Book BINGO Quarterly Updated

Spring is finally here. It means the days are getting longer, the sun as reappeared in the Pacific Northwest, and I think we all survived the nuclear winter. My wallet is a little thinner thanks to the subzero temps, but I survived the cold. Which I hate, with a passion, it's one of the reason I left the Midwest. I don't like being cold! April being here means that a quarter of the year has finally passed us by, and in order to keep my motivated this year to not fall into reading slumps. Or, let outside forced distract me. Looking at you Netflix. I'm doing a Quarterly Updated! Starting with Book BINGO.  

Okay, so I thought I was doing pretty good considering only 3 months had passed! It would seem that I was incorrect in that assumption as both of my friends are smoking me. In fact I'm not overly certain how Sarah has read so many books! I have no idea how I'll catch up, but I've got money on her getting a fracking BINGO before I manage a new square. Here's a little side-by-side because I'm all about sharing my pain.

(Kathleen & Sarah)

(Kayla)

                           

Going forward into the year I don't a set TBR. I never stick them when I attempt to them. It's more a stack of books I'd like to get through before any of the others. Though, I'm real good at ignoring that for something else. Like a book my cat pulled off the shelve to chew on to show me how hungry he is. Because, hey, I forgot I owned that. Still I do have a couple of squares I'd like to have checked off by the end of the month.

Cookbook: The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook 

Edwardian: The Invisible Man 

Anybody else struggling through their own Book BINGO card? Any one at all doing better than Sarah? Either would make my day!

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic.

Why I'm Waiting: I don't now if you saw that last line, but this sounds amazing! Plus, I'm a huge of Illuminae Series that Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff just tied by last year. I'm so pumped for this!

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Genre: Non-Fiction

Series: Stand Alone

Pages: 336

The true story of the fierce band of women who battled Washington—and Hanoi—to bring their husbands home from the jungles of Vietnam.

On February 12, 1973, one hundred and fifteen men who, just six years earlier, had been high flying Navy and Air Force pilots, shuffled, limped, or were carried off a huge military transport plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. These American servicemen had endured years of brutal torture, kept shackled and starving in solitary confinement, in rat-infested, mosquito-laden prisons, the worst of which was The Hanoi Hilton.

Months later, the first Vietnam POWs to return home would learn that their rescuers were their wives, a group of women that included Jane Denton, Sybil Stockdale, Louise Mulligan, Andrea Rander, Phyllis Galanti, and Helene Knapp. These women, who formed The National League of Families, would never have called themselves “feminists,” but they had become the POW and MIAs most fervent advocates, going to extraordinary lengths to facilitate their husbands’ freedom—and to account for missing military men—by relentlessly lobbying government leaders, conducting a savvy media campaign, conducting covert meetings with antiwar activists, most astonishingly, helping to code secret letters to their imprisoned husbands.

HAPPY READING!!

March Wrap Up

Quite a few exciting things popped up this week that pulled me away from my reading, but not really away from books. My flatmate got me tickets to see The Woman in Black at our local theater. Which was amazing! I loved how the adapted the story onto a live stage and the actors did a wonderful job. I jumped a handful of times despite knowing what was coming. It was a wonderful night out.

Following that was Emerald City Comi-Con, which I was able to go do thanks to a wonderful gift my boss and owner of the company I work for. As always I had an epic time watching all the cosplayers and found two new comic series to dive into. Plus, I got to geek out over the Silver series with writer and creator Stephan Franck while I bought my official Rosalynd print! I even got to take my flatmate to her first Comic Book Convention.

Then there was Captain Marvel, which I don't have the right words to talk about awesome that was. I loved everything about it: the banter, the plot, the fight scene, Goose. It was great and I totally saw it twice. Because that's who good it was. I needed to see it a second time!

Books Read: 3

Pages Reads: 594

DNF: 0

Currently Reading: I haven't picked yet!

So I have three events that I'm very excited for in April.

1. The Ungovernable book event. 
2. SeaBookstore Day!
3. The Ian Doescher book event.

Honestly I'm not sure which I'm more excited for! I had some much fun last year with SeaBookstore Day. For the second year my friend Sarah and I will be out and about getting our Book Nerd on. My Aunt actually bought me the perfect shirt to wear for the day. So I'm excited for our jaunt through Seattle to get more books than we'll ever be able to read. As for the book events, come Hell and High Water I'll make it to both. Which shouldn't be too hard. One is pretty close to where I work, and the other is on a Sunday which usually the one night I can wiggle out of!

As for my TBR:

• I'm pages away from finishing Chasing Graves.
• After that I've got no idea. I snagged some good books from the library. I also need to finish the Illuminae series before Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff's new series hits shelves in May. 
• Start the two books that Bookish.com was kind enough send me, The Witch of Willow Hall and Smoke and Summons.

How was everyone else's month? Has anyone body got their hands on Aurora Rising or Girl in Red? I hear rumors of wild ARCs of both floating around.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon! Some are by authors I already enjoy, some are the reason I gave the book a longer look. Either way they're all going to find their way here!

Brody Fair feels like nobody gets him: not his overworked parents, not his genius older brother, and definitely not the girls in the projects set on making his life miserable. Then he meets Nico, an art student who takes Brody to Everland, a “knock-off Narnia" that opens its door at 11:21pm each Thursday for Nico and his band of present-day misfits and miscreants.

Here Brody finds his tribe and a weekly respite from a world where he feels out of place. But when the doors to Everland begin to disappear, Brody is forced to make a decision: He can say goodbye to Everland and to Nico, or stay there and risk never seeing his family again.

HAPPY READING!!

LIFEL1K3 - Review

Author: Jay Kristoff

Genre: Sci-Fi

Format: Hardback

Pages: 402

I've sat on this review for a minute because I needed time to wrap my around a lot of things. Mostly the last few pages where everything sort of just socks you in the gut. But, also I needed to organize my thoughts, because I didn't want to spoil anything major. Bless my roommate for sitting on this and not spoiling the end for me. She managed to read this last year, but sadly I never got around to picking it up. It was well worth the wait, and I'm glad to only have small wait before diving into DEV1AT3. Which will push every other book I'm reading to the bottom of the pile in May.

The best place to start is probably by saying the robot battle at the start of the book totally distracted me from the fact this is Anastasia Romanov re-telling. I was so distracted by robots and Lemon-freaking-Fresh that I missed all signs pointing to that direction, until Zeke showed up. Then I realized what was going on, and I can't believe Jay Kristoff got me attached to an Anastasia Romanov re-telling. I have a lot of reasons why I usually avoid this area of re-telling. The biggest one is a feel like it's one that's sort done a lot, but I'll let you know it's never been done like this. 

Only Jay Kristoff thought robots would make that story more interesting. They did though, because by the time I realized what was happening I was already invested in the story. I couldn't just stop. I needed to make sure Lemon and Cricket survived this book! Because they are precious and needed to be protected at all costs. ALL COSTS!

LIFEL1KE was the first book I've read that was all Jay Kristoff's writing style and all his world building. He did not disappoint me one bit. In fact I'm looking forward to jumping into his other series at some point. Because I'm the world's slowest reader and it takes me ages to get through books. Even ones I loved as much as this one.

As I sit here I'm trying to find something I didn't like about the book, but nothing is honestly coming to mind. Every part of LIFEL1K3 is on point: the world building, the characters, the plot. Yeah, I wasn't overly excited about the Romanov connection, but that's more my hang up than anything else. Once I'd gotten into the heart of the book I stopped caring about that. I was so focused on Eve's journey, on praying Lemon and Cricket make it out alive, and on trying to figure out what terrible thing Zeke was hiding. I knew it was something, he was trying too hard, and I was enjoying how much we kept shooting him. Which he deserved. Every single time.

Cause he's a lying lair who lies.

Before I wrap this up I do want to talk about Eve for a hot second. I was really happy that her character grew the way it did throughout the entire story. Honestly I shouldn't have been surprised, all the characters in the Illuminae Series are solid. But, I still worried a bit as more of Eve's past was unveiled that she was going to turn into some whiny ball of angst trying to figure who she is. Bless Jay Kristoff for not letting that happen. Bless him for having her pull up her big girl pants and realize things sucked, but people wanted them dead and she'd panic later. Because I adore our main character and I didn't want that to change.

I mean she's not Lemon Fresh, but so few of us are.

This book ran me through a gambit of emotions and was so well thought out. I'd love a prequel series one day about War that destroyed the world, or how the people started rebuilding after. There so much I want to know about things that laid up to where we meet Eve. It's all brilliant. In fact if life hadn't of hit in the face so hard I probably would have tore through this book faster than I did. Sadly, I kept getting book blocked life.

I'm super excited for book 2, DEV1AT3, that comes out this May! Excited to see what kind of trouble everyone finds themselves into next, and I'm still worried about Lemon and Cricket. I realize no one is safe in the hands of Jay Kristoff.

Buy, Borrow, or Skip: Whatever gets this books in your hands! It's amazing and my friends have been troopers listening to my gush about this book over the last month that I've been reading it.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate abandon the comforts of suburbia and teaching jobs to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this charming property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. As Helen starts carefully sourcing decorative building materials for her home - wooden beams, mantles, historic bricks -- she starts to unearth, and literally conjure, the tragic lives of Hattie's descendants, three generations of "Breckenridge women," each of whom died amidst suspicion, and who seem to still be seeking something precious and elusive in the present day.

Why I'm Waiting: Because all I could think while reading the plot to this was, this sounds like a bad plan guys. Now I need to know just how bad, because I love horror movies. To which this sounds like the start of one.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Genre: Young Adult

Series: Stand Alone

Pages: 360

Who do you become when you have nothing left to lose?

There is something Poe Blythe, the seventeen-year-old captain of the Outpost’s last mining ship, wants far more than the gold they tear from the Serpentine River. 

Revenge. 

Poe has vowed to annihilate the river raiders who robbed her of everything two years ago. But as she navigates the treacherous waters of the Serpentine and realizes there might be a traitor among her crew, she must also reckon with who she has become, who she wants to be, and the ways love can change and shape you. Even—and especially—when you think all is lost.

Ally Condie, the international bestselling author of the Matched trilogy, returns with an intricately crafted and emotionally gripping story of one young woman’s journey to move beyond the grief and anger that control her and find the inner strength to chart her own course.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon! Some are by authors I already enjoy, some are the reason I gave the book a longer look. Either way they're all going to find their way here!

A PIRATE WITH A WILL OF IRON
Teriana is the second mate of the Quincense, a ship beholden to the Goddess of the Seas. Her people are born of the waves, and they alone know how to cross the impassable oceans between East and West. 

A SOLDIER WITH A SECRET
Marcus is the commander of the Thirty-Seventh, the notorious legion that has led the Celendor Empire to conquer the entire East. The legion is his only family, and even they don't know the secret he's been hiding since childhood.

A DANGEROUS QUEST
When a power-hungry ruler captures Teriana's crew and threatens to reveal Marcus's secret unless they help him conquer the unknown West, the two are forced into an unlikely–and unwilling– alliance. They unite for the sake of their families, but both must decide how far they are willing to go, and how much they are willing to sacrifice.

HAPPY READING!!

Mini Reviews

Holy freaking cow! I knew there would be a double cross before the end of this story, but I wasn't honestly expecting it to be that. However, it felt fitting and I'm very satisfied with how everything was tied up. I'm glad certain things didn't happen, because Tao is precious and needs to be protected at all costs. Every box I wanted to get ticked off, in fact got hit. Plus there was a train heist. Who doesn't love a little train heist. The entire was well thought out and was brilliantly laid out. I know I should have read this as soon as I received it from the Kickstarter, but this is one of those series I wasn't ready to say good-by to. As it turns out I don't have. Silver is coming back! When? No idea, but you bet your butts I'll be keeping an eye out for the new series. 

Being a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, it's not surprise that this caught my eye this weekend at Comic-Con. I'm always on the look out for new re-tellings of canon, new twists to old favorites. Major Holmes and Captain Watson is more of a continuation of canon. Sheffield Holmes is the nephew of the great Sherlock Holmes. He's been charged with solving the crime of gruesome murder that's more than it seemed. I really enjoyed this. Watson is hands down my favorite character in canon, and love Captain Watson. She sees your social norms and walks right on past them. Sheffield has the skill of his Uncle, but has a little more charm than his Uncle. I feel like this was a great start to what could be an amazing series. I'm excited to see what Issue #2 does to continue the plot looming over London.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

All love stories are ghost stories in disguise.

When famed Byronesque poet Hugh de Bonne is discovered dead of a heart attack in his bath one morning, his cousin Robert Highstead, a historian turned post-mortem photographer, is charged with a simple task: transport Hugh's remains for burial in a chapel. This chapel, a stained glass folly set on the moors of Shropshire, was built by de Bonne sixteen years earlier to house the remains of his beloved wife and muse, Ada. Since then, the chapel has been locked and abandoned, a pilgrimage site for the rabid fans of de Bonne's last book, The Lost History of Dreams.

However, Ada's grief-stricken niece refuses to open the glass chapel for Robert unless he agrees to her bargain: before he can lay Hugh to rest, Robert must record Isabelle's story of Ada and Hugh's ill-fated marriage over the course of five nights.

As the mystery of Ada and Hugh's relationship unfolds, so does the secret behind Robert's own marriage--including that of his fragile wife, Sida, who has not been the same since the tragic accident three years ago, and the origins of his own morbid profession that has him seeing things he shouldn't--things from beyond the grave.

Why I'm Waiting: I'm a sucker for a good Gothic sounding novel.

HAPPY READING!!