Reading inbox-outbox: Week of 27 July

~ EMM

July is over and I managed to keep myself from adding to my TBR this week! It was a light week for reading, but before I recap my week, let’s have a look at my July reading stats…

July reading stats

And now for a recap of my week in books…

Inbox (books acquired)

  • None. Can you believe it? I can’t…

Outbox (books finished)

  • X-Men Vol. 5: The Burning World by by G. Wilson, Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson, Roland Boschi (trade paperback) — I really hate to say this, but I’m kind of disappointed by this one. I’ve been looking forward to it for months — partly because it was written by G. Willow Wilson (who is doing Ms. Marvel) and partly because I enjoyed volume 4 so much. But, it was a little hard to follow this story because I constantly felt like I was missing something important. Like, something clearly happened between volume 4 and this volume, but what the hell was it? Does it have to do with all that “Secret Wars” MCU stuff? Do I need to catch up on that to understand this? Sigh. Also, all the pop culture references that Wilson includes in Ms. Marvel that make it feel really fresh and new and young, just didn’t come off as well in the mouths of these X-Men. I mean, it worked for Jubilee, sure. But I just didn’t feel like Wilson got the voices right for the other four — the ones who are telling the story. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been reading Psylocke and Storm for so long I just expect a certain thing, and that’s not what she gave me here. I feel bad. I really wanted to like this more.
  • The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (Kindle, library) — It’s been a long time since I read a book that surprised me, but this one did. It’s dark. The world-building is excellent. The characters are so very well imagined that they practically leap off the page, fully alive, and yet, it didn’t feel “cinematic.” But the best part for me was that every time I thought I was getting a sense for where the story was going, it didn’t go there. It went in a different, completely unexpected, and usually dark or gruesome, place. This isn’t horror. It’s dark fantasy. What comes to mind for me is Neil Gaiman mashed up with Patrick Rothfuss and a little bit of Chuck Wendig thrown in for humor and real-life grit. I really liked it. I might even have loved it. I don’t think this one is getting much hype yet, so, if this sounds at all like something you’d be into, go read it before everyone starts talking about it.

Queue (what I’m reading next)

And now I’m going to go find a patio chair and get back to reading and enjoying this beautiful summer day. Happy reading!

 

(Reminder: the format for my weekly inbox/outbox posts was adopted from Book Riot’s weekly column of the same name…)

Published by EMM