Required Reading: April

Wow, look at where March went. My favorite month always ends too soon.

However, that means it’s time for another Required Reading post. :) Once again, here are the rules (one day I will make a separate page for this):

  • The books should be read within the specified month
  • These books should be in my TBR and not yet to be acquired
  • These books cannot be used for any other reading challenges I am participating in.

But first, how did I do for March?

Despite my busy-ness for March (you would not believe how much we raaaaageeeed! at work the past month), I was able to do a bit better for this mini-challenge. I think I was more than determined to get through all the books? That, and I find that I had a lot of waiting time during the past month, especially when you had to sit for six hours straight in the salon chair for a hair rebond treatment). Here are the books I finished and reviewed:

  • The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea M. Campbell – such a fun read. :) I love Damien.
  • Storm Front by Jim Butcher – another book with such a fun hero voice. Finished this one real quick while waiting for my hair to dry before my birthday party. :D
  • Being Jamie Baker by Kelly Oram – not exactly what I expected, but still enjoyable.

I still didn’t get to finish all four books for March, but I’m halfway through the last book (A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly) now and that’s so much better than how I did last February. :)

I think my problem with the books I pick for this challenge is I always pick books in print. I can usually juggle reading two books at a time if one of them is an ebook. However, 3 out of 4 books I chose are in print, and I find it hard to read two print books at the same time. That, and March had two releases I was really excited about, books that made me drop everything else I was reading just so I can read them. But still, it’s a pretty good month, IMHO.

Now for my Required Reading for April!

Required Reading: AprilThe month of April usually means two things for me: the start of summer and Holy Week. Last year’s Holy Week barely touched April, but this year, Holy Week is right smack in the middle of the month. I usually go offline during that week and pick a slightly difficult book to read because not being online means I have more time to tackle a hard-to-read book.

I would pick summery books this month, but Holy Week has more bearing for me than that, so this month’s Required Reading theme is all about faith.

This is a pretty varied selection of books. Ted Dekker is usually a pretty fast (although far from light) read. I was browsing through The Screwtape Letters and it’s a short book, but knowing Lewis, it’s not going to be an easy read, either. Losing Faith is YA Contemporary, which should be a welcome break, and I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while now. The hardest, I think, would be Mother Teresa’s book. It’s my first non-fiction for a while, and I have a feeling I will cry with this book. I think I’ll reserve this one for Holy Week, when I’m offline.

I’m actually quite excited to tackle these books. :) I’m sure it won’t be easy, but if there was anything I learned about my faith in the past years, I know it’s been anything but. :)

What about you? Any specific books you’ve lined up for this month?

Storm Front

Storm Front (Dreden Files #1) by Jim ButcherStorm Front by Jim Butcher
Dresden Files # 1
Publisher: ROC Fantasy, Penguin Group
Number of pages:  322
My copy: paperback, bought from Fully Booked

Harry Dresden–Wizard
Lost items found. Paranormal investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties, or Other Entertainment.

Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he’s the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the “everyday” world is actually full of strange and magical things–and most of them don’t play too well with humans. That’s where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a–well, whatever.

There’s just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry’s seeing dollar signs. But where there’s magic, there’s a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry’s name. And that’s when things start to get… interesting.

Magic. It can get a guy killed.

* * *

Harry Dresden is a wizard for hire, and you’d think that people would start to take him seriously with all the weird things happening. But no. He gets more prank calls than jobs, and he needs money to pay the bills, fast. It was just timely that he got called to the Chicago Police Department to help with a gruesome double murder case that reeks of black magic, and a woman comes to him to ask his help to find her missing husband. As Harry works on the cases, he encounters the city mafia, bribes a fairy to give information, battles an acid-spitting demon and run around with zero sleep, all the while rushing to catch the culprit before someone else — including him — gets killed.

You know, all in a day’s work.

Storm Front is one of those books that I would never have noticed or ever picked up, if not for some bookish friends who featured it on their blogs or talked about them because it was their favorite series. I hardly peruse the science fiction/adult fantasy shelves in the bookstores because frankly, the covers intimidate me and I wasn’t one to do an impulse buy on a genre that I still don’t know well. So I really wouldn’t have discovered Jim Butcher if it weren’t for these friends who posted about him online (and they say book blogs don’t help book sales — huh?). It took me a while before I finally found a copy of the first book in Fully Booked, but when I finally did, I used it as a bribe so I can reach a specific word count in my NaNoWriMo 2010 novel. It worked, but obviously, it took me a while to finally get to it.

Storm Front is fun. Most of the fun comes from Harry Dresden himself. Jadedness and grumpiness aside, Harry’s sarcastic quips were laugh out loud funny, and I found myself chuckling at his lines in the book. Most of Harry’s bluffs were really just that — bluffs. This self-preservation act makes him seem like a total jerk sometimes, but in truth, he was an old-fashioned guy who just wants to do the right thing. I think I liked him the moment he said this:

I enjoy treating a woman like a lady, opening doors for her, paying for shared meals, giving flowers – all that sort of thing. (p.12)

I’m an old-fashioned girl, what can I say.

The story is very straightforward murder mystery. While it wasn’t absolutely obvious from the start who did it and why they did it, I eventually figured it out, sometimes even a step ahead of Harry. Not that that is bad — I liked that it wasn’t hard to put things together and it was more exciting to see everything unfold when you know you’ve figured out whodunnit. I liked how everything unfolded in Storm Front, big bugs and crazy drugs and all. It’s not really groundbreaking as far as I’m concerned, but it’s fun and fun reading is always good. :)

I really enjoyed reading Storm Front.  I’m not sure if I am willing to invest on the next books yet (since there are 10 other books, and there’s no sign of it ending anytime soon), but I know I can always borrow if I feel like continuing Harry Dresden’s adventures. ;) Besides, I want to know what happens to Dresden and his female cop friend Murphy. Hee. :P So if you’re in the mood for some fun murder mystery with a dash of fantasy (or if you think some of the popular urban fantasy books — ex. Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews — seem a little intimidating), go pick up the Dresden Files.

And speaking of other urban fantasy novels…Harry Dresden is often likened as the male Kate Daniels, and we all know how much I love that character. It may be too early to say for me since I’ve only read the first book, but I don’t see much resemblance yet, as far as being awesomely kick-ass is concerned. I am curious to how they’d fare if they get into a crossover, though. ;) Hm, I wonder.

Rating: [rating=4]

Other reviews:
A Dribble of Ink
Walk Into Mordor
That’s What She Read (audiobook review)

Required Reading: March

Hello March! :) March is my favorite month of the year — can you guess why?

I started Required Reading last February in an attempt to tackle my Mt. TBR into (semi) submission. This is a small reading challenge were I pick four books as priority books to be read within the month. They should follow some sort of theme if I can find one, but there could also be no reason for that. The only rules for this mini-challenge are:

  • The books should be read within the specified month
  • These books should be in my TBR and not yet to be acquired
  • These books cannot be used for any other reading challenges I am participating in.

So how did I do last February?

The truth? Some kind of miserable. I may have had encountered some sort of reading slump right after I finished reading Emma and my brain refused to read at its normal speed. Out of the four books I listed last month, I only finished two on time:

  • Delirium by Lauren Oliver
  • Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly (review to be posted later this week)

I’m still reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis and there’s no hope for me starting Something Borrowed yet. So…in terms of quantity, I kind of passed, but it was such slow reading that it nearly drove me out of my mind. This makes me wonder if setting specific required books to read is more detrimental than just reading whatever comes to mind first.

Ah well. But I’m not one to back out from a challenge I set for myself, and I still want to conquer my Mt. TBR somewhat. So even if February’s challenge results weren’t really that good (hey, February was a short month!), I’m still doing this mini challenge.

Yeah, I can be a bit masochistic sometimes. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever read Something Borrowed anyway — the movie is coming soon, and what better time to read the book than before watching the movie, right?

But I digress. It’s a new month, so it’s time to move on! It’s time for Required Reading for March!

Required Reading: March

Truth be told, I am not entirely sure what theme I’m going for this month. The ones on my list don’t really have a central theme to it, except that two books I got there are for free (one won and one gift) and the two others I got for myself as rewards. I was thinking of making the theme about “heroes”, but I’m not sure if one book fit that theme. So…let’s go back to the gift theme instead. This is my birth month, after all. :)

thanks, weheartit

And there you go. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make the challenge this month. Let’s see if my birth month will be favorable for my required reading. Maybe I should give myself a reward if I read all four…like disney jewelry perhaps? …Nah.

So, how about you? Any books you want to bump up your TBR this month? Books you must read, no matter what? Do share! :)

In My Mailbox (10): Hodge-Podge

It’s been a while since I did an In My Mailbox post, and I’ve been meaning to do one for the past weeks but life has been a little bit hectic lately. So I apologize. Like I mentioned in one of my last posts, we moved to an apartment down the street because our house is being renovated. Moving is a pain when you have so many books, and I realized as I was packing that I do have a lot of books. More than I thought I owned!

This next picture is rather depressing, but I promised my books they’d have a better home once the house is finished by early next year (my parents promised me a bigger shelf in my room). I am planning to let go of some of my books though, but I’ll sort them out soon, probably after NaNoWriMo.

So, my books. In 9 huge plastic bags:

I’m pretty sure my favorite ones won’t be dented in those plastics.

Anyway, so the moving thing kind of stopped me from acquiring books since I really have no place to put it. But…does that stop me? Of course not. Especially when there are ebooks to get and read! And I’m using books as a reward for me to get to certain word counts in NaNoWriMo!

But now you also know why my word count is way behind. Shiny books = procrastination. :P

Anyway, here are the books I got for the past few weeks for today’s In My Mailbox post! In My Mailbox is a weekly book meme hosted by Kristi from The Story Siren, where bloggers post about what books received that week, be it via  mailbox, library or store.

I guess I should start with the books in picture, first. :)

  1. Storm Front by Jim Butcher (Fully Booked). I gave in to curiosity because I know a lot of people like this and recommend this. The only reason I’m hesitant to jump in this series is because it has 11 books — too much investment, IMHO. But let’s see. Got this as a reward for myself in reaching 12,000 words last week. :P
  2. The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (Libreria). I’ve been eying Robin McKinley books in Fully Booked ever since I’ve heard praises about her from Chachic, so I was really planning to buy Sunshine first (the sparkly vampire book LOL). But I never got around to it, then Chachic reviewed her latest book, Pegasus, and she said that she recommends reading other McKinleys first before reading that, especially Beauty and The Blue Sword. Just my luck, I got to visit Libreria earlier with some Filipino Book Bloggers (more detailed accounts of that in Jason‘s and Blooey‘s blogs), there was a copy of The Blue Sword. :) I call that fate. :P
  3. Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly (Fully Booked). This one is an impulse buy, really. I don’t know why I got it, except I know it’s really a reprint of a YA book published in 1942. I guess I was feeling the need to read some contemporary books, and this one just jumped out at me. I know Chris from Ficsation liked this one, so I thought it was worth a try. :)
  4. Skin by Ted Dekker (Book Sale). I’ve been wanting to buy more Dekker books, but some of them are just too expensive. I saw the hardcover of Skin in Booksale, and well…I didn’t let it go. :)

Not in picture:

  • The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell (Book Depository). My first Book Depository order is a zombie book. Not surprising, of course. I’ve been looking for this book for ages but I can’t find it here, so I got it online. And I think I love Book Depository already, especially for hard to find books. :) There’s a more detailed post on how to order in Book Depository in Ariel’s blog if you’re curious.

Ebooks (no more background stories for this one, since I’m a bit tired of writing…plus I don’t think I should explain why I got free ebooks, right? :P):

  • Awaken by Kate Kacvinsky (NetGalley)
  • Cryer’s Cross by Lisa McMann (Simon and Schuster Galley Grab)
  • The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell (NetGalley)
  • Savannah Grey by Cliff McNish (NetGalley)
  • Deceit by Brandilyn Collins (Amazon)

Pretty hefty mailbox. Of course, I have no idea when I’ll be able to read this, but I think that’s a given already. Mt. TBR, hello!

So, what’s in your mailbox this week? :)