Flight into Fantasy

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Yesterday I did my own personal readathon. All I did was read, something I haven’t allowed myself to do for quite a while, unless we’re talking about reading stuff for class. I figured it was just easier to immerse myself in books than deal with the RL stuff I’m worrying about, which largely involves things I can’t control. Reading provides an escape from those worries. Unfortunately, my impromptu readathon means I haven’t done any of the other things I meant to do Saturday.

One of the things I discovered about my massive TBR pile is that I enjoy certain themes. So on a whim I decided that the first week in March is going to be Beauty and the Beast week over at this blog. I’ll be reviewing several different takes on the Beauty and the Beast story. So far, I’ve got two YA novels and two adult fantasy novels, and I’m hoping to work in a romance with that theme if I can find one I like… which shouldn’t be difficult considering how much I enjoy that trope. In fact, I’d love recommendations from any of y’all!

And now we come to the list of books I’ve finished this week.

• Courting Disaster by Kathleen O’Reilly: (Review here.)
• The Mercy Room by Gilles Rozier, translated by Anthea Bell (Review here.)
• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green: John Green’s books make me happy. I’ve only got one more to read, and then I think I will happily join his legions of adoring fans. I’ll be reviewing this one tomorrow.
• Nurture-Shock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman: I find the process of child development fascinating, and I thought this book presented some interesting ideas, most of which were counterintuitive, but all of which made sense. I’ll review this one on Tuesday.
• Crazy Beautiful by Lauren Baratz-Logsted: This is the first of my Beauty and the Beast themed books, and I’ll review it next Monday. In brief: I liked it but it had a few flaws that were kind of eyeroll-inducing.

Right now, I’m reading:

• Empress by Karen Miller: This one I’ll be reading for a while since (1) it’s epic fantasy and (2) I’m validating it for Bookshare. So far I’m really liking it.
• Fire Drake by Bianca D’arc: This is one of those fantasy romance series that I love despite the fact that it’s not only cheesy as hell but the author’s influences are so obvious as to be transparent. This book has more of a complex plot than some of the others, and it took me longer to get into, but now I’m hooked.
• The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness: I do want to finish this one. I even started it last week, but then I got sick and I decided that a book where the characters spend all their time having their heads screwed with was not my idea of a comfort read. I will probably get back to it sooner rather than later, though, because I’m dying to know what happens to Todd and Viola!

This week I abandoned Bitterwood by James Maxey. I got all the way to chapter 3 this time before the patently obvious symbolism, the cheesy and trite dialogue, and the fact that all of the female characters so far introduced have the depth of cardboard got on my freaking nerves!

I hope the rest of you have an awesome Sunday and a great week!