Summer is over and school is back and where has the time gone? Since August wasn't the oppressive heat of June and July in this part, I'm a little sad for summer to end and to move into cold weather. Of course, we've been spending the month of August battling bamboo. The bamboo is nothing new at this place, but we have mostly just focused efforts on getting rid of the stuff above ground. But those rhizomes are where the real problem lies and all of those shoots are child's play (unless they've matured at which point they are the hardest material in existence, I believe). All that is to say sections of my yard are destroyed, and I think we've hardly made a dent in what is hiding under there. Every time we think NOW we have found the root leading to all this growth, surprise, there are 3 other roots below it. But we carry on and I figure it's good exercise.
I managed a lot of reading this month. In part because at least 3 books are ones I started last month but also because I am fully sucked into the Dungeon Crawler Carl books and am finding myself stealing a few min here and there to read (report loading at work? Guess I can read a page while I wait!). Honestly, I'd probably be further along in the series except I'm getting the books through the library and there are holds for everything so it's basically forcing me to slow down a bit.
With that, why don't we get into these books
Number of books read
8
Yesteryear by Carol Claire Burke
Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune
So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman
The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
Yesteryear by Carol Claire Burke
I actually started this back in June, but once we went on our vacation in July, I found I didn't really have my usual audiobook time. Then, since it was a library copy, it was returned and I had to get back on the waitlist. But it came and I was able to finish the last quarter this month. Luckily I remembered most of what had already happened and found it was easy to jump back in. Natalie, a trad wife influencer, wakes up one day to find herself actually living the life of a homesteader (no electricity, no heat, no indoor toilet, trapping their own meat, etc.). The story then goes back and forth between Natalie trying to make sense of what her life is now (and who are these children who keep calling her "mama") and her life before with the modern amenities and grand ambitions. Natalie is an awful person but entertaining to follow. I wanted to see what lengths she would go to for her ambitions, what she was seemingly raised to want and what she turned that into for herself. I skimmed through reviews and I feel like an interesting thing is several of these, if it weren't for plot details, I'd think we'd read different books. "Was this supposed to be funny?" I don't actually think so? I think there has been a lot about what this book is, that you can see lots of different expectations not being met, though when I look back I'm not entirely sure where those expectations came from. Not my fav read of the year, but I enjoyed it enough that when it came time to pick it up again a month later, I was ready.
Rating: 3.3 stars
Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
Book 2 in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and Carl has made it past the training floors. There's always a worry with a series that the second book can't live up to the first. That was not an issue here. Where the first book was a lot of learning the rules of the world, and of the LitRPG genre overall (assigning stat points, collecting items, inventory, leveling up), as well as just lots of mob fights, there is more of a story, more to do beyond just "fight this mob, gain points, repeat" that a lot of the first book dealt with. There is also a change in tone that isn't immediately evident but it felt like things were less graphic (less gross details) and there was less tonal whiplash I sometimes felt in the first. All positive changes as Carl and Princess Donut find themselves on the third floor in an NPC village and now they have to deal with a killer circus and figure out where these bodies falling from the sky are coming from. At least they now have a manager, Mordecai. These books are addictive. Are they amazing literature? No. Deeping developed rich characters? Ehhh. Super fun and still make me tear up once or twice? YUP. Did I read 2 more of them this month? You bet!
Rating: 4 stars
The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune
This is the third Klune book I've read and my experience has mostly been loved it but after some time I realize I'm forgetting a lot of details (The House In The Cerulean Sea), not super loving it but finding over time pieces of it have stuck with me more than I thought (Under the Whispering Door) and now this one, which left me with a lot of "Wait, what is happening?". Admittedly, I started it thinking this was the sequel to Cerulean Sea and listen, that is on me. But once I did get my bearings, I had some trouble connecting with the book. Nate has been estranged from his family for some time when he learns his parents have died and he lost his job. He goes out to their remote cabin in the Oregon forest to grieve and decide what's his next move. Except there are people in the cabin. A burly guy with a gun named Alex and an odd little girl named Artemis Darth Vader. There's something special about this girl, government officials seem to be after them and Nate has to decide what direction does he want his life to take. This is more of a thriller than his other books (of those I've read, anyway) but a lot of this didn't work for me. I never connected with the characters and the random explicit sex scene sort of came out of no where. This one didn't really work for me, though if you are generally a fan of Klune, it might be worth checking out.
Rating: 3 stars
So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder
You know before when I said Natalie in Yesteryear is an awful but entertaining person? Most of the characters in this novel didn't get the memo that you can be unlikable but you can't be boring because often they were both. We follow a group of friends as they meet up every few years at a party (NYE part right after college in NYC, a friend's wedding in Mexico, a Halloween party in the suburbs, etc.) and we see where they are at through their interactions now and a series of flashbacks. A line in the summary of the novel says "time has a way of breaking even the strongest bonds and testing what we thought we knew," except I don't know that I ever saw these strong bonds. This is a group of friends that don't seem to particularly like each other very much and other than "went to college together" I'm not sure why they still hang out. They are a mass of insecurities who are constantly mean to each other (sometimes to their faces, mostly behind their backs). I love a story with multiple narrators but I feel like this may have benefitted from sticking to just a couple instead of such a big group (all with similar names, what do you mean there's a Mia and a Nina, a Richie and a Mitch) and because I never felt those "strong bonds" in the first place, I found it hard to care too much as they were tested. In general I thought it was well written but a narrower focus with more chance to let the characters in the character-driven story to grow might have made it more for me.
Rating: 3 stars
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman
Another Dungeon Crawler Carl book? I'm telling you, these are hard to put down. Spoiler, Carl and Princess Donut make it down to the 4th floor and things are getting more difficult. But they have a new teammate, Katia a Doppleganger joining them. They're now stuck in a train station (or a series of train stations) and in addition to fighting their way through mobs and leveling up and all of that jazz they've been through, now they have to untangle The Iron Tangle. TBH, the structure of this floor was confusing and had I tried to follow it closely and figure it out, I think I would have gotten frustrated. Instead, as with many of the RPG elements that I don't super care about, I let it wash over me and just enjoyed the fun. Because there's not only the intricacies of this train level they're now dealing with, but all of the outside influences from the Syndicate and the Borant that are running the crawl, the AI, the viewership and everything outside the dungeon. Does all of this sound like gibberish nonsense? I know and I'm sorry. All I can say is it is FUN gibberish nonsense.
Rating: 4 stars
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
After Sorcerer's Stone, we moved onto the next book. He already knows the story and is a big fan of the giant snake. (Not it trying to kill people, just the idea of a giant snake) so he did like that. He was frustrated with Dobby and I think overall, started to get bored with the books. We finished this but decided we're switching over to rereading Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid for now.
Rating: 3.5 stars
The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman
I know. I KNOW! Another Dungeon Crawler Carl. I told you, they are addictive and they're quick reads, even as the page counts continue to climb up. Again, spoiler, Carl, Princess Donut and Katia make it down to the 5th floor. Carl and team have gotten pretty good at the game thus far, but now they're going to have to rely on other crawlers as they try to take the 4 castles and get out of the bubble. Things are getting crazier, which is itself a skill considering how nuts all of the previous books have been. And there is a bit more to the world outside the dungeon, the machinations of the Syndicate and the various factions controlling the game, with Carl trying to stay alive as well as do what is right for those trapped in this game. Parts of this could be harder to follow, which is saying something after The Iron Tangle in the last book but I still found myself reading late into the night thinking "one more page, just one more page". Onto the next (as soon as the library hold comes in).
Rating: 4 stars
Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
Sheep solving mysteries. George, shepherd to a flock of sheep, has been found dead in his field with a spade sticking through his chest. The people in the small Irish village don't seem to know exactly what happened but the sheep decide they need to figure it out. He was their shepherd after all. And so this flock use what they know and what they can understand about humans to try to figure out who could have killed George. It's a cute book that is also darker than I would have thought. The mystery itself is a bit hard to follow, in part because everything is being interpreted through the sheep and what they know about people. And in part because I was listening and I will be honest, I found myself drifting from time-to-time and having to rewind. It also turns out I'm terrible listening to names that are similar (see some of my confusion in So Old, So Young) so some of the sheep being named Miss Maple, Maude, and Mopple took some time for me to sort out which sheep is which. But in the end I did keep everyone straight and seeing the world through these very different eyes
Rating: 3.75 stars
Total pages read
3,511
Fiction
100%
Female authors
38%
US authors
75%
BIPOC authors
0%
Format
audiobook: 50%
ebook: 50%
Where'd I get the book
library: 100%
Decades published
1990s: 13%
2000s: 13%
2010s: 13%
2020s: 63%
Resolution reads
25%
Chamber of Secrets is a UK author and published pre 2000
Three Bags Full by a German author and it's a translation.
