I've been in a reading slump this month. I'm hoping it picks back up in February.
With COVID and the flu I just haven't had the attention span to read and I DNF'd a couple of books, which I rarely do.
Title: Rebel Heart
Author(s): Penelope Ward & Vi Keeland
Published: 2018
Rating: 4 stars
Audiobook
This is book two of a romance series co-written by Penelope Ward & Vi Keeland.
Title: A House of Ghosts
Author: W.C. Ryan
Published: October 1, 2019
Rating: 3
Audiobook: 8 hrs 47 min
During WWI a group of acquaintances gather to try and connect and speak to their deceased loved ones. The story follows the two main characters, Kate and Donovan, and they maneuver their way through the seances to see who is lying - what they learn is that everybody has secrets and it's only a matter of time before someone explodes.
This book takes place in Ireland and in a haunted house. There are psychic mediums reading palms and WWI veterans with severe PTSD causing mayhem. When a dead body appears, who is the culprit, spirits or human?
This was a good read - not as scary as I was hoping it would be. The "twist" at the end was predictable but still interesting on how it all came together. The romance between Kate and Donovan was very forced and came out of left field.
Title: Klara and the Sun
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Published: March 2, 2021
Rating: 2
Pages: 303
This book was one that I was really looking forward to; as soon as I got it in the mail I started reading it. The synopsis of the book made it sound like it was going to be a sci-fi book that was different than all the others - but it underperformed. It was all the generic sci-fi themes but not done in any ground-breaking way.
Klara is an AF (artificial friend) who is very observant and was bought so she could observe a young teen named Josie. Josie is very ill - never knew what the illness was and was talked about in a very vague tone - and it was Klara's job to be her companion but at the same time observe her movements, mannerisms, how she interacts with her sweetheart Rick, and try to learn how to become Josie. For most of the book Klara, Josie, and Rick look at the sun and play "The Bubble Game" with drawings.
The five-star reviews state how it did such a good job covering pollution and other environmental variants, but I didn't catch any of that... there was mention of the Cooties Machine was caused Pollution, but it was never mentioned how the machine affected the whole story and Josie's illness - which apparently it did.
This book just left me underwhelmed with what I was expecting it to be about. It just wasn't the book for me.
Title: Cloud Cuckoo Land
Author: Anthony Doerr
Published: September 28, 2021
Rating: 5
Pages: 622
This was an amazing book.... holy shit. I don't think I can even summarize everything that happened.
Title: Ice Planet Barbarians Author: Ruby Dixon
Published: April 3, 2015
Rating: 4
Audiobook: 5 hrs 51 min
This was a surprising book to me - more in the fact that I actually really enjoyed listening to it! This 22 BOOK SERIES is super hyped up online so I immediately thought it would be terrible. BUT as I was going to Walmart by myself I needed a quick listen while I walked the store and drove home. So this book was the perfect easy listen.
Georgie and a group of women are abducted from their homes by an alien race that wants to traffic them. For some reason, their ship's engine fails and they are dropped off on this ice planet - lovingly called "Not Hoth". Well, Georgie is the most recent abductee and is the strongest out of the group - she kills a guard, puts his clothes on, and treks out into the cold to find someone to help. She ends up getting caught in a game trap and when she wakes up she is receiving oral sex from a big blue horned alien.
This alien says that Georgie is his fated mate and they spend the rest of the book having copious amounts of sex, and saving her fellow captives from the slave ship.
If you want a book that you really don't need to pay attention to and don't mind a lot of spicy scenes with a big blue alien, then this book is for you!
Title: Sour Candy
Author: Kealan Patrick Burke
Published: November 13, 2015
Rating: 3
Pages: 84
Phil is a divorcee who can't stress enough how much he does not want kids. He mentions it several times in the first 10 pages. He meets his fate when he is at the grocery store and he sees this emaciated-looking woman and her oddly dressed son buying sour candy. The kid, who you find out is named Adam, and Phil make eye contact and the kid immediately starts screaming. Phil and on-lookers and confused as to why the woman won't acknowledge the kid's fit, but Phil ends up leaving the isle and the store just to get away from the situation. On his way home he gets hit by a car that is owned by the woman he thinks is Adam's mother.
After the accident, the cops are harassing Phil and questioning him constantly because Phil keeps claiming he does not have kids and that nobody should be at his place. When the cops check the home, Adam answers the door asking where his dad is.
Phil becomes Adam's prisoner and is forced to eat sour candy until his teeth fall out and his mouth is covered in soars. Phil has had enough and hatches a plan to escape Adam and his demon companions.
I read this book in an afternoon because I wanted something to creep me out, and I was hoping it would get me out of my reading slump, but this was definitely not it. It was a great concept but I thought it was kinda boring.
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