I'll talk about last week first. It was really good! I finished three books:

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

The Girl in the Tower, by Katherine Arden (I can't wait for the third one, man, but it'll still be several months!)

The Changeling, by Victor Lavalle

So that's good!

This week:

Planetfall, by Emma Newman and After Atlas, by Emma Newman

City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Benett (I know I'm late, the hype is over)

And if I can top my three from last week, I'll add a fourth:

The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey. Phew!

Just finished: An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon Highly recommended!

Next up: I want a break from sci-fi, so I'm trying to decide between reading Turtles All The Way Down, by John Green, Columbine, by Dave Cullen, and The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden.

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

I haven't commented in three weeks so here is what I finished since my last comment:

• Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Interesting story and I was surprised to read the sentence "he grabbed my pussy."
• The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden - This was my second time reading it to recap before moving onto the second book. I still really like it and I would have loved this series when I was a teenager.
• The Girl in the Tower, by Katherine Arden - My favorite of the three.
• The Winter of the Witch, by Katherine Arden - At this point I was tired of reading variations of the phrase "May God be with you" (or whatever). A nice conclusion. I hope Arden revisits the trilogy in the future with Vasya's niece.

Started:

• Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut

Finished: Full Tilt, by Neal Shusterman

It was okay, nothing special compared to the Scythe series and Unwind series I fell in love with by this author.

Started: The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

I am loving this book! It took a couple chapters to figure it out and get into it, now I'm hooked. Thankfully there are 2 more to the series!

This week I finished The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. I really liked the book. At first I found the pacing a bit slow, but once I kept on reading I was hooked and I finished the last half of the book in a day! This week I started reading The Great Hunt, by Robert Jordan. I finished the first book about a year ago and figured it was about time I continued reading the series because I really liked the first book!

Finished Time, by Stephen Baxter, which is sciency sci-fi that I couldn't really understand but then neither did most of the characters, so it worked out. Also working on Penguin's Complete Sherlock Holmes and technically Gossip from the Forest, by Sarah Maitland (which is a cool semi-nonfiction book about different forests in Britain, how forests are integrated into European fairytales, and then some of the fairytales themselves).

I think I'm going to start Perfume, by Patrick Suskind and The Bear and The Nightingale, by Katherine Arden for something a little shorter / lighter, and then pick up on the other two afterwards as I don't have them on me this week.

I'm currently reading The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. It's a cool book, not what I'd usually read, but that explains why it's taking me so long to get through it! Anyway, two days 40%, hope to have some 60% tonight.

Dawn Study, by Maria V. Snyder

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

Mort, by Terry Pratchett

I finished The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden Really enjoyed it! Russian mythology is so interesting and different from the standard Greek/Roman stuff you always hear about and the story itself was engaging and paced well.

Ugh, I haven't read anything in about two months, and I'm so frustrated by it. Everything I started I'd abandon because it just failed to hook me. Finally, I got The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden from the library--I'd been on hold for it for at least six months. And I devoured it like a starving thing. Finished it yesterday and I've felt all out of sorts and tetherless, like I'm in mourning for it or something. I should have read it more slowly. Don't know what to try reading next. Hopefully it won't go another two months before something else captures my fancy.

I started, and have almost finished, The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. It's historical fantasy, with a great fairy tale feel to it. After this... I'm not sure really. It'll be one of the books I've lined up for the /r/Fantasy book bingo, but which one specifically I'll decide based on my mood.

This week I finished reading Assassin's Apprentice, by Robin Hobb. I really liked the book, however some parts I found hard to read because it felt kind of depressing to me. This week I started reading The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. I'm really enjoying the book so far, but I hope that the pacing will pick up a bit.

Usual disclaimer that I'm a teen librarian and mostly read YA and advance reader copies (ARCs).

Finished Last Week:

A Heart So Fierce and Broken, by Brigid Kemmerer - ARC

3.5 - I liked it, but not as much as the first (A Curse So Dark & Lonely). It takes a wildly different turn, and I felt like the middle was kind of boring? I put it down for a few days and wasn't super compelled to pick it back up.

There Will Come a Darkness, by Katy Rose Pool - ARC

3.5 - I think this book is super over-hyped in the YA community, but I think the series and the author has a lot of potential. The first 250-300 pages were really boring, and this whole thing felt like an "Avengers, assemble!" type book so the gang of characters can do important and interesting things together in the next book.

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden - 4/5

I was pretty bored for the first 20%, but I loved the rest of it. I tried to do this on audio, and I think this book is much better read than listened to. My enjoyment increased exponentially once I switched over to my kindle. Lots of fairy tale elements layered with historical fiction (takes place in 1300s Russia... I now know more about traditional Russian stoves than I ever thought I would) and some really great characters. I jumped immediately into the sequel.

Currently Reading:

The Girl in the Tower, by Katherine Arden

The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern - ARC

This book makes me super emotional and I haven't been in the headspace to pick it back up, but what I've read is fabulous.

Still working on The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden but I am very excited to start Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi as soon as possible!

Finished: The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. I liked it, although the ending felt a bit rushed.

Started: Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft.

I finished up The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. It was enjoyable, but the not the atmospheric fairytale it was hyped as.

Now reading A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools, by Rachel Devlin, for some entirely different subject matter.

Daniel Stein, Interpreter, by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

A heartbreaking novel that gradually moves from the horrors of holocaust to the current conflict of religion in Israel. We are used to viewing holocaust as a tragedy of the past that we are never going to let happen again, but this book got me wondering if our current situation is more dire than we'd like to think. At the same time the protagonist of this book gave me a warm feeling that as long as we have such devote and selfless people among us we still have hope.

The book is written in the form of letters, diary entries and interviews which makes it concise and easy to read in a natural way. I enjoyed it a lot, but after having already read several WW2 related books this year I feel it is time to move to some lighter reading.

The Bear And The Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

Started this one last night. So far I like the style.

Hoping to finish The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden this week!

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

I'm almost half-way through. Love it so far. I saw it in a thread about books to read in the winter. Glad I picked it up.

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

I just finished The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. Fabulous.