Books that are better memories than reads

There are certain books I read that in the moment I struggle with. They could be slow, they could be confusing. Sometimes boring or sometimes painful. Other times the book is just a really good idea but the execution is not what I expected or wanted. Often I needed to push myself to finish and thought, never again, but days, weeks or months later would think back and go “there was something there” or “it couldn’t have been that bad, could it?“.

These books feel better in retrospect but I generally dislike the reading experience at the time. Typically, they land on my Goodreads shelf for “great concept but the book feel flat“. Here’s a list of books that were better memories that reads.

What book have you read recently that was a better memory than read?

First Line Fridays #17

I was staring out the classroom window and daydreaming of adventure when I spotted the flying saucer.

Published: July 2015

Publisher: Crown Publishing

Pages: 352

Genera: YA SciFi

Series: Nope!

The first ten eleven

Books Read: 

1. Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff     5 Stars

2. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (Libba Bray)     1 Star

3. Eve: the Awakening by Jenna Moreci     2.5 Stars

4. Ready Player One by Ernst Cline (Wil Wheton)     2.5 Stars

5. Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Dr. Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell (Tanya Eby)     4 Stars

6. Queen of the Tearling     Erika Johansen     4 Stars

7. The Martian by Andy Weir     4.5 Stars

8. First Test by Tamora Pierce (Bernadette Dunne)     5 Stars

9. Page by Tamora Pierce (Bernadette Dunne)     5 Stars

10. Squire by Tamora Pierce (Bernadette Dunne)     5 Stars

11. Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce (Bernadette Dunne)     5 Stars

Average Rating: 3.95

Audiobooks: 7 (Narrators in brackets after author name)

Re-reads: 5

Indy/self published: 1.5 (The Martian was originally Indy published, but is now traditionally published due to the response, so I give that a 0.5 rating)

Number of books reviewed on this blog: Currently 3 are formally reviewed, with another one reviewed in an atypical fashion.  I have plans for an audiobook-centric review of the Protector of the Small Quartet that should be up soon.  Finally, I have 2 reviews to write for Goodreads that I don’t plan to have on here, but might end up that way.  

Comments: 

It seems I’m more likely to review books on this blog I didn’t like (Beauty Queens, Ready Player One and Eve: The Awakening) then those that I do like.  I’m trying to be better about this and to review the good and the bad always, but I can improve.  Additionally, books like Gemina, being in the middle of series, are less likely to get reviews because I prefer to do a series review for second books and on wards.  Regardless, I review every book in some form on Goodreads (she says, knowing that she is currently behind in 2 reviews, outside of the Tamora Pierce re-reads).

I have been trying to make a conscious effort to review the audiobook as well as the book when I read audiobooks since audiobooks and their narrators need more love.  Plus it’s good information for people to have.  I read many audiobooks in section of my reading, partially because I was unpacking, which is a good task to listen to audiobooks to, and without internet for a time. 

Love Tamora Pierce and was in the mood for something familiar because of a move and the stress of that and a new job (plus lack of internet).  Also it seems that March and April are times of the year I really need to re-read some or all of her books, or so Facebook’s look back feature tells me.  This makes since as it’s spring and I’m often avoiding exams and need to read something of comfort that I can put down to study when I really need to.  No exams this year, though.  

I’m on track with my randomly picked number of books to read that was less then 50.  Which is good, I guess?  I’m telling myself I’m not attached to the number but I’m also keeping an eye on it, so that is mostly lies.  

What’s next?

With new job things will be weird for a time meaning I have no idea how this reading thing will fit into my new life at this time.  I will, however, be working regular predictable hours for like the first time ever, without school to boot.  This could be very good for my reading, or I could watch too much TV.  I shall see.

As for what’s next reading-wise, I recently posted my library book haul, so that is a good indicator of what I’m looking to read.  I also have a list of unread books on my shelves I want to cut in half, but have yet to read any.  Finally, I have Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore, another re-read and then final in the Graceling Trilogy I have been working through, signed out and really want to finally finish off The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks, a book I have been reading for literal years.  And if none of that fits my fancy, I have a mile long list of books I want to read over on Goodreads to get around to reading. 

Books I own I should likely get rid of

I don’t own a lot of books.  I’d estimate there are about 60 or so books I moved with after finishing University and likely another dozen chapter books at my mom’s place and a dozen or so picture books there as well.

Growing up in a small house where half the people living there were book lovers, we never really bought many books.  Partially budget reasons, partially because the house was too damn small to store books.  It was library only reading.  As a side note, I love libraries and always have and gained an appreciation for them early.  Even though small town libraries are very easy to read through. I’m surprised I actually have accumulated more then a 100 books!  I started buying more books once I entered university, but still mostly bought books I had read many times and knew I loved.  Typically that is still my attitude on book buying, however I have bought a few over the years that I haven’t read before but thought I would like.  But I didn’t and now I should get rid of it.  

So without further ado, here are about a handful of books that I really should donate so someone else can love them more then me.  A few I have not read.  

1. The Maze Runner by James Dashner

2. The Game of Thrones by GRR Martin (plus the 3 that follow it)

3. No Safety in Numbers by Dayna Lorentz

4. Ready Player One by Ernst Cline

5. The Diviner by Melanie Rawn

6. The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood 

I will admit that part of the reason I haven’t donated these books it they do diversify my shelves just a little bit, so if anyone was to comment that I only have YA fantasy on my shelf I could pull out one of these books to refute it.  But I’m not a fan of keeping books around I won’t read again and don’t like.  So they should go!  If you like these books, I’m glad, but I hope you won’t hate me for not liking them enough to keep them.

Added note: since I first started drafting this post I have let someone borrow two of these books and the odds of them being returned are on the slim side.  For the one book I’m ok with it, for the other I’m slightly sad, but I’m not running to the bookstore to replace it or nagging the guy to return it, so it was likely for the best.  

Second added note: due to a move occurring around when this post will go up there are more books that should be on this list and at least one I am going to get rid of on this list.

5 Books I’d want to re-write

The Wake Trilogy by Lisa McMann – Though the 1st person PoV is needed to get the story across, I feel the level of writing in this series was sub-par and could really use some strengthening.

Battle Magic by Tamora Pierce – This could have been such a good book but the ending was rushed and many things happened that felt sloppy.  

Ready Player One by Ernst Cline – The premise of this book and the main plot points were on point, but for me this book was let down by the writing style and the details.  

The Rest of us just Live Here by Patrick Ness – Interesting concept, but the book was overall very meh.  It needed something more in my opinion.  

Eve: the Awakening by Jenna Moreci – The start of the book was great!  The middle and ending, however, needed major edits to clean it up. 

 

 

 

Inconsistencies in Ready Player One by Ernst Cline

This post is in similar vane to my ‘How do you Review’ posts, though it focuses more on the inconsistencies found within Ready Player One that, in my opinion, hurt the book.  These are just a handful of the things I noticed.  There could be some spoilers.

-everyone is poor yet everyone can buy shit in the game?

-no one else thought the ‘much to learn’ would ever be the planet with schools on it?

-the talk of living in parent’s basements ignore the fact that in this world people don’t have basements anymore

-MC never thought to control+f his diary for key words??

-keeping all the identiy data from FBI over time would not have been a thing that could actually happen

-NPC’s are quite individually responsive in this world which at our level of technology is not realistic 

-it might be illegal to sample DNA but a corporation that routinely does illegal things including murder would be doing it anyway

-there were timeline issues, in one case it was insisted it had been months when it was really only about 2 weeks 

Review: Ready Player One by Ernst Cline

Published: August 2011

Publisher: Crown Publishers

Pages: 374

Star Rating: 2.5

Genera: SciFi

Series: First book in a companion series 

Source: Own paperback, this read was via audiobook through library Overdrive account   

This book is the first re-read for me for 2017.  Ready Player One is a book that many, many people love, but I didn’t really like.  However, it started my SciFi kick that has been ongoing for over a year now.  Because of my mixed feelings on this book and because I love Wil Wheaton, I wanted to re-read this via audiobook to reassess my feelings on it.

In a quick summary: the book started out really great, I love the introduction into the world.  For me it was unique, interesting and creative.  However, over time things start building up that resulted in the same mixed to negative feelings about the book.  To start with, the book quickly becomes infodumpy and feels more like a long string of 80s references and gaming culture explanations held together by a weak plot.  Overall, I love the plot and it’s unique and interesting, but the execution of the plot leaves me wanting more and better.  Then there are a bunch of characters I don’t really have any attachments to: the whiny cis white male teenager, but he’s poor and overweight so we are supposed to relate to him; his manic pixie dream girl, the ‘best friend’ who is better at the game then the main character but is relegated to a side-kick role and is also the Secret Diverse Character ^TM where the author wants credit for diversity that he didn’t actually write and for the diversity to be this big plot twist.  

Going into a bit more detail, the writing was too long-winded and needed an editor to pare it back.  For example, in the starting chapters there is this giant monologue spewing all the author’s life views (which I actually agree with) but was not needed to develop characterization which is how it’s framed.  The second part of this novel really starts bringing in the pop culture references to the point were I felt like I was wading through a pool of them trying to find the story.  It’s also at this point the story tries to out-cleaver itself which annoyed me.  The book has a large number of inconsistencies that build up I could write an entire post just about them (and I’m seriously considering doing so).  If more attention had been paid to staying in-world, to being consistent with the world he developed I would have been less annoyed.  Finally, at least three different times there were very heavy-handed use of the deus ex machina trope to solve all the problems currently effecting the main characters.  

Many of the inconsistencies also impact the worldbuilding.   On the surface the world is unique and believable.  I could really see us heading in that direction and the impact of an energy crisis and the solutions that were used to deal with the situations are creative and believable.  It felt like how the world went could have really happened, with a touch of suspension of belief for having technology so good to be able to made it seem and feel real.  The game as a distraction from the real world has parallels with the now (tv, video gaming), and it makes this book depressing when thought about in that sense.  The book has deep themes to be looked at if you like that sort of thing in your books 

However, going deeper into the world and OASIS things start to breakdown and I think it’s the contrast between the poor outside and the rich inside that do not seem to mesh.  Everyone is poor and can’t afford things in the real world yet everyone seems to be rich online.  

As for the characters, I think my above summary pretty much tells you what I think.  Wade was not a relatable character and fits in the whiny white male lead that too many characters fall into.  Similar to the use of the deus ex machina trope, there is a lot of ‘convenient explanation as to how the protagonist knows how to get out of every bind’ being used.  The white male lead fumbled around until the answer fell into his lap.  He also grossly invaded his friend’s privacy and took the high road about it.  Then insert fear of females into the MC before introducing the manic pixie dream girl.  The best friend is treated like a cute side-kick.  I liked Og the best out of every character, and he was only treated as a convenient side=character built to help the useless MC.  

Also, while it is nice to see more autistic characters in books being awesome and capable, the author did not do it in a respectful way in this book, describing Halliday as ‘high functioning’, which is very harmful to the community.  Then there is the part where the main character gets super fat but conveniently losses all the weight in a very short amount of time because of a girl.  Finally, there could have been some interesting diversity in this book but instead it was treated as a plot twist to the point it reminded me of JK Rowling wanting credit for diversity that was never really in the books.  

Finally, the plot, much like the worldbuilding, was interesting on the surface but breaks down in execution and delivery.  I was really interested in the scavenger hunt aspect of the story and it was well done for the most part.  I didn’t like the 80s aspect of it, with half or more of the references going over my head and there were times when it seemed like an encyclopedia of 80s jargon held together by a thin plot.  There were certain aspects of the plot  I liked: the sixers and the corporation were great, if one-dimensional, antagonists.  The blackmail scene was something I could imagine happening.  The sponsorship deals and the awards for winning I can picture happening, but the sponsorship deals never bit him in the butt (unrealistic) and Wade manage to make enough money to buy everything he ever wanted, ever.  That seems very unrealistic to me.  Or how about when the answer to one of the clues was in his grail diary, but he never thought/bothered to ctrol+f the thing? Yet still is the one that wins.  There were no checks and balances in filling out requisition forms, which much of the plot hinged on and is unrealistic.  The corporation would do some illegal things but not others that would destroy the plot just because there is a mesley law about it. Finally the book ended in a cheap romantic plot that did nothing to solve the issues of the world that non of the characters really cared about since they spend all their time online. 

In the end: the fact I wanted to re-read this book shows that there was something about it that I did like.  I loved the first third or so of this book but things got worse and worse after that.  It was long-winded and needed more editing, but the quest and the world intrigued me.  However, the thing that made me not like this book was the wasted potential.  It had the potential to be epic, but the manic pixie dream girl, the whiny white male saviour, the deus ex machina, and several other things the come into play at the end combine to make this book more of an annoyance then a favourite for me.  Many people love this book for the 80s nostalgia but I never grew up in the 80s so most of the references were lost on me.  Others say it’s geek culture in this book that they love, but this book just scratches the surface of the gross aspects of nerd and gaming culture and brushes over how harming it can be.  Things like gate keeping and sexism.

Top 5 Wednesday: Books You Feel Differently About

So I messed up and did this week’s Top 5 Wednesday last week, so I’m going to do last week’s topic this week!  You can find the schedule for Top 5 Wednesday here.

1. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – kinda a chat, but I gave this 4.5 stars upon reading it but then it became the best book of 2015, beating out several 5 star books.  I recognise it had it’s faults but it did leave a great impression on me.

2. The Magicans by Lev Grossman – I gave this something like 2 stars and, again, while I don’t think I would really change my rating of this book, I think after having watched the TV show I do appreciate what it did have a bit more.  But I still love TV Eliot the best out of the book and the TV show.  

3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling – I did not like this book the first time I read it and remembered almost nothing about it.  The second time I read it I had started with this book and continued on to the rest of the books in the series, which I had not read at the time.  I did a recent re-read of the entire series at once and I came to appreciate this book much more.  I still dislike whiny Harry and don’t like Dumbledore as much from this book on, but I do appreciate this book rather than just writing it off as a terrible book.

4. Epic by Conor Costick – Largely haled by me as the best book of 2016 so far, but looking back at it, while I did like the book, I don’t think it was outstanding.  Yes, it was good book with interesting characters and a great plot line, but I think the reason it stands out to me know is that it was one of 2 books that started my transition into more SciFi reads and TV shows and the interest in virtual reality genera.  

5. Ready Player One by Ernst Cline – This is an interesting one best I had high expectations of this book based on many stellar reviews but was very ‘meh’ about it: it wasn’t really my thing but had a few good parts.  Then I read more reviews on the subject and started to develop more negative feelings about the book due to it having a typical white man self insert lead with the female crush that he ends up getting in the end, blah blah blah, nothing really all that spectacular.   With about a year’s distance from this book I have more or less came back to meh, but like Conor Kostick’s Epic, it did spark the move to read more SciFi.  

Book Confessions Tag

1. Have you ever damaged a book?

Not intentionally.  The only unintentional incident I can remember was me accidentally ripping the back cover of a paperback really badly.  This excludes textbooks, which I don’t often write in but sometimes do.

2. Have you ever damaged a borrowed book?

No.

3. How long does it take you to read a book?

Ranges from 8 hours to 2 years, but generally if I’m reading it means I have the time to read and the book is done in 2 days or so.

4. Books that you haven’t finished?

There is a post of these!

5. Hyped/Popular books that you don’t like?

Here are so many I think this is actually a good topic for a blog post series so I will hold off of naming a bunch right now.  However, the first one that comes to mind is Ready Player One by Ernst Cline. 

6. Is there a book you wouldn’t tell anyone you were reading?

No.  Since there aren’t any books I would actually read that I would be ashamed of reading.  I possibly might not tell someone I was (finally) reading some book that everyone else had read and liked if I wasn’t liking it but this is not because of shame rather than avoiding backlash.  

7. How many books do you own?

Less than 100 but more than 50 which seems like a lot to me but there are people with thousands so I know it is not that many. 

8. Are you a fast reader or a slow reader?

I’m slow but if I want to finish the book I will do nothing else but read and thus makes it seem like I’m a fast reader.  As a child I was a fast reader but school readings (sciences) has caused me to slow down over time. 

9. Do you like to buddy read?

Never done it, would like to try it and/or just be part of a book club with non-sucky reads and people willing to discuss the book’s positive AND negative aspects in a respectful way if there are diverging opinions (would love some diverging opinions as well). 

10. Do you read better in your head or out loud?

Head, that way I can skim over words I don’t know how to pronounce and/or don’t get mocked for pronouncing things wrong and stumbling over words.  I am not a good ‘sight reader’, not terrible mind, but not good.

11. If you were only allowed to own one book, what would it be and why?

You can’t make me pick just one.  Nope. 

Epic Reads book Tag

I saw this so I decided to do it.  As I do with almost all tags. 

1. If you could invite one author and one of their fictional characters for tea who would you invite and what would you serve?

So I’m one that would never actually want to have dinner/tea with my favourite author because I wouldn’t really know what to say to them.  I also want to just be mean and have say E.L. James in the same room as Christian Grey and watch what happens.  For this epic even I would serve potato salad because its the best.

2. What would you love a prequel for and what would be the main storyline?

I would love to hear more about how Kel’s parents (from the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce) became ambassadors to the Yamani Islands.  Make it a series to, please!

3. Which two characters not from the same book would make a great book couple?

It is literally impossible for me to ship non-text supported couples or relationships as I am on the asexual scale of things. 

4. If you ran into your favourite author on the subway and could only say one sentence to them, what would you say?

Thank you. 

5. What book made you a reader and why?

First Test, book 1 of the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce.  This is the first book I remember reading outside of the classroom even though I know I was a reader before this series.  This book made me more so.  It was perfect for me: it had a lead character that was so much like me facing bullying, medieval times stuff (still don’t know if this book sparked my love of knights and swords and castles or if I was interested in it beforehand), fantasy, unique creatures, a sort of boarding school vibe and much more good stuff. 

6. If your bookshelf was caught on fire which book would you save?

Sadly, my Master’s thesis should likely be my first thing because that monster was expeeeeeensive to have bound, but there are a number of hard to get and nostalgia books on there that I would want to grab as well. 

7. Which dystopian world would you want to live in?

Hmmm toughy.  I think even though I didn’t like the book, the future world of Ready Player One by Ernst Cline because the virtual reality part is really interesting.  Though the 80’s references would kill me.  Thought lets be real, I can think of like 4 dystopian settings off the top of my head atm so the list to pick from is small. 

8. What is your most epic read of all time?

I can’t pick just one book and no one is going to make me!