Friday, January 6, 2017

The #FridayReads Review (1/6/17)



Welcome to The #FridayReads Review, a regular Friday segment where I share what I've been reading the past week, and what I'm planning to read next! Want to join the Friday fun? Post your own #FridayReads Review and leave the link in the Comments below, or just Comment with what you've been reading!


>> CURRENTLY READING <<
The Alchemists of Loom (Loom Saga, #1)
The Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova (ARC)
I really thought I'd love this one, but so far this fantasy is a little too fantastical for my brain to wrap around, and with three narrators (soon to be four, or is it five?) the timeline is skewing and I'm getting confused. This is my first Kova book though and wow, what an imagination! In late December I set it aside to finish two other novels I'd started before it (see Just Finished below), but now they're finished and I'm back to this today - fingers crossed I connect with it better this time around!


>> JUST FINISHED <<
Prophecy (The Dragon King Chronicles, #1)CountdownIn/Spectre 1

Prophecy by Ellen Oh (PBK)
3 Stars. A fast and relatively entertaining young teen fantasy with an interesting Asian base. The pretty standard fantasy plot made the story highly predictable and the minimalist action was difficult to follow and left me wanting, but it had decent characters and a quick pace. Would recommend as a guilty pleasure read, and imagine the entire trilogy could be effortlessly binged. I do have the second book on hand, but this first book wrapped up nicely enough that I might just leave the story here, we'll see.

Countdown by Michelle Rowen (PBK)
2 Stars. With surprise Psi abilities, advanced AI, and a dystopian world, this book was nothing like the straight thriller I anticipated. Middling characters and a subpar world left me wanting, and when the deadly game I was reading for ended with still over 100 pages to go I found what little interest I had floundering in too long a rest and romantics period before the teens headed off to "save the world." At Page 245 (of 367), after not picking the book up for almost a week I started a new book instead and pretty much threw in the towel, but after skimming the last chapter I gave it a few weeks distance and then decided I was curious enough to polish it off. Overall not quite engaging enough for my tastes, but lovers of teen dystopian thrillers might enjoy it as a guilty pleasure read.

In/Spectre vol. 1 by Kyo Shirodaira & Chashiba Katase (PBK)
3 Stars. A very interesting premise I haven't come across before, but extremely wordy and drawn out - almost the entire volume read like a prologue. Might try the second if it's more action than dialogue, although while I loved the premise the series plot is so-so so far.


>> [POSSIBLY] READING NEXT <<
(subject to change with my ever-shifting reading whims)
Tsubasa: WoRLD CHRoNiCLE 3
Tsubasa: World Chronicle: Niraikanai vol. 3 by CLAMP (PBK)
After a bit of a slump I'm back into manga again! Looks like this is the last volume, so I'm thinking I may re-read the first two volumes first and try for a review? We'll see.


So what are you reading this week?

1 comment:

  1. Hopefully Gilded Cage, and maybe Fruit Baskets or Blankets

    ReplyDelete