“Elder Race” by Adrian Tchaikovsky

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a book review. As usual, life has been busy, so there has been less time to work on them. But I’d love for this to be the year in which I complete reviewing all the books I read in it. That has never happened for me before. There’s always a spillover into the new year because I procrastinate on chatting about what I read. I try to review everything I read in the order I read them. But that hasn’t been the case this year.

The order in which I review things this year has been as haphazard as my reading. The result is that I now have six books to review that range from completion in early April (about seven months ago!) to just a few weeks ago. That means I’m foggy on the details on some of the books I’ll try to wrap up in the coming weeks, but I’ll try my best, of course.

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Genre

Sci-Fi; Fantasy

Series

n/a

Pubbed

2021

My thoughts

This is the one I completed back in early April, about seven months ago! And although I haven’t read as many books this year as I’ve done in previous years, I’m finding it hard to recall some of the details of this story. All I remember now is that I enjoyed what I read, had a wonderful time with this book, and consider it one of the best books I’ve read this year.

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Top 5 Tuesday #79: History With a Twist

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

This week’s topic:

Top 5 books set in an alternate universe

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So, instead of an alternate universe, I’ve decided to focus on books set in this universe but with a historical twist, I guess. The following are all fantasy books set in this world in the past… or seem to be set in this world in the past.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

The majority of this YA novel takes place shortly after the Civil War — when the dead began to rise. Because of this predicament, Black and Native American teens are trained to protect wealthy White people from zombie attacks. I enjoyed this story, mostly because of the plucky protagonist, but also because of the zombies.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

This novella takes place either during the slave trade or shortly after. It’s about what became of the slaves lost during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade — those who took their lives by jumping overboard the ships. It was an interesting read, but I didn’t like the execution much. I only liked the lore it gives us about what happened to slaves who went into the sea and its exploration of the trauma of slavery and how it affects people generations later.

Top 5 Tuesday #78: Books Set in the Future

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

This week’s topic:

Top 5 books set in the future

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I read even fewer books that are set in the future than I do those set in present. I think this is because I think most books set in the future are sci-fi novels, and I don’t often read those.

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

This short sci-fi classic is about an alien race visiting earth to help usher the human race toward higher evolution, I guess. The aliens help humans to better themselves and live longer, but the ultimate goal for that betterment is not what people expect. The premise sounds interesting, but I didn’t like the story because it seemed more like an exploration of ideas rather than an entertaining narrative, which is what I wanted.

Boy-1, #1 by H.S. Tak, illus. by Amancay Nahuelpan

I haven’t thought about this comic book since I read it back in 2016. It’s sci-fi set in the future about a dude who’s heir to his father’s genetic-research company that has developed a genome that improves the physical and mental states of chimps. The company wants to progress to testing the genome on humans, but the protagonist, Jadas, isn’t sure if that should happen. I found the story interesting, especially the mystery surrounding Jadas’s father, but not enough for me to continue with it.

1984 Book Tag

In case you were wondering, there is a book tag based on George Orwell’s classic 1984. It’s a book I was supposed to read in high school for homework, but I remember being a bit bored by it and I can only recall half the story, so I’m pretty sure I only read half of it.

Anyway, this tag was created by Anne from Anne With a Book, who now runs a booktube channel of the same name.

Big Brother: Name a book featuring a powerful cult, dictator, etc.

There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool

Top 5 Tuesday #77: Books Set in the Present

Top 5 Tuesday — on Wednesday! This is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

This week’s topic:

Top 5 books set in the present

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Contemporary really isn’t my thing. Compared to the other genres, I read it the least. I guess I just prefer to either get stuck in the past or in some fantastical land than having to deal with the present. But somehow I managed to come up with books for this theme.

Virtually Yours by Jeremy Holt, illus. by Elizabeth Beals

It’s a standalone contemporary-romance graphic novel about a guy and girl who connect on a dating app called Virtually Yours.

The Journey by Francesca Sanna (illus.)

It’s a children’s picture book about the refugee crisis. It focuses on a family, a mother and her two children, trying to migrate to a new land because their country is ravaged by war.

Top Ten Tuesday #56: Series Catch Up

I often see people create lists like this and have often toyed with doing the same. But it wasn’t until now, when it’s a topic for a Top Ten Tuesday, that I finally sat down to throw one together. Due to my nature of hardly ever finishing series — I either get distracted by a new book or enjoy a story so much that I procrastinate on reading its end — this list is quite long. I could have stuck to the top 10, but I wondered, why limit myself? Why not list ALL the series I’d like to complete/catch up on so that I can refer to this list whenever I have a need? So I went overboard and listed over 60 series to finish: 😆 — 😨 — 😱

My list is divided by genre; however, I’ve relegated comics to its own section since I have so many to catch up on. I’ll mention the most recent book in the series I’ve read, the next one I need to read, and a tidbit about the series, in case anyone’s interested in what they’re about. The book pics are of the most recent series installment I read. I’ll also include a honorable mentions section as well for series I’ve completed but the story/characters continue/appear in another series I’d like to try.

I’ll kick things off with…

Romance (3 series)

Comics Roundup #68: DCeased, vols. 1-4

DCeased is a comic-book series I learned about from Lashaan and read for the first time last year. I’d only read the first volume, but I was immediately hooked. You see, it’s a zombie apocalypse comic-book series featuring superheroes — a story I was hoping for but never knew I’d get. I was sure to like it.

I enjoyed the story so much that I quickly bought the other available volumes but didn’t get around to reading them until earlier this year. Due to busyness and several blogging slumps, I’m just now getting around to chatting about them.

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Genre

Horror

Series

DCeased, vols. 1-4

Pubbed

2019

Quick summary

DCeased is a zombie apocalypse series set in the DC universe. How did the zombie apocalypse start? Well, the villain Darkseid wanted to create an anti-life equation that he could use to control all sentient races. To do so, he needed Cyborg and Death. But by adding a bit of Death, the equation became corrupted. Cyborg was then sent to earth with the equation inside him and once he touched down, his system automatically went online, causing the anti-virus equation to become a techno-organic virus that not only spreads via social media (as soon as they see the equation online, people first try to tear it from their mind before spreading it), but also the traditional way of an infected zombie biting another being.

Top 5 Tuesday #76: Books Set in the Past

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Shanah, the Bionic Book Worm, and now hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads.

This week’s topic:

Top 5 books set in the past

(How far back in the past is completely up to you.)

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A couple months ago, I did a tag thing that made me realize that historical fiction is one of my most read genres, and apparently one of my favorites too, so there were many books I wanted to mention for this post. Instead, I chose to focus on five I haven’t chatted about in a while.

Mother of the Sea by Zetta Elliott

I consider this a short story because of how short it is. It’s a mermaid story that’s set during the Atlantic slave trade, and it’s about a young girl who is abducted from her village and sold into slavery. The majority of the story takes place during her journey across the Atlantic, and it also includes an appearance by a Yoruba deity named Yemoja (or Yemaya in the Americas), which is a water spirit. It was an interesting story, but I wish it was longer.

Dominicana by Angie Cruz

I enjoy reading Cruz’s books. Dominicana mostly takes place in New York City during the mid-1960s. It’s about a young woman named Ana who marries a man twice her age when she was just 15 years old to get the opportunity to immigrant to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic to better support her family. It was an engrossing read.