Monthly Musings – September 2014

This is a where I look back at what I read (or tried to read) during the past month. I also plan on highlighting my experiences in any book club reads I from the month as well. I will always start with any books I would label as a surprise find/under-read books so if anyone missed my reviews for them, and don’t make it to the end of this post, they’ll be easy to find.

This was a VERY slow month for me reading wise! I blame fluffy puppy who requires an insane amount of supervisions all during my free time when I would normally be reading. Ah well.

Surprise Find/Underrated/Underread Book

Age of Iron by Agnus Watson – I’ve heard almost zero buzz about this book for some reason, but I found it to be quite an enjoyable story/book with some great characters. It’s not for the faint of heart, it’s bloody and graphic but also has great timing and pacing and some quite hilarious dark humor to make all the other dark stuff palatable. Definitely recommend this one for anyone who enjoys grimdark.  ★★★★½

Highest Rated Book

BROKEN MONSTERS, BROKEN MONSTERS, BROKEN MONSTERS by Lauren Beukes!!! You should go read this. Seriously, it was an amazing book and now I have to go back and read the rest of Beukes novels. ★★★★★

Book Club Reviews

For Fantasy Faction, we read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Or well, I tried. I gave up about halfway through. I felt like it was a twisted version of a lifelong Groundhog day. It may have been well written, but I was not the least bit interested and decided to just let go and move on. I may come back to it as I felt it was well written and could see some merit in the book. It’s one where it was easy to find good quotes, which I always love (some books are way more quotable than other!). But, I was starting to feel grumpy about the entire plot and jus had to take a break. Next month we’re reading Something Wicked This Way Comes, and I’m really looking forward to that one.

Reddit read Red Rising. I read it last December and did a book club with FF with it earlier this year. I wish there had been more discussion because I really felt it was a great book, but I can’t talk too much because given the length of time since I had read it, and the fact I already did a book club read with it, I was rather silent myself.

Review Summary

• [2 Sep] Age of Iron by Angus Watson ★★★★½
• [7 Sep] Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes ★★★★★
• [9 Sep] Saga, Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan ★★★★
• [16 Sep] The Cold Commands by Richard K. Morgan ★★★★
• [23 Sep] The Black Company by Glen Cook ★★★½
• [26 Sep] The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell ★★★★½

Tough Traveling with the Tough Guide Tour

• [11 Sep] Tough Traveling – Tyrants
• [18 Sep] Tough Traveling – Witches
• [25 Sep] Tough Traveling – Companions

Looking Forward

I may have a new feature on Fridays. My idea is to maybe use the Flashback Friday meme to go back and review a book or series that I read before I started blogging. I do this periodically, especially when I haven’t finished a book recently. I usually pick a previous book club read because I have already written down my thought about the book, so it’s just easier. But there are so many of my favorite books that are not featured at all on my blog, I figure this is a way to motivate me to get them on there.

Here’s the books I have on tap to read. There’s no way I will read all of them this month, but there’s some great choices!

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. This is a book club read, I’m actually really looking forward to it. A great choice for October!

Gleam by Tom Fletcher – The setting/world for this have me quite intrigued. Really looking forward to reading it!

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie – I loved the first one and am quite curious to see how Breq is adjusting after the ending Ancillary Justice had.

The Heart Does Not Grow Back by Fred Venturini – This sounds like a wonderful change of pace type of book.

I didn’t get to a large number of my books for the past month, so here’s my carry over. Still really looking forward to these books as well

Falcon Throne by Karen Miller – I finally got a copy (a finished hardcover) of this that I won from LibraryThing’s June giveaway.

Dark Defiles by Richard K. Morgan – I love Morgan’s beautiful, yet dark and disturbing prose. I finished Cold Commands last month and am really looking forward to finishing the series!The League of Seven by Alan Gratz – Still trying to see if my son will read this before I read/review it by myself.

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett – I’ve been wanting to read a book by Bennett for awhile. Everything I have heard about his books and recommendations that have been made to me really lead me to believe I will love his stories. So, I am quite excited to finally have one in my hands.