I Love Books! (January and February Reading Wrap-Up)

I have no idea why I thought taking three literature classes and a writing course all at the same time was a good idea. On the bright side, it means I get a lot of reading done, as well as having an excuse to get my butt in gear when it comes to writing. I don't have a lot of time before I need to start my next books, so here we go!

Writing
I have not touched the novel I wrote in November, nor have I written anything more for my Wattpad readers. My only focus right now is on a brand new story that I started in January for my YA Fantasy independent study course. The story (yet untitled) focuses on a dwarf-fairy hybrid outcast named Reid and the struggles he faces when two humans - creatures his world has never heard of before - arrive and change everything he has ever known. As it stands right now I have about two chapters written, with a third on its way for this week.

My current stats for "Worlds Collide" are 1,371 reads; 111 votes; and 64 comments.

Reading
Most of the reading I've done throughout January and February has been for my various classes, but somehow I've managed to find time to read for myself as well. The first book on this list was read entirely in January. Everything else is for February.

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Friend or Foe? Adapted by Matthew J. Gilbert
• Eye of Cat by Roger Zelanzy
• Othello by William Shakespeare
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
• Lock and Mori by Heather W. Petty

Eye of Cat was the final book in my science fiction class from last semester that we did not have time to read. I wanted to read it anyway, and now that I have, I really wished we'd discussed it in class. I found it extremely confusing and hard to plow through, and I think hearing my classmates' perspectives on it would have helped me a lot. Believe it or not I had never read Frankenstein before this month, but I really enjoyed it and would certainly declare it a masterpiece. I found it amazing that I was able to read Huck Finn without getting overly bored, despite its lack of real plot and character development. It felt like I was reading a story a ten-year-old had told - hard to believe but impossible to put down. 

I was really, really excited when I found Lock and Mori at the public library earlier this month. I love Sherlock Holmes to death and was intrigued by the idea of his hated enemy Moriarty being a female. I was also interested in the idea of their backstory being completely different because of this aspect. However I struggled to enjoy this book as much as I wanted to because I had my mind set so heavily on the idea that it was Sherlock and Moriarty, which it really wasn't. Perhaps as the series goes on there will be more character and story development, but for this book alone, I found it impossible to believe that Sherlock was Sherlock - to me he was just a very intelligent boy who happened to have the same name as the great detective. Mori was also a character I had a hard time liking, and the story was told from her perspective. Their love story felt forced due to the genre of the novel and came on way too quickly to be believable. However, if there is one thing I have to say for this book, it's that I could not seem to put it down despite its many flaws, and the last line was possibly the greatest last line of a novel I've ever read. I intend to continue reading the rest of this series. (Book 2 comes out in September...WHY?!)

There! I've written a blog post for the first time in forever. But there is no rest for the life of an English student...on to the next book! See you in March, and Happy Leap Year/Day!