Weekly Wrap Up + What We Read 4/3/16

Better late than never! The weeks are only getting crazier for Michaela and me, but never fear! We will never abandon you. This week we managed to be very impressive with the blogs, but not so much with the reading. This is fine. Next week we might even manage to read something!

Monday:

• Gretchen’s From the Notebook on What Happened to My TBR
• Michaela’s Call for Help with Time Management

Tuesday:

• Betwixt the Books Discuss! Genre Hierarchy and Literary Snobbery

Wednesday:

• Gretchen’s Worth It Wednesday: Graceling by Kristin Cashore
• Michaela’s advice on How to Find a Comic Book Store

Thursday:

• Gretchen’s March Wrap Up

Friday:

• Gretchen’s ARC Review of Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan
• Michaela’s March Wrap Up

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ARC Review: “Tell the Wind and Fire” by Sarah Rees Brennan

Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan

Goodreads | Amazon

In a city divided between opulent luxury in the Light and fierce privations in the Dark, a determined young woman survives by guarding her secrets.

Lucie Manette was born in the Dark half of the city, but careful manipulations won her a home in the Light, celebrity status, and a rich, loving boyfriend. Now she just wants to keep her head down, but her boyfriend has a dark secret of his own—one involving an apparent stranger who is destitute and despised. Lucie alone knows the young men’s deadly connection, and even as the knowledge leads her to make a grave mistake, she can trust no one with the truth.

Blood and secrets alike spill out when revolution erupts. With both halves of the city burning, and mercy nowhere to be found, can Lucie save either boy—or herself?

Two and a half stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Clarion Books for this eARC! This title will be released on April 5th, 2016.

I wish this was an April Fools joke. I wish I could say that I did not really rate a SRB book this low. Especially a book with this much potential and thought behind it – which is honestly the reason it’s rated as high as it is. But as much as I desperately wanted to love this book, it was impossible.

March Wrap Up + PopSugar Challenge Update

Wasn’t it kind of March to end on a Thesis Thursday day? Especially because I don’t have a thing for a Thesis Thursday as of yet? Yes, yes it was. Unlike my February wrap up, I’m doing this one as a post because this is about the amount of time I have right now. GO COLLEGE!

I read 9 books in March. This is two down from last month, which is super depressing because February is so much shorter than March. Whatever. Spring break got in my way, if you remember.

The first three books I read in March were all for my thesis. By Goodreads’ match, the first one I finished was Judging a Book By Its Cover: Fans, Publishers, Designers and the Marketing of Fiction edited by Nicole Matthews and Nikkianne Moody. While I originally picked this up for it’s section on book cover design, it will also be very helpful in my last chapter that talks about marketing and publishing books for young adults.

Then, I finished By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design by Ned Drew and Paul Sternberger. This book was not at all what I expected, as it was a coffee table sized book with almost more pictures than words. It spanned decades of American cover design, but often only for the most “literati” books for the most popular of designers. I still managed to quote it though!

Wrapping up this month’s thesis work, I read Theodor Adorno’s The Culture Industry. If you are into theory about the mass production of culture, this is very interesting and I was so happy that one of my professors lent it to me. However, while the previous two books are nice reading for the lay-reader … this one is not. Don’t pick it up unless you want a headache.

In actually exciting news, Taylor and I both finally finished Mermaids
and Other Mysteries of the Deep, a short story anthology edited by Paula Guran. We had been promising this video since we did our review of After: 19 Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia, but it took us FOREVER to finally get done. While it is a longer video, we both found this anthology better than After. Very worth the watch and read!

I re-read three books while I was on spring break, two of which were by Tellulah Darling. I read the 2nd and 3rd books in her Blooming Goddess trilogy, My Date From Hell and then My Life From Hell. When I came back, I did a series review of all three because I wanted to talk about them all so much. While these are hardly the best books I’ve ever read, they’re the kind of fluffy mind candy that you just NEED to read sometimes. I also enjoy a new take on the Hades and Persephone myth any day.

The last book that I re-read on break was Aimee Carter’s Goddess Interrupted. This is the 2nd book in her Goddess Test series (another Hades and Persephone retelling) and my favorite. I fully plan on doing a series review of this very soon because re-reading this reminded me just how much I love AND hate this series.

I got through one single ARC read this month, which was Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan. This is a standalone novel that is far darker than anything you might expect by SRB. I don’t want to say too much, because the review is coming out tomorrow, but … oh dear guys. I really, really didn’t enjoy this one at all. I was so disappointed.

Last but not least, I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This was for our spectacular March Imbibliomancy episode, in which me, Taylor and Michaela get drunk and talk about themes–or try to. I am so angry, but I really like this one. Like, a lot. I almost gave it five stars. You should really, really check out that video for more on that and also serious hilarity!

For my PopSugar update, I only ticked off two more boxes. I decided to count Tell the Wind and Fire as my “book published in 2016” because I was so proud that I didn’t DNF it. Station Eleven also counted as my “book from the library.” That makes it 10/40!

Here’s to more reading in April! Or at least attacking the “currently reading” list on my Goodreads that is 7 books long right now. YIKES!

Betwixt the Books: (What is) Spring Break TBR!

This video was recorded before I left for the west coast, but it talks about all the books that I packed up as I was planing and road tripping everywhere. Since Michaela is a Real Person with a Real Life and a Real Job, she has picked out some books that she wants to read next! There are also some goodies about our next Imbibliomancy episode, some ARCs we’re reading and some upcoming joint and single reviews.

Also, now that it’s like a week after we recorded this, I can admit that A) I am not getting as much reading done as I thought I might and B) Fingerprints of You didn’t fit in the bag when I went to pack all this nonsense.

Don’t tell Taylor I’ve started reading Lady Midnight and Tell the Wind and Fire but not Get in Trouble. I will literally get in trouble.

Enjoy!