Not (exactly) a book review! The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

Title- The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
Author- Becky Chambers
Published-  2015
Genre- sci-fi
Length- 519 pages
Rating- DNF
Synopsis (Amazon)- When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn’t expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that’s seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past.

But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer. The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix, the friendly reptillian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the constantly sparring engineers who keep the ship running. Life on board is chaotic, but more or less peaceful – exactly what Rosemary wants.

Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They’ll earn enough money to live comfortably for years… if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.

But Rosemary isn’t the only person on board with secrets to hide, and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.

Not (exactly) a review- So, I am giving up and DNF-ing this book! It gets a lot of hype on BookTube and I am struggling to see why? I got about 100 pages in and it was just boring, so I kept putting off reading it. If I have lots of things I want to do then a bad book is not going to win, so not only do I not read that book, I don’t read at all which I don’t like. I even tried reading another book and going back to this but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

As I didn’t finish it I’m not going to do a full review, but I will give a few comments….

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Book Review- Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Title- Breakfast as Tiffany’s
Author- Truman Capote
Published-  1958
Genre- classics, literary fiction
Length- 100 pages
Rating- 4/5
Synopsis (Goodreads)- It’s New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany’s. And nice girls don’t, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveller, a tease. She is irrepressibly ‘top banana in the shock department’, and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.

Review- Despite it being a classic I had no idea what this book was about going into it.

This book is really short and you could easily get through it in one sitting. The writing is good, my only complaint on that front is that sometimes with the dialogue it was difficult to know which character was speaking.

A lot happens for such a short book, the action isn’t all saved for the end either, it is fast paced throughout, which is unusual for a classic. The story is interesting, unrealistic maybe but it’s fiction so who cares.

April Reading Wrap-Up

So, April was an ok month for reading. I managed 7 books but some took a lot longer to get through than others. When a book is good I get through it quickly, the bad ones drag, and there was a really bad one this month!

Different editions…

So, when you see a book you like how do you decide which edition to buy? Obviously sometimes there isn’t a choice, at least in actual bookstores other than maybe hardcover or paperback, but when there is a choice what makes you pick one edition over another?

Take Harry Potter for example, there are so many editions! I actually don’t have a matching set of all seven books, I have a boxset of the first four and then bought the rest as they came out. I want a matching set of hardcovers and I have just picked the ones I find the prettiest, well the two sets actually and in each set I like all the covers. Two sets I suppose isn’t crazy but what if you like say five or six sets, what do you do? Buy them all? Just buy one set? How do you pick that one set? What if you love some of the covers in one edition, but don’t like others in the same edition? Do you buy some books in one edition and others in another?

Why am I thinking about this? Well, I have started getting a few classics. Classics, like Harry Potter come in a huge number of editions. Some are just boring and I would only buy them if I just wanted a really cheap one to see if I like the story, but there are a lot of really nice editions too.

Do you judge a book by its cover?

Everyone knows the old saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” but do you stick to it?

Surely bookstores rely on people judging books by their covers? When you walk into a bookstore, what else makes you pick up a book if not the cover? With some books you might have heard about them somewhere or recognise the author’s name, but that can’t be the case for most books, for most people. So if not the cover what else is there, at least in terms of picking up a book to find out what it’s about?

Book Unhaul!

So, on BookTube I love a good unhaul video! Obviously this isn’t a video but I am still doing an unhaul so I thought I would post about it. Most of my books are ebooks so it is unusual for me to have many physical books I want to get rid of but I have built up a little pile.

What am I going to do with the books you ask? Well there is a used bookshop in the hospital and a patient library so I am planning to donate the books to one of them.

My reasons for getting rid of these book vary, so I will give an explanation for each as we go along.

With this book I just couldn’t get through it. It was weird but also just not that interesting. I made it about halfway through before I gave up. Unfortunately it was quite expensive.

Are TBR Lists Good or Bad?

So, I don’t have a TBR list as such, I have a bunch of books on my shelf and Kindle that I want to read at some point, as well as a very long Amazon wish list, but I don’t plan my reading ahead of time. I am a mood reader, so a TBR list just wouldn’t work for me. The only thing I do stick to is reading my subscription service book right after I finish whatever book I am reading when it arrives.

I do however really enjoy watching TBR videos on BookTube, and I love it when people use an actual TBR jar, basically because I think they look cute. While watching these videos however it has become apparent that a lot of people find having a TBR list really stressful. So why do they do it?

February Reading Wrap-Up

So, February has been another good reading month for me. The last week was a little slower than the rest of the month but I am still pretty pleased with myself. I have finished 9 books so far this month but should finish my current one this evening.

I have read a good mix of genres this month, YA, thrillers, crime, contemporary and non-fiction!

I have also read a variety of formats this month. Until about six months ago I read almost exclusively on my Kindle but this month I have read ebooks, hardcovers and paperbacks. I have managed to persuade my fiancé to take me on two trips to the bookstore in the last few months and am building up a nice stack of books on my desk as a result!

Book Review – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Title- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Author- Junot Diaz
Published- 2009
Genre- Literary fiction
Length- 335 pages
Rating- 3/5

Synopsis (Goodreads)- Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican-American family in New Jersey, he’s disastrously overweight, keeps falling hopelessly in love and dreams of becoming the next Tolkien. Meanwhile his punk sister Lola wants to run away, and his resolute mother Beli can’t seem to let either of them go.

Moving across generations and continents, from Beli’s tragic past in the Dominican Republic to struggles and dreams in suburban America, this is the wondrous story of Oscar, his family and their search for love and belonging.

Review- This is another book that is difficult to rate.

Firstly, I think the title, cover, and synopsis are pretty misleading.