Reading Updates

Hello blogosphere,

I've been really sick for the past week, which is why I haven't had any blog posts up recently. I used my sick-and-in-bed time to catch up on a lot of reading, though! I'm feeling a lot better and hope to start posting as usual in the next day or two :)

Here's what I've been reading this past week:

The Scorpion Rules

WHY didn't I read this sooner? It was nothing like what I was expecting (to be fair, I had no idea what it was about and then I read the blurb after I finished the book and went, huh, that's not what this book was about at all). So yes, the blurb is incredibly misleading. This isn't a cookie cutter dystopian book at all, and I really enjoyed how complex and tense and unpredictable it was.

I love Talis but I also hate him. Talis is the best kind of villain because you don't really even think of him as the bad guy. Of course it's those other people...right? There are so many morally ambiguous characters/entities in this book and it was great.

I will have a more coherent review of this book soon, but I just wanted to say that I loved it and absolutely recommend it for anyone who enjoys psychological/really intense books. It builds up almost painfully slowly but once things start going they just snowball and it's amazing.

Bands of Mourning and the other thing

No words to describe how mindblowing this book and the thing are. I never really liked Steris in the first two books (I mean, I liked her but at arm's length. She was adorable but also kind of got on my nerves). Now I love her! I didn't think the word badass applied to the woman who likes to make lists of her lists of every possible outcome of every single event, but it definitely does :)

I also never expected to learn so much about the cosmere so soon! Also, I was dumb and didn't figure out a Very Important Thing but thanks to Nikki and Mark that got sorted out pretty quickly. Thanks guys!

My favorite thing was that I rediscovered old friends in unexpected places.

I really hope that was cryptic enough that it wasn't a spoiler...

I literally don't want to say anything about anything because there is so much to be revealed in these pages that I don't want to spoil it for anyone!

The Martian

I'm re-reading the Martian now because I need a nice light-hearted book after the intensity of the last few books I read. Mark Watney cracks me up, but I'd forgotten how science-y this book is. I mean, I'm an engineer and a total nerd so I love it, but I can definitely see why some less science-inclined people were annoyed by all the math and physics.

It's also interesting seeing the images of my original read-through and the new images in my head from the movie. The first time I read the book was before the movie came out, but now that I've seen it I'm going through a weird switching thing where I see images from both depending on the scene.