WWW Wednesday – September 30, 2020

Image ~ ~ samfsm

Wednesday, at the last day of September. It feels like October already, all Trader Joes pumpkin ravioli (it is that good) and spiced apple cider. And my favorite challenge of them all, WWW Wednesday. The WWW Wednesday meme is currently hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words, and is a great way to do a weekly update on what you’ve been reading and what you have planned.

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To take part, all you have to do is answer the following three questions:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

So, without further ado…

What I am Currently Reading:

So I have decided to finish The Inspector of Strange and Unexplained Crimes for better or for worse. Some of the scenes aren’t egregious, and if I pretend there is basically no women in it, I can get through it enough to write an honest review. Here is my vow to vet my ARCs better next time. As for The City We Became, I am in the dubious and unfortunate position of really disliking a book that is extremely popular. The writing is juvenile, and while the book is wonderfully diverse, the characters all feel like caricatures and tropes wrapped in human flesh. I am trying so hard to finish it. This may be the first singed book I give away, because I am so saddened by my reaction to it. As a New Yorker, it hurts.

What I Recently Finished Reading:

I guess I am okay with reading two books right now that are a bit heavier and that I don’t enjoy, since last week was all light cozies that I had a blast with. I finished Mums and Mayhem and Murder at an Irish Christmas, the third and sixth of their series respectively, and I loved both installations in their series. Mums is set in Scotland so of course I raved about that for a while, and Murder is set in Ireland, which is my OG love. Also, the Irish Village series actually features a woman garda (police woman), so it sets itself apart from other cozies.

What I Think I’ll Read Next:

Next up for me is two pleasure reads and an ARC. Murder is a Must is the second cozy in a new Marty Wingate series where the main character is in charge of a private First Edition Library that holds first editions of Golden Age detective stories, so naturally I loved the first book. I finally received The Left-Handed Booksellers of London in the mail from my preorder and it has taken all of my willpower not to read it. Lastly (not least), I received The Orphan of Cemetery Hill as a Goodreads giveaway and have similarly been avoiding starting it for other obligations, but now I can finally dig in. Spooky season is upon us!

That’s my WWW this week! Please leave a comment and your WWW link so we can chat. Happy reading! 🙂

24 thoughts on “WWW Wednesday – September 30, 2020”

    1. Same, honestly. I have so many of her books on TBR, but this will be my first one I read. Hoping to love her as much as everyone else does. Her books seem perfect for October. Happy reading 🙂

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  2. Enjoy your reading! Sad to hear that you’re not enjoying The City We Became, I’m very curious about that one!
    I’m currently reading I Hope You’re Listening and listening to The Way of Kings!

    (www.evelynreads.com)

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    1. Hope do you like audiobooks? I know so many people read a lot that way, but I have a hard time concentrating. Hope you are loving Way of Kings! Happy reading 🙂

      I don’t want to discourage people from reading City We Became because I definitely think that it has an audience (it has great reviews elsewhere). But, there are a lot of problems with the writing and characterization that I can’t ignore despite it having good bones and representative diversity.

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  4. I feel like a lot of people initially talked about The City We Became and now reviews seem to be a bit more mixed. I’m so torn about picking it up because I don’t even usually read fantasy but I’m just unsure.

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    1. I can’t say I have enjoyed it. It is a very confused book, torn between some faintly science fiction elements and urban fantasy with a dash of “superhero,” but none of those elements stand out the most. The prose is also very uneven, with some points being pretty regular and some points being very unstructured (for example, at one point the bad guy actually says AHHHHH on paper). I dislike not recommending a book that I was so excited about, but if you are on the fence, I would probably say not to. 😦 But if you do pick it up, I hope you enjoy it more than I did!

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  6. I’m sorry to hear about The City We Became! I liked the book overall but I do wish the introduction to the characters would have been spread out a lot more (even if it went into book 2). It felt too quick in my opinion and I feel like that had a big impact on the story. I did really appreciate the diversity in it too though. I’m a Long Islander so I can’t really dictate on what is more ‘New York’, but I feel like a lot of the books I’ve read about New York concentrate on a small subset of people and I think I was getting a bit tired of that before I read this.

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    1. I am also from LI, but I commute into the city every day and went to school in Brooklyn. I don’t know, the pacing feels really off, the characters are so amazingly diverse but then they feel like tropes and very two dimensional. I may have hyped it up in my head because N.K. Jemisin is just such an amazing author that I expected too much. Is there news on when book 2 is out?

      Thank you for stopping by, and happy reading 🙂

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      1. That’s true too – this was my first Jemisin book and after reading it I was hearing similar critiques from people who read The Fifth Season. I haven’t seen any neee on book two yet, but I’m wondering if those things will be ironed out a bit?

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  9. The Left Handed Booksellers Of London is on my TBR as well! I had read Sabriel by Garth Nix many years ago and I really liked it. Can’t wait to read this.

    And I totally get having an unpopular opinion about really popular books. I’ve had happen to me twice in the past couple of weeks and pray no one hates me, haha! 😄

    Happy reading!

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    1. It is always so stressful to be that voice, but at the same time we are all different so *shrugs* just happy to read it all 🙂 Can’t to hear your thoughts on Booksellers. Happy reading, and thanks for stopping by!

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