Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Title: Throne of Glass

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Type: Young Adult Novel
Genre: Fantasy

Series: Yes
Pages: 406
Copyright: 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Rating: 3.5 out of 5


Summary: From Good reads
After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another.

Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.



Feelings: 
I really enjoyed the world that was created in Throne of Glass. The characters are strong and the book moves at a fast pace. Celaena, Adarlan's Assassin, hides who she is so that others in the competition don't know who she is and fear her. She stays in the middle of the group as much as she can because that is what Prince Dorian and Captain Westfall want from her. She finds it infuriating though. This isn't just a story about a competition to be come the King's Champion it is a story about a realm that is suppressed by a king who may be darker than anyone knows.

The story of the competition is just a small part of the plot and as one expect with a series ends when they arc of this plot point is completed, the competition, but in the middle of the other what the darkness that seems is coming is from. There were twists in the story that I didn't see coming and I am please when an author is able to surprise me with how things turn out.

I would recommend this book to those that enjoy fantasy and strong willed characters.

The Best American Short Stories 2011 edited by Geraldine Brooks and Heidi Pitlor

Title: The Best American Short Stories 2011
Editor: Geraldine Brooks
Series Editor: Heidi Pitlor
Type: Short Story Collection
Genre: Fiction
Series: Yes yearly
Pages: 384
Copyright: 2011
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Rating: 3 out of 5


Summary: from Goodreads.
The Best American Series® 
First, Best, and Best-Selling 

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind. 
The Best American Short Stories 2011 includes 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Jennifer Egan, 
Nathan Englander, Allegra Goodman, 
Ehud Havazelet, Rebecca Makkai, Steven Millhauser, 
George Saunders, Mark Slouka, and others 

Feelings: 
I that the forward by Heidi Pitlor and the introduction by Geraldine Brooks were good. Geraldine Brooks points out that she feels that many of the short stories today deal with things in the home and don't move beyond that. She suggest that young writers go out and experience the world and then write because that increase in knowledge will show in their writing. She also points out that while there are many things happening outside of the US that they do not show up in many short stories. I agree that experience is an important part of writing and it can be hard to write outside of what we are comfortable with and know. Heidi Pitlor comes from a different point of view and says that she doesn't mind reading many stories about divorce and childhood trauma from parents separating because it is in some ways easy to do well. However, she does say:

"To my mind, at least in terms of content, you've got an advantage if you choose less familiar settings or characters or premises." (page xi)

I guess what I take away from both the forward and the introduction is get out there and do something and stretch yourself a bit when you sit down to write. 

Ceiling by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
from Granta
This is the story of a successful man who hears from an ex-girlfriend and it starts him thinking about his life. He isn't happy and he knows that is marriage is a shame at least from his side. This story wasn't dark and it was set in Africa and seemed to reflect the divide between the rich and the poor there. The story was well written but I didn't really enjoy reading it. 

Housewifely Arts by Megan Mayhew Bergman
from One Story This story was about a single mother who drives nine hours to find her mother's African Gray parrot in the hope of hearing her mother's voice one last time. This story was also dark. I found that I enjoyed reading the story but I was looking for that glimpse of humanity that sees hope or brief happiness. Maybe her son had that but she didn't. 

A Bridge Under Water by Tom Bissell
from Agni
An American couple is on their honeymoon in Italy and things don't go well. The story explores human relationships and the dynamics between people. I didn't really enjoy this story and felt like it was one character giving up who they were for the other person, which is something she was trying not to do was trying to be stronger than that. 

Out of Body by Jennifer Egan
from Tin House
This story is about a college student that has tried to commit suicide and how his friends react to him and treat him once he rejoins the group. This felt like a pretty typical college drugs story with the added tension created from the fear of what the character might do because of his past suicide attempt.  

Free Fruit for Young Widows by Nathan Englander
from The New Yorker
This is a story that takes place after World War II and looks at how one family is connected to a man who fought with the father. The son as he grows up learns the story of how the man became who he was and why his father does what he does for the man. I thought this story was well written and enjoyed reading it. However, it also had a dark side with very little if any hope.

La Vita Nuova  by Allegra Goodman
from The New Yorker
This was the first story in the book at I really enjoyed reading. An art teacher brings her wedding dress to class and lets the students paint it after her boyfriend leaves her before the wedding. After the incident she is told the school will not be hiring her again for the next year. Over the summer she works as a nanny for one of her former students and forms a close relationship with the five-year-old.

Gurov in Manhattan by Ehud Havazelet
from TriQuarterly
An aging man reflects on his life and an immigrant in America through his dying German Shepard. This story was bleak throughout but had a glimmer of hope at the end even though the reader knows it is only temporary.

The Sleep by Caitlin Horrocks
from The Atlantic Fiction for Kindle
This was a very strange quirky story about a town in the far north that decides to hibernate through the winter rather than struggle with trying to stay warm, plowing the roads and getting to work. I didn't feel strongly about the story one way or another but it is a story that I keep thinking about as we enter the winter months.

Soldier of Fortune by Bret Anthony Johnston
from Glimmer Train
This is a coming of age story. However, it is told with a even hand that isn't overly emotional about the events. Josh does pretty much what he is told to do taking care of the dog next door while they deal with a family emergence. However, he grows curious as any young person would when the school is telling horror stories about the house where he is watching the dog.

Foster by Claire Keegan
from The New Yorker
This is the story of a young girl who goes to stay with an older relative of her mother's when her mother is due to have a baby. The story follows the girl while she stays with "the woman" and Kinsella. The story hints at the difference between her life with her mother and father from and how she keeps expecting something bad to happen. This story was much longer than the other stories included in the collection. I thought it was well composed.

The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipsyte
from The New Yorker
I really didn't like this story. It is about a group of high school students who play dungeons and dragons at the house of another student who has an older brother who acts as their dungeon master. The Dungeon Master doesn't give them the typical story where they are able to advance but seems to take joy in killing them off.

Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart by Rebecca Makkia
from Tin House
This story is about two friends/acquaintances from high school who found themselves to be the only gay boys there. Peter became a successful actor but had a slip and suddenly couldn't act anymore. Out of the comradery the narrator felt for Peter he gives him an opportunity to read at an art opening. 

Property by Elizabeth McCracken
from Granta
This story looks at what we leave behind after death and how death can change a relationship and make us wonder about what our property means. The story was dark like the others in the collection but it was of a different kind of bleakness. I didn't really like the story.


Phantoms by Steven Millhauser
from McSweeney's
Written in case study form this story looks a town that has phantoms and what they mean to the inhabitants that live there. At first I found this story to be a little bit creepy and almost like a ghost story. In the end I had changed my mind and didn't feel that it was so much a ghost story as a expose of an exotic town.

Dog Bites by Ricardo Nuila
from McSweeney's
A father is continually diagnosing his young son with different problems, Syndrome X, the son refers to the different syndromes as. To me this felt like the story of an over indulgent father.

ID by Joyce Carol Oates
from The New Yorker
My attention was held while I was reading it. Once I finished the story I was left making assumptions about what happened and how the main character was going to deal with the after affects of it. The story was well crafted and enjoyable to read, however, I really don't like feeling depressed because of what I read and this short story had that effect.

To the Measures Fall by Richard Powers
from The New Yorker
Through the course of the narrator's life a book holds different meanings to her and reflects her life back to her. Another bleak story in the collection and not one of the ones I enjoyed the bleakness of.

The Call of Blood by Jess Row
from Harvard Review
Narrated by a Jamaican Irish man who is caring for a Korean with Alzheimer. The daughter, Hyunjee, and Kevin talk when she visits and this slowly progresses as the story continues. I really liked this story as it deals with were immigrant families fit in America and how the acclimate or don't. This is one of three stories it the collection that I really liked. 

Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders
from The New Yorker
The beginning of the story took me a bit to adjust and just figure out what was going on. Jeff is part of an experimental group that is testing drugs and how they affect the mind. The story is very enjoyable while dark. I really don't want to live in the world Saunders has created but at the same time I think wow this is fascinating.

The Here's Mask by Mark Slouka
from Harper's Magazine
A nine year old son learns of his father's dark past growing up in Czechoslovakia. The father immigrated to the US and married. He has two children and daughter and a son, who is narrating the story. In the middle of the night the son watches his father making flies for fishing. This is a story of growing up and learning about who are parents are.

The Best American Short Stories 2011 included about three short stories that I thought were really good. The other stories in the collection were just so so and made me wonder what was cut. Overall, the stories had a dark theme as though life is without hope or being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I'm not sure this is really a reflection of how things are in the world, America, today or if these stories were just the ones that best reflected the world the editor saw. 

I would recommend picking up this anthology for the stories La Vita Nuova by Allegra Goodman, The Call of Blood by Jess Row, and Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders. These stories made the collection worth reading.

To Catch a Pirate by Jade Parker

Title: To Catch a Pirate
Author: Jade Parker
Type: Novel
Genre: Fiction
Series: No
Pages: 230
Copyright: 2007
Publisher: Point
Rating: 2.5 out of 5


Summary: from Goodreads.
Once caught, it’s harder still to let a pirate go
 
When Annalisa Townsend’s ship is set upon by pirates in search of her father’s treasure, one of the crew, James Sterling, discovers her in the hold. When he moves to take her necklace, she begs him not to, as it is all she has left of her mother. He accepts a kiss in exchange for the necklace. “A fair trade, m’lady,” he tells her afterward, before disappearing.
 
A year later, with a forged letter of marque, Annalisa is intent on hunting down the wretched James Sterling and reclaiming her father’s treasure from him. But now she’s in danger of him stealing something far more vulnerable this time: her heart.

Feelings:  
For anyone that knows me I have a feeling that just reading the summary will give you a good hint as to why I read this book. For everyone else, sorry I'm not letting you in on the secret. 

This book was predictable in many many ways. I really should not have liked it. That being said I enjoyed reading this book. Mostly because I found it amusing. Romance on the high seas as it were. 

Brain candy, sweet tastes wonderful while you are reading it but the end isn't all that good. This book should have ended two sentences before it did. I would have given it a rating of three instead of two point 5 if it had done so. The last two sentences just pushed it over the top for me. I don't know how I feel about recommending this book. If you decide to pick it up expect light reading.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Type: Young Adult Novel
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Yes Book 1
Pages: 418
Copyright: 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Rating: 2.5 out of 5


Summary: from Goodreads

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Feelings: 
This book was recommended by a friend who went to the science fiction and fantasy convention this year. She said that everyone was talking about the book and maybe I should check it out. I had seen the book a couple times and thought about reading it but hadn't. I'm glad that it was brought back to my attention. I would like to also say that while this was a page turner for me I am left feeling unsatisfied at the end of the book and it isn't because this is a series. I don't think I will be reading the rest of the series. I know this may upset some people as they seem to love this book. However, I just didn't.

Karou is seventeen and she has blue hair. At the beginning of the story she is getting over a breakup and betrayal. Her world is divided between the chimaera her family and the human world of which she is one. The division between the worlds leaves her with few people she connects with and only for chimaera that she considers her family. Brimstone uses her as an errand girl in the human world. Karou is curious about how Brimstone uses the teeth she collects but her questions do not give her answers but evasion.

This story is well crafted and I enjoyed reading it. I should note that over all I would have been happy with the ending if not for the:

...to be continued (p. 418)

at the very end of the last chapter. I don't think that is a spoiler more a warning. This is a young adult novel but I felt that it was more mature than most of the fiction for young adults I read. Sometimes I wonder what the boarder for young adult and adult fiction is. I think that fantasy may fall into young adult more than other categories of fiction.

Having finished this book a while ago now I keep thinking back about why I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would after I finished it. I thought it was very well written, beautiful sentences and so on but I found myself feeling like it wasn't quiet right. After I finished the book I read a few other books and I know the writing wasn't as good as this one but I enjoyed them more than this. I have a hard time placing what exactly caused this feeling but I think it might have to do with the very very long flash back at the end of the book. I did not like the choice of having it all in one place like that and I think that it detracted from the story in some ways. I liked what was in the flash back by itself but I didn't care for how it fit in with everything else. Basically I found this a book I didn't want to put down when I was reading but one that didn't have that much appeal for me afterwards. Even though I felt like the story was well done because I didn't feel satisfied by the book I'm rating it 2.5 which I'm feeling is a bit generous. It's because of the beautiful sentences.

I would recommend this book to those that love fantasy and imagination with a note that it is a book many people love but not everyone is going to, I didn't love it.

*****SPOILERS BELOW*****

I think were the book really fell apart for me and stopped being interesting was when we get Akiva suddenly not trying to kill Karou anymore and finding that he actually loves her. I also found that Karou feeling the same way bothered me. With the world she is familiar with now closed to her Akiva is her only connection to it. The last thing she has left from her father figure, is the wishbone he always wore around his neck. Akiva remembers what this wishbone and together they break it and suddenly Karou has all these memories. Begin flashbacks. This is where the book just fell apart for me. It seemed like a cop-out to me that his is how Karou finds out who she is. Besides I really just didn't like the war between the demons and the angels. Seemed a bit contrite to me. I wonder if there was a  way that we could have been introduced to the conflict without me feeling that way and I think maybe there was. I just didn't like the really long flashback at the end. This is why I did not end up caring about the book in the end even though it was visually very appealing and it was at times a page turner for me.

2013 Reading Goal

In 2013 I read 13,389 pages. 3,389 pages more than my goal. I have to admit that in October I wasn't sure that I would even make the 10,000 pages of the original goal. I read lots in the winter though so it wasn't a problem.

Books I read in 2013:

1. Railsea by China Meville (1/3/2013)
2. Doger by Terry Pratchett (1/18/2013)
3. The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde (1/20/2013)
4. A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix (1/28/2013)
5. Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb (2/25/2013)
6. Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb (3/2/2013)
7. Wars, Guns, And Votes by Paul Collier (3/4/2013)
8. City of Dragons by Robin Hobb (3/5/2013)
9. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (3/13/2013)
10. Phantom Hearts Part 1: Bound by Chris Micheals and Reema Farra (3/18/2013)
11. Ship Breaker by Paulo Bacigalupi (3/22/2013)
12. Every Day by David Levithan (3/29/2013)
13. Warm Bodies by Isaac Marian (4/7/2013)
14. Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb (5/14/2013)
15. Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake (6/9/2013)
16. The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams (6/28/2013)**
17. The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier (7/5/2013)
18. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley (7/19/2013)
19. Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenburg (9/8/2013)
20. The Best American Poetry 2011 Series Editor David Lehman (9/16/2013)
21. Cinnamon and  Gunpowder by Eli Brown (9/23/2013)
22. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (10/28/2013)
23. The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde (11/5/2013)
24. Pegasus by Robin McKinley (11/10/2013)
25. The Best American Short Storeis 2011 (11/16/2013)
26. Black Heart by Holly Black (11/17/2013)
27. Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken (11/20/2013)
28. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (11/23/2013)
29. The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas (11/24/2013)*
30. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (11/29/2013)
31. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (12/12/2013)
32. Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Mass (12/14/2013)
33. The Selection by Kiera Cass (12/15/2013)
34. Matched by Ally Condie (12/16/2013)
35. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (12/18/2013)
36. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (12/24/2013)
37. The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett (12/29/2013)

*This is the book that put me over 10,000 pages all other books over that were extra.
**This was a cover blind book.

I also listened to quite a few audiobooks this last year but I can't remember all of them nor to I know the date that I finished them.

In 2014 I plan to also read 10,000 pages. I will also be trying to read some more cover blind books. 
If you have any books you want to see a review please let me know. I'm always looking for suggestions so please pass those on to me as well.

Best wishes for 2014.