November WRAP-UP!

Hello everyone! Today I am a bit late, but since we are at the end of the month (November really flew by! It is almost Christmas!! How is this even possible??) today I am here with the recap for the entire month and not only the week… And writing this post took me longer than usual. Anyhow… November was Sci-fi Month and even if I didn’t wrote as many reviews as I was hoping, and I wasn’t so present around the book community, I have read some pretty amazing books! I traveled the universe and met new species, new cultures and great people. Also, I have added quite a lot of new titles to my TBR so this month was a success!! Yes, I DNFed 3 books (and I was really hoping to have 0 this month!) but this was just an hiccup in a sea of marvelous books. 

ARTWORK by Tithi Luadthong from 123RF.com.

Books read: 18 + 3DNF
Physical books Vs ebooks: 5 vs 16
ARCs: 3

The Amazing Ones

Barrayar was amazing! I loved this book and I was totally absorbed by it. I have gushed a lot in my review, so I won’t be long… But you have to start this series! And then we have Foundation. This was my first Asimov’s book ever, and I was curious about it, yes, but I was also scared because I feared something boring. It was mind blowing and I loved it! And Return of the Thief isn’t sci-fi, but I have to confess that I read some other things this month too, even if sci-fi books were the majority. This is a conclusion of a series that I love and, even if I am sad to have come to an end, I am so so happy to have finally read it!! Gen is really something and the story hooked me up from the start! 

The Really Really Good Ones!

The Long Way To a Small, Angry Planet was surprising and just so so good! I was a tad scared because of all the hype, but it really deserves it! It was sweet and optimistic, with so many different places and races. Pure bliss!! Artificial Condition and Rogue Protocol are book 2 and 3 of the Murderbot series. I enjoyed the first one, but I was expecting something more from it. But with these two sequels I didn’t have a problem. None at all! I enjoyed Artificial Condition so much that I had to go on and read the next one. They are both fast (and short) and fun, and Murderbot is a great MC! And then we have Il Genio Non Esiste. This was fun and informative. I appreciated this book a lot, I have learned something new and I laughed and smiled a lot!The Thousand Death of Ardor Benn was… Wow! It is not a perfect book, and there are some things that could have been developed in different ways, that’s for sure, and there are even a couple of things that didn’t sit so well with me, either, but it was good. It was fun, a lot (and I mean that we get some scenes that are comic. Like “movie-comic”, and that was epic), and original (the magical system and the world-building are unique) and intriguing. It is a chunky book, but my interest was kept alive. Sure, some parts were more interesting than others, but it wasn’t something really relevant and I was never bored. 

The Really Good Ones!

Breakout is the third and last volume of this series. It is a companion of Sirantha Jax series but I have not read the main one, yet. I loved the idea of the prison and it was intriguing. I don’t know why I have waited so long before reading the last book, but it was a good conclusion!! Dispel Illusion was another last book in the series. I didn’t love the first book, but the second was more interesting and this third one was good too! I admit that I have read this series only for the author, because I am not a fan of time traveling. And we get a lot of time travels and the science behind it in there. So… Not the biggest fan. But we have more. We have amazing D&D sessions, and they are so good! I know for sure that this is a series I won’t re-read, but it was an enjoyable reading anyway! Space Opera was surprising. It was like reading an Adams book, but more colorful and full of life. It is quite the strange book, that’s for sure, but I had a great time with it! Gideon the Ninth was a strange read. On one hand I enjoyed it, and I was fascinated by some parts of it. It is And then There Were None in space with necromancers. So you have to like it! On the other hand, I was expecting something more. And I am not a fan of the ending, either. I would read the second book, yes, but I am not in any hurry to do so. The Seventh Perfection, that surprisingly can count as a book for sci-fi month, was a really interesting reading. I hope to write a review soon, because it is such a original book, amazingly well developed! 

The Good Ones!

Resistor was interesting, I enjoyed the world-building and some of the characters were interesting. Biosphere:Hazard is a short novella with some interesting premises. I loved the world-building and the implications of that kind of society. But we have the dumbest character ever so… I cannot say that this was bad, at all, but it could have been better! Storia Meravigliosa dei viaggi in Treno was an interesting reading. Some of the chapters were more interesting than others, but all in all it wasn’t bad!

The Ok Ones!

Dev1at3 is the second book of this Trilogy that I have sadly decided to drop. It is not that it is bad, we have a complex world-building, for example, but… But I wasn’t sold on the characters and the story. I didn’t care. At all. So I have finished this second volume, but I won’t read the next one. Undead and Unpopular is the fifth book in this series. It is not the best series ever, and I am growing a bit tired of the MC, to be honest (hence the years I let pass between the previous book and this one) but I was in the mood for something lighthearted and fast, so I decided to try and see if I want to keep this series going or not. I have not reached a decision yet, but at least I am making some progress with it!

The DNFed Ones!

And sadly here we have my DNF: Metro 2033 was a book that really made me curious but… It takes so so long for anything to happen! The first part is an enormous info dump. I usually don’t mind info dumps but I have my limits. The Rise of the Red Hand was promising but… But I wasn’t in to it. At all. I was bored, I couldn’t care for the MC and all the rest. So I gave up. And basically the same could be said for Our Dark Duet. To be honest the first part was interesting enough and I was taken by it, but then it was like my interest was a switch and someone had suddenly turned it off. All my interest just evaporated. 

Series:
Finished: 5 ( 3 finished + 2 dropped)
Continued: 2

This month was great for my series reading! I have finished 5 of them and I am feeling so proud of myself! Sure, two of them are series that I have dropped (Dev1at3 and Our Dark Duet) but dropped for me count as finished, because I won’t have them around anymore. I don’t think I would finish more series this year (because we are almost at the end of it!!! Argh!!) but this year I think I have been a good bookworm, yay!

My Reviews:
–Foundation by I. Asimov
–Artificial Condition by M. Wells
–Biosphere: Hazard by B.W. Cole
–Resistor by C.E. Clayton
–The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by B. Chambers
–Barrayar by L. McMaster Bujold

And what about you?  And have you read some of the books I have mentioned? And what have you planned for December?? Let me know!!!

Happy reading!
S.