I finished The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. It’s a historical fiction taking place in occupied France during World War II. It was a very well plotted story, but the writing felt so distant and some scenes felt very unrealistic. It felt like a story I should have liked more that I did.

Now I’ve started Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight book 2). Far too early to have opinions, but I’m excited for this one.

I finished The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight book 1). Massively enjoyed this one. Spent more time than I should have during the holidays reading it.

Now I’m reading The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. It’s a historical fiction novel set in occupied France during World War 2. I’m finding it ok so far. It’s easy to read and the plot is fine, but I’m not very emotionally invested and don’t love the writing style.

Edit: I want to clarify that the topics and themes visited in this book are very emotionally heavy. However, the writing feels like an emotional stiff arm to me. It’s just so distant and impersonal, that it reduces the impact of the difficult topics.

Dreary is a good word to describe The Hero of Ages. I still love it, but the hopeless feeling is wearing.

I finished Age of Assassins by RJ Barker and I loved it! It does have a bit of a debut author feel, but was well-plotted, with fascinating characters and world building. Some twists were predictable, but some I did not see coming at all. I can’t wait to read the rest of the trilogy.

But the rest of the trilogy may have to wait a while because I started The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. My friend has been hounding me to read Stormlight for months so I finally gave in. I’m only about 100 pages in so far, but I can already tell this world is massive and well thought out. I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes!

I’m currently reading Age of Assassins by RJ Barker. I’m only about a quarter of the way through and I’m really enjoying it so far! Interesting world building, an enjoyable protagonist, and a gripping plot. I’m excited to see where this story goes!

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

David Copperfield is ok. I really liked the writing style and found the characters interesting. It dragged on for too long though and the main character didn’t have much agency throughout the story which can be frustrating.

How are you liking The Well of Ascension on reread?

I finished Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Overall a solid book with some good commentary on modern poverty, foster care, and the opioid crisis. The first half stuck too close to the plot points of David Copperfield, but thankfully it stood more on its own in the second half. The ending felt a bit rushed.

Now I’ve started Hex Education by Maureen Kilmer. If it wasn’t such a short read, I would not be finishing this book. Almost every character is unlikeable. I was hoping for a campy witchy book where I want to hang out with the characters, but instead I got a suburban mom who married rich and can’t stop humblebragging about it.

I’m reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s essentially a modern retelling of David Copperfield and I think that actually hurts the book. So many times I’ve been enjoying the commentary on poverty cycles and foster care only to be brought completely out of it by the author trying to shoehorn the next David Copperfield plot point in. I think this book would really be shining if it was just told its own story instead.

Ah yeah, I’ve reread it twice. It held up both times, as did the full series. By the way, if your goal is to read mistborn era 2, I recommend getting your hands on Mistborn: Secret History and reading it after The Bands of Mourning.

Mistborn is such an easy and pleasant read! It was an excellent gateway into Sanderson’s books for me.

I finished Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and absolutely loved it. There were a couple nitpicky science things I had issues with, but overall I thought it was an amazing read.

Now I’ve started The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher. It’s a historical fiction about a gay American woman who opens a bookstore in 1920s Paris. Finally getting that Bookception bingo square filled with this one.

Edit: As I read further, I realized this book, while fiction, is very much about a real person and real events that happened in the 1920s. This book is about Sylvia Beach.

I think that’s a great age to read the Percy Jackson series. I never finished it, but I found the books I did read enjoyable.

I finished Educated by Tara Westover. I really liked this book. It gave me a glimpse into an upbringing that is about as different from mine as I can imagine. If you want to get an idea of what it’s like to grow up in a distrusts-anything-government, survivalist family, I highly recommend.

Now I’ve started Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I’m still early on but I love how this book started. It instantly gripped me and I can’t wait to see how it goes.

You could try Magic Earth.

It uses OpenStreetMaps, same as organic maps, but also has crowd sourced traffic data. I haven’t tested it much though so I’m not sure how accurate it is.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was alao very good! I really wish she wrote more but I’ve read she struggles with chronic illness so it’s hard to get more books out.

For Educated, while the survivalism is very present, the book is more exploring the impact it has had on the author’s upbringing and on her siblings.

I finished the short stories in my copy of I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Some of them haven’t aged that well but overall I found most of them enjoyable.

I read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. This book was absolutely amazing. If you want a short, atmospheric fantasy I highly recommend. I think this is a book I’ll return to routinely.

Now I’m reading Educated by Tara Westover. It’s a memoir about her growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho. She was not enrolled in school and didn’t even have a birth certificate for many years. I’m not very far in yet but it is fascinating and very easy to read.

I actually came across a spoiler for the I Am Legend book years ago, so it wasn’t a total surprise. Though either the spoiler had it partly wrong or my memory of it wasn’t fully accurate so there were still some surprises. Did you read through the short stories as well?

I finally finished The Wheel of Time series! I took forever to get through the last book, longer than with any of the slog books, but I’m so happy to be done. I do wish the last book was more satisfying. It just felt very different in tone from the rest, partly I think due to Sanderson running out of source material. But there was still a lot I enjoyed across the whole series, so I don’t regret putting the time into it.

I finished I Am Legend by Richard Matheson last night. My copy of the book contains a bunch of short stories by the author as well, so now I am reading through those. He is very effective at writing short, impactful horror.

I have one Bingo (the top row) so far and 9 total squares filled. Definitely not expecting to fill the whole board, but I’m hoping to get at least one or two more bingoes complete. It’s been fun sitting down and seeing what square I can assign each book to as I read!

I’m reading A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson (Wheel of Time Book 14!). I’m only about halfway through and so far it’s been good but I liked the books leading up to it more. We’ll see how the second half goes.

I’m reading The Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time book 13!!) by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson. I’m so close to the end of this series! And the last few books have been sooo satisfying. For a while during the slog I was worried but I’m glad I stuck with it.