The Surviving Sky – The Bookish Mutant

Happy Thursday, bibliophiles!

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do a book tag, and now that I’m in a sort of lull post-midterms (for now), I figured I would use that time to have some book tag fun. I found this tag over at Laura @ The Corner of Laura (who always finds the best book tags), and I can’t seem to find the original creator of the tag—if it’s you or if you know them, let me know and I’ll credit them! I try not to be negative *all* the time, but sometimes, you’ve gotta get the book rants off your chest.

Let’s begin, shall we?

🫤THE WASTED POTENTIAL BOOK TAG🫤

A BOOK THAT TRIED BUT FAILED TO TACKLE AN ISSUE

It’s My Life was a complicated book for me—Stacie Ramey almost did a good job of portraying her disabled protagonist, but ultimately, her handling of disabled identity itself rubbed me the wrong way. (It’s one thing for a disabled person to use the label “differently-abled,” but having the word “disabled” almost never mentioned for the whole novel and then instead referred to as “differently-abled” by the abled author was…weird, to say the least). Also, for once, I’d like a book about disability that isn’t centered around the main character getting slurs yelled at her. Not that those stories don’t have a place, but again: it feels more uncomfortable knowing that this was written by an abled author.

2. AN INTRIGUING SERIES THAT DIDN’T PAY OFF

I only got three books into the Invisible Library series before I quit. It’s such a shame—they started out so strong, and for a concept that seems so rich with potential ideas (traveling through alternate realities to find books?? I mean, come on), it felt that Genevieve Cogman was rapidly running out of ideas by book 3. And knowing that there’s eight books in this series doesn’t give me faith in what I’ve missed out on.

3. A GREAT BEGINNING WITH A MEDIOCRE ENDING

The Spear Cuts Through Water started off with so many bold choices that I thought it was going to be fantastic. And then…it just dragged. It just dragged on for so long, and everything that was bold at first just became tired and full of itself. This one was a real disappointment.

4. A LAST-MINUTE TWIST THAT RUINED IT ALL

Without spoiling anything, the twist ending of Katzenjammer really felt like it was in poor taste. This novel was so unique up until that point, and the ending could have been not only more creative, but more sensitively handled as well. Real shame.

5. A GREAT PLOT WITH SOME BORING CHARACTERS

It’s not so much boring characters but frustrating characters in this case; The Surviving Sky had the potential to be incredibly imaginative, but having the focus be on two insufferable characters in a failing marriage was not the right move for this book. The infodumped worldbuilding didn’t help either.

6. A CHARACTER DEATH THAT RUINED A BOOK (Spoilers)

I’m having a ton of trouble coming up with anything for this prompt. I know I’ve read books where this has happened, but I just can’t think of any right now? So I’ll have to leave this one blank…

7. A ROMANCE THAT RUINED A BOOK (Spoilers)

I already despise love triangles, but you know what’s worse than a love triangle? A love triangle where there’s no reason to like either of the romantic interests. Warner and Adam from the Shatter Me series were both so gross to me, and I would’ve been mad at Juliette for ending up with either of them, but I hated Warner even more, so that soured the whole end of Ignite Me for me. Eh.

8. A ROMANCE THAT YOU WANTED TO HAPPEN (Spoilers)

Normally, I love when authors leave a couple that’s set up to be love interests as platonic, but the romance between Ning and Kang in A Venom Dark and Sweet was hinted so much in book 1, and then…nothing ever came of it? It just felt like a very messy way to resolve it, almost like Judy I. Lin just forgot that it was supposed to happen.

9. A SCENE YOU HAVE PETTY BEEF WITH

Every scene in the Hunger Games trilogy with Gale. I will not elaborate.

I TAG ANYONE WHO WANTS TO PARTICIPATE!

Today’s song:

That’s it for this book tag! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Happy Friday, bibliophiles!

I just finished my first week back to school, but after this, chances are I’ll be somewhat radio silent until I can get fully settled into my routine. The only reason that this post is seeing the light of day is that I start working on my wrap-up posts about a week in advance, so here we are.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Summer’s officially over, but the weather sure doesn’t seem to think so. Hopefully I won’t have to endure much more of my (long) walk to class in this 90+ degree heat.

That aside, I’ve had a good August, for the most part. My initial “yay, I’m going back to college!” got partially replaced by “oh god, I’m going back to college” closer to move-in, but I’m feeling better now. (The fact that I’m in a much nicer dorm than I was last year certainly helps. It doesn’t constantly reek of weed in here! Huzzah!) I had the opportunity to soak up the last dregs of summer beforehand, at least. I finished up my summer job at the library, bought a catnip toy for my cat for his sweet 16, completed another trip around the sun, and blew part of my paycheck on books to celebrate said trip around the sun. Worth it.

My blogging’s been a tad slower since I’ve been trying to get everything together before I moved in, but I feel like I’ve still been able to be productive. I’ve enjoyed reviewing all of my books this month and putting together graphics and going off about music. And I got in one book tag that WordPress screwed up and I had to recreate from scratch, but it was fun in the end. Once my schedule figures itself out, I’ll get back on the writing train, but for now, I’m mapping out the best route to my class in That One Building on the other side of campus.

Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, watching Only Murders in the Building (for the love of god, can we just stop pairing Mabel with people who have zero chemistry with her 😭). Good Omens (pain, suffering, even), Heartstopper (Lucy Dacus and Wolf Alice paying in the same episode >>>>>>>), and Taskmaster (“you’ve got no chutzpah”), and reveling in the fact that my new dorm has air conditioning. It’s the (not so) small things.

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 17 books this month! Other than the one stinker in the batch (sorry, The Surviving Sky), it’s been a great reading month in terms of quality and in terms of quantity. Expect some kind of mini-review post for all of the books I bought for my birthday and the books I got as gifts, because they’ve all been fantastic so far.

1 – 1.75 stars: