📚📚📚📚📚🎧: Hillary Huber; transl. Megan McDowell. Orig. Spanish
A total WTF did I just listen to story about a mother and child, possible body snatching, and poisonous hallucinations. Multi-POV with simultaneous narration. Gripping and twisty. Loved it!

📚📚📚 🎧: Olivia Vinall
Set in 1800‘s and following a young woman & her shady uncle who have an antiquities shop. Story centers on a Greek pithos (vase) & secret treasure. Not a lot of twists, FMC doesn‘t have a lot of agency, low stakes. Not a great payoff at the end, just okay.

📚📚📚📚 + 🏆 1-Handed Read Award.
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ B.O.B. or significant other recommended while reading. This is a MMF novella. Insta-love trope, throuple ending.

📚📚📚📚📚 Vol. 1 Adds to Vader‘s badass legacy. Read all 4 volumes. 5 📚📚📚📚📚 across the series

📚📚📚 *10 in a series. Dragon shifters, post apocalyptic romance. Formulaic, crosses over with 9th book for a couple chapters. Villain redemption felt rushed.

📚📚📚 Decent end to Phase 2. Less checklist-y than other YA installments and focused on the story more.
#StarWarsBuddyRead

📚📚📚📚📚 January Classic of the Month. Worth it.

Book 1/100
📚📚📚📚📚 I understand why this split the #pulitzerprize for 2023. It is an unconventional story structure focusing on a Wall Street tycoon in the year leading up to the 1929 crash and shortly after. Written in 4 parts with 4 different POV‘s sharing the story of this person. The first part did get slow about 1/2 through but the rest goes quickly and creates an entire picture of the character.

Low stakes cozy romance with simple clear writing and straight forward plot; no guessing or serious business.
📚📚📚 and 🌶️

Just a book dragon enjoying my hoard 🐉🐲📚

I‘m up to book 111 for the year (haven‘t finished Foucault‘s Pendulum or #starwarsbuddyread yet) & I‘ve got the tagged book +1 for my Classroom Reading Project…4 days is enough time, right?! 😑

August Bookhaul

📚📚My theory: this is an AI generated book where the author and her publisher sat down and listed ALL the most popular YA/NA books and tropes then literally published what was kicked out 😈This is a TB or transition book for newbie NA Fantasy readers NOT seasoned readers; set your expectations LOW (PS: I preordered book 2 bc this is such trash I have to read it- kinda like Twilight & 50 Shades which I own multiple copies of) I SAID WHAT I SAID.

I finished. Lots of tabs, commentary, and annotations. I am still considering everything so I don‘t have a rating yet.

Started this today and I‘m actually tabbing and notating the nonsense. The thing that has my eye twitching the most so far are the use of periods to emphasize points - too often for common sense! 🤦🏽‍♀️

Completed my Goodreads Challenge today 🎉

📚📚📚📚 Returning to the origins of Han Solo was nice and the story overall had solid bones. The writing itself was a bit blocky/chunky but I put that to style preference of the time. In general, a quick read about our favorite scoundrel becoming a scoundrel 😁 #starwarsbuddyread

Finished this book today - 📚📚📚 Characters weren‘t charismatic enough, plot was decent and should have been more exciting but wasn‘t necessarily. There‘s great bones here but it fell flat for me. I skipped about 1/3 of the middle and read the last 5 chapters after hitting 50% and I don‘t feel I missed a whole lot 🤷🏻‍♀️

Bookishly related - I‘m a HS ELA teacher & I told my 9th & 10th graders if they went to the public library & got a card or went on the website & got a digital card, I‘d give them extra credit on a summative (re: essay/test) assignment. 97/176 students did it!!! I am so impressed. Some only for credit but at least they did it. I also piloted my Monthly Independent Reading Project this year with them including CAWPILE reviews & it went GREAT! 📚📚📚

Hit book 50 today 📚😁👏🏽

📚📚📚📚📚 Great story, fast paced and a really good story about the galaxys‘ sweethearts. Do yourself a GIANT favor and get the audiobook narrated by Saskia Maarleveld & Marc Thompson; they‘re amazing!
#starwarsbuddyread #litsystarwarsbuddyread #starwars #jedi

Mini #bookhaul for February and one from January 😉

??? YA novel following Padmé on her venture into marriage with Anakin and beyond to the events of SW EP:3. Easy to read for younglings and not too difficult of a plot to follow. Decent read.
#litsystarwarsbuddyread

#bookhaul

📚📚📚 This took me 3 months to read. It shouldn‘t have because it‘s action heavy, Jedi-centric, and has good bones as far as THR plots go - it took so long because it‘s boring expositional dumping; all tell and no show. I wasn‘t connected to any character, I didn‘t feel the urgency of the situation. Not a favorite but it should‘ve been. 🙁 #starwarsbuddyread

📚📚📚📚 There‘s something about mid-1800‘s horror - it hits differently. This was an 🎧 book + 📖 & I enjoyed its creepy innuendo. Hawthorne has a way of describing things to make your skin sort of crawl but never gets too graphic or gross

📚📚📚 Slow slightly dull romance w/2 daytime actors. This should‘ve been cool Latino rep but instead it read like a diversity check-off list with a bit of a story thrown in. 🌶️ on the spice scale. Probably moving it to my Older Readers cabinet in the classroom with the CoHo books

📚📚📚 This had a slow confusing start and ended up being some sort of paranormal fated mates + reverse harem. 🌶️ for sex scenes. Big Bad isn‘t introduced until last 30+ pages and then it‘s wham bam no thank you ma‘am. Honestly, I‘ll read the next one but not in a rush

📚📚📚📚 Quick paced and suspenseful read; apocalypse plot with pseudo-religious undertones (clues described in exposition but never outright declared) small twist. I didn‘t like the ending but understand the “why” of it

#riphilarymantel

#bookhaul
Good haul from the library shop for my classroom & some new items for the home library. Underrated place to get books: The Dollar Tree! (called that here in SoCal). Picked up quite a few decent YA for the classroom from there too

September TBR - chosen by my husband
Classic of the Month: The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
#starwarsbuddyread : The Fallen Star - Gray
The Complete Cosmicomics - Calvino
The Shining - King
In the Courts of the Sun - D‘amato
The Religion - Willocks

Hubby came through again 😁 He saw this Hocus Pocus tarot deck and swooped it up for me. I think he‘s a keeper 😂. Trying really hard to get through the tagged book- it‘s slower than the previous ones and I‘m having a hard time staying focused. I will persevere!!

THRAWN!!! Probably my favorite we‘ve read so far. It‘s a good wrap up to the trilogy and everything comes around to set Thrawn up for the next trilogy he‘s the star of. The pacing is fluid, quick but clean. Character development pays off for almost all the characters. The dual timelines converge to give a terrific ending. Listened to audio as well and it was 👩‍🍳💋
📚📚📚📚📚 #starwarsbuddyread

#bookhaul for August

The tagged book was great! I was listening to it on my Libby app and HAD to get a physical copy. Also met author David Putnam (bottom of left stack) this week & he generously donated 3 sets of his Bruno Johnson detective series for my classroom library!!!

August #tbr

Books leaving my collection. Most are going to my classroom next week, but the Frassetto [bottom] is going to the library (it‘s SO dull & academic, I don‘t know why my grandfather bought it; he NEVER read anyway)

#shelfiesunday
I seem to have run out of space. My Hubs solution…stop buying books. He‘s wrong and to prove it to him, I bought 7 new books. We only need a few more bookcases 😉

June/July 2022 #bookhaul

Purchased at B& N, Amazon, the public library charity shop & won from LibraryThing Early Reviewer‘s (A Suitable Companion…)

545‘925 words
1‘260 pages
365 sections
43 Chapters
5 volumes
47 days
58 hours of audio + physical reading
This was my Everest 🏔 and I conquered it

📚📚📚📚📚 for appreciation but personally:
📚📚📚 because it‘s l-o-n-g exposition & history sections

#1 for July 22‘ finished. What better way to kick off Independence weekend than reading about atomic bombs 💣💥 This is a 2-act play with a postscript detailing the real-life history of the subject & people in the play. At least I can say I read it. 📚📚📚

June Book Haul
The Lies of Locke Lamora- Lynch
SW: A New Dawn- Miller
A Lot Like Adiós- Daria
You Had Me At Hola- Daria
Hook, Line, and Sinker- Bailey
The Hunger of the Gods- Gwynne
The Greeks- Beaton

Trying out the reading lap desk, will let you know & new book markers ?

July TBR:
CotM: Les Misérables- Hugo (cont‘d from June)
LSWBR: Out of the Shadows- Ireland
The Great Medieval Heretics- Frassetto
Copenhagen (a play)- Frayn
Mother Night- Vonnegut
The Doomsday Book- Willis

June Stats:
21 books total
?: 3
?: 1
?+?: 1
?:16
Pages: 6‘885 (439 of Les Misérables!)
Points: 70 (4 from LM)
Hours: 26h35m combined/15h28m to finish all
I‘m struggling with Les Misérables but I‘m determined to finish it next month.

I‘m not so excited about this story. It is supposed to be about a bold Polish queen, right? But she‘s spoiled, doesn‘t really have agency and most of this novel is about the men around her who are all participating in off-page battles- all historical events. It‘s boring.

I‘m disappointed. Historical fiction is awesome but this one wasn‘t for me. Going to my classroom library.

MG story set adjacent to the action at the Galactic Fair on Vallo (The Rising Storm). Exciting for young readers who enjoy speeder-fights and flying with little to no truly scary moments to cause alarm. The padawans experience some fright, trepidation, elation, and ultimately success. There is growth in one of the kids and it demonstrates loyalty, friendship, and ingenuity in the face of danger. #starwarsbuddyread

📚📚📚📚📚
My favorite so far in The High Republic timeline. I‘m not a big fan of THR since it‘s really only dealing with a single issue and that‘s told in 3 different versions most of the time (A/YA/MG) but, since I don‘t run the publisher…lol. Marchion Ro is my fave character so far too.
#starwarsbuddyread

May Stats:
18 books
📕7
🎧4 (118hrs tot/56h31m act)
💻 5
📘+🎧3
I technically finished one book from May TBR yesterday so…🤷🏻‍♀️

10 titles & the upcoming novels are left to get. I have every published title in Legends & New Canon timelines from the timeline on yodasdatapad. I‘m not going to get the older YA or MG on Wookiepedia but I may go for the comics/graphic novels eventually. I have other author collections to catch up on. #starwars #adultmoney #thisiswhatteachingpaysfor

Happy Star Wars Day from this Jedi to all others!