Tag: Julianna Scott

Review – The Holders

Posted April 17, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Holders by Julianna ScottThe Holders, Julianna Scott

I love the ideas behind a lot of Strange Chemistry books, but when I get round to reading them, it ends up feeling like there’s something missing. Maybe it’s just that while I enjoy some YA, I tend to be picky, and maybe more critical of it. On the other hand, I do love other Strange Chemistry books fairly uncritically, so I don’t know. I mean, on the surface this is right up my alley: female protagonist, Irish setting, comparisons to the basic ideas behind X-Men, family bonds and conflicts… But somehow I never really got hooked.

There are some really great reviews out there for this book, and I’m somewhat inclined to write off my reaction to crankiness or bad timing, and maybe put it aside for later. Given the enormous length of my reading list, and how bad my current ratio is on Netgalley, I can’t justify reading the second book when I didn’t really enjoy this one. It’s not even that there was anything particularly bad about it — I’m not a fan of the destined love type trope, and I didn’t get super invested in the characters, but this isn’t a review to say this book is bad. Maybe ultimately just “not for me”.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted December 19, 2013 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

What did you recently finish reading?
I read quite a bit today, Chuck Wendig’s Irregular Creatures and James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. Reviews for both of those are coming up on the blog (though you can see them on Goodreads/Librarything already, in the unlikely event that you’re desperate). Before that it was Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s Signal to Noise, from Netgalley.

What are you currently reading?
Actively, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley and The Man from Primrose Lane, by James Renner. Oh, and Chris Wooding’s Retribution Falls, which is reminding me very much of Firefly right now. On the backlog, many books from this list and books mentioned here before that didn’t make it onto that list because I’m a scatterbrain. The Alan Bradley book seems to be serendipitously being read at exactly the right time of year — it’s Christmas in Bishop’s Lacey and Flavia de Luce has a plan to catch Santa — and The Man from Primrose Lane got my attention when going through library books I should return, last night…

(I should talk someday about my problem with library books. Suffice it to say, I went to Ikea, bought and assembled a whole bookcase almost solely for library books, although one shelf does hold my games.)

What do you think you’ll read next?
I’m probably going to break off from the aforementioned backlog to read The Dark is Rising, since it’s exactly the right time of year for it and there’s a readathon going on via Twitter to celebrate the 40th anniversary. I might even start that this evening. Other than that, I want to read more of Alan Bradley’s books (they are on the list), and I’m hoping to finish Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City, Rosie Best’s Skulk and Julianna Scott’s The Holders in relatively short order.

Books acquired:
It’s Christmas, so I have duly been acquiring. Well, that and the Kindle Daily Deal… I forget exactly what I’ve got there altogether, but basically some fantasy/SF stuff that looked interesting. For Christmas so far, I got Jaine Fenn’s Principles of Angels and Consorts of Heaven from my friend Lo, and from my Librarything Secret Santa I got Chris Wooding’s Retribution Falls and Jack McDevitt’s The Engines of God, which seem likely to prove very good picks.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted December 5, 2013 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

What did you recently finish reading?
Parnassus on Wheels (Christopher Morley). I’ll be posting the review on the blog once I’ve finished reading the sequel, The Haunted Bookshop, but I really enjoyed it. It’s available on Project Gutenberg — I do recommend it if you love books and talking about books or heroines who are nearly forty and describe themselves as fat and have adventures and fall in love. Or preferably both.

What are you currently reading?
Other than The Haunted Bookshop, there’s also The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairytales (Maria Tatar), which is a very readable study of the Grimms’ work, the various editorial decisions they made and why, etc. I haven’t finished reading it yet, obviously, but I think I’d recommend it, for all that it’s from 1987.

There’s also Alphabet of Thorn (Patricia A. McKillip), which is gorgeous and has me enthralled, and Hangwire (Adam Christopher), which I received as an ARC. I’m enjoying the writing, but am a little bit confused right now with the plot. Must get round to reading my other Adam Christopher books, anyway.

What do you think you’ll read next?
The Iron Wolves (Andy Remic) is pretty high on my list, plus a bunch of Chuck Wendig’s books. And because of my partner, it’s totally her fault, The Devil Wears Prada (Lauren Weisberger). And I do want to finish reading the Ultimate Spider-man comics. But I think you know by now that I am terrible at reading what I think I’m going to read.

Books acquired:
I don’t think I’ve bought anything this week. Pretty sure I haven’t! I’m doing so well. But I did receive a bunch of ARCs from Angry Robot in the mail, including Hangwire and The Iron Wolves, and I picked up The Seers (Julianna Scott) and Known Devil (Justin Gustainis) from Netgalley, although I haven’t finished the previous books in either series.

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted November 13, 2013 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

What did you recently finish reading?
The last thing I finished reading was David Levithan’s The Realm of Possibility, which is a prose-poetry novel/collection of short stories. Ultimately I liked it a lot more than I expected to when I realised about the format. Before that, it was short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, for my SF/F class — and they are really, really boring (to me). Bah.

What are you currently reading?
More homework from my counsellor: Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman. And I started Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany today. Other than that, still reading The Holders by Julianna Scott — not sure I’ve even touched it in the last week, oops — and various other ARCs and novels I’ve been partway through for Far Too Long.

What do you think you’ll read next?
I should probably just focus on what I’m already reading… but knowing me, that won’t happen. Right now I’m thinking Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, for a start, and then I should probably catch up with Apex and Beneath Ceaseless Skies…

Books acquired:
Well, today me, Mum and my sister had a bit of a shopping spree, so… Shadowmarch (Tad Williams), Augustus (John Williams), Fun Home (Alison Bechdel), The Algebraist & The State of the Art (Iain M. Banks), A Dance of Cloaks (David Dalglish) and The Ghost Hunters (Neil Spring). Recent ARCs include Poets Translate Poets (ed. Paula Dietz) and Signal to Noise (Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean).

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What are you reading Wednesday

Posted November 6, 2013 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

If I can just be persuaded to log off LOTRO, perhaps you can have my “what are you reading Wednesday” post before it’s Thursday…

What did you recently finish reading?
Other than what I’ve posted reviews of here, which is a little obvious, I read Jacky Hyam’s Bomb Girls, an account of what women working in munitions factories did during WWII, including their own stories and opinions. Before that, it was Frankenstein for my Coursera class.

What are you currently reading?
The Holders by Julianna Scott, which is an ARC I’ve had for a little while. Still reading my book on panic attacks, still reading half a dozen other things at least, but none of them particularly actively. At the moment I’m focusing on knocking down one… book… at… a… time. Which is difficult for me, as I’ve always been a bit prone to reading at least half a dozen books at once. Which is fine, until it gets overwhelming.

What do you think you’ll read next?
I’ve been neglecting a couple of ARCs which I’m already partway through, so I think I’ll work on those — it’ll be relatively easy to knock them off the list and stop feeling so guilty about them! So that’ll be The Darwin Elevator (Jason M. Hough) and Republic of Thieves (Scott Lynch), though I’ve since bought the Scott Lynch for myself…

Books acquired:
A few P.G. Wodehouse books from the second hand store (Troutmark Books in Castle Arcade, in Cardiff, always excellent) — not the Jeeves & Wooster books, sadly, but still. Wodehouse. Should be fun. I think there’s also been a few fantasy books involving dragons, including The Second Mango (Shira Glassman), which has me very curious from the title alone. It’s also a lesbian fantasy story, which should be interesting.

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