library
a collection of the books i am currently reading and books i've already read. i read a lot, so i won't be making separate pages for each book, but i will post my most recent reads and reviews here for anyone who is interested. i also want to use this space to log the notes i take on books i want to analyze or just digitally annotate.
here is a link to my Storygraph page, which is where i do the majority of my book logging.
my rating system:
🌕 - i did not like this book. it's kind of a miracle i finished it at all since i'm not shy to DNF when i'm not having a good time. not only did i dislike this book, there were parts that made me genuinely angry/disgusted/annoyed. i definitely have some critiques and negative thoughts to share on this one.
🌕🌕 - i did not enjoy this book overall. there were some parts that were interesting or enjoyable, maybe there were even parts that had me considering changing my tune on the book overall, but in the end it wasn't enough or it didn't come to its full potential.
🌕🌕🌕 - this book was fine. i didn't dislike it or have a bad time reading it, but i wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to anyone unless it had a specific trope or dynamic they were looking for. a forgettable read at the end of the day.
🌕🌕🌕🌕 - this was a good time. i was engaged and enjoying what i was experiencing and there's a good chance i'll continue if it's in a series. will most likely make it into recommendation lists depending on what people are looking for. definite potential for rereads.
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 - incredible. evoked plenty of emotions in me and i will continue to think about it for days and maybe even WEEKS after i've finished. will recommend whenever i have the slightest reason to. probably cried at some point while consuming. will most likely buy a physical copy as soon as i can and will reread without a doubt sometime in the future.
(i use moons instead of stars because it makes it easier and more accessible to do .25/.5/.75 ratings)
my current read(s): Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky |
latest read:
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Genres: Dystopia, Sci-fi, YA
Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌗
I'd like to start by saying that I DO like this book. I don't regret reading it. But I don't really think it was necessary for the story to be written. I saw someone on tiktok say it reads like fanfic/fanservice and honestly? That's really all this book is. There's not a deeper message that hasn't already been touched on in previous books, we're not uncovering any mysteries left by previous books or tying up any loose ends. Collins wasn't SAYING anything with this book when that's been a very prevalent theme in all the previous HG books. She wrote this book just for the Haymitch fans, which is fine, but I wanted more.
I also felt like the writing style was a bit more juvenile in this one? It might just be that this whole story just comes off as "Katniss 0.5 but worse" but everything was more "teenager-ified" than the original trilogy was. Maybe I'm just looking for something to complain about, but it definitely took some of the gravity out of some of the scenes. As did the frequent callbacks and cameos. Like it's a little bit contrived that all these people we've met previously just happen to show up or be mentioned in the book, and it kind of makes it impossible for any new fans to read these books in chronological order because you're going to be missing out on a lot.
Overall the book was just fine. It was hard to connect to anything that was happening because we've seen it all before, more than once, so when some new brutality popped up I was just like "yeah, duh." I guess it was cool that we got to see Haymitch's games but even that had some oomph taken out of it because we already knew what happened to him. This book would've worked better if we left out some details about him in CF and we got to actually uncover the mystery. There was nothing new here; just making Haymitch suffer for 380 pages while the Hunger Games remains horrible in the background.
book notes/analysis/annotations:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Lamb by Lucy Rose,