Hello, friends, and welcome to my very first post! Since it is nearing the end of 2020 and the start of a new year, I wanted to bring you a post all about excitement and beginnings to kick off this blog: my January TBR, featuring my planned reads for the Among Us readathon by the brilliantly creative Hal over at HD’s Reading Life!
I’ve been absolutely ecstatic for this readathon ever since I heard of it. So much amazing work has been put into it, and since I’ve been playing tons of Among Us recently, I’m super excited to blend two of my current interests together! I’ve even filled out the stinkin’ cute crewmate card from Hal’s page. Usually I use the name Jin or Raven in-game, but I always play pink, so of course I had to be the pink crewmate!
If you haven’t looked at the readathon yet, grab the game code from the official twitter (@readamongus) and then go over to the information page on Hal’s blog! They’ve done a wonderful job putting this together and I’m so excited to take part. Since I’ll be a crewmate, I have a set number of prompts to fulfill, and when I finish them I’ll get double the points I’ve racked up! I’ll be reading more books to try and get extra points for round two [insert eye emojis here], but I wanted to go with a shorter route and not be ambitious for once.
(Well… wait until you see what’s on there.)
Swipe Card: Read a Standalone
The first book on my TBR is The Starless Sea, an Adult Fantasy by Erin Morgenstern! I’m going to be reading this as an e-book from Libby, and I have to complete this common task before I can move on to the rest of my tasks (so it better come in soon or else).
I don’t know much about what this book is about. I try to go into books knowing as little as possible so my imagination and expectations don’t run wild. However, I have mixed feelings about this book anyways! I read The Night Circus earlier this year and felt that it was very okay, so I’ve been hesitant about picking this book up. On the other hand, it’s one of my best friend Sara’s favorite books, so I have to read it… but that doesn’t mean I can’t be nervous about it.
What little I do know about this, however, is that this is a book about books, and I LOVE books about books! I’m really hoping that will tip the scale towards this becoming a book I love instead of another disappointment!
Inspect Sample Part 1: Read a Book with a Plant on the Cover
We’re already diverging from both the TBR I posted on Twitter and my plan to not be ambitious. Well, too late now! For this prompt I’m reading (and god dammit I am FINALLY going to read this book) The Priory of the Orange Tree, an Adult Fantasy by Samantha Shannon. My defense is the tiny little flower thing in the corner, and also, you know, ‘orange tree.’
I have almost owned this book for a year now without reading it. I know that’s not long compared to other books I own that I haven’t read, but this is the only one actively intimidating me. If you haven’t heard of Priory before, it is a standalone fantasy that is 830 pages long, and when it arrived from Amazon I thought they’d put it in a box inside the envelope for extra protection. Nope! She’s just an absolute unit!
I bought it around the time Game of Thrones was ending, as I saw many tweets asking if Priory would be the next HBO fantasy adaptation, which immediately piqued my interest as a long-time Game of Thrones fan. I love vast fantasy with tons of worldbuilding and most importantly tons of dragons, and I think 2021 is finally the time to tackle this beast of a book!
Inspect Sample Part 2: Read a Book with an Animal or a Person on Cover
The Pink Crewmate is all about cover prompts, so good thing covers are often my favorite things about a book! For this prompt, I’m going to be reading the Bibliophiles Book Club pick for the month, The Black Tides of Heaven, an Adult Fantasy novella by Neon Yang, a nonbinary author. The book club’s liveshow will be on January 30th, and I’m super excited for it, as they are my favorite book club (and perhaps I’m biased, because the club is run by four of my favorite people in the world, Sara, Val, RC, and Lelia). They champion diverse novels, especially QPOC reads, and I’ve discovered many new favorites through their club!
(And because I have to finish this before their liveshow, and I can only begin part 2 after I finish part 1, that gives me extra incentive to finish Priory!)
This is the first part of the Tensorate series, which currently has four parts, and is published by Tor. They’re one of my favorite publishers and I’ve liked almost everything I’ve picked up from them, so I have very high expectations for this book! I’ve also heard there is a prominent nonbinary character in the series, and as a nonbinary reader, I’m really looking forward to this aspect of it. Basically, if this book disappoints, no it didn’t.
… Much like everything on my TBR, I don’t know much of anything about this book, other than it has twins, has an amazingly gorgeous cover, and is in a subgenre called ‘silkpunk,’ which is all raising my expectations even MORE. They’re probably somewhere on Mars by now. I’m going to really have to reign myself in before picking this up, because I don’t want my absurdly high expectations to ruin my reading of this beautiful book!
Prime Shields: Read a Book with a Weapon on the Cover
For the final prompt, I’ve selected Fence, Vol. 1, a sports graphic novel by C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad. I’ll be reading this on Hoopla, a really neat library app, and if I like it I’ll be continuing the series this month as well! As soon as I finish all the prompts, I’ll be able to do other prompts for extra points, and since all of the covers have fencing swords on them, I’ll be able to repeat this prompt for the next three volumes.
I picked Fence partially because I wanted to have a graphic novel to balance out the length of Priory, but mostly because I’ve been genuinely interested in it. I used to fence when I was younger, and I’ve always regretted giving it up. And since I’m a huge fan of sports narratives, I can’t wait to start this!
Fence follows a boy named Nicholas Cox trying to prove himself in the world of competitive fencing, but things get hairy when he goes up against his half-brother. That little sentence is all I know about this book and that’s all I need to know. From Haikyuu!! to Miracle to The Foxhole Court, sports stories have a special way of drawing you in and getting you to care deeply about many different people and their drive for this One Thing, and I’m already forseeing myself getting obsessed with this series!
Others
If, by some miracle, I finish all of my prompts for this readathon, I have a few other books I want to get to for some extra points!
The first is Victor LaValle’s Destroyer, the Cardigan Comic Club‘s pick for January. This club is run by my friend RC, and I’ve been excited for this pick ever since it was announced! Since this is a sci-fi, it will work for the clear asteroids prompt, and it is one hell of a sci-fi.
This comic follows Dr. Baker, a Black women, scientist, and descendent of Victor Frankenstein, who decides to resurrect her son after losing him in an encounter with the police. I’m expecting this read to be harrowing and emotional, but I’m still really interested in it. The liveshow is set for January 22nd at 7 pm, and I hope to see you there!
The next reads I hope to get to in January are at least the first two books of the Graceling series, a YA fantasy by Kristin Cashore. So many series got beautiful recovers in 2020, and these ones definitely qualify for the clean O2 filter prompt for picking a book with a beautiful cover. This is also the first series pick for the Finish That Series Book club, also run by my friend RC (someone tell this man to take a break!), which is basically dictating my purchasing choices for the next year.
The Graceling series follows a girl named Katsa, who has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight years old. This power is exploited by her uncle, the King, and she’s unwillingly become his enforcer. I’m looking forward to delving into Katsa’s character and the ramifications this ability has had for her. I’m also looking forward to when this edition of the cover is finally in stock, so I can start reading it!
The final book I want to get to is The Assassin’s Blade, a bind-up of YA Fantasy novellas by Sarah J. Maas. These are the prequels to the wildly popular Throne of Glass series, which my friends have been goading me to read ever since I was tricked into owning the first book, Throne of Glass. (A story for another time.) However, since many of them said I had to read The Assassin’s Blade first, I was able to put it off…
But guess what I got for Christmas, of course.
Now that I’m no longer able to run away from this, I’m going to be reading this series staring in the new year. At least I’ll get 100 points from repeating the prime shields prompt out of it…
If you’ve made it to the very end of my first post on this blog, I want to give you a heartfelt thank you for checking me out, and I hope you stick around for more posts. I’m really looking forward to the content I have planned, and I’m excited to be able to continue contributing to the wonderful bookternet in a way that works with my recovery. Feel free to follow my blog and/or check out my other media!
Hope you’re having an amazing day, and I hope you have an amazing day tomorrow! See you in the next one. Bye, y’all!
Ravens and Pages 