Sunday, March 6, 2016

The Sunday Post #40


The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, and share news.


On The Blog Last Week





On The Blog This Week


  • On Monday I review The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer.
  • On Wednesday I review The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan.
  • On Thursday I talk about how I review books, not people.
  • On Saturday I have another accidental book haul. (Oops, I did it again.)




In My Reading Life


Brace yourself. I’m about to say something unpopular.

Um . . . I DNFed Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn. I know that this book gets a ton of hype and has an insanely high rating on Goodreads, but I couldn’t do it. I’m not entirely sure if it was the book or my own mental exhaustion. The writing style reminded me of stories I’ve critiqued in Intro to Creative Writing classes. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through 600+ pages of it. I won’t be reviewing the book because I didn’t make it far enough into it to write a fair review.

Better news: I also read Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff and Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. I liked both of those.




In The Rest Of My Life


Instead of listing 5 little things that made me happy, I’ll just list one giant thing. The Giant Essay From Hell is officially done! I have now written a critical thesis. I got this email from my school:

Dear AJ, 
On behalf of the directors and faculty of the Spalding MFA in Writing Program, I am very pleased to approve and accept “The Concealed Art: The Use of Nonlinear Narrative Structure in Holes by Louis Sachar and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: An Extended Critical Essay.” Congratulations to you and your mentor for successfully fulfilling this requirement of your degree.



I hope you had a great week! See you around the blogosphere!







12 comments:

  1. Yeah, you got through the essay! I bet that's a huge weight off your shoulders. Maybe that's why you couldn't focus on the book. I'm looking forward to reading Illuminae. Just grabbed it. Couldn't wait any longer. LOL Have a wonderful week:)

    My Sunday Post - http://fuonlyknew.com/2016/03/06/whats-new-on-my-bookshelf-150-and-the-sunday-post/

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    1. The essay was hard. I had to figure out how to organize all the years of research I had stuck in my head.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

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  2. Oh no!! I'm sorry to hear that about Mistborn. I've heard amazing things and I do plan to try it one day... I hope you love Illuminae though! It's such a great book! Congrats on completing your essay! I know you must be thrilled not to have to deal with it anymore! Have a great week! :D

    Here's my Weekly Recap!

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    1. I really liked Illuminae. I hope you like Mistborn when you read it. I just have so many books on my TBR that I didn’t want to waste time reading something that I wasn’t enjoying.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

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  3. Mistborn is good...if you have patience and like that kind of stuff. I will say I truly enjoyed the "trilogy" because when I read it there were only three...but it took a lot to get into the first book. I don't remember entirely why, but I remember struggling to really get into it and it took longer than expected. I hope to read Illuminae soon as I hear great things! Congrats on your essay!! Have a great week!

    Weekly Review

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    1. I don’t think I have the patience for Mistborn. I read over 100 pages of it and wasn’t enjoying it at all. Maybe it’s not my kind of book.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

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  4. Glad to see you liked Illuminae. I want to get to that somewhat soon. Yay for the essay being done!! Have a great week!

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  5. Congrats on finishing your essay and having it approved!! And I'm on the holds list at the library for Illuminae and I'm excited to read it :)

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  6. I kinda want to read your essay now. Is that weird?

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  7. I considered DNFing Illuminae. It took me a while to get into it, but I'm glad I stuck it out.

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  8. I can't even imagine your joy when you received that email. What a wonderful feeling to be officially done with such a huge task. It does sound interesting. I haven't read the Mistborn series but I have enjoyed some of Sanderson's other books. I do think that life is too short to spend it reading books that you are not enjoying. Have a great week!

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