- Total books read during this year: 35
- Total books that I started to read but didn't finish: 6
- physical books read: 29
- ebooks read: 6
- physical books started but unfinished: 6
- ebooks started but unfinished: 0
- Nook ebooks read: 5
- Kindle ebooks read: 1
- Other ebooks format (browser/pdf/app/etc.) read: 0
- Library books read: 11
- Library books started but unread: 4
- Books I liked: 26
- Books I loved: 5
- Books I hated: 0
- Books I disliked or found meh: 2
- Books I felt strongly about but can't classify under love or hate: 2
- Books given away: 1, 7 to follow
Monday, January 22, 2018
Books read in 2017
Thursday, January 11, 2018
October-December 2017 books
I read fewer books in the last 3 months of 2017.
I downloaded The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan because it sounded like a fun Regency romp, and instead it turned out to be about a girl who went to work as a governess for a duke and was raped by her employer. She decides she’s going to make him pay or be shamed, and the duke's fixer tasked with getting rid of her falls in love with her. It was a well-written romance with good chemistry between the leads. I think it’s a series that continues. 4/5
Next was another Regency ebook, Hand-Turned Tales, which is a sampler of stories from one author. They were pretty good and enjoyable, some more than others. 3.7/5
I almost forgot this book since I started it in September, but I checked out At the Root of this Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst from the library since it was on my to-read list and they had it. I thought this was going to be a book about how to reconcile your religious beliefs with feminism and vice versa, but instead it was about the author, Carol Lee Flinders,’s path to reconciling her spiritual beliefs with the evil and violence towards women in the world. She studied Hinduism with a mentor raised in a matriarchal Indian tribe, and was a scholar of Julian and other medieval Christian women mystics. It was an interesting book, but not as applicable as I thought. I recommend it. 4/5
Remember how last time I wrote about Morality for Beautiful Girls like it was the first in its series? I was wrong. M4BG is the third book, and the first book gives its name to the series: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. It was enjoyable, but it centered so much on Mma Ramotswe’s failed first marriage to an abuser and subsequent miscarriage, and that made me sad. Mma R is such a self-possessed and practical person that it’s hard to see her choosing a man like that. 4/5
I reread a kids’ book that I was on the fence about keeping, Midnight Magic by Avi. It has a lot of the elements I like: medieval or renaissance period, magic, mystery, magic is explained as science, plucky girl, hidden passageways, castles, etc. I like this story a lot but I’m going to give it away anyway. 4/5
Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Beckett is set during the English Reformation and centers on Thomas More’s family, with his adopted daughter as the narrator, and a Dutch painter who made a lot of famous portraits of nobles such as Henry VIII. This was a really good story with political and religious tension, art, secrets, and shocking revelations. A lot of the characters were real people, but this is a historical fiction novel. It was really good, but to me the ending was too abrupt. 3.9/5
My favorite kids’ book that I’ve read in a long time is The Garden of Eve by K.L. Going, which is about a grieving girl who has lost her mom and gets wrapped up in a mystery around a cursed apple orchard, possible Edenic seeds, missing children, and a garden that may not be of this world. It was sad and beautiful and magical, but to me it felt too short, and I had too many unanswered questions. It felt like there was supposed to be more to the story, like it should have been several hundred pages longer. I loved it, though. 4/5
I took the fattest trade-size paperback I had to Cuba with me, The Light Bearer, which was about a Germanic chieftainess leading her people against Rome and trying to deal with treachery at home, as well as a slave turned senator’s son trying to survive corrupt emperors. They’re destined for each other, of course. It was sweeping and very Game of Thrones-esque, as it was very violent and women were getting raped all the time. The heroine was that annoying “the most skilled warrior yet slender and beautiful and everyone fell in love with her and she cheats death 1000 times” thing, which gets old. It was well-researched, but the author kept referring to statues and buildings as white when we now know everything was painted bright colors.I still finished it before the end of my Cuba trip, and was bookless for the last few days. 3.5/5
I downloaded The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan because it sounded like a fun Regency romp, and instead it turned out to be about a girl who went to work as a governess for a duke and was raped by her employer. She decides she’s going to make him pay or be shamed, and the duke's fixer tasked with getting rid of her falls in love with her. It was a well-written romance with good chemistry between the leads. I think it’s a series that continues. 4/5
Next was another Regency ebook, Hand-Turned Tales, which is a sampler of stories from one author. They were pretty good and enjoyable, some more than others. 3.7/5
I almost forgot this book since I started it in September, but I checked out At the Root of this Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst from the library since it was on my to-read list and they had it. I thought this was going to be a book about how to reconcile your religious beliefs with feminism and vice versa, but instead it was about the author, Carol Lee Flinders,’s path to reconciling her spiritual beliefs with the evil and violence towards women in the world. She studied Hinduism with a mentor raised in a matriarchal Indian tribe, and was a scholar of Julian and other medieval Christian women mystics. It was an interesting book, but not as applicable as I thought. I recommend it. 4/5
Remember how last time I wrote about Morality for Beautiful Girls like it was the first in its series? I was wrong. M4BG is the third book, and the first book gives its name to the series: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. It was enjoyable, but it centered so much on Mma Ramotswe’s failed first marriage to an abuser and subsequent miscarriage, and that made me sad. Mma R is such a self-possessed and practical person that it’s hard to see her choosing a man like that. 4/5
I reread a kids’ book that I was on the fence about keeping, Midnight Magic by Avi. It has a lot of the elements I like: medieval or renaissance period, magic, mystery, magic is explained as science, plucky girl, hidden passageways, castles, etc. I like this story a lot but I’m going to give it away anyway. 4/5
Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Beckett is set during the English Reformation and centers on Thomas More’s family, with his adopted daughter as the narrator, and a Dutch painter who made a lot of famous portraits of nobles such as Henry VIII. This was a really good story with political and religious tension, art, secrets, and shocking revelations. A lot of the characters were real people, but this is a historical fiction novel. It was really good, but to me the ending was too abrupt. 3.9/5
My favorite kids’ book that I’ve read in a long time is The Garden of Eve by K.L. Going, which is about a grieving girl who has lost her mom and gets wrapped up in a mystery around a cursed apple orchard, possible Edenic seeds, missing children, and a garden that may not be of this world. It was sad and beautiful and magical, but to me it felt too short, and I had too many unanswered questions. It felt like there was supposed to be more to the story, like it should have been several hundred pages longer. I loved it, though. 4/5
I took the fattest trade-size paperback I had to Cuba with me, The Light Bearer, which was about a Germanic chieftainess leading her people against Rome and trying to deal with treachery at home, as well as a slave turned senator’s son trying to survive corrupt emperors. They’re destined for each other, of course. It was sweeping and very Game of Thrones-esque, as it was very violent and women were getting raped all the time. The heroine was that annoying “the most skilled warrior yet slender and beautiful and everyone fell in love with her and she cheats death 1000 times” thing, which gets old. It was well-researched, but the author kept referring to statues and buildings as white when we now know everything was painted bright colors.I still finished it before the end of my Cuba trip, and was bookless for the last few days. 3.5/5
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