July Wrap Up and August TBR

Hi guys, it’s time for another wrap up. I’ve had a pretty good reading month. I read 10 books – only one of those was under a 3 star rating and I had a 5 star read this month too. I’m also pretty happy that I am now on track for my Goodreads challenge. At the time of writing this, I am 5 books ahead of schedule so that’s good :). Anyway, I don’t think I have anything else to report to you guys, so I’m just going to start with my mini reviews.

 

The Tiger’s Daughter / K. Arsrenault Riveria / ★★

* I received a digital copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I will update this mini review closer to the release date, but basically this one didn’t work for me. It does have a lot of good reviews on Goodreads though.

 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn / Mark Twain / ★★★

I realised when I was about 100 pages in that I should have read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer before reading this. You can still read it but things are mentioned that presumably happen in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer so for a full understanding it’s probably best to read them in chronological order – Sawyer first, than Finn. Anyway it took me quite some time to get into this – mainly due to the writing style and dialect. It’s also written in quite an episodic way, so if that’s not your thing than I would avoid this book. It was a good story of friendship, although some things that happened seemed a little over the top. I felt that I appreciated this book more than I actually enjoyed this, if that makes sense. Overall I thought this was a good book but I won’t be adding it to my list of favourite classics.

 

Betrayal / Fiona Mcintosh / ★★★

This is the first book in the Trinity trilogy. This one is a bit of a tricky one to rate because although I did end up enjoying it, I did also have quite a few issues with it. I’ll start with some positives – I thought this was a good introduction to this trilogy, the characters were a little cliched but they were pretty well written, the plot is engaging and compelling and the writing is quite easy to get into, although clunky at times. You can tell that this was her first book, but I didn’t dislike the writing. Now onto some negatives – it contains the extremely overused (at this point) trope of ‘The One’/’The Chosen One’. I don’t mind this if it is done well but I think in this book I think it didn’t quite work. This was mainly due to Tor’s development of his powers – one chapter he’s discovering that he has magic, and then after a couple of chapters he seems to be in full control of his powers with little to no training… what? How can he suddenly be so adept at magic? I just didn’t make sense to me. For me the character development was also lacking. Don’t get me wrong we do get development we just don’t see it. Five years past at some point in the book so we don’t get to see how the characters develop into adults, if that makes sense. I wanted more depth from the characters too – I felt what we got from them was quite surface level. One thing I really didn’t like was the girl on girl hate for no obvious reason other than they are female – not a fan of that at all. The plot probably could have been shorter. Other than that, it was a good read, but as you can see it wasn’t without flaws.

 

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street / Natasha Pulley / ★★★

This was a good debut novel but I also feel it had a lot of potential that wasn’t fully used. At times it felt quite confusing and although the characters are quite well written they lacked some depth. The plot is pretty vague as well, so if you like very structured, plot driven books than this probably isn’t for you. The concept is an interesting one and is one of the main strengths of this book  – I want a Katsu for myself :). I did find it a bit odd that no one ever seemed to really react to the fantastical elements – they just kind of accepted it, which didn’t seem to completely match with the setting. I enjoyed the setting of this book and I thought the atmosphere was done quite well. Overall I enjoyed this book but I think it could have been even better. I would still recommend checking this out, especially if you are a fan of magical realism.

 

The Sound of Waves / Yukio Mishima / ★★★

This is basically the story of a young fisherman and a young woman who fall in love but are separated by their class. Now I’m not normally one for romance books but this one worked quite well (maybe because it’s pretty short).  This is a classic look into the trials of love.  The main thing I enjoyed about this book was the descriptions of life on this small rural island. The details in this book are fantastic and create such an amazing look into their lives. Overall I thought this was a great book and I’m definitely interested in reading more from this author.

City of Dragons / Robin Hobb / ★★★.5

This is the third book in the Rain Wild Chronicles. This was a good continuation of this series but in my opinion it is probably the weakest of the books so far. Hobb is still a fantastic writer though and it was still a great book.

 

Eagles in the Storm / Ben Kane / ★★★★

* I received a digital copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

The third and final book in the Eagles of Rome trilogy. With this book, the trilogy ended fantastically. You can clearly see the research the author has undertaken to create an authentic feel to these books. The characters are well written, the plot is compelling and the writing is easy to get into. If you are interested in this time period and/or love historical fiction then you should definitely check this trilogy out.

 

Kings of the Wyld / Nicholas Eames / ★★★★

This is the first book in the Band series. I had seen this around quite a bit and a friend of mine recommended it to me, so I decided to pick it up. I thought this was a very enjoyable read, although the ending could have been done better. The characters are well written, the plot is engaging and the writing is easy to get into. I think Moog and Kit were my favourite characters in this book. Some of the humour wasn’t to my taste but that’s just personal preference and it didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment. I will say that I wanted more from the ending. It’s built up so much throughout the book that it was a little anti-climatic when you got it the end. I also felt that it was a little confusing about what happened to certain characters. Overall this was a very entertaining book and I would recommend it, especially if you enjoy fantasy. I definitely plan on checking out the next books in this series whenever they come out.

 

A Tale for the Time Being / Ruth Ozeki / ★★★★

I’ve had this on my TBR for quite some time now, so I’m very happy that I’ve finally picked it up. I thought this was a fantastic book. I definitely found Nao’s narrative more compelling than Ruth’s, but both perspectives are equally important and I understand why they are both used. I also found Ruth a little frustrating at times. I didn’t find that it detracted from the story though, as all of the characters are very well written. The writing was great and easy to get into. I definitely recommend checking this book out, especially if you are interested in aspect of Japanese culture. I plan to check out her other books too. Trigger warning for suicide and bullying.

 

Accusations / Bandi / ★★★★★

This book is very interesting, as well as being pretty scary. It is a collection of stories that have been smuggled out of North Korea. If you are unfamiliar, North Korea has a terrifying regime that doesn’t particularly care about human rights – that’s putting it very briefly, there is a lot more to it than that but otherwise we’d be here all day. I personally find this area of the world fascinating so I thought this book was fantastic and is well worth a read.

 

In terms of my August TBR I have a few books that I want to get to. There are also two readathons that I am thinking of taking part of – Tome Topple readathon (4th-17th) and Bout of Books readathon (21st-27th) so look out for there separate TBR posts. I definitely want to read Servant of the Empire by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts – I’m think of reading this over the Tome topple readathon. My classic pick of the month is going to be Germinal by Emile Zola. Other books I’m thinking about trying to get to include A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Loving Cup by Winston Graham, Empress of the Bright Moon by Weina dai Randel, The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen and The Reluctant Queen by Sarah Beth Durst. There are just so many books I want to read :). Hopefully I’ll at least get to some of these.

 

How was your reading month? What was your favourite book of the month? I’d love to know. In unrelated news, I am getting quite excited that it is getting closer to autumn and winter now! I hope you are all having a wonderful day and I will see you next time.

 

Pippa