Hello! I’m alive! I’ve been spending all my time working on the first round of projects that have been due since the semester has kicked off. Papers, programs, the list has been endless, haha. Now that we’ve addressed my brief disappearance, I’ve decided to update you guys on my current reads.
The books I’ve been in middle of are:The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
East by Edith Pattou
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
This is the first book I’ve preordered in a really long time. Once I’ve heard it being compared to Six of Crows and National Treasure (the marvelous movie with Nicolas Cage), I snagged it while the price was still low. I’m more than half way through the book now and I’m starting to finally like it. The beginning was a bit rough for me. I think I picked up the book in the midst of all my academic deadline stress and wasn’t really feeling the info heavy plot. While everyone gets excited hearing that this book is like the National Treasure, it honestly is. It’s very dense with history, culture, and mathematical references (not too much to scare you off though). I had to reread a bunch of things to get a better understanding of it. But after I hit the half way mark, I’ve started to really love the plot and can’t put the book down. I’ll be talking more about it in a future review.
East is my first reread of the year. I remember reading East when I was in the end of middle school or my beginning years of high school and falling in love with it. I love Edith Pattou’ writing. It’s simple, beautiful, and is structured very well, a perfect concoction for a nice fast read. I’ve been meaning to pick this book up again to give it a reread ever since I saw that there’s a sequel out called “West”. I’m very glad I picked it up as I’m finding Rose’s narrative so easy to follow and refreshing at the same time. I’m loving all the fantastical elements of the story and the cultural references. Now as an older reader, I’m seeing things that I didn’t notice during my first read through such as how unique of a female character Rose is. She’s not your typical damsel in distress who stays put and does as she’s told. I’m not too far into it so I don’t know how much more of this I’ll see in the story but the few references here and there are very satisfying to read.
Ah, Uprooted. I’ve been talking about this book so much on my blog because I’ve been reading it forever. I actually ended up putting this down for a while as I was more interested in picking up other books. I’ve recently picked it up again and am slowly working my way through it. It’s quite a difficult read for me and while I’m interested in what’s happening, I’ve been finding it to be quite slow. I wonder if I’ll reach a point in the story like I did for The Gilded Wolves where I fell into the plot and got sucked in.
What have you been reading recently?