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.
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 ★★★★★
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 ★★★
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.
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 ★★★★★
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!
anastasiaadamov 