September Reading Plans + Magical Readathon: Orilium – The Novice Path

September is here! August was a great reading month, you can read all about it in my wrap up. For September I have planned the new books around the Magical Readathon: Orilium – The Novice Path (art in header and in journal by Lisa and Logan).

But first, let’s take a look at what I’m currently reading:

• The Stand by Stephen King: Yep, still buddy reading this, nearing 75% now and I’m so ready to see how this all wraps up!
• Todos los Cuentos by Gabriel García Márquez: I am nearing the end of this book and I just love how Márquez manages to envelop me in beautiful writing and just all the atmosphere of his stories.
• Emma by Jane Austen: I was not expecting this one to be so funny! I absolutely love Emma’s dad, he’s ridiculous in the most endearing way ever.
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: I barely started this one and it will unfortunately go into the backburner for a bit since I’ll be putting other books as priority for the first half of September. However, I’m super enjoying the writing so far, I need to know what is going to happen!
• Temporada de Huracanes by Fernanda Melchor: This is the new pick for the book club with my friends and wow it’s so good! It is about brujas in a town in Veracruz, Mexico. A woman, known to be a witch in her town, is found murdered and so far we see how her origin is full of rumors, mythology, and violence. Excellent writing, absolutely love it.

And now, let’s look at what I will read for the Novice path for the Magical Readathon that I mentioned above!

Character Development (in progress)

For my character I’ve chosen to create Anukis Atali who lives in the urban center of Kerador and who is of Skaimorn heritage. She is a reader who has always been super curious about the magic that might be within her but which she has never been able to harness except in moments of intense pressure. She was raised by her great-uncle who is all about searching for the origins of his ancestors, genealogy is his passion. As such, Anukis knows that she comes from a line of powerful magic, which makes her inability to harness her own quite frustrating. The three books seen (Fight Club, Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, and Club Dumas) will be read before April 2022 so I will talk about them in future TBRs.

TBR Spread in my Readathon Journal

So the idea for September is that my character will be embarking on the journey to Orilium Academy in order to learn how to harness her magical abilities. As such she must travel through various landmarks, each marking a trial that she must endure and pass in order to make it to the Academy. She’s not alone but she’s also super shy so hopefully she’ll be able to overcome that shyness in order to get to her goal.

• The Novice Path Entrance — Read a book with a map: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo: No, I haven’t read the Shadow and Bone series but I absolutely love heist movies and I’ve never read a heist book so I really wanted to check this out. I don’t know much more about this book other than the heist element and I am pretty sure that’s all I need!
• Ashtorn Tree — A book on top of your TBR: Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell: This is the pick for this month’s Feminist Book club so of course it’s at the top of my TBR! This book takes a look at words that have often been used against women, labeling women as less than, and tracks their origins in order to take away that negative connotation and allow the reader to take back the word into a different kind of use.
• The Mist of Solitude — Read a Standalone: In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner: I am SO excited to read this book. I’ve loved all of Zentner’s books so far and I don’t expect this one to be any different. I don’t even know what this book is about!
• Ruin of the Skye — Read a book featuring ghosts/supernatural elements: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas: This book follows Yadriel, a Latinx brujx, who has managed to summon the ghost of the school’s resident bad boy, Julian Diaz. Now they are forced to work together in order to set things right for both of them. Ghosts, romance, LGBTQ+ and Latinx representation, can’t wait!
• Obsidian Falls — Read a thriller or mystery book: The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix: I am a big fan of horror movies and one of the tropes in many of them is that final girl who manages to survive. So this book follows a group of final girls who have survived their respective serial killers and who now come together to help each other deal with the aftermath. But apparently their horror story is not over….
• Tower of Rumination — Read a five star prediction: Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine: This is a series of short stories centered around Latinas of indigenous ancestry. There’s friendship, motherhood, sisterhood, and heritage. I’m pretty sure I’ll love this.
• Orilium Academy Arc — Book with a school setting: A Tale of Magic by Chris Colfer: A middle-grade book about Brystal, a 14-year-old girl who is whisked away to a magical school where she’ll learn that maybe her life is not as boring as she thought! I loved The Land of Stories series so I expect that this will be no different.

And that’s it for the Novice Path TBR! IF there’s time at all, I will also be starting All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which came up in my last Want To Read List Cleanup post. As it stands, it might be pushed into October but that’s quite alright since there’s no hurry. Who knows, I might be in the mood and start it even while working on the books for the Orilium journey, we’ll see!

What will you be reading this September?

June Reading Plans

June is here! We are almost half way through the year and it seems to me like yesterday was barely March? Anyways… last month I read 6 books! This coming month I am not sure how many I will actually finish but here are the ones I’m currently working on:

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• The Stand by Stephen King: This book is about a pandemic… (I know, I know). It centers a couple of different characters who live around the United States and it’s about they try to survive. As with most Stephen King books there is a supernatural aspect to it but we haven’t gotten to that part yet. I’m reading this as a buddy read with a friend from high school. It’s more than 1000 pages long (as are most of King’s books) and we are going slow, about 200 pages a month. We are currently reading to page 253 and I’m on page 150. So far I’m really enjoying the characters that King has chosen to follow although I’m left wondering ….where are all the people of color?!
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander: I’m reading this book for a book club with fellow Questbridge Alumni. This book is a non-fiction work that describes how the current mass incarceration system came about. Why are there so many black men targeted for arrests? What does the War on Drugs have to do with it? Is the system racist? Yes! So then, why can’t it just be changed? All these questions are answered throughout the book with very thorough explanations and evidence. I’m on page 137 of 329 and I’ve already learned a lot. This is one that I’m annotating left and right (so much so that I have finished one of my highlighters!). There’s a lot to learn so if anything, this is just the start of my own education. I will finish this by the end of June since that’s when we have our monthly meeting.
• Disability Visibility by Alice Wong: I got this non-fiction book as part of the Feminist Book Club subscription box! It’s a great subscription box if you’re interested in social justice and intersectional feminism. Anyways, the book is a collection of essays by disabled people from all aspects of life. There are lawyers, artists, mothers, students, activists, etc. This book is very eye opening and has given me a lot to think about, in terms of language, accessibility, and just stereotypes and biases I have about disabled people. I’m on page 164 of 309 and I’ve been stopping and learning more about the people in the book as well as checking my own responses to each story. Again, a lot to learn here! I will also finish this book this month because the next book comes next week!
• Reinas Malditas by Cristina Morató: I’m reading this book as part of a book club with my friends from Mexico (though we have people tuning in from Canada, Texas, and various parts of Mexico City). This book is in Spanish and it tells the stories of various royalty figures in history, including Empress Sisi, Mary Antoinette, Queen Victoria, etc. All of these women had difficult lives trying to fit into the roles that they were put into (very few chose to become Queen of X place). So far we have read about Empress Sisi and I was not impressed with the writing. It reads more like a TMZ article than a serious biography so I’m not exactly trusting of the author based on that. So far I’m on page 120, learning about Mary Antoinette’s childhood, better than Sisi’s chapters so far! Since we read about 150 pages per month, you’ll keep hearing about this one for a while yet.

So those are the books I’m currently reading slow and steady, two will be finished way past the month of June. There are more books I want to read as well, these are lighter reads that I think I can read a bit more quickly:

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• Eternals by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by John Romita Jr: In preparation for the Eternals Marvel movie I wanted to read the comic it’s based on. With most other Marvel movies it’s hard to read the comic because it could span so many and they could take inspiration from so many different comics (plus the multiverse and oh my). But with Eternals I was happy to find that it’s all compiled into one volume, it’s about 200 pages and it collects volumes 1-7 of the original comics. I don’t know much about the plot and that’s okay by me!
• The Sandman Omnibus Vol 1 by Neil Gaiman: Another Neil Gaiman on my list! This is also in preparation for The Sandman series that is in the works by Netflix. This comic follows Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming and his interactions with various gods, humans, and other mythical creatures. I have had this giant book for a few years now and haven’t read it because…. well… if I’m honest, it’s intimidating! This is easily the heaviest book I own. It is 1040 pages so not the longest but because it’s high quality comic book pages all in color well, you can imagine! I am super excited to read it though and then I will need to get Vol 2… gulp.
• Supernova by Marissa Meyer: The third and final installment of the Renegades series! The series is about a group of superheroes who are trying to enact order on a city that’s been previously victim of a lot of conflicts between superheroes and villains (to the detriment of all the powerless humans). We follow a villain and her quest to get rid of the superheroes who just try to solve everything with their powers. She’s infiltrated their ranks and gotten super close to many of the superheroes so at this point she’s super conflicted. (As are some of the superheroes!) I’ve been enjoying this series and can’t wait to see how it ends.
• Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan: This is the third installment of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. I’ve read the other two books in the past two years or so. I kind of like to spread these out a bit, kind of like candy. Not sure what to say about this without spoilers but basically we follow a group of very wealthy people, there’s romance, there’s drama, there’s a lot of name and brand dropping. Basically a whole other world from mine XD (Talk about escape!)
• It Goes Like This by Miel Moreland: A stand alone debut novel about friendship, rock bands, and queer romance! Need I say more? Okay okay I’ll say more. We follow Eva, Celeste, Gina, and Steph who are members of Moonlight Overthrow, a band that’s become super popular. With the rise in fame plus a romance with two of the band members the band is in trouble of falling out! A storm that ravages their town forces them to get it together and find out just how strong their friendship really is. I learned about this book because the author and I graduated from the same college (albeit different years so I don’t think we ever overlapped.)

And that’s it! HA It might be a lot but since the comics should read fairly fast so I’m hoping that I can get through all the books mentioned. With the heat starting up here in sunny San Diego I expect I’ll spend quite a bit of time reading on the porch in the evenings.

Have you read any of the books mentioned above? What are you most excited to read in June? Do you have a favorite spot where you read during the summer months?

February TBR

Hi everyone!

February is here, I’ve drawn two new books from my TBR jar and I’ve picked two other books from my bookshelves for this month. There are some new subjects for me as well as some old favorites.

Let’s start with the TBR jar, I drew two and I think my TBR jar knows that it’s supposed to be Black History month!

The first book to come out was Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man by Vincent Carreta. This is a nonfiction book that looks at Olaudah Equiano’s journey as he buys his freedom from slavery and ends up becoming a writer and one of the most influential African man in in the 1700s. I’m looking forward to learning about slavery in a context that isn’t US-centric.

The next book that I picked from the jar was An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. This book is very exciting for me because it is a science fiction novel written by a person of color! I really enjoy science fiction but usually I find that I can’t connect with the characters because I don’t identify with them in their culture or ways of thinking. In this case this novel promises to be a new perspective in the science fiction genre that will hopefully allow more people to connect with this genre.

 

The next book is another science fiction book that I’ve been wanting to read because it features four women scientists who go on an expedition to figure out if the world is finally safe for the human population after Nature basically took over. The book is called Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and it is the first installment of The Southern Reach trilogy. The exciting news is that there’s a movie adaptation coming out on the 23rd of February of this year. So I’ll be able to do a Book vs Movie post on it! The book promises to be scary and beautiful and simply exciting! Watch the trailer here.

The final book I’ll be reading this month is actually a re-read! I loved this book when I read it a few years ago and I’m looking forward to reading it again. I’ll be reading and watching Ready Player One by Ernest Cline as part of the Book vs Movie series. This book has been making the rounds for a while and it’s a favorite for many since it’s full of 80s pop culture, video games, virtual reality, and really unique characters. What I fear is that the movie has not taken care of these characters and has pursued a plot full of the usual characters and expected storyline. I really hope I’m wrong, but the trailers haven’t given me much to hope for…  You can see for yourself here.

So that’s the plan for February! What are you reading this month? Do you like to read or reread books before their movie (or TV) adaptations come out?