#24in48 Readathon TBR

(c) #24in48 Readathon

It’s time for my favorite, biannual readathon!! The #24in48 Readathon is a weekend-long readathon that takes place every January and July, wherein we try to read for 24 out of the 48 hours from 12AM EST Saturday until 12AM EST Monday. Some folks do a “half sweet” version where they read 12 hours. It doesn’t really matter – the goal is to read as much as you can in the 48 hour period. Please visit 24in48.com for more information and to sign up!

THE TBR:

I’m keeping it simple this time. Last time, I went to the library and checked out a whole stack of things, and I didn’t even touch most of the them. This time I will be choosing mainly from the e-books I own on the Kindle app, focusing on the ones I have owned the longest. Some possibilities from my library are:

1. The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley (gritty SFF)
2. Thaw by Elyse Springer (ace romance)
3. The Black Tide of Heaven and The Red Thread of Fortune by JY Yang (fantasy)
4. Beginner’s Luck by Kate Clayborne (contemporary romance)
5. Unfit to Print by KJ Charles (historical m/m romance)
6. A Gentleman Never Keeps Score by Cat Sebastian (historical m/m romance)
7. Ice Massacre by Tiana Warner (killer mermaids)
8. Agnes Moor’s Wild Knight by Alyssa Cole (medieval romance)
9. any number of Tessa Dare romances that live on my Kindle (too many to list tbh)

I’m going to stop there before I get too embarrassed about the amount of unread books in my Kindle library (curse you Kindle Daily Deals, you know I can’t resist an e-book priced 2.99 or less!). I will also be reading the mass market paperback of The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold on and off.

For those unavoidable times where I have to leave the house, I will be listening to Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold on audio. Unfortunately, I do have book club Sunday afternoon, which means I will have to cram almost 24 hours of reading into the first 36 or so hours. It’s a good thing I’m not scheduled to come into work until 12PM Monday, because I am going to be so messed up from sleep deprivation and caffeine overload that I won’t be able to think straight.

Tell me what you plan to read!

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Top 5 Favorite Podcasts

I love listening to podcasts when I’m getting ready in the morning, so today I want to discuss my top 5 favorite podcasts of all time.

1. Overdue

This podcast is about “the books you’ve been meaning to read.” It started off as a project between the 2 cohosts as a way for them to read the books they were supposed to read in high school/college. It has morphed into a discussion of both classic and current books, often accompanied by a lot of fun and laughter. This is the podcast I am most excited for each week.

2. Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me

This isn’t a book podcast, but I love it for making me absolutely crack up each week. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cackled like a maniac in a room all by myself listening to this podcast. The format is very formulaic, and the contestants very rarely lose, but I find it more comforting than anything.

3. Smart Podcast, Trashy Books

When I want smart analysis of romance novels and the publishing industry, I turn to the incredible ladies at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Their interviews with romance authors are some of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever listened to.

4. The Wicked Wallflowers Club

This is another romance interview podcast. I absolutely love their interview style, and the fun rapid questions session at the end. The combination of insightful interviews and fun conversation makes for a wonderful podcast experience.

5. Print Run

This podcast is geared more toward publishing professionals and authors, but I still find the peek into the publishing world a fascinating one. I do not work in anything close to the publishing world, but I find that the conversation around the process of creating books and around the problems currently facing publishing to be endlessly engaging. I don’t think this podcast is for everyone exactly, but I enjoy listening to the cohosts’ discussions.

Those are my top 5 podcasts! Are there any podcasts out there that I absolutely should be listening to? Comment down below!

An Unexpected Sunday Check-in

Happy Sunday! I hope your weekend is less damp than mine (thanks, Barry). I had an unexpected day off work yesterday, so I actually made some progress on my weekend TBR.

Then I shot it all to hell.

I read all of The Rose Diary by Curtis Maynard and I hated it so much. I’m going to have so much to complain about at book club next week.

I finished Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh, and it was one of the most beautiful stories I’ve read in a long time.

I didn’t get a chance to finish listening to Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold since I didn’t go to work yesterday. I’ll finish the last 43 minutes on Monday.

After finishing The Rose Diary, I was so disgusted that I needed to start something that I knew would make me happy. Usually that is a romance (and I did read an erotica called Toxic Captive but wasn’t super impressed). Last night, high on more caffeine than is probably healthy, I decided to pick up Good Omens.

Now, I rarely reread books. I read Good Omens back in 2007 at the ripe old age of 19 and absolutely loved it. Its dry, absurdist humor is right up my alley.

There are so many gifsets on Tumblr from the new Prime adaptation and it looks so good that I am tempted to use the 30-day free trial to binge it all. I couldn’t help but want to dig out my old copy and devour it, sink myself back into Armageddon once again.

So that’s what I’m going to be doing on this dreary, rainy Sunday morning.

A Little Late Weekend Reads 7/12-14

Whoops, it’s Friday, huh? It snuck up on me this week.

I’m almost done listening to Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold and I am LOVING IT. This series has been an absolute DELIGHT and I’m so happy I have eleventy-billion left to read.

I just started Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh, and it’s pretty good so far. I’m not really far enough in to have an opinion yet.

I definitely need to finish The Rose Diary by Curtis Maynard this weekend, as it is the book club pick for next weekend.

I will probably pick up at least one romance as well. It’s basically a given at this point.

What’s caught your eye this weekend?

A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kimmerer ☆☆☆☆

A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kimmerer ☆☆☆☆

Let me begin by saying: this will be a gush more than a review. I loved this book so much more than I expected to.

For background, I was given this book by the moderator of my IRL SFF book club. She got an ARC from the owner of the bookstore we meet at, and she read it and loved it. In turn, she gave it to me and told me to read it. I waited until the DAY were supposed to meet again (we were reading Octavia Butler that week and I was a little underwhelmed. SHE, the MOD, didn’t even read past the free sample on Kindle). I knew she would probably ask me about this book, so I decided to read a couple chapters to get a feel for it. I started it at 10AM and finished it at 2:30. I read it straight through, and was almost late to book club as a result.

Now, I’m no stranger to reading a book in one sitting. Especially if it is a YA or romance novel. But THIS BOOK hooked me in so hard, y’all. The characters were so well written and the setting was so well fleshed out. I loved the whole set up, with the horrific beast that eats people, and the stoic guard who refuses to abandon his prince.

It doesn’t hurt that I am a huge sucker for a Beauty and the Beast retelling.

It starts with Harper, who is the sister of a guy who has been forced to work for the mob in DC (is there a mob in DC?) and she is waiting for him to be done Doing Evil, when she sees some dude carting off an unconscious woman. She goes after them and stops the dude, who then kidnaps HER instead. He takes her into an alternate medieval-esque world where she meets Prince Rhen. It turns out that the guy who kidnapped her is the Captain of his Royal Guard. Rhen has been having his captain kidnap women to get them to fall in love with him. If they don’t fall in love with him by the end of the month, Rhen turns into a horrible monster and devours anyone he sees.

Harper is very skeptical that she will fall in love with him, but uses her time to help the local villagers out. They are starving and some raiders keep coming in and destroying things, so she brings them food and eventually helps reconnect Rhen with his people. The whole time she is with Rhen, she is also thinking about her family back in DC and wondering if her brother even made it back from Doing Evil, and what they must think happened to her.

The ending turns out a bit different (but also kinda the same?) from the classic Beauty and the Beast tale, which I really enjoyed. I’m excited to see how the sequel deals with the aftermath of the ending. I don’t want to say too much, because the way the story differs from the classic Beauty and the Beast story is so well done that I think it needs to be experienced as it unfolds before you.

ANYWAY, rambly ramble over. I really enjoyed this book and definitely recommend it to anyone who loved fairy tale retellings.

A quick little Weekend Reads for 7/5-7

This weekend I want to finish at least 2 books.

I’ve started Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston already so I will probably finish it today or tomorrow.

I want to read Vicious by V E Schwab, because I keep hearing all kinds of great things about Vengeful.

I have about 40% left of the audiobook of Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold, which is the first book in the Vorkosigan Saga. I am super enjoying it and hope to slide right on into book 2 when I’m done.

What’s on your stack this weekend?

Books to Read When It’s Hella Hot Outside ☀😥

July 3 is National Stay Out of the Sun Day, so I’m here to recommend some books to read inside where the A/C is keeping you cool.

If you want to stay inside but still have that beach vacation, check out The Vacationers by Emma Straub. It follows a family as they take a beach vacay in paradise, but their secrets still follow close behind.

How about a beach vacay with a steamy romance? Try out The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren. Olive and Ethan are given the opportunity of a lifetime – a free trip to Hawaii! The catch? They have to pretend to be newlyweds, but they can’t stand each other. Whatever will happen 😉

If you want to think about visiting somewhere a little farther from home, try A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. How much farther can you get than SPACE?

Lastly, how about something that will scare you into never leaving the house again. I Remember You by Yrsa Sigurdardottir will keep you from ever wanting to take a trip to a deserted island. It may sound like an introvert’s paradise, but sometimes those places will try to kill you.

That’s all the recs I have for you today! If you can’t keep out of the sun, remember to wear your sunscreen!

Sunday Slumpday

Why can’t I just reeeaaaaddddd? I clearly want to, but I have no motivation. I have 2 hours before I need to get ready for book club and I have 200 pages left to read 😨

I like the book so far! This shouldn’t be hard.

Any tips or tricks for folks in a book slump?

Weekend Reads 6/29-30

It’s time for another weekend reads, brought to you this week by Extreme Exhaustion™.

This past weekend turned out to be a complete wash. I worked allllll day Saturday and basically napped all day Sunday. As a result I am very behind on my reading and the SFF Book Club at my indie meets this Sunday. 😨

As a result, I’m in a bit of a time crunch to finish All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. That will take priority this weekend.

In a perfect world, I would also like read The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurdardottir and The Mere Wife by Maria Dhavana Headley.

If I get a wild hair, I might try to add in something else, like a romance novel.

What are y’all dipping into this weekend?

Juror #3 by James Patterson and Nancy Allen ☆

Juror #3 by James Patterson and Nancy Allen ☆ I had A LOT of problems with this book. I was hopeful in the beginning. Ruby Bozarth seemed like an interesting character, a baby lawyer who kind of sucked at her job and was barely scraping by. We’re introduced to her as she is losing her supposedly slam-dunk case, and the text makes it clear that it’s not the first case she’s lost. I found that a welcome change from the swaggery big-dick lawyers legal thrillers usually have. But that was where my enjoyment ended. This book is not one coherent narrative the whole way through. It is 2 novellas smushed into one book. The first half is about a murder case involving a black man falsely accused of murdering a white society queen. It is a very disappointing story for me. Patterson and Allen take what should be a very serious and important subject, one that could be spun in a way that highlights the inequity of our legal system and the lingering effects of Jim Crow in the rural South, and takes the cheapest and most cliched track. It lacks any of the depth necessary to make the story worthwhile. Ruby also shows herself to be the most naive person ever to exist. She has no clue how to do anything and has to basically be coached by everyone around her on how to do her job. There is one part where she finds out that the guy she’s dating is part of a white supremacist group and confronts him about it. He tells her that, oh no, he’s just PRETENDING to be part of the group for a case study. He offers no proof of this. None. And her response is, oh okay he didn’t seem like a bad guy anyway. Oh my GOD After the conclusion of the first part of the book, it immediately goes into the second mystery. Like, 5 minutes later. Oh NO, her jackass ex is in jail for killing a prostitute! Of course he is. So we plod along, forced to deal with his extremely racist family and with his extremely garbage attitude. Blah blah, big conspiracy involving petty revenge and a meth ring. Then her jackass ex wants to get back together and she tells him where he can stick it. The end. I absolutely did not like this book. It was not at all when written and it was clumsily plotted out. Give it a miss. Review originally posted to Goodreads