Book Lists 2021 Book • Page 4

You've intrigued me with Burning Girls. I've read Chalk Man(great) and Hiding Place (alright) by CJ and wasn't sure on the last 2. I agree with your sentiment re: supernatural elements, I really did not like the ending for Hiding Place because of it.

Also re: Home Before Dark and Riley Sager in general, I agree that his writing has gotten better and more compelling as more books come out but my issue with him are his endings. For whatever reason he just cannot stick the landing that he's building up to. However I think Home Before Dark has been his best overall to this point. He's definitely an author that I'll read everything he puts out which is impressive after how much I hated Final Girls

 

Forgot to update my 2021 read books so here I go:

1. The Dead Zone - Stephen King
2. The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
3. One by One - Ruth Ware
4. The Books of Two Ways - Jodi Picoult
5. Rosemary’s Baby - Ira Levin
6. NOS4A2 - Joe Hill
7. Horns - Joe Hill
8. Let Me In - John Ajvide Lindqvist
9. Clown in a Cornfield - Adam Cesare
10. Mother May I - Joshilyn Jackson
11. The Push - Ashley Audrain
12. The Jigsaw Man - Nadine Matheson
13. The Last House on Needless Street - Catriona Ward
14. Devil’s Creek - Todd Keisling
15. Find You First - Linwood Barclay
16. Devolution - Max Brooks

 

What did YOU think of One By One?

 

I thought it was pretty below average, but because I’ve read Woman in Cabin 10 and Death of Mrs. Westaway I was excepting a little bit more from Ruth Ware. This and Turn of the Key have been pretty forgettable for me.

 

100% Agreed. I didn't mind Turn but this was just not good imo. Definitely her worst. Not sure if the yearly schedule is becoming a problem or what but I hope her next book is a step in a better direction for sure!

 

Just realized I hadn't updated this since February. Oof. I'll try to keep this brief.

March: I decided to catch up on Sanderson as one of my primary reading goals this year. Rereading The Emperor's Soul was great, I think that's a fantastic novella.The Bands of Mourning was very satisfying and a lot of fun. Super excited for book 4. Artemis Fowl was a fun bedtime story reread with my son, I need to reread the others/finally finish the series sometime soon. 5/3/1 was an easy read, if you're looking to build strength & conditioning it's highly recommended. Endymion was...uh, you know, I'm going to wait until I finish Rise of Endymion to give any thoughts, haha. Will look forward to discussing with @Vivatoto at that point. But I adored it, obviously. Comics-wise, this was a solid month, I enjoyed what I read, though I'm a little dissatisfied with the Batman arc at this point, and I'm curious to see if I'm going to end up loving it by the end of the run or still disappointed. (Fully expect to love it—but at this point in the story I'm a little upset with how things are playing out.)

April: I read the first Rick Riordan series years ago, my sister was rereading the Heroes of Olympus series so I decided to do it with her. Loved these books, great complement to the first series and I'm excited to read the rest of his books now that I've remembered they exist haha. Arcanum Unbounded was fantastic (though I haven't read Edgedancer yet, but I'll get there); I loved the peeks into the cosmere now that things are starting to open up a bit. Greenwitch was incredible, I highly recommend the whole The Dark Is Rising Sequence. Maniac Magee was a fun reread, and even more relatable now that I've lived in western PA for a while. The Original was fun, I could definitely tell it was a Brandon/Mary Robinette mix, and it worked well in an audio format. The Superior Spider-Man run was good, I was initially a little disappointed at the ending but I suppose that was inevitable and it'll be fun to see Otto like this again. I thought volume 5 of Gideon Falls was the end so I was very confused when I finished, haha.

May: Finished up Heroes of Olympus, very satisfying for sure. Read the next Barsoom book, finally one that I hadn't read before. It was fun! I thereafter picked up the rest of the books in paperback, so I'll be plowing through those soon. Caught up on the New 52 Dark Knight, read all 3 volumes of White Sand (I really enjoyed these a lot, I wish they'd been expanded to like 7 or 8 volumes to give the story more time to develop and breathe, but the art was great and the story/plots were really interesting; and it was so cool to see more of Khriss), and finished up Gideon Falls finally (I don't think I understand it, but I love it anyway).

Whew. Good couple of months. For the summer, I'll be continuing with Sanderson and Burroughs, catching up on some manga, diving into the comics on my shelf some more, and probably continuing with Rick Riordan via audiobook. Also Rise of Endymion, I'm about halfway through. Also some other stuff mixed in there, I'm sure. Should be good.

 

About halfway through The Devil In The White City and it’s just phenomenal.

 

Later was a super fun read. Not as good as Joyland but definitely in the same ballpark. Really looking forward to Billy Summers. The second Interdependency book was good. I have a better understanding of Sci Fi now, so the concepts weren't so extreme to me. Had a really good run with some of Stephen Graham Jones books. Dude legit writes pychopaths better than anyone out there, sometimes even to the detriment of my enjoyment, such as The Least of All My Scars. He's really doing his own thing and I dig it. Anathem was fuckin heavy. Neal Stephenson is really something. I'm not one hundred perfect sold on him, but there's no denying the genius there. Anathem has been my favorite thus far, and I really didn't enjoy the Cryptonomicon, in all fairness though I'm pretty sure it's for people smarter than me. The Historian was excellent. One of the better Vampire stories I've read. Many thanks to @Garrett for the rec. I feel like the Rib From Which I Remake the World was dull, I don't really remember. The Heresy Within was free on Amazon Prime. The next books in the series were not. I decided free was the right price and not to continue. Thomas Covenant has been mostly good. It's the series I'm currently reading now and will continue until I read them all. It's sort of dull from time to time. Certainly the polar opposite of the other fantasy author I've been reading who I will get to in a moment. Only the Devil is Here was a very solid horror/ fantasy, in line with something like Firestarter. The newest You book was the best yet. Kepnes has become such a fantastic writer. Also up there in the "good a writing psycho's" scale. Circe was excellent.

The House the Fell from the Sky was pretty cool. I do love an epic horror story. It fell a little flat by the end but over all a good time. I did not like Red Rising. It's more or less everything I dislike about YA. I read a Warren book, since the Conjuring 3 was coming out. It was pretty fun. Probably won't read more. Obsidio also had some of the stuff I dislike about YA but for the most part it was a really fun series. I liked the second book the most, the stakes felt the highest there. My biggest complaint is I have legit never seen more fake out deaths anywhere, and I like Superhero comics so it's pretty common for me. I didn't believe anyone was in trouble for a moment by the third book. Overall really fun series. Vigilance was a great little story. Like Running Man except directly focusing on America's gun problem. Was pretty let down by the most recent Chorus of Dragons book. I completely understand why this book exists, and why Lyons felt it was necessary to tell this part of the story, but it was really really dull and everything telegraphed from the beginning with no major surprises. If this was really the penultimate book...I don't know. I'm glad to be past it so we can get back to what I liked in the series. Started reading some Dennis Lehane and I might have started too strong with him. I absolutely fucking loved Mystic River. It was perfect. Shutter Island also great. But a Drink Before the War was pretty dull. I don't have much interest in continuing with the characters. The main guy is one of those "Hey I'm not a racist, but..." guys and I don't really want to spend time with him. "a Man's Man"... *Shivers*. I picked up Shogun because I felt like something feudal and just googled that, at first wasn't going to check it out since it was written by a white guy and the protagonist was a white guy coming to Japan, but I saw it was considered a classic so I figured I'd give it a go. I enjoyed it. From the Corner of His Eye was bad. Dean Koontz is bad. I need to stop giving him tries. It was 50 cents at a used bookstore though so what can you do.

As far as my recommendation for horror fans, the most recent horror outing I read was fucking astounding. It's not new or anything, but never came up on my radar, I'm guessing it's a cult classic if anything. Called The Descent. Also probably why I never saw it before since that's a pretty ridiculously common name. It's about historical Hell being found inside the Earth. Don't want to say anymore because you should go in with little knowledge. It's sort of like World War Z, but Hell, instead of zombies. There's a sequel too which I have just ordered.

And most importantly, the person who has completely taken my year of reading by storm. David Gemmell. The dude was a fucking master of fantasy. The entire Drenai Saga was fantastic. Each stand alone book covers as much ground as any other fantasy series and he does it in less than 600 pages, and it's still as emotionally impactful. I honestly don't know if he could have written a boring page if he tried. I'm going to finish reading every single one of his books. So far nothing even close to a stinker. @OwainGlyndwr

 

My goodness.

 

I’m glad you liked The Historian, @Vivatoto!

I liked the two Red Rising sequels (of the original trilogy, there’s two more books now and it’s a saga) more than the first if you ever feel like giving it another chance. A little less Hunger Games-y and a lot more space/class stuff.

The Illuminae Files is so fun. The second was my favorite, too. It really makes up for the fake outs with creativity, for me. I’m glad you enjoyed those, haha.

I’m working on Book Four of Jenn Lyons now (as you saw on Goodreads), was gonna tag you when I finished.

 

The Illuminae Files are YA/Teen right?

 

Yup. Some of the highest quality audiobooks you’ll ever find. But the physical copies are pretty beautiful/designed exceptionally too!

 

Yeah I've come across the physical books in HPB and was intrigued. Have heard extremely great things about the audiobooks too, where it's more than just like reading the book, it's like a full on performance! Think it's something I'd rather READ first before listening just due to all the notes and whatnot in the books.

 

Yes. Personally why I liked it more than other recent YA I've read is it does not try to be super edgey. I'm finding that to be my biggest barrier into enjoying YA books. It does have like cursing on every page, but then censors it, which is usually something I'd be like, cmon just write a book for adults if that's what you want to do, but there's actually an in story reasoning for it. I can't speak for the audiobook, I imagine it would be a lot of fun, but like Garrett said the books are really beautiful. You're basically reading chatrooms at the most basic level, but there's some really cool stylized action and always something new to see. Sort of like House of Leaves or S...if you've seen either of those. It's certainly not a graphic novel but there's images in it.

 

The pop song in book 2 got a recording and I laughed every time.

 

I picked up the hardcovers at Books A Million for like $5 each. They’re ones I’m keeping for sure.

 

Wow, that's awesome. I should probably get the audiobooks at some point. Feel like that would be a really cool experience after having read them. Best of both worlds.

EDIT: the Books are also fairly cheap on Amazon given the amount of work that was obviously put into them. Also they look great on a shelf.

 

We should all share shelfies at some point. Mine are pretty sparse—surprisingly, probably. But I’ve had to sell over ~500 books in the last decade at a used store for cash for one thing or another that’s happened. Made sure to protect and keep my favorites, though. And then I made the big switch to Audible a few years back and yeah. I need to get back to reading with my eyes more, haha.

 

I feel this a ton! Wife and I both are like this haha. There's definitely some that we'll never get rid of

 

@Vivatoto One of these days I'll need to come back and properly respond to some of your posts once I've read some of the things you have; every time you update I add new things to my TBR pile (or move things up that were already there). I think your posts are going to be great sources of reading material for me for a while, considering how much overlap there already is.

More to the point: I can't tell you how much I love how much you love David Gemmell's books. He was truly a master of the genre. He did high fantasy so succinctly well—better than most writers writing books twice as long, and with far more poignant commentary on the human condition. I think you'll really enjoy his Greek/Trojan stuff too, it's fun to see him apply those sensibilities to historical topics.

I haven't actually read all of his books yet, so I've got a few treats waiting for me. Excited that you'll be reading the rest of his stuff too.

@Garrett I second the shelfies idea, I hang on to too many books so my collection is at least a little impressive now.

 

What's the "entry" book for David Gemmell?

 

Legend is his first novel and a fan favorite; he definitely improved as a storyteller as he went along, but that's definitely not a bad place to start at all, it's a fantastic novel. I also really like Knights of Dark Renown, which is a standalone, as well as Dark Moon. @Vivatoto might have more to say having read some of the books more recently, but I think Legend is probably the way to go.

 

I honestly don't have words to describe exactly how much I love his work. So however much you're thinking I'm loving it times that by like a thousand lol. He's easily the most consistent fantasy author I've read. I read his first book in the Greek series and that was also tremendous, I love that it's still sword and sorcery, The Source is still around and all that, despite its setting in our history. I'll fuck with historical fantasy fiction all day. The second book in that ill probably be the next one I read. I've finished all his stand alones so I just have to decide between Hawk Queen, Stones of Power, or Troy

My one and only complaint is I wish he liked maps more. Like you have to download that Drenai map early if you want it because it doesn't show up until like book 10. And no map for Rigante or any stand alones.

 

Yeah definitely Legend. That's where I started. Knights of Dark Renown is probably my favorite I've read so far, and I feel like that's the perfect encapsulation of everything that makes him great. A complete epic in one book. It takes place in the Pre-Drenai world...All of his books are semi-connected, but it's not really important to have read any Drenai. Also his books are never a commitment. Fantasy wise they're short and concise. Typically 400-500 pages. Not sure if he ever goes above 600.

 

Also I moved recently and getting all my books on bookshelves was priority number one. I've got a Stephen King bookshelf right by my door, and then I've got myself a little library with three bookshelves one of which is huge. I'll post pics soon. It's still a bit of a mess and we have record heat here at the moment so I'm not really in a housework mood.