Reading inbox-outbox: September wrap-up

~ EMM

I missed my Sunday update. So, I decided I’d just do a mid-week September wrap-up post instead.

First, here’s the inbox/outbox update since my last post.

Inbox (books acquired)

  • Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Kindle) — I think we own a hard copy of this because my husband has bought/read almost everything by Neal Stephenson. But it’s a doorstop of a book, and the Kindle version was on sale for $1.99. So, I bought it.

Outbox (books finished)

  • An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (Kindle) — I purchased this book back in mid-March when it inexplicably went on sale for $2.99 *pre-release* (book release was 4/28). As of this writing, it’s $10.99 on Kindle. Amazon pricing is weird. But you didn’t need me to tell you that. You wanted to hear what I thought about this book. Okay. So. I’m conflicted. The tension and brutality in this book is done really well. Not as good as The Library at Mount Char, but as far as YA goes, it’s as good as I’ve seen since the Hunger Games series. But the magic and the characters and the romance plots weren’t as exciting for me. The book is told in first person POV, alternating chapters between the two main characters (a guy and a gal, as you might expect). This has become a kind of YA trope, and I’m not that crazy about it. But, as a narrative choice, it made sense for this story, mostly to facilitate plot development and world building. Still, I wasn’t ever really emotionally invested in either of the two main characters. And they *each* were at the center of a love triangle. There’s the forbidden romance between the two of them, and then there’s a person of their own class that’s also drawing their interest. The characters and their various romances didn’t really hold my interest. It was really the tension and the plot pulling me along through this book. I’ll probably pick up the sequel, but I’m not pre-ordering.

Queue (what I’m reading next)

  • I think my “Library Hungry” friend and I are going to start our buddy read of Count of Monte Cristo this month. So, join us if you want to read along. I think we’re going to try to do about 30 chapters / week (it’s a long book).
  • But I will be dropping everything on Tuesday when Rainbow Rowell’s new book (Carry On) comes out. I’ve had this book on pre-order since June and I am *so excited* to read it. It’s a spin-off from Fangirl, which is probably my favorite of her books.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to in my reading life for the past ten days. Here’s how September wrapped up for me, overall:

September reading stats

And now… on to October… fall is in full swing people! It’s my last month with good reading time before NaNoWriMo starts…

Published by EMM