Library Checkout & Reviews {24}: Random Pick Edition

All of these books are random books I picked up at the library.

Picture Books

I liked this less than the two books at the top but this was still good.

I Read a Graphic Novel

I like that there were moments of silence and just pictures.  Even better this book made me realize I can read graphic novels again. Yay!

Blind Date With A Book:  Round Two

[image from amazon.com and synopsis from goodreads]

Part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson’s Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.

The lesson is not that I can’t go randomly into books. It is that I need a environment that I can be comfortable picking up books I don’t know about. It is hard to just tell if a novel will be bad just from the cover or even synopsis. I have a way higher chance when picking up graphic novels/picture books of liking it so it is a easier environment to pick up books. I did not give a lot of input like I usually do but its been a while since I read these books and stuff.

[all images unless otherwise stated are from goodreads]

TTT: Spring TBR 2015

The Haves

I will more than likely not read any of these. This list is in no particular order.

1. A Dance With Dragons

I’m not feeling this book so much. I think I will hopefully get back into this after or during the Game of Thrones fifth season.

2. A Wonderlandiful World

I hope I can get back into this too.

3.  Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

I started watching The Following which makes me interested in Edgar Allan Poe stories.

4.Princeless vol.2

5. The Names vol. 1

The Have Nots (At My Library)

I will probably get some of these my next library trip next week.

6. Sparky

7. Tune: Vanishing Point

Andy’s life is going nowhere, fast. He left art school with his career all worked out ahead of time, but …to say  it didn’t work out is the understatement of the century. Unemployed and living with his overbearing parents, Andy  struggles to keep sight of the lofty goals that once drove him. But it’s hard, even when he reconnects with his old art school crush, Yumi. Things look better, briefly, with Yumi back in the picture and an actual job offer on the table. But then Andy takes the job offer–to work at a zoo–and finds himself in an alternate dimension. The zoo? It’s run by aliens. The exhibit? It’s him.  Derek Kirk Kim is back with an offbeat, poignant new project. The first volume of a series, Tune is a science fiction comedy, but it’s also a smart and affectionate examination of human nature.  

 

8. Shadow Hero

The Shadow Hero is based on golden-age comic series The Green Turtle, whose hero solved crimes and fought injustice just like any other comics hero. But this mysterious masked crusader was hiding more than your run-of-the-mill secret identity…The Green Turtle was the first Asian American superhero.

Now, exactly seventy years later, New York Times-bestselling author Gene Luen Yang has revived this nearly forgotten, pioneering character in a new graphic novel that creates an origin story for the golden-age Green Turtle.

With artwork by the unmatched Sonny Liew, this hilarious and insightful graphic novel about heroism and heritage is also a loving tribute to the long, rich tradition of American superhero comics.

 

9. The Moon Moth

Edwer Thissell, the new consul from Earth to the planet Sirene, is having all kinds of trouble adjusting to the local culture. The Sirenese cover their faces with exquisitely crafted masks that indicate their social status. Thissell, a bumbling foreigner, wears a mask of very low status: the Moon Moth. Shortly after Thissell arrives on Sirene, he finds himself embroiled in a an unsolved murder case made all the more mysterious by the fact that since everyone must always wear a mask, you can never be sure who you’re dealing with.

10. I, Witness

In a dark back alley, Boone and Andre witness a violent murder, and agree not to mention it. But the killers have different ideas and come after Boone and his friends, killing two of them. Boone is desperate to save himself but realizes to do so he will need to face the violent act in his past that continues to haunt him.

Library Checkout&Reviews {23}: Picture Books Edition

I can’t get into novels or graphic novels so I’m reading picture books at the moment.

Eh.

I did think Peanut Butter and Jellyfish was better than eh but wasn’t on the level the other books were. It did have a twist which saved this book. I liked the artwork too. Keisha Ann Can! definitely is a eh and meant for kids. It had a moral message about doing your homework and stuff.

Good

Lester’s Dreadful Sweaters caught my eye while I was looking for other books so its my random read. I think that this has the feeling of a middle grade novel because the main character.The only negative I have to say about this book is that after a while the sweaters started to look the same. Nonetheless, the story and art were on point.

 Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth  The art was one of my favorites out of the books I got from this library trip. There is one moment in the book were the entire color scheme for the book changes with the mood of the book. Nung Gwama was kind gory like folklore usually is. It felt different (in a good way) in the mythology creature and the story which I’m behind all the way. It did still have the feeling of a fairy tale.

I think that picture books are a good introduction to different cultures. I think so far they have been better than novels dealing with different cultures and their mythology. Overall, they are a good introduction to things. I think picture books are working for me because there are pictures and not a lot of words.

I was wondering is there a reading group for adults who read picture books like there is a group for young adult books?

My Blind Date With A Book

To my surprise when I went into the library they had a table filled with books that were covered up like presents with 3-4 words on them describing the book. Being in the place I am with reading I was like this is cool but I’m in sort of a reading slump. I was looking at the table and found a book that said fantasy, witty, comic. I saw comic and thought this is the perfect thing for me because I can’t get into novels right now. So I excitedly checked it out.

😦 . I did think it was small for a graphic novel. This is why I can not blindly pick up a book.

???:The Richard Bachman Books (1/4): Rage

 

   

Synopsis

A. A high school show-and-tell session explodes into a nightmare of evil…

B. Only death can keep you from the finish line-in the ultimate competition of the all-too-near future…

C. What happens when one good-and-angry man fights back is murder-and then some…

D. In the year 2025, the best men don’t run for president. They run for their lives…

I realize that the synopsis for each book is one sentence so I put them in the order like above and asked my mom and brother separately which sounds the best. They actually both picked D. My brother said D or A. I decided to read A for some reason. By the way synopsis for this book does not fit the content of the book.

The Bad

I went into this book saying  don’t think hard. I kinda thought if I just gave the book a chance and did not turn my usual reading brain on it would be good. I was trying to read it without taking breaks to think because I knew this was not it. It was not that hot in the first place (eh level).  The characters were not that developed and realistic. The scenario of the story is interesting but it did not have the horror aspect or the above mentioned things in his characters so I did not care. It never went beyond an okay level.

The Meh

Thankfully, Carrie came out before this did. This story overall was eh. The content is not as controversial as the events that happened around this book. The only slightly good thing I can mention about this book is one of the characters was interesting to me. I think if she was given more development and given her own book that would’ve have been way more interesting.

This book made me realize the many issues I have with his writing.  One of those things is the feeling that his stories are samey. Also,  I need Stephen King to do horror for me to like his books. I don’t want a story that is about dysfunctional people just talking or being dysfunctional. This is the main reason I did not finish The Stand and 11/22/64.

Stephen King has done better and I assume can do better (I’ve heard his writing is not that hot now. If 11/22/63 is an indication of how writing is now. Ugh.)

Rankings of Stephen King Books  I’ve Read So Far

1. Misery
2. Cujo
3. Carrie
4. The Stand
5. 11/22/63
6. Rage

 

Library Checkout/Reviews {21}-{22}

So I got more books than I probably really needed to at one time. I feel I got a bit into desperate mode which I was constantly in last year. I crossed line into it because I started getting aimless and emo so I though yep its time to get back into reading. I hope that these don’t make me feel worse.

{21} The Books I Already DNF because eh/not engaged…

 

Some of these I question if I’m not into because I am in a reading slump or something. I just don’t have the patience to wait and see. A book needs to start off being interesting right away to keep me. I did not finished an entire library haul.

{22}

 

I got The Norton Anthology of African American Literature because it has samples of all these different books I want to try. Black Hole was checked out because it is by the same author who I read last year when I was going through a eh reading period last year. I am hoping that it can be greater or work at the same level it did last year. So far Black Holes is similar to Sugar Skull which worries me a bit. The Norton African American Anthology so far is good I even had a moment with my mom. One of the songs is a popular rap song which I did not realize when I pressed play on it. She felt the need to sing and dance.

By the time I post this I will probably have did not finished Martha Washington… so hard. I don’t like how the writing for the story is so far. It’s jumping around a bit and not sitting down for a second to give me any emotion about it.

January-February Bookhaul

My input is not matching my output. Well, at least I’m getting less books.

I’m still in eh mode with Stephen King but I don’t want to do a massive bulk dnf of his books. So I am still collecting them hoping that I will open up one of his books and be amazed again. Aztec Autumn is the sequel to Aztec which I own.

I got Wintertown because it is graphic novel/novel.  I hope it is good. A Star Shall Fall is not the first the series so sigh. I got it on a whim so it’s not that much of a lost if I don’t like it.

It is my mission to collect all Stephen King novels and short stories. Any and everything centering around war bores me so crossing my fingers.

I’m excited about this one because it deals with someone who is half Romany and the story sounds interesting too.

In a hospital bed, small-time private detective Ray Lovell veers between paralysis and delirium. But before the accident that landed him there, he’d been hired to find Rose Janko, the estranged daughter of a traveling Gypsy family, who went missing seven years earlier.

Half Romany himself, Ray is well aware that he’s been chosen more for his blood than for his investigative skills. Still, he’s surprised by the intense hostility he encounters from the Jankos, who haven’t had an easy past. Touched by tragedy, they’re either cursed or hiding a terrible secret—the discovery of which Ray can’t help suspecting is connected to Rose’s disappearance…

Seamlessly toggling between Ray’s past and present, and the perspective of the missing woman’s young nephew JJ, Stef Penney builds a gripping page-turner that doesn’t let go until its shocking end.