This week… sigh. I feel like I really haven’t gotten a break since the start of this year. Between work and swimming I’ve been going almost non-stop since New Years. At least I’m still finding time for reading. It’s my writing time that’s suffering…
Inbox (books acquired)
- Sword by Amy Bai (Kindle) — I was going to say that I didn’t buy or borrow any books this week, but then I just read this post about four small-press books coming out in February, and I made an impulse purchase. This book comes out on Tuesday and will now be magically delivered to my Kindle sometime in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. I think it will make a nice mid-week, bus-reading book that I can start after I finish my current in-progress book.
- I was expecting the latest Indiespensible shipment, but it hasn’t arrived yet… I guess I’ll just have to save that for next week.
Outbox (books finished)
- Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld (Kindle, library) — I really liked this book. The story-within-the-story was a little silly and not really my thing (paranormal romance). But, it served the main story well because it made the fantastical elements of this NaNoWriMo writing fantasy nearly perfect. I’ve seen reviews that complain that “this would never happen” (18 year old girl writes a novel in one month, immediately signs with an agent, with no revision to the original work, who turns around and immediately sells said un-editied book for a $300,000 two-book contract. Yeah. Right.). I think those reviewers are missing the point. This book is meant to be a fantasy. Not fantasy like elves and magic and fairies, etc., but a writing fantasy. Like what romance novels are to compared to “real” relationships. Like chick-lit. Granted, this may be a fantasy only for a small sub-set of the population. But over 300k people participated in NaNoWriMo in 2013 (stats are not posted for last year, yet), that’s not *that* small of a market.
Queue (what I’m reading next)
- The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler — I mentioned this in a previous inbox/outbox post, back when I purchased it in December. So far, I’m enjoying it. I managed to get sucked into it during my swim meet yesterday, and I don’t think I’ve ever really been able to focus on a book during one of my swim meets before… So, I guess that’s saying something… I think that people who like “smart girl” contemporary YA fiction, along the lines of E. Lockhart’s books, or Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, would enjoy this book.
We are having quite the wind storm tonight. So, I’m going to make sure all my devices are charged up and then curl up with a book and see how long it takes for the power to go out (again).
EMM Blogs 