Rainy Day Reads

Another year has ended and that means it’s time for another list of best books of the year. I happen to have rated 10 books 5 stars this year, so here they all are. There is a bit of everything; fantasy, historical fiction, non-fiction and YA. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo I had previously read the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo and I wasn’t too impressed. But everyone absolutely raved about this book, and I did like the Grisha trilogy, I just had a few issues with it. So I decided to give this a go, and I am so glad I did.  Set in the same world as the Grisha trilogy this book follows an outlaw as he gathers a group of compatriots and misfits to pull off a major heist that seems set to go wrong. There is a wonderful cast of characters and the plot is twisting and turning every which way keeping you on the edge of your seat from the first page to the last.  Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo This is the sequel to “Six of Crows” and every bit as wonderf...

This is based off of the Bookish Academy Awards Tag by BOOKadoodles . She changed the categories of the Oscars to fit books, but since I don’t really watch the Oscars I just decided to do this as a sort of “Best of 2017” run through. (I did delete a few of the more movie related questions, just so you know).  Categories/Questions:  Best Male Protagonist:  I like Sean Kendrick from “The Scorpio Races” by Maggie Stiefvater. He is loyal and steadfast, and while some think that boring, I really appreciate those traits, especially in this day and age of the brooding, “misunderstood” (but oftentimes quite manipulating and controlling) YA male “heroes”.  Best Female Protagonist: I really liked Anna from “A Countess Below Stairs” by Eva Ibbotson. She didn’t let life get her down, but took everything in her stride and fought for what she believed in in any way she could and truly cared for everyone in her life.  Best Plot Twist:  This goes t...

Challenges:   Bingo: Night by Elie Wiesel Diversity Bingo 2017: Jewish Main Character This book is set during World War II and our protagonist is Eliezer, a young boy living in Transylvania with his family. Soon the Nazis make their arrival and Eliezer and his family are first forced to move into a ghetto with other Jews and then they are moved to a camp.  This book is told from the perspective of Eliezer, and we follow his struggle with faith as these harrowing things unfold. He started as a devout Jewish scholar who wanted nothing more than to study the Jewish mysteries, but at the end of the book he is deeply questioning his faith.  This book is quite short but very powerful and while there are many books dealing with the Holocaust I think this one has a bit of something more, as we follow Eliezer’s internal struggles with faith and morals as well as the external struggle to just survive.  I gave this book 5 stars out of 5. 

Challenges: Diversity Bingo 2017: Biracial main character This book is about Rachel who literally falls from the sky one day. Her mother takes her and her two siblings to the roof and Rachel is the only survivor. Throughout the story we follow a number of characters as people try to make sense of what happened. Rachel tries to adjust to her new life living with her grandmother and struggling to find an identity when people don’t consider her as belonging, because she is considered alternately white or black. We also slowly figure out what happened to bring her mother to the roof with her children that day. As for the challenge this book fits perfectly. Rachel is half black and half white and there are a number of instances in the book where this issue comes to the forefront. Having said that I do wish we saw more of Rachel’s struggles with it. It is like she just brushes it off when the black girls at school call her white or other people tell her she is not like “ot...

Challenges:  Diversity Bingo 2017: Main character with underrepresented body This book follows a soldier who wakes up in hospital after a bomb has hit his posting. Slowly he realizes that he is deaf and blind, and then to his horror he discovers that he has also lost his arms and legs. We follow his musings as he slowly comes to term with these findings and tries to find a way to deal with it. He spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to keep time and then he tries to find a way to communicate with the world around him, but the world doesn’t seem too interested. In between his hard work to communicate he dwells on memories of his life before the war and daydreams about his family finding him again.  This book was absolutely heartbreaking. Here is this man who has been saved when everything else around him crumbled to dust, but the people who saved him (or condemned him to a life trapped in his own mind) aren’t interested in him as a person, onl...

Challenges:  Diversity Bingo 2017: Displaced Main Character Everyone has raved about this book since it came out and once again I am disappointed. The premise was interesting but it just didn’t work for me.  We follow two half-sisters, however they don’t know they are sisters and they never actually meet in the story. Each chapter tells the story of one of their descendants, so we only get to know each characters for quite a short while in their lives.  At the beginning of the story set in 18th century Ghana one of the sisters is married to a wealthy Englishman, a commander at the fort, while the other sister is taken and sold as a slave in America. As mentioned we follow their descendants through time and see how life pans out for them right up until present day.  As for the challenge there were certainly a number of displaced characters. The sister sold as a slave is of course forcibly removed from her homeland, but a number of the othe...

Challenges:  Diversity Bingo: Main character with an invisible disability.  This story is told from Griffin’s point of view, Griffin who has just suffered a major loss. His ex-boyfriend Theo has died, and while people think it’s tragic they also seem to think that Griffin should move on, because after all they were EX-boyfriends and Theo had found someone new. But Griffin always considered himself and Theo endgame, so the loss hurts just as much as if they were still together.  We follows Griffin’s struggles with grief and his escalating OCD, while all his relationships tangle and untangle around him. He meets Theo’s new boyfriend Jackson, who is just as crushed as Griffin, and while they at first seem to be competing in grief for Theo they soon find out that the other one is the only one who can really understand them and they become tentative friends. Meanwhile Griffin and Theo’s old friend Wade tries to help Griffin, but Griffin rejects him.  ...

I did a bingo board reading challenge this year for the first time and rather enjoyed it. I'll have a "review" of how well I did going up soon, so keep an eye on that. For now, I will be presenting my bingo board for next year, as I have decided to keep it up. It is a fun way of challenging yourself and reading a bit out of your comfort zone, or just taking a chance to check off some of the books that have been bumping around on your TBR for way too long. Below is the bingo board I have made for 2017. This year I have been a bit more specific, picking a number of specific authors or even books, as I found last year's rather vague list to be a bit of a hindrance sometimes. If I first had to find out what "modern translated fiction" entailed, I was more likely to just pick up whatever was lying around and read that instead. So I have tried being a bit ahead of the game this year and picking some specific things from the get go. Modern translated fictio...