My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: Children’s mystery, adventure
Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Maze of Bones.
Off to Australia to find more clues, Amy and Dan Cahill seek out a relative that isn’t involved in the hunt. As they travel around the country—and outside of it—they are trailed by other Cahills who are searching for the same clues. As one Cahill seems to be trying to help them, another Cahill has much more sinister schemes in mind.
I enjoyed the trip to Australia, both the more populated areas and the outback, and then to some islands of Indonesia. Though the Cahills, and thus us as well, are brief visitors to most of these places, they still gave me a chance to learn a little bit about somewhere I’ll never go. Plus, I was curious enough to look online at some maps of the islands involved, which gave me a nice visual. The story was similar in pacing, mystery, and intrigue to previous books in the series, and I didn’t notice any major differences in characterization either. Amy and Dan seem to be maturing, which one would expect, given when they’ve gone through so far.
I suppose it’s all on purpose, but I struggle a lot with a book series in which I truly cannot trust anyone except the two main characters. And more than that, even supposed deaths can’t be trusted in this series. This book in particular introduced a dangerous new character, (maybe) lost an existing one, and started to cast suspicion on someone that’s seemed trustworthy from the start. I do appreciate being given some insight into the death of Amy and Dan’s parents and assume more information about that will come in later books.
While I have had some frustrations with the series, and with this book in particular—for example, how do the other Cahills always seem to know where Dan and Amy are going to be? Sometimes it can be explained by saying they’re going to an obvious place to find clues, but randomly going surfing, spur of the moment, and being found by the Holts? Really? Who’s the mole in this outfit?—from past experience, I think they’re the kind of thing that kids won’t be as bothered by. There is a lot that I enjoy about this series, and now that I’m more than halfway through it, I’m pretty invested. I really do want to know what’s going to happen, especially since, as of this book, I have developed a theory and a prediction about the ending. It’s the kind of thing I feel like I should have been able to start guessing at sooner, but that kids of the age this series is meant for might not think of at all. I’m looking forward to seeing if I’m right!
It’s time for another Top Ten list from That Artsy Reader Girl, and today’s topic is “Books That Defied My Expectations.” I came up with more than 10 pretty easily when looking through the list of books I’ve read and reviewed in the last 4 years on this blog and narrowed it down to those that I felt most strongly about, one way or the other.
I am going both ways with this—books that I expected to like that I didn’t and books I didn’t particularly expect to enjoy that I liked a lot. I don’t generally read a book that I don’t expect to like, but it does happen, usually because it was recommended to me by someone I trust or am close to. And there are a lot of books I’ve read that I didn’t end up liking, but to make it on this list, I had to have good reason to suspect I would really like it.
I’m starting, though, with two books that defied my expectations of their purported genre:
Trace of Doubt and Facing the Enemy by DiAnn Mills These are the second and third books I read by this author, and I had liked the first one enough to give it 4 stars. So it was a shock to realize from both of these books that I don’t really like the author’s writing style…like, at all. The 2nd one made me question my sanity a little, since I noted so many confusing and disjointed dialog and narration in it, and yet, the book has almost exclusively 4- and 5-star reviews on Goodreads (it just released today). See my reviews for Trace of Doubt and Facing the Enemy here.
Lost and Found by Orson Scott Card When I was brand new on Netgalley, I was shocked and excited when I was approved to read an ARC by a big name like Orson Scott Card. I’d never read anything written by him, but had always extolled the greatness of Ender’s Game. Suffice it to say, when I did not enjoy the book much at all, it was a huge surprise and letdown. I was a little less surprised when I didn’t really enjoy Ender’s Game either. See my review here.
Click Here to Start by Denis Markell When my daughter (currently 13) recommends books to me, I always read them and I always want to love them. Between her recommendation and the story being about escape rooms, I was really expecting to love this book. Unfortunately, it was probably my love of escape rooms that made this book not really work for me. See my review here.
Books I enjoyed but didn’t really expect to:
Lock In by John Scalzi When I first started looking for sci fi and fantasy books to read to help me with my own writing, this was one of the first ones on my radar. My husband owned it, and I’d see it sitting around the house and know that it had some similarities to my own book. But at that time, I hadn’t read much sci fi, if any, certainly none written for adults. I thought it would be dry and that I would struggle to follow the worldbuilding, but it was quite the opposite. I thoroughly enjoyed it and plan to re-read it at least once in the future. See my review here.
4 Years Trapped in My Mind Palace by Johan Twiss As a self-published author, I never want to assume that other self-published books aren’t going to be good. But the sad fact is, so many of them really needed more work before they were published. So I don’t avoid reading self-published books, but I tend to go into them with low expectations. This one blew my expectations right out of the water! It’s creative and well-written, an unusual take on historical fiction with some fantasy thrown in. See my review here.
The Giver by Lois Lowry Knowing that this is a book read in schools (though I never read it in school), combined with the cover, I think I’d filed this book away in my mind as some boring drama. My sister bought the whole series for me for Christmas, so I gave it a chance. I guess it’s a classic case of not judging a book by its cover—not only was I completely wrong about what the book is about, it was anything but boring. I loved it! See my review here.
Dragon and Thief by Timothy Zahn My husband bought me this book (he hadn’t read it, but recognized the author as the writer of several Star Wars books that he liked), the first in a space opera series. Space opera is really not my thing, though, and based on that and the synopsis, I had made the decision to pass on reading it. Then I thought—I already own the book and it’s not exactly long; it won’t take long to give it a try. I’m so glad I did, because I ended up really enjoying it. See my review here.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins From my review: “I didn’t want to read this book. I never planned to and was content with knowing nothing more about it than the basic premise. (I’ve never seen any of the movies either.) The main reason I stayed away is due to an aversion to heavy violence and death, and of course a book that involves a couple dozen teenagers being forced to kill each other is going to have plenty of that. I finally decided to read it after my son (who has seen the movies, but not read the books) tried to tell me that I might not be giving it a fair assessment, and of course, he was absolutely correct. And I did struggle still early on in the book, considering walking away because I was dreading what was to come. But I stuck it out, and boy, did I not expect to like it this much.” I have now read the entire series, including the prequel, and am already looking forward to re-reading it someday. I haven’t watched the movies yet and will probably wait until after I read them again to do so. See the rest of my review here.
Have you read any of these? What’s on your list this week?
I did not mean to wait this long to post about new notebook acquisitions, and some of these I’ve had for a while. I have enough for more than one post, since I try to avoid having too many in one post, but I will spread them out a little over time.
My husband bought me this notebook at Walmart. It stood out to him because it’s the exact same cover as a Bible cover we had recently seen in a gift shop at the Ark Encounter and considered buying for him. It even has a zipper around the edge to keep it closed, like the Bible cover did and has a ribbon bookmark inside with Bible verses on the pages.
Whoever came up with the idea of a quiz where people could find out what house they would be in at Hogwarts is a marketing genius. It’s difficult to not feel a sense of loyalty to your house and to want to acquire items related to it. For me, this means a notebook. My husband is the one who bought it for me, but I have to admit, it’s an incredibly nice notebook in general. It has a cloth-like hard cover, it’s larger than the average A5-sized notebooks, and the house crest that you can see on the right side of the cover, where the elastic band is meant to catch to hold the book closed, is metal.
There is clearly a theme going in this post, as this book was also bought for me by my husband. I watched a lot of Mr. Rogers as a kid, enjoyed seeing my kids get into it some on streaming services, and love the look of the notebook, inside and out. There are a few full-page spreads like shown below and also some quotes at the bottom of some pages.
There’s not a lot to say about this one. I have a weakness for maps on notebook covers, especially vintage maps, and the gold embossed look of this one is especially nice. It came with a pen that I did not have for the picture, but it’s black with gold trim, which matches the notebook really well.
This notebook is a work of art, inside and out. I can easily say it is one of the most beautiful ones I own; I sometimes display it on my shelf—open, so the pages are visible. I love notebooks that are, or at least appear as if they are, handmade, and this definitely has that look. The pages look like they were pulled directly from an old ship captain’s log book, except that they have lines printed on them (which is certainly my preference as a writer).
Do you collect anything related to reading or writing? Feel free to share!
I read 15 books last month, a 2nd month of reading a lot more than I did the first half of the year. The total page count was comparatively high as well, not much less than last month, when I read 8 more books than this month.
This list includes 1 ARC. My favorite book from August was The Woman from Lydia. I started 0 series, continued 6 series, and finished 2 series. My ever-changing short list of to-be-reads, as well as a flag for the book I’m currently reading and an ongoing list of those I’ve read and posted about can be found here.
I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads. Despite my almost too-long TBR list, I’m always looking for more to add. Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites or just recent reads you enjoyed.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes The Hunger Games prequel by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: YA dystopian
Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for The Hunger Games trilogy.
This is the kind of book that is difficult to rate and review, because it is a book that is meant to be at least somewhat disturbing, as we follow a major villain’s descent into the dark. I’m not normally one who’s interested in a villain’s origin story, and it was no different with President Snow, especially after reading the part in The Mockingjay about his ever-present floral fragrance covering up his rotting mouth. It made my disgust more literal. But I decided to read this book to finish out the series; it just felt like something would be missing if I didn’t. Keep in mind, though, as you read the rest of this review, that I only read The Hunger Games trilogy for the first time pretty recently. That almost definitely makes my view of this prequel different in some ways from those who’ve known and loved the series for a long time.
Through parts 1 and 2, I was invested in the story. I think Collins did a good job giving us a somewhat sympathetic protagonist who feels trapped by circumstances. And he’s really as manipulated in some ways as Katniss is in her story. I’m not sure I ever fully understood what gives Dr. Gaul so much power, but she’s Snow’s own version of himself to Katniss in some ways. The main difference, though, is that Snow actually does begin to see things from Gaul’s point of view, which is part of the indication that he’s beginning to lose his grip on morality. This book’s Hunger Games and the lead-up to them, while being totally primitive compared to those in the main series, provide a compelling backdrop to Snow’s beginning steps toward depravity—the deception, the cheating, his first kill—things that he can rationalize at first.
Part 3 took a large turn that involved a fairly steep drop-off in action and interest for me, but the psychology of the villain’s slide was still there. And while it looks like things could actually go well for Snow, of course we know it can’t end happily, because we know who he becomes later, and it’s not this family man he envisions himself becoming. In truth, I don’t think he ever had the capacity for a normal, happy life. I’ve read several reviews that say his downturn happened suddenly at the end, but I would maintain that those people weren’t paying close enough attention during the rest of it. Snow makes many decisions that he justifies as being out of love—for his family, for his tribute—but really, the most important decisions he makes are only for himself, for family pride, to maintain his standing in society, however you want to spin it, it’s all selfishness. I do think he cares about his cousin and loved his mom. But even his cousin he puts one over on in the end for his own selfish gain. Yes, there’s a turning point at the end of the book where he makes a more deliberate choice, but I can see the rest of the book pointing right to it.
So that’s why my rating is 4 stars. And when I re-read this series in the future, which I definitely will, maybe even soon, I will probably not always finish with this book, but I will read it again at some point, I’m sure. I don’t know that I ever felt the need to know what made President Snow the monster he is in the original trilogy, but I still really appreciated this book. It’s quite polarizing, though, so if you’re wondering whether you should read it or not…that’s up to you.
A Journey of Words 