Last Bookopoly rolls for December 2020 left me with seven books I got to read along with a whole bunch of books I had left for the last month of the year! Usually I get five rolls and five books but since for December I was especially lucky I got two double rolls and had to add two more books to the pile! As it turned out I managed to read six out of seven books from this pile and barely started the seventh by the last day of the month. On the picture above there are five books I own from my bookshelves and the two missing I have read in digital format. I will not count the book I only started reading as a fail since I am in the middle of reading it and plan to finish it soon. Here is how I did with my December Bookopoly TBR picks!
Prompt: Becca and the Books Recommendation
Book: Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle #1) by Diana Wynne Jones ★★★
I got lucky with this one since it was the book I had to read for my book club in December as well! I was very happy to find it as one of the books that Becca recommended in one of her videos. This might be a good time to remind you all how our first Bookopoly TBR game started in September 2020 when Becca and the Books had her Bookopoly TBR game presented as a reading challenge. If you would like to learn more you can check the announcement video HERE and show her channel some love!
Prompt: Fire on the Cover
Book: The Color of Magic (Discworld #1) by Terry Pratchett ★★★
This was the prompt that gave me the most headache since I could not fit any of the books I had on my other lists. I remembered to check with the books I was thinking about suggesting for my book club to read and finally stumbled on this one. I must admit I kinda ran trough the book and the speed might have something to do with my rating of this book. I could not find many thing to keep me emotionally connected with this book and the sharp pace and change of scenery made my reading a blur sometimes. There were moments of the book I really liked but they were few and far between. I will probably stop trying to promote this book for my book club since I could not find enough material for the book club discussion my friends from my reading group are used to. Still I’m glad to have finally read this book.
Prompt: Sad Book
Book: Saga (Collected Editions) #7-9 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples ★★★★★
This is the prompt that gives me the most grief from all the spaces on the Bookopoly board. This time I managed to pair it with the hardcover collected edition of Saga graphic novel. This ended up being the best reading experience for December 2020! I love the epic and tragic moments of this graphic novel and it’s head spinning story. I will probably have to reread all nine volumes until I get to read next edition since it will be probably around two years at least until it comes out! Awesome story and it made a frustrating prompt a lot easier to endure!
Prompt: Most recent purchase
Book: The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5) by Rick Riordan ★★★★★
This book gave me a chance to finish a book series that was a part of one of the favorite book universes in the last couple of years. I got to read two more books for this book series in December and this was a sugar on top of it all. I thought the ending a bit sappy but mostly rewarding and it gave me such nice feel good moments while I was reading. While I was a bit sceptic from the first book I am glad to have read the whole book series because for me it was the well rounded godly but not too godly point of view to the world of Percy Jackson that started a whole fifteen years earlier with The Lightning Thief. Did I mention that I can’t wait to see the new Disney+ TV series?
Prompt: Chance card
Book: The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu ★★★
I have tried reading this book once before and did not manage to get farther than the introduction. To be fair, introduction is rather long and not easy to read trough but still… I did not know what to expect from this book. I even used it for one other reading challenge in December as a “book that intimidates me”. Not surprising the narrative was a bit harder to get used to due to the whole millennium has past since the book was written. What surprised me was the similarities I did not expect to find in everyday life of Japanese nobles from one thousand years ago and lives of the rich and popular which we get to read about in news feeds and watch on modern media outlets. Some of the more intricate details were left to the imagination and of the reader and were they not this would have been to explicit to read. I am still at odds about what to think about this book.
Prompt: E-book or Audio book
Book: Taken by The Hunger (Blood Thirst Affair #1) by Harnet Spade ★
Since I got to read the most enjoyable book for Bookopoly in December it is only fair to get to read the least enjoyable book as well! This book was a mess. The plot was chaotic and it mostly described sex crazed female heroine running from one male character to the next without actually having any real sex. This was the first book in a long time I wanted to DNF. Since it was a rather short Kindle freebie I felt ridiculous to do so. I am not sorry for reading it since it gave me something to think about on the things I can value in the books and I believe that reading bad books is necessary for any reader’s reading experience and growth.
Prompt: Chance card
Book: Elminster: The Making of a Mage (Forgotten Realms: Elminster #1) by Ed Greenwood
Last but not least book I got to read and another Chance card prompt – I am running out of these a lot faster than I anticipated! This is the book I have only started on and I am still reading it. So far it is not what I expected it to be. I am enjoying Forgotten Realms related bits and I am interested in how this great mage comes into being because so far his path is much more different than thought it would be. I like not getting what I expected in this case! I hope to finish it soon so I can start on one of the books I got for January 2021.
anastasiaadamov 