First, I wanted to let you know that Katie at Books are Dreams did an interview with me, which you can read here, and she also let me do a guest post over at her blog as part of her Holiday Celebration. You can read about my holiday memories here and then enter to win a SIGNED copy of Troy High! Wouldn’t that be a fun Christmas present? 🙂
So I don’t do ratings on Goodreads–I use my account only to keep track of what I’m reading–but I still like to talk about books I’ve read. I found that since becoming a writer I can no longer give any book less than five stars without feeling terrible about it because I KNOW how much work that author has put into the book. Ratings can be helpful, but (in my opinion) not always necessary. There are a lot of books that I love that other people have only given one or two stars. So ratings are all subjective. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think there should be ratings, just that I, as someone who has gone through everything these authors have, cannot put a star rating on a book without feeling incredibly bad about it.
But as I said, I do like talking about books without giving a definitive rating. So I decided to start talking about them on my blog because I love books and I love sharing books with others. There will be no ratings because all that’s important is that I enjoyed all of them.
So with that said, the books I’ve finished in the past week:
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
I’m probably one of the last people to catch onto this series, but it is so good. I listened to the audiobook version on my way to and from work, which is one of the best audiobooks I’ve heard. Lots of little features like the sound of fire burning in the background and the music for the “Sixteen Moons” song. I finished Beautiful Creatures earlier this week and then started on Beautiful Darkness the next day, which I’m still currently listening to.
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
Not a YA, but hot Scottish warrior Jamie Fraser? No wonder Claire wanted to stay in the past!
Sweethearts by Sara Zarr
One of those books where the characters sit with you for a while, making you think and slowly absorb their story all over again.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
I try to read some of the classics that I’ve never read before each year, but I was very slacking on that this year. So I downloaded Treasure Island to my Kindle and read it in just a few days. It’s a fun story and still doesn’t feel outdated even though it was published in 1883. I kept picturing Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom as pirates while reading and at times I wondered if maybe I had actually read the book before because some parts seemed very familiar. But I think maybe that’s just because I’ve seen Muppet Treasure Island several times.
And because of that, Captain Smollett was pictured in my head as Kermit the Frog. You cannot convince me that Stevenson didn’t actually write in a talking frog on that ship.
So what did you read this week?
Today, my reading list includes Beautiful Darkness in audiobook format, Reaper by Rachel Vincent on the Kindle, and The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson in original printed book format. (More on those when I finish them.) Yes, I often have three books going at once. I’m a true twenty-first century consumer, absorbing books in any format. 😉