Book series – Excited to read!

In an effort to have more control over all the book series I have started to read, need to finish or want to start on, I decided to make a few categories I can arrange them into and make myself busy with planning on how to fit them in my future reading plans!

First category are the book series I am excited to read.

I love reading books with lots of sequels. When I find a story and characters I love, I want to have more books to read trough and enjoy. For this reason I will sometimes decide to buy more than one book from a completely new book series before I even started to read the first book! And this is also why the books I already own and have on my physical bookshelves are being promoted into priority category for the purpose of making any future reading plans.

Few years back I have made a decision to always prioritize the books I own and it has actually worked out wonderfully. When I look around the books on my shelves I am happy to report that the ratio of unread and read books is not as alarming as it might be.

Here are the books I am excited to read as a continuation of the book series I already enjoy and have on my shelves. They are not sorted in any particular order and these are all book series that I rated highly enjoyable to read because I like the characters, writing style of the author or the ideas they represent. Some of them are on my shelves longer and some are recent purchases. all of them are part of my ever present reading goal – to read trough all the books I own!

Vorkosigan Saga by Lois MacMaster Bujold

I was not always fond of science fiction because space is a confusing place and in theory I found it hard to relate and get into the cold outer space setting. Vorkosigan saga is one of those book series that completely changed how I view space opera genre and science fiction in general. The characters are relatable and “down to earth”. Even though my primary goal when I was buying the series was buying them for my BF to read and not me – I have learned to love and appreciate these books. The editions I have are translations in Croatian from a publisher that no longer exists which makes them a bit of a rarity. These books are highly underrated and they deal with ideas and topics relevant in any day and age – traditions, science versus belief, questions about gender, characters with disabilities, dealing with expectations of others, and so many more unexpected moral and personal questions you will be thinking about once you start reading trough satisfying number of books in the series.

My progress of the series is slow paced. I am somewhere half trough the series and I am excited follow more space adventures of the characters author has created about forty years ago!

Hell Bent (Alex Stern #2) by Leigh Bardugo

One of the most recent additions to my book shelves since Hell Bent has only been published earlier this year. Leigh Bardugo has become an author whose books are automatically on my TBR and wish list. I have great respect for who ever is making the decisions to make her books well designed physically and beautiful too. I always choose to get her books in hard cover editions whenever possible. This particular series is dark academia theme and I have found the horror and mystery elements quite appealing. Again, this is an example of a book series that has helped me include genres I don’t normally read – mainly horror genre.

My progress with the series is: need to read the second book and then slowly and not so patiently wait for the next book after that to come out – probably why I’m not in a hurry to get to it…

Elves

Only exception on the lists of book series I own is a graphic novel I am reading in digital form. This is a part of an ongoing series that is currently on volume 30. This series is collaboration of many authors and artists. Most are originally European and mainly French descent but some of the collaborators expand out of those limits as well. This graphic novel came as a recommendation from a friend and I was impressed with depth of the story and beautiful coloring. Story is long and expanding many continents in a fantasy world filled with magical creatures and many different races. The volumes are short – around fifty pages each but are

My progress with the series: I am on volume nine out of current thirty available. I come back to this graphic novel series every time I need a good and fast read I know I am going to enjoy for a reading challenge!

Alpha (Strays #6) by Rachel Vincent

I love urban fantasy book series with interesting female protagonists. This is an older shifter book series with cats, they had me at cats! I love this series so much that I made my peace with not all the books being same size and format – otherwise this is a horrifying concept for me! One of the books I even bought used and a bit scraped up since I could not find it in any better condition – also not a comforting thought for me. This book series has been a lot of firsts for me in this regard even though it is a genre and theme I usually go for.

My progress with the series is almost done since I have only the last book of the series to read! I think i am saving it for some reading challenge that requires me to finish a book series or something…

Aurora’s End (The Aurora Cycle, #3) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

My motivation when I got the first two books was to give author a try – I’m still very picky when space theme is present. It was supposed to prepare me to read another book by Jay Kristoff and it was not a planned buy when I got the first two books. I ended up reading both books in the same month and then immediately had to order the third one. That is how much I liked the characters and their dynamics! Also I really like the covers and how the characters are portrayed on them. The extra content in these soft cover edition has been impressive and it made me wonder if I can afford to get the hard cover editions. That is how much the extra content has been important to me. I would love seeing this book series turned into animated series or a TV series but I don’t hold my breath for that to happen at all…

My progress into the series: need to read the last book and I am postponing it because this is only a trilogy and I don’t want it to end so soon…

Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles #8) by Kevin Hearne

This is one of the older book series I got into so many years ago. Trough the years my interest has lessened. But then I read next book of the series after a long pause ( years long pause!) and was surprised at how easy I got into the story and how the characters were still captivating. It was one of the book series I started collecting in hopes of reading it along with my BF. He ended up reading more than I did and now I’m not sure if he is going to finish it at all after such a long break.

My progress with the series is close to finishing – three books left! Good thing is the author has finished writing and aside from the books I already have, there are also few short stories I can read.

The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles, #3) by Anne Rice

Vampire theme was always a fascination of mine and I still have a tendency to collect vampire themed books – be it short story collections or book series. Anne Rice has always been a staple of vampire genre and I always had a feeling I needed to read these. This nagging feeling I needed to read something had made me collect Anne Rice books but held me back from actually reading any of them. At one point I had more than ten books written by Anne Rice and have not read one single of them. After a shaky and bumpy start with the first book of the famous Vampire Chronicles I got to read the second one and finally gotten thrilled with it. I am slightly unhappy with all the different covers for the mass market paperback editions I own but the hard truth is I can’t find all the books in a more uniformed editions because there has been so many different editions over the years. I would love to own these in a prettier collector editions – something more like Folio society editions.

My progress with the series is slower than any other book series I own so many books of – I need to start reading the third book in the series and the small mass market paperback editions with chubby 500+ pages are not that inviting not easy to fit in any reading challenge…

Hellboy #2 by Mike Mignola

Graphic novel collection that started as a yearly present I picked out on a Zagreb Book Fair Interliber for my BF. These editions are hard cover and in Croatian. They each have more than one volume inside them and it makes it harder to follow on GR once I start reading them. I plan to collect the rest but have been unable to afford them last few years.

My progress with the series – I have accidentally read the first and the last graphic novel of the series and not I need to get and start reading the second omnibus edition ( right one in the picture)

Batman: Nightwalker (Dc Icons #2) by Marie Lu

Once I had an idea to collect all the books from the DC Icons series because the list of authors connected into this project was impressive. Each book is written by one of the popular YA authors and I liked the opportunity to try reading some new popular author for the first time without being sucked into another YA book series that everyone else is into. Hard cover books were a present from my BF and now I am struggling to find the resto of the DC Icons editions in hard cover which is proving to be near impossible…

My progress with the series: not in any hurry to read the second book since the prospect of finding the next book is going to be a nightmare…

In conclusion

Book series I am excited to continue reading from my own book shelf ( with one notable exception) is not that long but I can not call it short either. I expect that with starting some new book series and finishing out the last books from the series on this list – the number of the books that are part of a series and I am excited to continue will change, evolve and, most likely, grow. I am perfectly fine with that thought and I am happily looking forward to exciting books I can enjoy reading in the future!

Make Your Myth-Taker Reading Challenge – Experience and thoughts

June was a third month in a row I have decided to take on a reading challenge. Make Your Myth-Taker was one out of two reading challenges that caught my attention in June. I was interested in the concept of making one’s own story using various prompts for reading. Make Your Myth-Taker offered a lot of options and out of the four general paths I choose the path of the Sorcerer.

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In the path of the Sorcerer I have decided to follow the prompts to the Goddess option. This meant I had to read four books in the line of given prompts. The rule I am not very fond of was to read the books in the order for the prompts. This annoyed me a bit and I had to keep checking what book I was supposed to read next! Here are my book choices and what I thought about them:

Sorceress prompt 1. – nonhuman main

Elves Vol. 1: The Crystal of the Blue Elves by Jean-Luc Istin, DUARTE (Illustrator), Saito (Illustrator) ★★★★★

A friend who loves comics and graphic novels suggested for me to try these out after I noticed them on his Goodreads profile. It is a work of European authors with amazing illustrations I sometimes got lost in. The details and the coloring were very well done and some scenes were so good they gave me a feeling of watching an animated work with how well the illustrations flowed from one picture to the next. The story was very easy for me to get into because when I started reading I was just starting a new RPG Dungeons and Dragons campaign with some friends after a long time not playing pen and paper games like that. The fantastical setting offered many different races and an assortment of interesting characters. It was like diving into the world of high fantasy from some of the best authors out there. I appreciated the character quirks, political intrigue between the races and the colorful scenes in the background of it all. I was almost sad to stop reading this graphic novel series because I had to follow the prompts for my next book in the challenge.

Sorceress prompt 2. – foiled cover

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2) by J.K. Rowling ★★★★★

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This year I finally started reading the Harry Potter series from the beginning. I have never actually read the first three books before I got my own copies. I started reading them when the third movie came out and started out with the fourth book! I ended up reading the last few books and buying them at midnight premiere sales when the hype for Harry Potter was at its wildest! Reading them now all these years later and after watching the movies so many times was a different experience on its own. I loved the design of the books I started to collect to have a whole set as they come out – The Hufflepuff editions with startling yellow cover jacket and extra lovable tidbits on Hufllepuffs in each book. Even the stars around the title of each chapter made me smile while I was reading. The story was known to me and I enjoyed each little difference I could find from the movie versions in the books.

Sorceress prompt 3. – highest rated

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3) by J.K. Rowling ★★★★★

I did not plan on picking out the third book in the Harry Potter series to read right after the second one. But when the coincidence offered this book as the most highest available to me at the time I embraced this choice with glee! The third book was translated into a very dark movie and because of it it became one of my least favorite movies. Reading the book was a completely different experience. I cant point out the exact differences for me but the book seemed much approachable for me to read than I remember from the movie. I had to watch the movie as soon as I finished the book and go over the things that caught my attention the most. I will be getting the next two books for my birthday and I plan on to continue reading them this year. Having both books fit into the same reading challenge in this order made me very pleased and I hope to fit the others in some other reading challenge by the end of the year as well!

Sorceress prompt 4. – random TBR

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vol. 1 by John Vornholt, Arthur Byron Cover, Alice Henderson ★★★

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Last time I had to read a book for a random prompt I ended up not reading the book I got. Random TBR prompt is definitely one of my least favorite prompts out there. I already have a semi random TBR book draw each month with my reading project TBR Jar Draw which I came up with in order to read more of the books I own. I have been at it for a few years now and I’m loving the results. For this reason I decided to use my TBR Jar Draw for the general random book prompt in this challenge. Out of three random book picks I decided on the one with the most pages and was really worried what would this long book do to my reading pace for the reading challenge. As it turned out the book I chose to read was a 3in1 edition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer novelizations – it was three actual books in one chubby edition. This was actually on my TBR for quite a number of years and since I avoided it for that long I decided to go for it. The three novelizations on their own did not have such stellar ratings and reviews and for a while I was a bit worried since these were the character I have fond memories of. The first story Coyote Moon was okay. I had to concentrate on the fact that these stories were set to be somewhere around first two seasons of the TV show. Those were some strange times and the TV show was way ahead of the times for the most part. Second story – The Night of the Living Rerun was the weakest for me. But what really made me not like it was the way the characters were portrayed. I just thought that they were way off from the behavior of the characters in the show. Third story – Portal Trough Time was the most interesting to me. I remember some of the slayers mentioned in the story from the Tales of the Slayers edition I have read before. Because the time travelling theme this one had bad reviews in general but the fact that the characters seemed true to those from the show I ended up liking it the most. The overall score of this edition was the sum of all three stories and I was glad to make a dent into my Buffy related book collection since I have plenty of it to read still.

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Just four books seemed too easy for me and when I saw that the third prompt offers a crossover with another path choice I decided to spice things up and go with the crossover to Royal Court path to Monarch line. This added three more books to my reading challenge since the the third prompt is the same for both paths. I had much more trouble finding the right books for the last three prompts. Here are the books I came up with for the prompts:

Royal Court prompt 1. – queen main character

The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air, #3) by Holly Black ★★★★★

I searched through my bookshelves in order to find a book fro this one. I ended up choosing a book I already read in January this year. Few years back I did not reread books often if at all with few notable exceptions. I even joined a Facebook group of fans of this book series and had some extra motivation for reading this book. It was as good and as interesting as the first time I read it! I loved the characters even more the second time around. When I finished reading it I even found out about the next book from the series that comes out later this year and now I am enjoying the hype and anticipation for the next time I can read about the characters that make me happy and giggle a lot! Now that I think about it I am glad I had a reason to read this book again even in such short period of time.

Royal Court prompt 2. – red, purple or gold on the cover

Elves Vol. 2: The Honor of the Sylvan Elves by by Nicolas Jarry, Gianluca Maconi, Diogo Saito ★★★★★

For some reason I had no clue what to pick for this prompt and I even began to panic a little bit because of it! In my search for the right book for the prompt I decided to try the graphic novel I started the reading challenge with. I decided to categorize the cover illustration as gold for the purposes of the reading challenge. I used this opportunity to read another volume of the graphic novel I liked so much. The story in this one is completely independent from the first volume. They are both set in the same world and I got the feeling that they are both an interlude for the stories that come after it. This graphic novel series has 24 volumes and I am interested in reading them all. The character in this volume reminded me of some Dungeons and Dragons archetypes which made it more interesting to me. Again I was floored with beautiful coloring and scenes. I’m sad this graphic novel is not more popular.

Royal Court prompt 4. – reread a favorite

The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter, #2) by Laurell K. Hamilton ★★★★★

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Last prompt was a fairly easy one for me to pick after the last two. I have been meaning to reread Anita Blake book series for years now. I have been with this book series for well over a decade. These characters have been part of my reading experience so long I fell very connected with them. This book series has many bad reviews from book nine on and many readers are frustrated with how the author has decided to develop her story and characters. This is a book series with 27 books and counting. Going back to reading the book series from the beginning was an interesting experience. I was reminded just how far the characters and the plot progressed. It has given me some perspective and I plan to continue with rereading the other books in the series as well.

My score on Make Your Myth-Taker reading challenge:

I have read 7 books for this reading challenge.

3 books were completely new for me.

2 books were rereads.

2 books felt like rereads since I have seen the movies so many times.

I have taken on a journey of a Sorceress and went the path of Goddess.

I have decided to expand to the path of Royal Court and go for the title of Monarch.

This reading challenge was an interesting experience. I enjoyed having a reason to reread so many books I love. I will be on the lookout for this challenge next year where I might add to these paths or just choose to complete the journey again. The Make Your Myth-Taker reading challenge was created by Charlotte and Ashley from A Frolic Through Fiction – you can check out Ashley’s announcement for the challenge HERE. Charlotte is on Twitter and you can follow here HERE. Give them some love for they deserve it! I am glad I found this reading challenge and did good on it!

Fables, Vol. 2: Animal Farm – Book Review

Finished reading

Animal Farm (Fables vol 2 )

by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialcha  ★★★★

Expectation

It has been almost a year I’ve read the first graphic novel in Fables series. I always wanted to keep reading it trough and that still stands. I want to learn more on Fables and their lives on this side of stories.

“It’l happen Snow, one of the advantages of near immortality is that we can learn to accept and adapt to almost anything.. eventually. “

Summary

I’ve actually read Animal farm by George Orwell last year and it was a bit scary connecting these two works for me. The original classic was something I didn’t really enjoy reading but I agree it should be on the mandatory reading lists for everyone. It’s value should not be underrated. This version where some of my favorite things meet in this revolutionary light got me worried. I love fairy tales more than anything and dragging them into serious classic literature was no picnic for me.

In this Fable series second volume we get to learn more about The Farm – secluded place where all Fables who cannot adapt to living among human unnoticed or pass as human live.  Among many metaphors to life the one that stood out most for me was the one about life choices we need to make on our own. Some of it, like Goldielocks for one,  is just really confusing…

Conclusion

I will keep reading this graphic novel series at my own pace. Since every volume so far. including the Fairest spin off series I adore had some really cool side stories I will probably enjoy it at a slower pace.

Here is an armed raccoon for the end 🙂

Legends in exile – Book Review

Finished reading:

Legends in Exile (Fables: Book 1) by Bill Willingham (Author), Lan Medina (Illustrator), Steve Leialoha (Artist), Craig Hamilton (Artist)

Expectation:

I have been planing to read this graphic novel for a long time now. I have liked every Bill Willingham work I have ever read so far. I am a great fan of fairy tale retelling and this was something I was sizing it up for reading on more than one occasion. I have read Fairest the spin-off graphic novel series that came out after Fables were already worldwide accepted as a work of art. Fairest centered on female characters in fairytales and made them look really badass.

Summary

The story was an excellent introduction in to the Fable backstory. I liked how characters interacted and the idea that every character no matter how big or small once had its own kingdom, title and story. Snow White is the executive major of Fabletown – a place for Legends in exile. Her sister, Rose Red is missing and presumed dead. Snow White’s ex husband Prince Charming is back in town as well. The only one who can solve the mystery might be the Big Bad Wolf.

This graphic novel now counts 20+ volumes, some stand alone editions and even an encyclopedia edition!

There were some laughs and some deep thoughts on the pages of this graphic novel.

“…you know what they say. The only easy day was yesterday.”

Bigby Wolf: Fabletown’s Sheriff in Legends in Exile (Fables: Book 1)