It’s been three years since Rowan and Citra disappeared; since Scythe Goddard came into power; since the Thunderhead closed itself off to everyone but Grayson Tolliver.
In this pulse-pounding conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman’s Arc of a Scythe trilogy, constitutions are tested and old friends are brought back from the dead.
You know when you’re so excited to read a book and then you finish it and you’re left feeling pretty… whelmed? Not over or under whelmed just… WHELMED? I think that’s kind of how I feel after finishing this series. I don’t know, I’m honestly kind of confused!
“You can whisper, and people will still hear thunder.”
The stakes are high in this chilling sci-fi thriller, in which professional scythes control who dies. Everything else is out of human control, managed by the Thunderhead. It’s a perfect system – until it isn’t.
It’s been a year since Rowan went off-grid. Hunted by the Scythedom, he has become an urban legend, a vigilante snuffing out corrupt scythes in a trial by fire. Citra, meanwhile, is forging her path as Scythe Anastasia, gleaning with compassion. However, conflict within the Scythedom is growing by the day, and when Citra’s life is threatened, it becomes clear that there is a truly terrifying plot afoot.
The Thunderhead observes everything, and it does not like what it sees. Will it intervene? Or will it simply watch as this perfect world begins to unravel?
“That’s exactly what the scythedom is: high school with murder.”
A somewhat slower paced sequel to Scythe but it is no less enjoyable. I savoured learning more about this dystopia and I became even more invested in the characters. I loved the Thunderhead and as a reader, I felt its helplessness to do anything very acutely!
Welcome back to another Goodreads Monday, a weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners and it invites you to pick a book from your TBR and explain why you want to read it. Easy enough, right? Feel free to join in if you want to! I’ll be using a random number generator to pick my books from my insanely long GR Want-to-read list.
This week’s book is Dune (Dune Chronicles #1) by Frank Herbert. This is another pretty well known classic science fiction/fantasy novel! Surprisingly I only added it to my Goodreads TBR in November 2018! On Goodreads it has an impressive 4.22 average stars with 662k+ ratings and 18k+ reviews.
I’m back this week for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books. This week’s topic is: unreliable narrators! This is a pretty interesting topic to look at and it’s surprisingly one that I don’t think I’ve explored in any of my posts. When I think of unreliable narrators I definitely think of thrillers/mysteries first and foremost, but of course I had to rely on the handy dandy site that’s Goodreads to help me figure out if any of the books I have on my TBR have unreliable narrators!
I’m also going to make this v. short because I’m literally sick AF and due to shitty airline policies I’d still have to pay $500+ to reschedule my flight, even with a medical certificate stating that I’m unable to fly. Plus, they wanted to put me in medical quarantine and when I asked if they do that and deem that I’m unable to fly will I still have to pay for rescheduling the flight, they said YES. Fuck that shit. Sorry — I try not to swear much on here but I’m bleeding tired and over this BS and I feel like utter and total shit. Here we go on a 10 hour journey…
Goodreads: The Immortalists Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Family Saga, Magical Realism Panda Rating:
If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?
It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.
The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.
“Our language is our strength. Thoughts have wings.”
It was difficult for me to write this review so apologies if it’s more nonsensical blabber than anything. I really enjoyed this touching novel about family and death. It sounds morose and it certainly isn’t the most fast paced storytelling, but as the story dove deeper into each characters’ life, I found that I couldn’t put the book down and very quickly sped through the pages. The Immortalists is a family saga that explores faith and the idea of destiny/fate. It asks readers the timeless question: if you could learn when/how you die, would you do it?
Last year I decided to participate in the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge for the first time. I liked the idea of completing the challenge but I’m also 100% sure the reason I even looked at it in the first place is because of the cute and colorful list of prompts that they came out with. I’m sorry I just really like pretty things 🤣 That aside, I failed to complete it because I just wasn’t organised. I filled a spreadsheet with possible book options for some prompts at the start but gave up before I even really started trying. Bad panda 🐼
BUT I’m ready and eager to make this year different! I’ve not only identified many possible options for each prompt but I’ve even decided what I’ll read for a few of the 40 regular prompts. I haven’t started looking at the 10 advance level prompts yet though I’m not sure that I will this year!
There are basically no rules to this challenge. You can complete it whatever way you want and on Facebook it got a little ugly when people seemed to judge others for saying that they’d use one book for multiple prompts. It wasn’t a fun time 😒 Why can’t we just let people read whatever and however they want without making them feel like they’re “cheating” when there aren’t even any rules on how to complete this challenge in the first place? Sure, a challenge means you push yourself but it’s really nobody’s business but your own, isn’t it? #tea. BUT I DIGRESS! What I meant to say before going off on that rant is that I’ve made some bookish choices that count for multiple prompts but if I complete the regular challenge early (haha) I’ll go back to some of those prompts and choose a different book for it. That way, I’ll feel like I’ve pushed myself even more but I will also have happily completed the challenge in a relaxed and fun way without putting unnecessary pressure on myself. On that note, here are the books that I’ve chosen for some of the prompts. There’s still a possibility that these may change based on my mood but I’m going to do my best to stick to them.
Just like I’ll do for the ARC Apocalypse challenge, I’ll share a quarterly update for the POPSUGAR, which will only help to hold me accountable for my participation and so I don’t half-ass anything lol
Are you also participating in the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge? What do you think of my possibility pile? Do you have any suggestions for what I should read for some of the other prompts?
I was waffling on whether I wanted to join this challenge but then I finally caved because #FOMO and I really just want to read more of the Asian authors that exist on my shelves. Seeing as one of my main bookish goals this year is to also read diversely I thought it’d be perfect to join The Year of the Asian 2020 Reading Challenge to hold myself accountable! #YARC is hosted by CW @ The Quiet Pond, Vicky @ Vicky Who Reads, Shealea @ Shut Up, Shealea and Lily @ Sprinkles of Dreams and the idea of it is pretty simple: read as many books written by Asian authors as you can! These books can be backlist titles (i.e. released in 2019 or earlier), new releases, and ARCs, and they can be books of any genre, format, and length. You can find out more information and sign up here.
Level 2: Indian Cobra (11-20 books)
There are quite a few levels that you can aim for (including a panda!) and I’ve decided to aim for the Indian Cobra(11-20 books). I have a surprising amount of books written by Asian authors just sitting on my shelves and I don’t really have a reason for why I haven’t read them yet, so I’m more than happy to have a great reason to prioritise them now. Here’s what I got:
Young Adult
Adult
I know I have other books by Asian authors sitting on my book shelf but I can’t recall them off the top of my head right now. But I think this is a pretty solid list of 20 to start with. I hope that I’ll be able to get my ass in gear and read all of these–I know some have been languishing on my shelves for way. too. long.#forshame. On that note, I’ll post my progress on my monthly Reading Challenge Updates post that I’ve literally just this second decided to schedule. Hopefully I’ll already have something to update by the end of this month!
Are you participating in the Year of the Asian 2020 Reading Challenge too? Do we have any of the same books to read? What’s on your list?
It’s the first Goodreads Monday of 2020, friends! This weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners and it invites you to pick a book from your TBR and explain why you want to read it. Easy enough, right? Feel free to join in if you want to! I’ll be using a random number generator to pick my books from my insanely long GR Want-to-read list.
This week’s book is Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. I think this is a pretty well known novel that was originally published in 1979 and is classified as a mix of historical fiction and science fiction (time travel)! I added it to my Goodreads TBR in January 2018. On Goodreads it has an impressive 4.24 average stars with 80k+ ratings and 9k+ reviews.
This year I also joined the #ARMEDWITHABINGO reading challenge hosted by Kriti and Ariel @ Armed with a Book. I thought this sounded cool as it’s a personalised book bingo challenge with regular check-ins, book giveaways, guest posts and more! The challenge has 24 prompts that require individual books for each square (except for the book over 500 pages long, which counts for two!) and it runs throughout the year.
The sign up is open until 15 March, so if this sounds like a fun challenge to you, head on over to their page and let’s BINGO! 😃
So what’s in the bingo? My personalised card below has all the prompts:
I know my announcement is coming in pretty late into January *cough* so I’ve actually managed to already cross of four of the squares so I’m just a tiny bit closer to bingo 🤣
I still haven’t figured out the books I’m reading for all of the prompts but I do have some ideas. Part of me wants to just “wing it” and see if what I read throughout the year will fit any of the prompts, but that attitude is what caused me to bomb hard last year? So I’ve already started identifying options for some of the prompts 😅 Consider this my mostly “loose” possibility pile. Since I’m trying to cut down on spending most of these are books I already have on my shelves–though I’ma be nice to myself and allow for some of this years’ releases because I mean… I’m only human riiiiiiight? 😬
I’ll be sharing progress updates for this along with all the other challenges I’m doing this year in a monthly reading challenges recap post, so be on the look out to see if I’ve managed to cross any other boxes by the end of this month!
Are you joining this reading challenge too? What do you think of my choices? Do you have any suggestions for any of these spaces that you think I must read?
I skipped last week’s prompt because I wasn’t feeling it but I’m back this week for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books. This week’s topic is: books over five years old! Unless it’s a new release, I don’t usually pay attention to publication dates but thank goodness for handy dandy Goodreads because now I can look at what books were released before 2015 that are high on my TBR. I’m going to try to pick one book for each year so let’s see what we have:
2014
I’ve been wanting to read this one for a while now. It sounds so interesting and I love the cover!
dinipandareads 