Books 2021 Reading Challenge

[Hyzenthlay]

[2/35]

I finished The Call of the Wild by Jack London a couple of days ago! This is the type of prose that grips me the entire way through. It's raw yet eloquent, haunting, mysterious, and where many writers fail to portray an animal's perspective of the world in a wild, animalistic manner, London writes in such a way that you almost become Buck, the protagonist of the story. He feels so real.

There is little dialogue in this story, and I actually enjoyed that. The humans that do have a role are well-written and you can tell that London's own adventures in the Yukon are what made his stories come to life. I loved John Thornton the most of the human characters, it was tragic the way things ended. The exploitation and abuse of animals is prominent in this book, as it is in others like Black Beauty, and the dog fights are fiercely savage. If you're rather faint-hearted like me these moments will leave you feeling pretty melancholy.

But what an adventure!

I would rate this book a 9/10!

 

[Duck]

So, I just finished rereading the Heroes of Olympus series, a.k.a Percy Jackson 2. Once again, I'm counting rereads as "half-books" for the purposes of this challenge.

[5 / 25] Heroes of Olympus

Spoiler:

Whereas the first series was all about the Titan Wars - Kronos is rising and trying to take over - this series is about the Giant Wars - Mother Earth got pissed and tried to take revenge. While the first series was very greek with dashes of roman, this one tried to play and compare the dichotomy a little more which is nice.

While the last series was very white, this one tried to add some diversity, which is nice in paper, at least. We had 9 viewpoints across the series (two of which only showed up in the last book), of which one was asian, one was black, one was Cherokee, one was LGBT and two were latino. Rick also used that as an excuse to mention some myths of other countries - mostly Cherokee myths - which was nice. For the most part, the books didn't try to talk about the struggles of being those groups which is nice because Rick isn't in any of those groups as far as I know, and the representation is nice.

The one point of representation that felt iffy was how the LGBT character was forced to come out in front of one of the non-minority characters, and that reveal got a lot more attention in that PoV instead of the LGBT character. Which feels weird, but like I said before, is probably for the best since it was very "we accept you, you don't need to be afraid and push people out" and I don't think Rick really could do a tasteful inner monologue about being forcefully outed.

There are some issues which I felt were more prominent than in the other series.

Leo, the latino character, felt greasy. Like, a lot of his inner monologue when dealing with women had a lot of very physical descriptors like "hot" and "knock-out" and a lot of time he just kept whining on his monologue about how he didn't have a girlfriend while his friends were all dating and stuff. And when he does get a girlfriend he starts white knighting, making wild assumptions without knowing all the context and kept dropping things like "not as hot as my girlfriend" or "this reminded me of my girlfriend, which was hot". I understand he was like ... 15 -16 ish which isn't exactly an age known for nuance, but ughh, it felt weird.

In many ways, Leo bothered me more than Orion which was supposed to be this incel bitter character, since the narrative went out of its way to mention that like Orion was wrong and was a dick while Leo was treated as a hero every step of the way. Leo never changed or even got told to like "dude, knock it out and just chill" and that's not exactly the greatest message.

Jason felt very Gary-Stu ish, I don't know. Like, even the characters mention how he's "too perfect" and in many ways it's a bit of an image he constructed for himself due to necessity but I don't know. Like, he was supposed to be this franchise's Percy - the very powerful demigod who has the weight of the world thrust upon him - but he didn't really work for me the way Percy did.

Maybe it's because we got very little build-up to Jason's story (compared to Percy) and we had more characters trying to get developed but it just felt like "meh" in the grand scheme of things.

Despite that, I did like the books for the most part and would still recommend them, just maybe with a little less enthusiasm.

Now onwards to the Trials of Apollo, and finish the Percy Jackson series as published so far.

 

[Ivysaur]

Since last update:

Comics: Iba Caminando (Superlópez), a normal adventure from our local superhero; Primavera para Madrid, a take of a corruption scandal that shook Spain and took down our previous government.

Books: How To, by Randall Munroe. xkcd author explaining how to do normal things like walking and playing football in the most convoluted ways possible. Also teaching you about leap seconds.

 

[Ivysaur]

It's been a busy week!

Books: Swearing is good for you, by Emma Byrne. A pretty interesting analysis about the science behind dirty language.

Comics: Pafman en USA, El Libro de Oro de Mortadelo y Filemón, tomo 2.

 

[Ivysaur]

Another plentiful week

Books: Retro Game Super Translation Selection, a collection of interesting localisation choices in 8- and 16-bit era games.

Comics: Auf in den Kampf, Torero! (dipping my toes into the German localisation of my favourite series!), and two Spirou ones, La tumba de los Champignac and Un botones en Sniper Alley.

That makes 14 entries so far. I'm now starting a big book that Kidle says may take me some 10 hours to read, so my pace will probably slow down a bit...

 

[CrookedPanther]

I wanna join the reading contest! Do online e-books "freely" translated count? If they do i recommend "the earth is online" to everyone.

 

[Ivysaur]

I'm now starting a big book that Kidle says may take me some 10 hours to read, so my pace will probably slow down a bit...

I lied.

Okay, okay, I did not finish that book yet, I'm pretty far actually. I'm close to finishing another one of anecdotes about my city though. But what I didn't expect myself to do is to start re-reading the entire Spirou collection, one issue per night, just because. Finished six so far (not counting two because they are compilations of poor, old short stories).

That makes 22 entries. In, um 42 days.

 

[baire]

I'm a bit late, but I'd like to join this challenge. I started the year quite well, but my reading pace seems to have really slowed down, I think I'll aim for 10 books

currently: 4/10

read

Spoiler:

At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O'Brien
probably my second favourite novel ever written (after only 'Woodcutters' by Thomas Bernhard). briefly, it's a novel about a guy who is writing a novel about a guy who is writing a novel, the latter work tendentiously extolling various moral values. the characters in this second novel rebel (eventually writing their own novel), not particularly content with being pawns whose goals are controlled by someone else. It has no business being as funny as it is, mocking literary practice to the point of Flann O'brian stealing existing characters and writing them into this book, claiming that there are too many characters already in fiction.

tbf there are so many pieces of media that all seem to have the same formulaic stock characters, so this last point isn't even that crazy

Extinction - Thomas Bernhard
the third book I've read by Bernhard, this one about some fairly strained familial relationships

The Birthday Party - Harold Pinter
I adored this play. it's disorientating, grotesque, dark, comic, terrifying... almost dreamlike

Long Day's Journey into Night - Eugene O'Neill
another play from the 20th century, this one by a playwright who is considered to be fairly central figure among American writers. I actually didn't like it all that much, and would be interested in hearing about it from someone who sees something about it that I've missed

currently reading

Spoiler:

Journey to the End of the Night - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
this isn't at all as acerbic or bleak as I had expected

Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times - Alison McQueen
expanding on the ideas she put forward in her doctoral thesis, McQueen, assistant professor of political science at Stanford writes on Hobbes, Machiavelli and Morgenthau (three representative political realists) and offers readings of their works with attention to the context of apocalyptic rhetoric that influenced their thinking. she argues it gives insight to political dialogue today, not surprising considering e.g. climate change. I don't usually care for this branch of academic work but it's a fascinating topic, heavy laden in imagery from the book of Revelations (that one of my favourite pieces of art, Messiaen's quartet for the End of Time, draws from!).

Algebraic Topology - Allen Hatcher
a very popular text for a very popular subject, available for free by the author online: https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/AT/AT.pdf

want to read later

Spoiler:

Messiaen: Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps - Anthony Pople
The Trial - Kafka
Shostakovich: A life - Laurel Fay
What to listen for in Music - Aaron Copland

 

[Duck]

So, they're technically not books but fanfiction. But, since they're an AU that makes a lot of expansions to the original setting, book length and really really good, I'm making the executive decision to count them as books.

Since they're all technically rereads (even if I just finished reading the fourth book yesterday for the first time), I'll once again count them for half-points.

[7/25] The Rigel Black Series: The Pureblood Pretense, The Serpentine Subterfuge, The Ambiguous Artifice and The Futile Façade

Spoiler:

So, first of all, this is a Harry Potter AU crossover with Alana the Lioness (but don't worry, you don't need to know anything about the second work).

In this AU there wasn't a prophecy, Riddle became a politician instead of a terrorist and enacted his magical racist views via laws and policy - among them a Hogwarts ban on non-purebloods. Harriet Potter (or as she's known, Harry) - halfblood - wants to go to Hogwarts to study Potions under Snape but can't because it's illegal, Arcturus Rigel Black (Archie) wants to go to an American school to study healing due to a traumatic loss of his mother.

They decided to help each other by switching places, thus leaving Harry pretending to be Archie (which is extremely illegal) for as long as she's spending time in Hogwarts. There she decides to go by the name of Rigel and hijinks issue.

If you're familiar with fanfiction, this may be lifting a few red flags - but trust me, it's a very good read. Right now the fourth book just reached its completion and we're now waiting for the fifth book's first chapter to drop (Manic Masquerade). And if you're one of the people that don't like to read unfinished works (I get you), don't worry. Despite baiting the fifth book, the fourth book is quite possibly the best place to end the series besides, well, the actual ending, I suppose. It really is in the perfect place to wrap up a lot of the story threads.

While certainly not perfect, this is a very enjoyable read that delves into a lot more of how magic and the setting, while also exploring in more detail the themes of systemic racism. and how more power isn't necessarily a good thing. There's also a healthy dose of representativity (yay) and even retcons some of the more well known ... insensitive faux pas Rowling made in a way that didn't feel heavy handed.

In fact, I'm not even willing to drop spoilers in this review since I want you all to be able to experience them by yourselves - it's available free online, just search for Pureblood Pretense and if you want to chat about it, I'm all years.

I dropped Trials of Apolo because that book makes me ridiculously angry at the writer. Maybe I'll actually get past chapter 3 and write a proper review here, but I don't know. Might look into Mistborn or ASOIAF, I guess?

 

[Ivysaur]

Update: three more comics (Spirou 9, 10 and 55, which I adored) and one book, Disparates de la historia de Madrid.

That makes 26 entries and more than 1/4 of my goal. Not bad for 53 days.

 

[Soaring Sid]

Well I haven't finished anything but I'm reading Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind by Yuval Novah Harrari.

Got to learn a lot of stuff about hoomans, and is really interesting. Things that led to us being the only human species alive, how our behaviour affected our evolution... if you're interested in this, I definitely recommend it.

 

[Soaring Sid]

I dropped Trials of Apolo because that book makes me ridiculously angry at the writer. Maybe I'll actually get past chapter 3 and write a proper review here, but I don't know. Might look into Mistborn or ASOIAF, I guess?

What did you find ridiculous about Trials of Apollo? I read it when I was in ninth grade. I didn't get bored, but then again I wasn't even hooked, I just read it for the sake of reading it...and then never caught up with what happens next.

Also I've heard some good stuff about Mistborn.

 

[Duck]

What did you find ridiculous about Trials of Apollo? I read it when I was in ninth grade. I didn't get bored, but then again I wasn't even hooked, I just read it for the sake of reading it...and then never caught up with what happens next.

Also I've heard some good stuff about Mistborn.

It's not that I think it's ridiculous - or at least any more ridiculous than your average Percy Jackson story - it's that I really don't agree with the premise and it makes me way too angry to continue.

See, throughout the two first book series we see Apollo as a helpful character, but one that won't necessarily think things through and gets easily distracted by flattery or a shiny new thing in his interests (like a brand new musical instrument). Unlike a lot - and I do mean, a lot - of other characters that were outright hostile to the main characters or even actively fought for the other side in either of the two wars.

So casting down Apollo for the crime of ... flattering his grandson who had delusions of grandeur just feels ridiculously disproportionate and undeserving considering the amount of other gods that could use the whole arc of "getting cut down a peg, then fleshed out and then redeemed".

But I know the reason Rick went with Apollo instead of someone like say, Ares or the minor gods who defected to the Titans - being willing to cause a God x Titan war isn't cute - or the other gods who defected to the Giants. It's because there's a Greek myth in which Apollo is stripped of his godly powers - in fact Apollo mentions it himself in like the first and/or second chapter of the book.

So he wasn't thinking of this and thought he could just say "oh it's an unfair punishment" to contextualize things. But that isn't really any better, now is it?

The existence of a petty evil good is far from a comforting thought and somewhat undermines the story arc the author tried to convey in the last two series of "If the gods were nicer to each other, everybody would win." because guess what, it's been 10 books already and Zeus has yet to learn his lesson.

Not to mention that the punishment is worse than it used to be for no particular reason. Like, the first time it happened it was because Apollo thought Zeus was being a tyrant and staged a coup - he just became a laborer still having his general godliness (ichor in veins, being really really hot, etc.), except powerless - the second time, he killed one of Zeus' lightning smiths (in grief, but it doesn't really matter) and same thing.

But this time he became a normal teenager because ... I don't know, author convenience?

So yeah, this premise pissed me off a lot at Zeus, who's a giant asshole, at the author, who did my boy Apollo dirty for no reason, and at Zeus again because when looking up the times Apollo became human, I discovered he punished his sister / wife (who helmed the coup I mentioned earlier) by literally hanging her above the endless abyss from which nothing can ever escape and threatening to kill her by falling.

So yeah, it's just a giant waste of potential because there's a whole lot of other gods that could use the experience more, and then the chapters where they're disoriented and things are going badly would be so much more satisfying to read about.

 

[Soaring Sid]

But I know the reason Rick went with Apollo instead of someone like say, Ares or the minor gods who defected to the Titans - being willing to cause a God x Titan war isn't cute - or the other gods who defected to the Giants. It's because there's a Greek myth in which Apollo is stripped of his godly powers - in fact Apollo mentions it himself in like the first and/or second chapter of the book.

Wow okay, this makes a lot of sense. I totally forgot about Apollo being cast down upon before this.

It's not that I think it's ridiculous - or at least any more ridiculous than your average Percy Jackson story - it's that I really don't agree with the premise and it makes me way too angry to continue.

See, throughout the two first book series we see Apollo as a helpful character, but one that won't necessarily think things through and gets easily distracted by flattery or a shiny new thing in his interests (like a brand new musical instrument). Unlike a lot - and I do mean, a lot - of other characters that were outright hostile to the main characters or even actively fought for the other side in either of the two wars.

OOOOOH alright. It's been a while so I had to read it again to understand everything. But thanks for taking time to explain what you felt. I might continue where I left off to get a better grasp then.

 

[Arcaneum]

What did you find ridiculous about Trials of Apollo? I read it when I was in ninth grade. I didn't get bored, but then again I wasn't even hooked, I just read it for the sake of reading it...and then never caught up with what happens next.

Also I've heard some good stuff about Mistborn.

You 100% need to try out Mistborn. Absolutely incredible read for sure.

Ultra late to this but if I can, sign me up for 50 books please! I'll go through what I've already polished later today.

 

[professor plum]

I wanna join the reading contest! Do online e-books "freely" translated count? If they do i recommend "the earth is online" to everyone.

Yes, they do!! What goal would you like to set for yourself?
Also, I think I updated the first post with everyone's current numbers. If not, I apologize. please try to include your current number of books read in your posts. (e.g. 3/5 completed)

 

[Arcaneum]

I'll say 0/50 for now, not looked at my list yet

 

[Arcaneum]

Ok time to post updated numbers (for when Tyler eventually updates the OP):

Stephen King - If it Bleeds
Stephen King - Just After Sunset
Stephen King - The Dead Zone
Stephen King - The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Brent Weeks - The Broken Eye
Brent Weeks - The Blood Mirror
Brent Weeks - The Burning White
Afterlife of Archie
Mira Grant - Feed

So that should be 9/50 so far!

 

[Janp]

It took me a lot more time than I expected, since I was focusing on my other hobbies and school, but finished A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, which put me on 1/30.

Short review:

Spoiler:

It was fine, but felt a little weaker than the previous entries. It's probably because all of the huge events ended in the last book, so this one had to slowly set up new ones that will be focus for the rest of the series. I loved the main triangle of Jaime, Cersei and Brienne, but aside from that it was a hit and miss. Iron Island storyline was bearable, but I didn't felt particulary fond of any characters from this storyline. I also couldn't care less about Dorne storyline. It looks like it might evolve into something cool, but the characters were so uninteresting once again. Sansa's chapters were great and I wouldn't mind to see more.

 

[Hybrid Trainer]

Yo I'm super late to the party but I've been trying to read more books this year, mostly so I have something else to do besides read reddit before bed, can I still sign up?
My goals 10 books and I'm a book and a half into it so far 😁