Review: Night of the Dragon

Night of the Dragon by Richard A. Knaak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the story of Deathwing's lingering influence within Grim Batol. It was decent story. Parts of the fights/battles seems to drag on and on, but overall it was a great addition to the lore.

I read this book as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018 - A book with a time of day in the title.

Also, the Goodreads Twitter prompt #3 - Read a book that features a dragon.

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Review: Goodbye Christopher Robin: A. A. Milne and the Making of Winnie-the-Pooh

Goodbye Christopher Robin: A. A. Milne and the Making of Winnie-the-Pooh by Ann Thwaite
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was really disappointing. Based on the description, you might expect to get a look into the relationship between A. A. Milne and Christopher Robin. Unfortunately, only the afterword really addresses this. The rest of the book is about A. A. Milne from birth to death and him getting paid for his work.

Another disappointment with this book is that it is an abridged version of a previous biography. You do not learn this until you have read the Introduction/Before You Begin sections. Had I known, I might have read the other book instead.

This book was painfully slow, so maybe the abridged version was the better option. I had intended to read it on Winnie The Pooh day, but I had to put the book down every so often.

I still hold out hope that the movie will be better.

I read this book as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018 - A novel based on a real person.

Also, the Goodreads Twitter prompt #4 - Read a book with a name in the title.

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Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a fantastic book. Having seen the movie before the book, I had already know the references Bruno was mispronouncing. Still, the book is just as haunting as the movie.

I read this book as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018 - A book made into a movie that you've already seen.

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Review: Alice in Wonderland (Illustrated and Unabridged): plus FREE audiobook

Alice in Wonderland (Illustrated and Unabridged): plus FREE audiobook by Lewis Carroll
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am really not sure how I fell about this one. I think I might have enjoy this better if I understood the wordplay. I may have to find an annotated version to see if I enjoy this book. I did not hate this story, but I did not like it much either.

I read this book as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018 - A book mentioned in another book (Mentioned in If Books Could Kill)

Also, the Goodreads Twitter prompt #2 - Read a Victorian Classic.

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Review: If Books Could Kill

If Books Could Kill by Kate Carlisle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book had me in stitches. Brooklyn's mother is a gem. It was a good thing I was reading this with no one around as I was laughing out loud. This was a good end of the week book.

I read this book as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018 - Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 Popsugar reading challenges. (2017 - Cat on the cover.)

Also, the Goodreads Twitter prompt #1 - Read a book with a blue cover.

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Review: The Last Thing She Ever Did

The Last Thing She Ever Did by Gregg Olsen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received a copy of this book from a Goodreads Giveaway in exchange for an honest review.

Well, that was a wild ride. I'm still thinking about this book. It was a super fast read. I would have read this in one sitting if work and real life didn't interrupt me. This was my first Gregg Olsen book. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

I read this book as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018 - A book that's published in 2018.

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Review: The Girl in the Tower

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an excellent follow up to The Bear and the Nightingale. Once the book got going, it was really hard to put down. I read the majority of it in one sitting. I am really looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy.

I read this book as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018 - The next book in a series you started.

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Popsugar Reading Challenge 2018

I am doing two reading challenges this year. The first is the Goodreads reading challenge. This year, my goal is 52 books, so I average one book per week. The second challenge I am doing is the PopSugar Reading Challenge. I gave myself many options for all of the prompts so I would not be stuck reading particular books I was not in the mood to read. With that being said, I am only going to post the books I read for each prompt as I finish them.

2018 Popsugar Reading Challenge

√ 1. A book made into a movie you've already seen - The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
√ 2. True Crime - Killers of the Flower Moon
√ 3. The next book in a series you started - A Girl in the Tower
√ 4. A book involving a heist - The Last Good Heist: The Inside Story of the Biggest Single Payday in the Criminal History of the Northeast
√ 5. Nordic Noir - The Snowman
√ 6. A novel based on a real person - Goodbye Christopher Robin
√ 7. A book set in a country that fascinates you - Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Israel)
√ 8. A book with a time of day in the title - Night of the Dragon
√ 9. A book about a villain or antihero - Forget Her Name
√ 10. A book about death or grief - The Escape Artist
√ 11. A book with your favorite color in the title - Jade City
√ 12. A book with alliteration in the title - Provider Prime: Alien Legacy
√ 13. A book about time travel - The Prodigal Hour
√ 14. A book with a weather element in the title - Storm Rose
√ 15. A book set at sea - Endurance
√ 16. A book with an animal in the title - Killing the Unicorn
√ 17. A book set on a different planet - Darkened Demigod: Weapon of War
√ 18. A book with song lyrics in the title - Before the Storm
√ 19. A book about or set on Halloween - Dark Harvest
√ 20. A book with characters who are twins - Mary Poppins
√ 21. A book with a female author who uses a male pseudonym - A Morbid Taste for Bones
√ 22. A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist - Perfectly Clear
√ 23. A book that is also a stage play or musical - Peter Pan
√ 24. A book by an author of a different ethnicity than you - Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII
√ 25. A book about feminism - Song of a Captive Bird
√ 26. A book about mental health - Girl, Interrupted
√ 27. A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift - The Woman Who Smashed Codes
√ 28. A book by two authors - Silent Fear
√ 29. A book about or involving a sport - The Maze at Windermere (The 2011 story line has a character that is a tennis instructor. Tennis metaphors are use throughout that particular timeline. Croquet, archery, and other sports are mentioned in passing throughout the book.)
√ 30. A book by a local author - Jumanji
√ 31. A book mentioned in another book - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Mentioned in If Books Could Kill)
√ 32. A book from a celebrity book club - Children of Blood and Bone (Jimmy Fallon, Tonight Show)
√ 33. A childhood classic you've never read - The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh
√ 34. A book that's published in 2018 - The Last Thing She Ever Did
√ 35. A past Goodreads Choice Awards winner - The Girl on the Train (2015)
√ 36. A book set in the decade you were born - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1980's)
√ 37. A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn't get to - Alien
√ 38. A book with an ugly cover - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
√ 39. A book that involves a bookstore or library - The Library at Mount Char
√ 40. Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 POPSUGAR Reading Challenges - If Books Could Kill (2017 - Cat on the cover)

2018 Popsugar Advanced Reading Challenge

√ 1. A bestseller from the year you graduated high school - To the Nines
√ 2. A cyberpunk book - The Settlers
√ 3. A book that was being read by a stranger in a public place - Feet of Clay
√ 4. A book tied to your ancestry - The Tin Flute (My father's family is from St. Louis, P.Q.)
√ 5. A book with a fruit or vegetable in the title - Watermelon Snow
√ 6. An allegory - Aesop's Fables
√ 7. A book by an author with the same first or last name as you - Crook's Hollow
√ 8. A microhistory - Triangle: The Fire that Changed America
√ 9. A book about a problem facing society today - The Slave Players
√ 10. A book recommended by someone else taking the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge - The Dry

UPDATE:
 
I completed the reading challenge on November 17,  2018. Just in time for 2019's! 

Review: Jumanji

Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you have already seen the original Jumanji movie with Bonnie Hunt and Robin Williams, I do not recommend reading this book. I have always enjoyed the movie and have wanted to read the book for the longest time, but the images from the movie were in my head when I tried reading this. While it was the inspiration for the movie, reading the book after the fact is like reading basic plot line notes. I understand it is a children's book, but it was not at all what I was expecting.

I did give it three stars because the concept was original and the illustrations were fantastic.

I read this book as part of the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018 - A Book By a Local Author.

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Introduction

I started 2018 with no intention of making any resolutions. The only promises I made to myself for the year had to do with reading. I am participating in two reading challenges. I do not consider these resolutions because I would be reading anyway, so I am not really resolving to do anything out of the ordinary. Why not make it fun?

After an insightful conversation with a co-worker and careful consideration, I am finally going to make a resolution. My resolution this year is to begin this blog and keep up with it for the entire year. I work full time, so keeping up with writing reviews for the books I finish is extremely challenging. What better way to make a reading challenge challenging than write and blog reviews?

Here is a little background on how I have come to make this resolution. As a child, I always struggled with reading comprehension. I would start reading a book as required by the school curriculum; I did not read for fun back then. I always had to re-read pages many times to actually understand what it was I had just read. To me, books were just words on more pages than I would care to look at. By the time I made it to the end, I had already forgotten what happened at the beginning of the story. I could never make the connections I was supposed to make while reading. Let’s fast forward to high school.

One of my friends in high school was a book worm. If I am not mistaken, she currently works at a publishing company. She had an extraordinary vocabulary that made me feel like a total moron. I am not trying to be conceited, just honest, but I am not exactly an idiot. I currently hold two AS degrees. One is in Software Engineering and the other is in Paralegal Studies. The short version of that story is I chose the wrong time to be a software engineer and was laid off from my job at the beginning of the recession. Information Technology as a hiring market was an employer’s market at the time, so entry level positions were out of the question. I had to learn a new trade, hence the paralegal degree. I graduated with a 3.81 GPA out of 4.0 when I obtained my Software Engineering degree. When I obtained my Paralegal degree, I graduated with a 3.97 GPA out of 4.0. The A I received in Constitutional Law (instead of an A+) killed my perfect GPA, but I digress. Back to the topic at hand. This vocabulary of my book worm friend was extremely intimidating.

Moving forward again to my early college years, I would sit in classes and hear people make references to books I probably should have already read. Had I actually read for fun, I most likely would have. Because I transferred back home from the college I was attending in Florida and changed my major, I still had a way to go to in college when Amazon came out with their first Kindles in 2007. I had some interest in it, but not much only because I still would not read for fun at this point. I was slowly working my way towards having an interest in books.

One day a family member who owned a Kindle showed it to me. It piqued my interest a little more. Soon after, Amazon released the 2^nd generation Kindles. I have to give 80% credit to Amazon for my current reading habits because I bought that 2^nd gen Kindle. In the first year of having my said Kindle, I read 42 books.

In the years since, I have gone through phases. Some years I read like a fiend and others not so much. It is only because of the Kindle and its apps like Kindle for PC and Kindle for Android that I read as much as I do now. For many years the format of books I would read were Kindle books. In the last two years or so I started picking up paper books again. I cannot even begin to describe the difference between trying to read paper books then and now. There difference is rather remarkable in my opinion. I am still slow when reading paper books, but I read them so must faster than during my school years.

Thanks to the Paralegal degree I mentioned earlier and the GPA that came with it (my interviewer actually said my GPA is what got me in the door), I got a job in the Real Estate industry in 2012 when jobs in RI were scarce. For every open job 200-300 people were applying for that one job. I am a complete introvert, so it took about 6 months, but I finally made friends with some of my co-workers. Through my job, which requires extreme attention to detail, and with the help of a couple of my co-workers, I have discovered a skill I was not entirely sure I had. That skill is researching. Through many research opportunities, I have refined my reading skills. These abilities have spilled over into my personal life and has somewhat consumed me. This is why the last 20% credit goes to my job and co-workers for my current reading habits.

I talk to two specific co-workers regularly about reading and books. One of them is doing one of the reading challenges with me this year. The other is the reason for my resolution for this year, which finally circles us back to today.

Earlier today, we were discussing books and she made a comment about how I should make reading a job. If only I had my current reading habits when I spent 3.5 years looking for a job during the recession! Through my borderline obsessive reading, I have learned about places like Goodreads. I have also learned about beta reading. I am not going to lie. I have also been watching shows like Curse of Oak Island and Hunting Hitler and every time they show the researcher or historian, I tell myself that is something I could potentially be doing with my (relatively) new found skills. The problem is, where to start?

After much thought and ideas from my friend, I have decided to start this blog. I am hoping that if I can keep this up for at least one year, I will have gained the habit of keeping up with a blog. I have not been very successful over the years, but that is what the resolution is for. If I can keep up with it, I will then apply for the affiliation program through Amazon. If I can make a career out of blogging, I can also move onto working as a researcher. Dream big, right?

I am going to begin this blog with reviews of the books I am reading for the reading challenges I am participating in this year. Since I have already read one of the books, I will post the review from Goodreads to this blog shortly.

I apologize for the long winded first post. After this one, they should be short and sweet.

Thanks for reading!