TSS: Quick post

Hello everybody! How is everybody doing? How many of you are dead tired because you were up all night for the Dewey's Read-a-Thon?

Sadly I wasn't able to be part of it as a reader, since I have to study (you are jealous, I'm sure) but I did participate as a cheerleader, using my mental pauses to cheer for the people reading.

Also this week I was able to post 3 new reviews: Dragonflight for my Sword and Laser Book Club and Beautiful Darkness for the Sequel challenge and Ready Player One, that one was just for me ;).

As I mentioned this is a quick post, I will try to continue uploading reviews, but I might not be able to post a lot of discusions until June 18, the day of my exam.

Have a wonderful week!

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

What's the book about?

Wade is a teenager leaving in the year 2044. He leaves with his aunt that only took him because she could have access to extra food by taking an extra mouth. He is orphan, poor and overweight. The only moment when he feels sort of happy is being at the OASIS, a virtual world, a MMORPG that has taken unprecedented fame, particularly after his creator, James Halliday died giving the world a simple message: whoever's finds and solves a series of puzzles hidden in the game itself will find "a golden ticket", an egg that will grant him or her with the ownership of his former fortune and the company he founded years ago. Unlikely here, Wade is the first person to find the first of the puzzles and this will change his life in ways he never expected, beyond the prize, beyond the virtual realm.

What was the thing I liked the most? 

The book is full of 80s references and is a gamers dream...well I think so being a gamer (albeit not hardcore like Wade himself) myself. It was a well written piece, with superb rhythm and nice character building. 

What about the main character?

Wade, as I mentioned starts as a very average teenager who's been out of luck for a while. As any teenager he has this moment of feeling completely invincible and off course that's when things turn bad for him. But at the same time, he is a loyal character, he learns from his mistakes, more than I expected him to. He is likable, but not adorable; he has blunt flaws but he manages to overcome them for enough time so he can make it up to his friends. 

Final thoughts

I really, really liked this book. Not only the references, but the interaction between characters. I particularly like the twist with H (no spoilers, promise). I liked it so much that I pretty much made my boyfriend read it too so we could discuss it together, and he devoured it. I've read some posts wondering about a sequel, which I think are plausible with some of the things that were mentioned at the end of the book, but the novel stands pretty nicely as an alone piece. Funny enough is the type of book that I would rather not be made into a movie; for I would be afraid it would miss all the subtext that I got from the book itself.

Dewey's Read-a-Thon Cheering wrapup

You guys, this was an amazing experience, and I manage to advance in my studying too, so I'm quite satisfied :).


I failed at keeping the stats, but I made it to visit all the blogs on my team and found some wonderful blogs along the way. I even won!

I wish you all a great rest of the Read-a-Thon, hopefully I will be able to join you in autumn.

Dewey's Read-A-Thon Cheerleading Update: Hour 11

You guys! I won for cheer leading this hour!!! I'm not sure what I won, but this is pretty much my reaction:



Yes a bear...I am team bear after all!

Back to studying and cheering! Happy Read-a-Thon



Dewey's Read-A-Thon Cheerleading Update

Hello all,
Cheering is fun, but I miss being the one reading! No matter, will do next season. Now first things first, congratulations to every winner so far, can you believe we just started hour 9??? Go Team Bear BTW.

Now, for my stats:
Blogs visited so far (not counting re-visiting) 50 
Cheers so far: hmm, I lost count, should've checked that, let's say 50 even though I've revisited a couple of people, I will be more careful with the counting now
Hour Cheered: 6 out of the 9 that have past already, sorry guy, A Girl has to study!

Anyway, keep having fun everybody!! I will keep cheering for you!!!

Dewey Read-a-Thon is here!!!

Hello everybody, as you probably already know the Dewey Read-a-Thon of this spring is taking place right now. Unfortunately I won't be a reader this year, since I have my predoc exam to study for, thank you very much life, but I will be cheering since I can use my pauses to do some good ;) Go team Bear!!!

So go ahead, read, cheer, have fun!!!

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

What's the book about?

This is a fantasy book with slight hints to Sci-Fi. The whole story begins with a prologue in which we learn that humans colonized other planets, including this one, Pern and that little by little the colony was somehow abandoned and left to prosper on its own. Pern's society, at least the way I pictured it in my head, is somehow a medieval society. It so happens that every certain amount of years (Turns) the planet gets closer to a sister planet, known as the Red Star and this causes "the Threads" to fall and destroy everything organic they touch, which is why every building must be in stone and basically "inert" materials. The only way they have to fight this Threads is using...Dragons!. However, several turns have past and no Threads have fallen so the people have become comfortable and deem the Dragonriders an useless group, but are they?

What was the thing I liked the most? 

The setting was there for a very good book. I loved the connection the riders have with their dragons, I thought that was a very nice constructed relation. I also liked (and I'm trying not give away anything here) how McCaffrey respects her own rules of time and space through the book, because one thing is to take the liberty to create a new universe but another is to do so and not even respect the rules in your own universe!

What about the main character?

Lessa is a teenage girl who can talk to any dragon related animal. She lost all her family in an attack when she was 11 years old and since then has been plotting to regain what is hers, except that bigger things are coming her way. She is depicted as smart and mischievous, but a lot of times she came through to me as just simply spoiled. People doubt her responsibility? What best way to prove them wrong than to do whatever the heck she wants? Things like that. I didn't love her but I didn't dislike her either.

Final thoughts

It was an interesting book, but I had some problems with it. First of all, the way Lessa and F'lar interact, and again, I'm trying to avoid spoilers here; the different stages of their relationship had no transition to me and both seemed to me more often than not like teens acting out. Second, it felt a bit crammed with all that happened in this first book, which leaves me scratching my head considering that it was not meant to be a solo book in the first place. I'm sad to say that this book did not leave me wanting to read the second one, but I'm glad I can now say I've read Anne McCaffrey.

Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

What's the book about?

This is the sequel to Beautiful Creatures. Just a bit of a warning there might be a bit of spoilers from the first book here. After confronting her destiny and sort of evading it, Lena is not feeling quite herself. Although Ethan tries his hardest to keep things the same for both of them this proves very hard when Lena herself seems to be committed to pull away. The appearance of a new Caster doesn't help. In the end it will be up to Ethan to keep fighting for the both of them.

What was the thing I liked the most? 

See, I was kind of disappointed at several points of the book because I was afraid it was falling into the love triangle again, and I sort of had enough of that already. However, I liked the side story that we got from Ethan's mother. Also, I really like Ridley, she is a bad/good character and I like that I can't predict her...yet

What about the main character?

Last review I talked about Ethan, so let's talk about Lena this time. I liked her in the first book better. She is smart and vulnerable. I didn't like her martyr tone, but when you learn the weight she has on her shoulders, with the responsibility of killing half of her family depending on her "calling", it is understandable that she is not the bubbliest of the teenagers. However, in this book we don't see her as much and the moments we do she has turned into this even sadder, darker, sort of Emo girl...no, I didn't like her in this book.

Final thoughts

I was very happy to see that the authors didn't go with the token "love triangle". I liked Olivia as a new character, more than I expected at the end. It wasn't better than the first book but I still want to read the third book and this is only due to the tiny doors that were left open at the end of the second book. 

  

This is book makes part of my Sequel Challenge :)

TSS: The Perfect Reader?

Hello everyone,

I hope you are having a nice  week-end. It snowed on Friday but everything is practically gone by now, the sky is blue and the house is clean :) Did You notice that the weather changed in my banner too? Is officially spring in this blog you guys!

First what I have been reading. I finish Cinder, Shopaholic and Sister and Beautiful Darkness during my vacation (not bad, hu?). As you can see the first two already have their review available. I'm advancing (slowly but surely) with The Historian, and on Thursday I received my copy of Ready Player One from the library. I started it and so far I'm enjoying it a lot. I have to make time to study for my PhD exam (a huge thing in the middle of your PhD, just in case you needed more stress) and hopefully I will be able to make all of this fit into place.

Do you guys follow Book Riot? Friday there was this article about "the perfect reader". It was a satire of course, but it got me thinking if there is such thing as a perfect way to be a reader. The obvious answer to me is that no, there isn't. When you think about it, there is possibly as much type of readers as there is books, and since in my opinion there is no such thing as the perfect book, it means there cannot be a perfect reader either.

However, I do think there is such thing as the perfect reader for a book and vice versa. By this I do not mean books that fit perfectly a target audience, since this is too broad. But I am sure once in a while you find that book that is perfect for you, that hits all the right buttons, you can't find any flaw in it...and when this happens I believe you just found the perfect book for you and you might be just the perfect reader for it too.

There is also a even better possibility, someone finds a book, and is amazing, but there is something missing there. This person cannot pinpoint what it is...and then this person shares the book with you and you find what was missing! That too would make you the perfect reader for this book because in a way you could make this book "grow". It is not actually possible, since the book was already written, but still. 

I think I've found several books that are perfect for me, but I don't dare to say that I've been the perfect reader for one of them