Thursday, March 27, 2014

Wednesday Scrolls -- February Review

So my plan to get back on the ball with reading hasn't really succeeded. Of course, I'm keeping up with my actual goal for the year, but I was hoping to exceed that goal by quite a few. Oh well. Persy here, ready to admit some more embarrassing book figures.

In February of 2014 I read 5 whole books with a total of 1731 pages. Eheh.

Best February Book: I'd have to say Singularity by William Sleator. Love me some time travel.

Honorary Mention(s): Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling and Lord Sunday by Garth Nix.

Worst February Book: The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer. A very disappointing sequel to Life As We Knew It.

Dishonorable Mention: There isn't one. I just didn't read enough in February. Yikes.

Here's to March being better.

--Persy


My February was about as dismal as Persy's. I have 7 books on my Goodreads account, and one of those I didn't actually finish. I fail.

Best February Book: My Most Excellent Year, by Steve Kluger. Great, funny, sometimes devastatingly emotional - yeah, definitely the best.

Honorary Mention: Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor. I mean, it's Flannery O'Connor. Obviously.

Worst February Book: Well, if I can count the one I didn't finish, then Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. Didn't get quite 60 pages into it before I fell asleep.

Dishonorable Mention: I had to read Human Ecology: A Theoretical Essay and unless you're into ecology, it's about as dismal as it sounds. (Though there were still one or two interesting snippets that made it less dishonorable than Shiver.)

Maybe this year just needs a bit of time to pick up speed. Here's to March!

--Arty

Monday, March 24, 2014

Persy -- Singularity by William Sleator

Sooo I really was going to write this on an actual weekend day, buuuuut my dorm kind of flooded last night and it threw off my schedule just a tad. I'm also super sleep deprived and loopy right now, so this is going to be an awesome review! Yay college!

Harry and Barry are sixteen-year-old twins. Harry is smart, Barry is athletic and popular and generally gets what he wants. Their family randomly inherits the old house of a crazy uncle, and Barry gets it into his head to spend a few weeks there while their parents are away. Harry thinks it's a bad idea, but Barry convinces their parents.

There they meet Lucy, a teenage girl, and hear stories of animals wandering onto the property and then disappearing. When the trio unlock the playhouse, they slowly discover that inside time passes differently. Once you step inside, the outside world practically stands still. You could spend a year in there and mere hours would pass outside.

There is a singularity inside the playhouse, a portal to another world that is affecting time. Harry finds their uncle's journal and begins to get worried about what might come through the singularity. He wants to tell someone, but Barry threatens to lock himself inside the playhouse if Harry does anything.

This is a really lame summary. Sorry, I'm really just out of it.

Basically, the point is that there's a singularity and Harry is super awesome. And there's a dog, Fred, who's cute. And there's a singularity. And it's awesome.

But really though, I love this book. There's a very eighties feel to the writing and yeah, it starts off pretty slow in the beginning, but it definitely pays off. I mean, talk about character growth (this should make you laugh if you've already read the book).

Yes, I would've liked even more time travel play and that kind of thing, but this isn't meant to be an indepth, hard scifi novel. It's basically a quick, young adult read, and it functions very well as such. Because it's not super hardcore, readers who don't normally like scifi can probably still enjoy it, while there's still enough awesomeness for scifi nerds to get into. It's a very nice balance.

So, y'know. Read it.

--Persy

You might like this if you: like time travel; like science fiction; like hard science fiction but want a quick read; only like soft science fiction; aren't normally a huge fan of science fiction; like character growth; like awesome books; or if you feel like time passes super slowly sometimes and are worried about the possible causes.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Wednesday Scrolls -- January Review

I'm honestly not sure when we last did one of these. Maybe...2012? Well, whatever. It's a new year, and I've made it my goal to get back on this kind of stuff (and my my partner do it too). Persy here, with the January review!

In January, I read a total of 14 books counting 3 graphic novels/anime, adding up to 3206 pages, which is actually really good considering 2013 as a whole.

Best January Book: Definitely The House At Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. It's just really hard to beat Winnie-The-Pooh and the gang.

Honorable Mention: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This was the second time reading it, and it's still as beautiful as it was the first time.

Worst January Book: The Highlander's Touch by Karen Marie Moning, third book in her Highlander series. I hate it when people mess up time travel.

Dishonorable Mention: Cleanup by Norah McClintock. It was just really boring and too short to actually be an interesting mystery.

My school schedule still hasn't settled (snowmageddon?), so I still don't actually know how much reading time I'll have on a weekly basis. But I'm pretty hopeful. I might even get to start going to the local library. Dang, I miss libraries.

--Persy


Better late than never, right? Don't answer that.

January saw a grand figure of 10 books read, two of which were manga. Sigh. Oh well.

Best January Book: Probably The House of Hades, just because Percy Jackson and Nico. And Annabeth. And Leo. Percy Jackson, man.

Honorable Mention: The two manga I read, the first two volumes of Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan. The art is (if I may say so) kind of a struggle to look past, but the story and characters and world are all fascinating. (Armin Arlert forever.)

Worst January Book: Nevermore, the final (thank goodness) Maximum Ride book. It's about as good as you could expect it to be, which is not very.

Dishonorable Mention: Not to say I didn't like it, but The Lord of Opium, sequel to the breathtakingly wonderful House of the Scorpion, was kind of a letdown after the masterpiece that came before it. It just... didn't have the same mystical quality. 

Stick around for the upcoming February review and (hopefully) a normal review this Saturday!

--Arty