Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Unpopular Opinions (September Book Wrap-Up)

Well, I am officially in full-on college mode now, which is the excuse I am giving for my only having completely finished two books this month. It is also my excuse for not having written hardly anything since moving into the dorms. I want to pick up the pace in October, and of course November is NaNoWriMo. Until then, my wrap-up for this month is going to be pretty short...but to fill the space I am going to do the Unpopular Opinions Book Tag! Yay!

Writing
September was a really slow month for me in terms of writing. Officially, I don't think I actually wrote anything new. I just typed up what I needed to for the kickoff of "Dude, Worlds Are Gonna Collide" over on Wattpad, which was released on September 24. The initial response has been positive, with 137 reads, 26 votes, and 11 comments for the first two weeks of its existence (I have included the week the teaser was out for these stats). Chapter Three will be out tomorrow!

NaNoWriMo prep season is halfway over! I still haven't read the book I read last year, "Escape to Utopia," but once I finish the two books I am currently reading I will make sure to get that done. I've got to start planning for "Rise of Sarama" this November! I'm super excited to get back into NaNo after having been away for a year. 50k, here I come!

Reading
As I mentioned earlier, I only completely finished two books this month. I am 120 pages away from finishing another, and almost halfway through the final one. Why I thought it would be a good idea to read a 600-pager and a 400-pager at the same time, I have no idea. Anyway:


I am not going to list the 400-pager as a book completed this month. You'll see it as the first on my list for October.

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang was the first book I had to read for my sci-fi class, and it was decent. It wasn't my favorite book in the world, but for a novel about cloning, it kept me interested and I really, really loved the last line. It's one of those books that you have to read to really appreciate. Smek for President was a book that I didn't intend to read all in one day, but I did, and it was so amazing. It was the sequel to The True Meaning of Smekday (the book that HOME was based on). The story of what happened to Tip and J.Lo after the Gorg left was beautiful and touching, and completely perfect in every way. I cannot recommend it enough. I love it so much. I am currently 80% percent through Afterworlds (according to Goodreads) and it is a really great novel. I can relate to Darcy a lot because of her dream to be a successful novelist. It's also interesting to learn about the stuff that comes after your novel has been accepted by a publishing company. All the ins and outs of it and deadlines and whatnot is a wonderful thing for me to know about ahead of time. Thanks, Scott Westerfeld!

Now...

The Unpopular Opinions Book Tag

1) A popular book or series that you didn't like.
  • I cannot stand the Divergent series. I read the first book about a year ago, but I trudged through it and could not stop thinking about how boring it was and how much it reminded me of a Hunger Games fanfiction. I hate all the hype surrounding it. The characters are boring, Four is the most stereotypical male lead of all time, the plot has been done before, the action scenes were dull, etc. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

2) A popular book or series that everyone else seems to hate but you love.
  • I had a really hard time coming up with the answer for this one. I finally settled on The Alchemist, which is a book that was required for us to read when I was a sophomore in high school. Everyone else in my class seemed to hate it for some reason or another, but I liked it a lot. The story was great. I wonder if everyone else hated it because they didn't understand what was going on.

3) A love triangle where the main character ended up with the person you did NOT want them to end up with OR an OTP that you don't like.
  • *Spoilers* Okay. So in the Halflings trilogy, the main character is Nikki and the two boys that she is trying to choose between are Mace and Raven. I really wanted her to be with Raven, but she ended up with Mace instead! I was so mad!

4) A popular book genre that you hardly reach for.
  • Dystopia / apocalyptic seems to be the genre these days, but I can't really get into it. I realized real quick that they are all the same and all end the same way, too. I read The Hunger Games and loved it, but nothing outside of it, really. 

5) A popular or beloved character that you do not like.
  • I hate Nancy Drew. I know she's an older character, but she was popular for her time, and I don't like her at all.

6) A popular author that you can't seem to get into.
  • Everyone really seems to enjoy John Green's books, but I never have the desire to read any. Especially not The Fault in Our Stars. I know that book will make me cry, and I hate books about cancer. Perhaps one day I will give one of John Green's books a shot, but for now, I remain disinclined to investigate his portion of the shelf.

7) A popular book trope that you're tired of seeing.
  • I don't know if this counts as a trope or not, but something I am getting bored of is predictable endings. Perhaps it's because I read a lot of YA, but 90% of the time I can predict how a book is going to end long before it gets there. I always enjoy when a book is able to surprise me.

8) A popular series that you have no interest in reading.
  • Harry Potter. Sorry, Potter fans, but I'm just not inclined to read it, or watch the movies.

9) The saying goes, "The book is always better than the movie," but what movie or TV show adaptation do you prefer more than the book?
  • I actually preferred the movie version of Ender's Game to the novel. Perhaps it's because I didn't read the rest of the series, but Ender's Game felt like it was full of useless scenes, specifically those with his brother and sister back on Earth. The movie focused solely on Ender, was to the point, and left out a lot of the useless stuff from the book. I liked it a lot better, but that's not to say that I didn't enjoy the book as well.

Tada! That's my September wrap-up for you. I'll be back next month with more posts. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed my TMNT-centered series. Booyakasha!

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