Welcome back to our reading diaries! Once a month the WWAC crew chats about their reading lives. This month we’re reading YA, romance and post-apocalyptic everything.
Sarah: I can not look at my to-read pile without feeling guilty. And that doesn’t count the stuff on my Kindle, nicely tucked away so I can’t see the bazillion books I haven’t read yet. 
Somehow I haven’t done my annual re-reading of Kushiel’s Dart, although I guess I might have time before the New Year. I’m not entirely sure what to read next. I’m finishing up that non-fiction book about gaming, so I might continue to stretch past my normal fantasy and science fiction into less traveled territory. (shifts through piles. moves cat. rifles some more.)
Angel: I too am avoiding my teetering TBR pile, but I’m finishing up Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley, and I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. The novel’s about a teenage girl who enters a previously all-male military academy on a dare from her older brother. I actually read the synopsis wrong when I first saw it on Goodreads–I thought it was about a girl who pretends to be a boy to enter the school, which is one of my all-time favourite tropes. What I did find was very different, but still amazing.
Over the holidays, I may pick out some fantasy novels to read, as I think I’ve more than made my contemporary YA quota for the year. Any suggestions, ladies?
Romona: I wish I could suggest some, but I haven’t read any fantasy lately. It’s been a month of unusual reading material for me. Usually I’m not into murder mysteries, but I’m three books into the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny and I’ve just started Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon (due to my obsession with the
show Hannibal). I feel like I’m enjoying the book more than I would have without seeing the show first, because I’m slipping Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, and Laurence Fishburne in for my visualization of the book characters. It’s way better this way, trust me.
Brenda: I was able to wrap up Lauren Beukes’s Broken Monsters over the Thanksgiving holiday. The early chapters were tough to read straight through due to the multiple points of view, but as the book progressed I was able to read through multiple chapters and enjoyed how it all came together. Now I’m on to the latest book in the SM Stirling’s the Change series, The Golden Princess. The series is a post-apocalyptic fantasy series now focusing on the third generation. There are no fairies or dwarves, but there are potential elements of magic. I read it as I love to see the well-thought out vision of how we might reshape our societies.
Christa: Angel, I always have fantasy suggestions for you! If you haven’t read The Queen of the Tearling yet, it’s definitely worth checking out. Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis and Stolen Songbird by Danielle Jensen are also great picks.
I’m personally finishing up Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson, a psychological thriller, that I can’t put down. The story is so gripping and the characters are so complex. I’m also reading Love and Other Theories (because apparently I only want to read books with “love” in the title) by début author Alexis Bass. It’s interesting, and a lot different than I expected it to be, but in a good way. It has a very Courtney Summers/Cracked Up To Be vibe to it. And last but not least I’m currently listening to Fight Club on audiobook. I’ve never read a Chuck Palahniuk book before and I figured that it would be a good place to start. I’ve actually never seen the movie either, so I have no idea what I’m in for.
