This January I took part in the PopCulture Readathon, created and hosted by Whitney @ bookswhitme (with some assistance from Lo @ Reading Parental). The theme was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and my goal was to black out the Big Baddies bingo board. Luckily for me, I managed to complete my goal. You can check out my original TBR here. Keep reading to see my thoughts on the books I read for this readathon:
The Mayor - Book w/a snake on the cover
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Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust is a refreshing Persian Sleeping Beauty retelling with a nice dash of Rappaccini's Daughter mixed in. I really liked the tone and the style. It's very imaginative and I certainly appreciated that it's a love story as well as a tale about our lead finding herself. I definitely need to read more from this author in the future.
My review is also on Goodreads.
Dark Willow - Book w/a power hungry character
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The Councillor (The Councillor #1) by E.J. Beaton is a unique and refreshing political fantasy novel. I was expecting it to be somewhat of a grimdark novel, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it isn't. It was good to see Machiavellian political machinations and intrigue on the page and not be absolutely pitch black, if you know what I mean. Lysande, our perspective character, totally makes this fantasy series opener and I'm glad I got to meet her. As a reader myself, it was something special to get to see her type of character take the lead. Aside from her, the author's writing is very richly detailed. It does a great job to immerse us in world. My only issues with this novel is that sometimes it can get very slow, but by the same token it can be tough to keep up with all of the information from events to character names. Otherwise, though, I enjoyed this series opener. I can't wait to see what's coming in the sequel. I'm surprised this book isn't more well known because it definitely stands out from the crowd. It definitely deserves more attention.
My review is also on Goodreads.
Principal Snyder - Book set in high school
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I read all of Angelfire (Angelfire #1) by Courtney Allison Moulton. I was on the edge of DNF'ing the novel throughout, but I decided to push through it in case it got better. After 453 pages, I should have just DNF'd it. It's trying to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the cast isn't worth sticking around for especially Ellie. Holy crap, she was grating. I was expecting her to improve over the course of her experiences, but that never happened. Then, there are her parents who to crappy YA parenting to the next level, especially her dad. Will, though, was alright. He managed to earn a whole star for himself. He definitely deserved better than having to put up with Ellie. You know what I would have preferred to read, Will and Ellie's past selves. How they met and then became a great team to be reckoned with could have been pretty fun. As it is now, though, I'm not planning on picking up the sequels.
My review is also on Goodreads.
Drusilla - Read a vampire book
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Necroscope II: Vamphyri! (Necroscope #2) by Brian Lumley is such a good sequel. It's so easy to jump back into its world and I didn't want to put it down! I have to admit I really like the style of this series so far. I definitely need to continue it in the future with Necroscope III: The Source.
My review is also on Goodreads.
The Hellmouth - Read a paranormal/ urban fantasy book
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Unquiet Dreams (Connor Grey #2) by Mark Del Franco is definitely an improvement on the first book in the series. I'm glad I decided to continue on with it. We get to see a little more of the Weird world and I was especially pleased that we get more character work. I'm definitely looking forward to trying book three, Unfallen Dead. If you're a fan of The Dresden Files, you'll want to try this.
My review is also on Goodreads.
She-Mantis - Book feat. sirens
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Song of the Current (Song of the Current #1) by Sarah Tolcser is easy to slip into but it takes a little while to really get going, but once it does it's well worth sticking with it. The world-building was good, but the characters are great. I'm definitely looking forward to trying the sequel, Whisper of the Tide.
My review is also on Goodreads.
Spike - Book w/a loveable bad boy
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DNF'd @ p. 43
The Life and Death of Lily Drake (Lily Drake #1) by T. Michelle Nelson sounded intriguing from summary. Plus, it's by a local Ohio author and it's set practically in my backyard. I rarely if ever get to see that in fiction, so I was hoping to at least finish it just to see if I recognized anything. The cool thing was I did recognize two locations - The Cove (aka The Alcove, the real name of the restaurant) and the Chapman Mansion (aka the Round Hill Mansion/ the Curtis Mansion in the real world). Otherwise, though, this novel was painful enough that I bring myself to read more than the first two chapters. The characters, the dialogue, the world-building, and descriptions just didn't quite cut it for me.
My review is also on Goodreads.
Glory - Book feat. a goddess
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DNF'd @ p. 50
I wanted to like Antigoddess (Goddess War #1) by Kendare Blake. I've always been interested in Greek mythology and this sounded like an interesting modern day take on it. While it wasn't terrible, it just didn't hook me enough to continue. The style and characters weren't working for me.
My review is also on Goodreads.
Angelus - Psychological Thriller
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An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen is a solid mystery thriller. I wasn't familiar with the authors going in, but I'm glad I decided to give this a try. While it wasn't a favorite, I did really liked the first two thirds of it. I just needed to know more about what was going on and what was going to happen. I will admit though that I wasn't as found of how it ended though. I may read more from these authors in the future.
My review is also on Goodreads.
Have you read any of these books? Did you take part in this readathon? As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!
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