of Thomas so I kept turning pages, nervously, hoping everything would end well. Thorns of Decision had some big, exciting reveals but suffered from saggy-middle-syndrome — it was a bit slow.
What’s on my TBR pile this week:
Kraken by China Mieville really needs to be either read or returned.
IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
For more It’s Monday, What Are You Reading, visit Sheila at Book Journey and Kellee and Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts.
Hope you have a great reading week. I can’t say that I liked Kraken, butit might be Mieville’s style that I can’t get into. 1Q84 is one on my wishlist though.
I’m plodding my way through Kraken trying to decide if I like it or not.
Enjoy your week! I haven’t read any of these, but they do look tempting. Here’s MY MONDAY READING POST
I haven’t had the heart to read any fantasy/dystopian books yet this summer – some of my kids were really int the Dusk Gate series…perhaps I’ll start with one of those…
It’s really hard to get into dystopian novels when you are sitting by the pool watching happy, splashing kids. :-) It’s more of a November genre, isn’t it.
The Breeana Puttroff series sounds interesting, but perhaps not good enough when I have so many others. Books that move slowly slow down my reading overall. Happy Reading in the coming week!
Her writing has definitely gotten stronger as the series progresses… I’m hoping that she will wrap this series up and then use what she learned to start a new series because I think a second series by her would be a stronger read that I could recommend without hesitation.
Happy reading :)
The Brunette Librarian Blog
IQ84 was one of the strangest yet most fascinating books I’ve ever read! I hope you enjoy it!
therelentlessreader.blogspot.com
I’ve never used “TBR” before. Love that. That will be added to my lingo for sure.
Happy reading!
I read Maze Runner and was so mad at the ending….so then I had to read Scorch Trials and I was still so mad. These poor kids just can’t really figure out who to trust and when they think they have reached the end of their mission, it’s not really the end. So after investing so much time in the first two, I had to read the third just so I could understand the insanity that was going on. I couldn’t believe it took until the last few pages to even understand what happened. It was crazy. It definitely kept me wondering and frustrated but it is also a series that I recommend with hesitation and explanation if I do. Glad I’m not alone!
I think I was pretty mad at the ending of The Death Cure. It took me a while to settle enough to write a review.
I must look up the Amulet series on Audible and see if it is available to me in this part of the world. I had a young teenager highly recommend this series a few years back.
Kathryn
I hope so, it is such an engaging and funny audiobook.
I haven’t heard or read any of these but they look good:)
BookJunkieMom.blogspot.com