First month of 2021 was a wonderful month for reading. I finished four books and mostly enjoyed them. I didn’t rate any book 5 stars, which was kind of a letdown, I would love to start the year with a bang but fingers crossed for February! Let’s wrap things up.
The Naturalist: Wanted to ease into reading with a thriller. The Naturalist follows a computational biologist, Theo Cray, who stumbles into an investigation and refuses to leave things be.
The first 60% of the book, I was really enjoying it and read it with almost nothing else in between.
In fact, I even said to myself, “I think the first book of the year will be 5 stars, what a good start.” And then things changed. The protagonist who I have been reading fondly for that long, became intolerable. Story lost its believability as Theo pushed his luck more and more. Such a Mary Sue… In the end it was a 3,5 star for me which I rounded to 3 stars.
The Shadow Of The Wind: Oh, how I wanted to love this book… The premise is right up to my alley. Pleasant setting to explore, a crime to solve, spending time among books… It actually started great, and I adored it for maybe 20% of the book. Then I was bored out of my mind. I did not care about anything! A book that started with many things I adored turned into a dementor sucking out my soul with so many tropes I dislike. After 60% it picked up again, but the changed format got old quickly. It almost pushed me into a reading slump! Blasphemy! Then I picked up The Ask And The Answer.
The Ask And The Answer: The Knife of Never Letting Go was one of my favorite books of 2020. Non-stop action. Loved it. And it ended with an incredible cliffhanger, so I had to keep reading the series. Its predecessor being one of my favorites last year and my current need to be saved from the dark holes of The Shadow of The Wind, I flew through its pages. Although it’s not as fast-paced as the first one, I ended up giving it 4 stars and I can’t wait to read the last installment.
We Are Legion; We Are Bob: Damn, this was so funny. Especially the first half. I listened to it as an audiobook and it made me laugh out loud (a few times) while commuting. While I was alone! No regrets tho, enjoyed every bit. Dennis E. Taylor’s writing is so insightful and his characters are so fun to follow (most of them, anyway. Gets crowded at some point) it was impossible to stop. I have to mention Ray Porter’s narration as well. Hats off to you, sir, it must be a daunting task to bring all those characters to life and turn them into unique characters.
So, January was not a month I could read as much as I wanted, but I think that the next months could be much more productive if I dnf the books that I don’t enjoy and stop giving them more time than they deserve and leave the books I don’t enjoy. So many books, so little time…
Peek-A-Book 