Pick-a-Shelf discussion

What did you read for kick-ass-heroines?

Did the heroine fit your idea of 'kick-ass-heroines'?

The Siren by Tiffany Reisz
4*

This is not for the feint of heart--it's romancey and erotica with bdsm relationships front and center. But it's not trash--it is a real book with fully developed characters and a plot, not just a bunch of sex scenes strung together. I really enjoyed it and will likely read more of the series.

Used for Seriously Serial and Just Read It
I nominate guilty-pleasure

I read Graceling. I had never heard of this series before. It was very good and nice story to be involved in after ready so many dense classics lately. Takes place in a fictional setting but seems to carry a medieval timeframe/style. Children who develop two different colored eyes are graced and no ones is exactly alike. Katsa is graced with extreme fighting and killing ability...or is she? She develops a relationship with Po another graceling and the two are pulled together into a mystery very few could solve or survive. I think I will add the sequels to my TBR list.

I read Warcross
I understand why the book made the list, I think a lot of the books plotline, character traits etc. are very cliche and tropey, just very expected. But that does not mean I did not have fun. I was sucked into the story and read it in one sitting and enjoyed myself so very much. Would I advertise this book as kick ass heroine? Probably not. But only because the kick ass as well as the heroine part seem so incredibly familiar and done a thousand times that it simply does not feel enough to call it kick ass. But if I had never read another book with these traits - yes, then it probably would feel like a kick ass heroine.

I read Naked in Death by J.D. Robb ★★★★½

I've never read anything by Nora Roberts, never felt compelled to. But everyone on Goodreads was raving about the In Death series, so when I found this first installment for 0.97 € on Kobo, I decided to give it a try. After all, I'm a sucker for crime fiction. I don't really care for either sci-fi or romance, though, so I was unsure whether this would be a good read for me. Well, I finished reading yesterday afternoon, and I immediately wanted to go on with the second book in the series. I had a hard time restraining myself (you know, so many books to read).

As for the sci-fi side of it, I can say don't let it deter you if that's a genre you don't usually appreciate, because it's not heavy on that side. Sure, everything's automated in Robb's 2058, there are some very different laws and habits, for instance, prostitution is now regulated and guns are banned, there is genetic engineering, etc. But that's just background, the story is not sci-fi at all.

The mystery part was great in my opinion. I really enjoyed it. And the romance is very good, too. As I said, I don't usually care for romance novels. But this was good. I see that many reviewers find that Roarke comes with multiple red flags. I didn't get that impression, although I might not be the best judge, as I stayed in an emotionally abusive relationship for several years. You'd say that's taught me to spot red flags immediately. I think so, too, but on the other hand, maybe not. I don't know. Anyway, yes, of course, Roarke doesn't even know what boundaries are, he enters Eve's apartment as he pleases, that's not good, I know. But he's very sweet, as far as I see it. He knows how to treat a strong-but-fragile woman like Eve.

And Eve. She's great. Absolutely awesome. She comes out of the page full force. She's real. For the very first pages, I didn't like her at all. She was like a robot. No emotions, no expressions, nothing. Just work and nothing else. But this impression soon proved to be inexact. She's a strong, kick-ass woman, but that's a mask she's using to hide deep wounds. Robb/Roberts writes such a perfect description of a traumatized woman that I believe she must know something about this which can't be gathered from research only. And the love/sex scenes. They are great examples of how a woman with past trauma might behave in such circumstances. Of course, not all women are alike, so maybe some women with the same background behave in a completely different way. But this... this is real.

I'm not saying this book is without flaws. I'm just saying I don't mind if it has flaws, I enjoyed it immensely, and I can't wait to go on with the series (that's A LOT of books, though - in fact, there's 51 of them to date, with a 52nd expected next year).

***

I used this for Just Read It Prompt 1 and Snakes & Ladders.

I nominate travel.

I read The Deep by Rivers Solomon. 3.5*



Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.


A beautiful tale that weaves real history with fantasy. A bit confusing at times but still unique and important.

I nominate pirate

BookSalvation in Death
Finished 9/11/2020
Rating: 5 stars
Review:
Eve Dallas has caught another unusual case. A priest was killed during a funeral service. But it seems the priest might not be a priest after all. Then another preacher is killed the say way. Do we have a serial killer? Eve unravels the mysterious killings in her usual way. Peabody and McNab are so good together in this book. They always make me laugh. Another great story for the series.

Eve is always kicking ass and even lets the murder get a few punches in just so it looked good. LOL

Used for: Bookopoly, Seriously serial '20

I nominate: 2020

Marina (Sonnenbarke) wrote: "I read Naked in Death by J.D. Robb ★★★★½

I've never read anything by Nora Roberts, never felt compelled to. But everyone on Goodreads was raving about the In Death ser..."

these books get better and better with each one. They are like potato chips.

I finished another one from this shelf

Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews
Rating 4 stars
Finished : 9/17/2020
Review:
The world keeps shifting between magic and tech and during Flair ups the Kate has to clean up magic users use of bad magic. Every 7 years there is a major shift and gods and goddesses are trying to own the world and Kate is caught up trying to save a little girl, some maps and not get killed herself. Really interesting world. I like that she doesn't just fall into bed with the main good looking guy Curran. There is attraction but so far they are staying away from each other.

Used for Bookopoly, & Seriously Serial, Lost 2020
I nominate: graphic novels

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews [18-09-2020] ★★★★

Rose and her two brothers live in a world between worlds called the Edge. Live is not easy. But things can turn worse and the town is threatened. This writer duo loves writing about the same type of characters. A strong female who falls in love with an arrogant muscular drop dead gorgeous guy. Despite many similarities between the different series I still like it. The writing just draws me in and I like the humor. I liked Rose from the start. Reading about the magic abilities of her and her brothers was interesting. Declan annoyed me slight at first, but he grew on to me because his actions showed he was kind. I love the world building. The edge is an interesting place. I thought the plot was good and am looking forward to see what happens next.

Used for seriously serial

I nominate: favorite

I read Dead as a Doornail (2005) ★★★★ the 5th book in the series of Sookie Stackhouse, waitress and telepath (in which the True Blood series was loosely based).

The series: Vampires have revealed themselves to the world after realizing they could survive on synthetic blood and Bill Compton, one of them, decides to settle down in the town of Bontemps, a small event that would end affecting many lives, Sookie's particularly, opening her eyes to all the supernatural things going on around her she had never detected.

On this book: Some of the locals have been shot and the police have no clues about the sniper or its motives. Only a few, including Sookie, know what the victims have in common, but the information is not of the kind that can be relayed to the police. The matter has Sookie worried, as it doesn't look like the shooter will be found any time soon and she's afraid of any of her loved ones getting shot. She's also worried about her brother, because he's dealing with some unusual consequences of a brush with the supernatural that have placed his life in danger.

Opinion: I enjoyed the book. Perhaps not as much as the last one but it was a fun read (except for a sad moment or two) that I couldn't put down. Even though it had no major supernatural plots or events (or love affairs), the plot is formed with many subplots interwoven in a way that keeps your reading. I also felt the author used this book to take stock of all the characters and the different lines and give Sookie (and the reader) a perspective of where each of them stands (and who is interested in her). Definitely not a good place to start the series: it's full of spoilers of the previous books and half of what happens is interesting only if you're already invested in the characters, but you can if you want, as the author explains anything you need know (annoyingly so).

Rating: 4 stars ~ Shelf nomination: Space

Used for: Bookopoly and Just Read It! Prompt 4.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
★★★1/2

The premise of this book is intriguing - extreme changes to reproductive rights/law mean that abortion is illegal, that is, until the child turns 12 and you are allowed to have them Unwound (super duper late term abortion). I wish there'd been more about the ethics and repercussions of this rule, but the story very much focussed on action in the present as a group of teenagers marked for Unwinding try to escape. It was mostly a good read, not quite enough character development to make me love it.
I don't know how it gets shelved as kick-ass heroines though. The main characters were all male. There were only two named female characters, and I didn't think they were notably kick-ass.

Used for Seriously Serial
Nominate nonfiction

I read A Court of Mist and Fury for this shelf and gave it 4*.

It had been a while since I had read the first book of the series, so it took me a bit of time to get up to speed on the back story. However, the author helps out a bit as the book progressed but her help was to late for me as I had sorta figured out who was who and what had happened by that point. She just confirmed my memory for me.

Feyre starts out as a bit of a meek, where-am-I, who-am-I, kinda woman. That was one of the reasons I had a hard time placing her. But, then it develops that she is a human heart in a faery body with powers she did not know she had. This is the story of her learning who she is...and how powerful she is.

The author allows her to fail and struggle as she grows into her new body and powers. By the end...she is most definitely a kick-ass heroine....and I am there wanting to be just like her.

Used for the Monthly Shelf.
Nominate High Fantasy

My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand et al
3 stars

This was totally silly, but fun. Very loosely based on the story of Jane Grey, this book turns Jane, Edward Tudor and Gifford Dudley into lovesick teenagers who can also change into animals.
In terms of being a kick-ass heroine, Jane was definitely a likeable and unique character. But she kept doing the thing I hate in YA-kick-ass heroines; always insisting on going into danger where she could do absolutely nothing to help except create new problems for those around her.
I have added the next in the series to my TBR but it isn't a priority read.

Used for seriously serial
I nominate 2020 releases

Book: Sapphire Flames ~ 09.18 ★★★★
# Tags: 8

Review:
I wasn't sure about the focus of this series turning away from Nevada and on to Catalina. I'm still not convinced because the tone sounded the same. But despite that, I still enjoyed reading it quite a lot. I love the world created in this series, I think it is very interesting. And even though it ended on a bit of cliff-hanger, one where we think we know what's going to happen, I'm sure the author will have a surprise in store for us!

Challenges: Moving Mountain
Nomination: magical realism

Book: Brotherhood in Death ~ 09.27 ★★★★
# Tags: 4

Review:
I enjoyed reading about Eve's interactions with Dennis Mira and seeing her open up even more to others. The villainy was hard to read and definitely could be a trigger for some but I liked how it was all handled. Knowing the series is still going and I've not read ahead in the summaries so I don't really know what's coming, I'd like to see Peabody grow a little more independent and for Eve and Roarke as a married couple evolve a little more too. Guess I'll have to see if my wishes come true.

Challenges: n/a
Nomination: suspense

Book: Once Burned ~ 09.11 ★★★★
# Tags: 12

Review:
I finally finished Cat and Bones this year and feel I could start this series, though I know I didn't actually have to do that. Still feel behind the times! I always loved Vlad, so I'm happy to read about him but I do wish we'd have his point of view too. I love Leila's loyalty and how how she is teaching Vlad compassion, sort of! I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

Challenges: n/a
Nomination: vampire(s)

Graceling by Kristin Cashore★★★★

It took me about 1/3 of the way through the book to really get into it, but once I did I was hooked. The main character is Katsa and she spends a lot of the time with Prince Po. He was quite charming. I have the second book in this series on my TBR.

I nominate 2020

I read The Bear and the Nightingale. I think it would be fair to call Vasya a kick-ass person, but I wouldn't go so far as to call her a kick-ass heroine. For the time and place, she was pretty awesome. For the hero(ine) of her own story, she fell a bit short for me. I'm OK with a reluctant heroine that is forced to react to circumstances beyond her control, but Vasya felt like all reflex and no brain, alternately being fought over by gods and getting slapped around by people, and then having things just handed to her. I don't use the word kickass too freely, though, so I can't blame anyone else for applying it here.

Wires and Nerve, Volume 1 by Marissa Meyer
2 stars

This isn't even close to being as good as the original books (which ranged in "goodness" for me but were mostly 3 or 4 stars with the exception of the second one which I didn't think was as well written although my daughters disagree vehemently). True, I am not a huge fan of the graphic novel, but I didn't care much for the art, although I liked that better than I did in than nonfiction graphic book I read about Johnny Cash. Blame my dad, if you like, for not allowing my sister and I to own comic books because we were good readers, but I do like some better than others.

This happens some months after the end of the Lunar series and features Iko, who has been assigned the task of finding the outlaw wolfmen (boys made very wolf-like by the former evil rulers of Luna--for more on that feel free to read the entire Luna series if you haven't already) left over from the former reign because these particular ones don't believe that the new queen really is better than the old one. In the meantime, Cress, whose immune system is still catching up, gets sick at every place she travels, Winter is still working on helping everyone get implants to make then impervious to glamouring by Lunas, Cinder has her hands full with affairs of state and Scarlet is back in France farming with her true love (yes, I know his name, but just in case you have never read this series I am reducing the number of spoilers to a dull roar). Kai is busy as emperor and preparing for a huge ball.

I am not nominating since I haven't been playing this for a number of months and am not sure what shelves we've done. I plan to be back more in November.

Oh, my! I clearly am behind on a number of things. I was just adding the books from September to our Pick-a-Shelf bookshelf (somewhat late) and noticed that I hadn't posted anything for that month myself. I read Children of Blood and Bone. Finished it on Sept. 8, in fact. My not posting it here yet is an indication how far behind I am on writing review for the books I've read. Oh, well. Eventually I'll catch up to myself.

I did enjoy Children of Blood and Bone, but I didn't love it. I wish so many authors of ya books didn't use the device of switching back and forth among multiple narrators - I get very tired of having to work so hard to keep track of who is talking. I liked the underlying idea of the story better than I liked how it was actually carried out in the book, including the development of the characters.

I've totally forgotten what I used it for. JRI and Seriously Serial, for sure. But that may be all.