Second Week Wrap Up

This week I read four books.

The first I finished was Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson. She's the actress who played Matilda. Her memoir was enjoyable but not overly memorable. She does suffer from OCD and I found that intriguing but a lot of the high school angsty stuff just didn't resonate with me. This fulfilled the challenge (from the Read Harder Challenge) to read a celebrity memoir. I gave it 3 stars.


The next book I finished was Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. I was really excited to pick this up on audiobook since everyone and their mother said it was an amazing audiobook. It does have a full cast, but unfortunately, that doesn't really make it good. There is little music, sound effects, or other things that would make it unique. I found the premise (finding pieces of a giant alien robot and assembling it to make a weapon) to be so interesting but the pacing and the writing was boring. I found myself dragging to pick it up. I wanted to learn more about the alien race who had left the pieces but found out very little. The only redemption in my mind was the ending. It ended on a bit of a shocking piece of news that made me want to know more. I'll probably eventually pick up the next one but I'm not in a rush. This fulfilled my "Ancient Runes" challenge because it has a symbol on the cover. I gave it 3 stars.

Then I finished A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. This was the second book I read by this author and I loved his creation of characters. They are always so complex, real, and flawed. Ove is a grumpy man who feels that life is not worth living now that his beloved wife has died. But each day he finds new reasons to live; some of which are very surprising. Backman is great at creating a cast of characters, though his growth is obvious from the time he wrote A Man Called Ove to writing Beartown. I will say that there seemed to be some needless fat-shaming that appeared to emanate from the author rather than the character. That was really the only detractor. This fulfilled the challenge for "Transfiguration: A cat on the cover." I gave the book 4 stars.

The last book I finished was The Girl in 6E. This was an erotic thriller. There were very sexy scenes of her describing cybersex and different kinks but then the perspective would switch to a pedophile wanting to rape and kidnap a child. This was quite jarring. The story was amusing but unbelievable. She can't leave her house for three years because of her murderous thoughts but then when a child needs rescuing, she thinks she can just go several states away to get her? This fulfilled the "Arithmancy" challenge by having a number in the title. I gave it 3 stars because it was entertaining.

Three O.W.L.s so far is exciting. I still have 16 more days to complete the rest of them.