Read Harder Roc - Poems in Translation

This month’s two Read Harder challenge reading categories were A Book about Poetry Written in Translation on a Theme Other than Love and A Book You’ve Read Before.This post is about the poetry. We had estimated that this would be a harder category for most people, based on our own feelings about poetry, and we were right! 

So, all the members of the Read Harder Roc group had a hard time with the poetry. It was kind of difficult to find something in this unfamiliar genre, especially given the very specific kind of poetry that we needed. The librarian at one of my local libraries just pointed me to the poetry section and told me to "see what I could find." Nothing. I found nothing that day.

Read Header Roc: A ReRead

This month’s two Read Harder reading categories were A Book about Poetry Written in Translation on a Theme Other than Love and A Book You’ve Read Before. This post is about the rereads. This was considered an "easy" task and based on the group, we were right! 

Top Ten Tuesday - Books I Loved Less Than I Thought I Would

So, if I have an opinion about a book before I read it, I will almost always like it less than I think I will. I try to avoid as much information about a book as possible, except for possibly a brief summary (like on the book jacket). This is why I get so pissed when the story turns out to be nothing like the summary! But, anyhoo…

Here are 10 books that failed to live up to my own mental – hype. Note: Book cover pics were found on the internet and link to the book's goodreads page.)

Broadway to Books - Wizard of Oz

Welcome to my first Broadway to Books post of 2017. Wow. That makes me feel like a slacker! It’s already the middle of February. Ah, well. Life. AmIRight?

Today we (The Royal We) are thinking about a little Musical Magic called The Wizard of Oz, which should not be confused with that popular musical based on a Wizard of Oz retelling. See my Broadway to Books post for Wicked (one of my favorites!) here.

Let’s jump right in.

LET ME OUT OF THIS BOX!!

This post was going to be a review for The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid but then turned into a rant about the quarterly YA box I can’t seem to get rid of.

The Diabolic has been on my shelf for almost a year, I think. I received it in the first Quarterly.Co YA book box, a subscription that replaced the previous YA book box from Book Riot. I was planning to cancel my subscription, anyway, because I prefer to get the stuff in boxes rather than the books in boxes. But when Book Riot announced their subscription was coming to an end anyway, I figured I’d let it ride for the last two and that would be that. But apparently they started a new YA box several months later and signed me up for the new product automatically. Obviously, that is bullshit and I was ENRAGED, but not so enraged that I went through the trouble of cancelling the damn subscription. Because, as usual, figuring out how to get out of things on the internet was much harder than getting in to it in the first place. I just got the 3^rd box, that’s how my efforts went. I’ve attempted to have my password reset a few times and nothing!

Now, I love book mail and this box subscription usually comes with a couple of books and a couple of bookish items. It’s curated by the author of the featured book. HERE’s THE PROBLEM:

Yes, those are sticky notes stuck into places in the book with notes from the author about inspiration or thoughts or whatever. I’m sure that I am not alone in this torn rollercoaster featuring the primary emotional poles of 1)COOL and 2) HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO READ THIS!? Obviously, I’m not going to take the stickies out of the book. Am I wrong in this? The stickies are now part of the book, amIRight?

So here’s what I did; I borrowed the damn book from the library. Once I read it, it was neat to go back and look at the comments from the author. And, since I liked the book, the book is a neat item to have. But the whole thing has renewed my motivation to cancel this damn subscription.

The other two books I have that will be super cool to own AFTER I read a different copy of the book are: A World without You by Beth Revis and The Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles. Both sound great. I may never know.

Two Asides:

I enjoyed The Diabolic. The concept is interesting though the story is fairly predictable. I may be reading too many of this kind of book all at once, though.

I currently have a subscription to the Bookish Box from Appraising Pages and I mostly love it. 

Series Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

I surrendered a large chunk of my life to this series based on the recommendation of a twitter friend. I told him that whether or not I liked this book was going to determine if he was trustworthy forever. That’s kind of how book recommendations go, right? Super important, people! Don't be that person who recommends crappy books. 

Anyway, the series in question is The Passage by Justin Cronin. The final book dropped in May 2016, illustrating how important it is to read series after they are finished if you don’t want to wait the lifetime of a child to finish a story! I mean, really! I don’t have that kind of long- term attention span.

Book Review: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

The Ember in the Ashes is awesome, but let me not get ahead of myself . I got this book from the library and I think it was my final read of 2016. 

From Goodreads [linked]: 

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
 
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
 
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
 
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, it’s most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

My Two Cents:

Valentine's Day Giveaway (Blog Hop)

We're spreading some Valentine's Day love with a giveaway full of chocolate, books, and pretty things! 

To enter fill out the Rafflecopter then hit the comments and tell us about something YOU love. Your favorite author, book, or blog. Tell us about your true love, your kids, your best friend or your pets. Anything you love. We want to hear about what makes your heart full or just makes you smile.

Enter the Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway