Books I've Been Reading

I did one of these in January, and another one in May. It's just a short compilation (with mini-reviews) of some of the books I've just finished.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones... I can't believe I hadn't read this before! It's fantastical and wonderful and the kind of book you wish you had written yourself. I loved how witty all the characters were, and the plot was fast-paced and suspenseful. A lot of people have recommended the movie to me, so hopefully I will be watching that soon!

Another great read: Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George. It was such a perfectly written book, while retelling a famous Norse (?) fairytale at the same time. Although the plot was very predictable, I still enjoyed it a lot. Ice by Sarah Beth Durst has just come out too (I believe it is a retelling of the same fairytale) and I'm planning on getting that soon.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare... another terrific book that I never got around to reading until now. It's mildly violent, but extremely action-packed and full of amazing twists and turns. Most of the characters kind of bugged me (except for Luke!) and the ending may be a little controversial, but overall a terrific novel.

One middle grade book I read about a month about was A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban. It was a cute, quick read, but lacked much character development and action. I'd still recommend it though- it's pretty short, so you should be able to finish it in an hour or so.

I recently discovered the Araminta Spookie books, and they looked fun, so I decided to try the first one: My Haunted House by Angie Sage. It was the perfect read since Halloween is coming up, but it ended a little abruptly and was hard to believe. I think that's because the characters weren't well developed and the descriptions weren't realistic enough. But younger readers will definitely love this series. I'm probably going to read the rest of the books too.

And... I finally got Forest Born by Shannon Hale! And I read it! It was amazing -- definitely not Shannon Hale's best (The Goose Girl will always be my favorite), but still really really good. I just wish there was more Geric and Finn in there :) I'm going to be posting up a proper review of that book soon.