Work was a bit light, so I had a lot more reading time in February than I did in January. I was reading up a storm in February with twelve books added to my READ list.  Ten were full-length and were two novella length (*cover not shown*).  

Eleven out of the twelve reads were series installments. 

*Hope Smolders* by Jaci Burton - 3 stars

Staking His Claim by Tessa Bailey - 3 stars

Serious Ink by Ranae Rose - 3 stars

Deep Down by Elle Aycart - 3.5 stars

Melting the Ice by Jaci Burton - 3.5 stars

Loving Cara by Kristen Proby - 4 stars

Seducing the Wolf by Maureen Smith - 4.5 stars

Worth The Chance by Vi Keeland - 4.5 stars

*The Party* by Katie Ashley - 4 stars

The Proposition by Katie Ashley - 4 stars

The Proposal by Katie Ashley - 4 stars 

Only one book was a true stand alone novel.

Conflicting Interests by Elizabeth Finn - 4 stars

Wuthering Heights - So dark and twisted! I didn't see it as a love story of any kind - it seemed most of the major characters hated each other, including Cathy and Heathcliff. I must read this again, though. It's that kind of book. 

The Hero of Ages - Much better than I expected. Of course, after The Well of Ascension, I wasn't expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised - this was as good as Mistborn.

Faro's Daughter - A light, fun read. I was expecting Arabella to be married off to Kit, though. Will probably pick up other Georgette Heyer romances if I see a sale.

Against All Enemies - Awful! Just awful! Laughably bad! I kept on with it hoping Clancy's voice would emerge and out of nostalgia for my favorite Clancy novels. Overwritten, florid prose. I spent the last third of the book laughing at it.

The Silver Chair and The Horse and His Boy - Both for the DWS Narnia group read. I'm enjoying the Narnia books as much now as I did lo those many years ago.

I'm on the verge of calling it quits on Le Morte d'Arthur. I'm not a fan of the King Arthur legend, and this book just isn't working for me. On the other hand, I haven't given it a fair chance. I'll give it a couple more weeks....

Still plugging away with Daniel Deronda. So far, it's better than Middlemarch, so there's that.

The Transformation of Things - A Mt. TBR book, otherwise I think I'd give up on it. I started it when I needed a light, easy read, and it's certainly that. Not unputdownable, though. I'm at about the 50% mark - should finish it tomorrow.

2014 Mt. TBR: Wuthering Heights, The Hero of Ages, Faro's Daughter, Against All Enemies, The Transformation of Things

I was wanting to do a progress update each month on what I'm reading, but January was not a good month for books.  Because as much as I love to read, I also love anime and video games, and so that is what happened in January.  

(**coughcough**FullMetalAlchemistmarathon**coughcough**)

Nonetheless, I still got some reading in (even if I might have had to cheat a little bit, but, hey, as my little brother defends: "A volume of a manga series is technically a book, too!"), so according to my calculations, I have managed to read 6 books in January... 4 of which were four volumes of manga of which I'm not certain whether or not they count for some of the challenges I'm participating in, so I'll at least be fair in that aspect.

Which is fine.  It just means I have more books to read in order to add onto each challenge and my end goals for 2014.

February ended up a bit better than January, so at least I feel like I'm making better progress.

A forecast for March has me listing several more titles in a row... so hopefully I don't burn myself out (as if that could happen), though my lists never go as planned, so we'll see.  I may create a March post, or I may wait and do bi-monthly posts... which might be better now that I think about it.

Anyway...

Related posts:

More Reading Challenges!

2014 TBR Pile Challenge -- Roof Beam Reader

Challenges:

100 Books in a Year hosted by Book City Chick

Outdo Yourself Challenge hosted by The Book Vixen

2014 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader

2014 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Bookish

2014 Series Challenge hosted by Read. Sleep. Repeat.

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The four volumes I read of Sukitte iinayo will only be included in the generalized Reading Challenges on Goodreads and BookLikes.  

I wrote a compiled review for all four volumes:  Review -- Sukitte iinayo, Vol. 1 to 4.

The Book Thief was chosen as a read-along with my BFF for our own personal Mini Book Club.

All other books read are automatically included in the above two challenges as well.

2014 Reading Challenge:

1.  Sukitte iinayo, Volume 1 by Hazuki Kanae  -  Review, Volumes 1 to 4

2.  Sukitte iinayo, Volume 2 by Hazuki Kanae

3.  Sukitte iinayo, Volume 3 by Hazuki Kanae

4.  Sukitte iinayo, Volume 4 by Hazuki Kanae

5.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak  -  Review 

6.  The Distance Between Us by Kasie West - Review

7.  The Unbound (The Archived, book 2) by Victoria Schwab - Review

8.  Split Second (Pivot Point, book 2) by Kasie West - Review

9.  The Giver by Lois Lowry - Review

10.  Serial Hottie by Kelly Oram - Review

11.  The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima - Review

12.  This Is What Happy Looks Like - Review

Otherwise, here is my January and February progress for each of the other challenges listed:

100 Books in a Year hosted by Book City Chick 

Present Progress:  8 books read

January

1.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak -- Review

2.  The Distance Between Us by Kasie West -- Review

February

1.  The Unbound by Victoria Schwab -- Review

2.  Split Second by Kasie West -- Review

3.  The Giver by Lois Lowry -- Review

4.  Serial Hottie by Kelly Oram -- Review

5.  The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima -- Review

6.  This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith -- Review

Outdo Yourself Challenge hosted by The Book Vixen

Goal: 102 to 106 books

Present Progress:  8 books read

January

1.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak -- Review

2.  The Distance Between Us by Kasie West -- Review

February

1.  The Unbound by Victoria Schwab -- Review

2.  Split Second by Kasie West -- Review

3.  The Giver by Lois Lowry -- Review

4.  Serial Hottie by Kelly Oram -- Review

5.  The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima -- Review

6.  This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith -- Review

2014 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader

Goal: 12 pre-selected books

Present Progress:  2 books read

No progress in January.

February

1.  The Giver by Lois Lowry -- Review

2.  The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima -- Review

2014 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Bookish

Goal:  31 to 40 books

Present Progress:  6 books read

January

1.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak -- Review

2.  The Distance Between Us by Kasie West -- Review

February

1.  The Giver by Lois Lowry -- Review

2.  Serial Hottie by Kelly Oram -- Review

3.  The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima -- Review

4.  This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith -- Review

2014 Series Challenge hosted by Read. Sleep. Repeat.

Goal:  7 to 11 series

Present Progress:  2 series

No progress in January.

February

1.  The Unbound by Victoria Schwab / Book 2 of The Archived series -- Review

2.  Split Second by Kasie West / Book 2 of Pivot Point series -- Review

See also:  2014 Series Challenge 

***

I promise I'll come up with a better format for my next update post.  This one seems kind of clunky and chaotic, but I suck at finding a good structure or format until after the fact.  What would really make my day would be the ability to include tables in my blog posts...  I... might think about inserting photos of my actual tables I keep on an excel spreadsheet for my book lists and reading lists, though I wonder if that might be too extreme.

This book certainly tried hard to squeeze meaning out of every sentence, piece of dialogue, and action. It might have gotten a little clunky or wordy in its execution as well; there were a lot of things that could have been left unsaid. Nonetheless, cute and breezy it set out to do; cute and breezy it accomplished. I can't fault a book for trying so hard to be spectacular; you could practically FEEL how hard this book was trying.

So it was enjoyable, at best, but still kind of mediocre on my scale.

I'm not going to lie. I really, really resent this book right now.

And I've started this post four times because I can't seem to find the right words to describe the struggle I felt while reading this book. It was boring and monotonous.

Sure, the writing was great and the details were plenty... but sometimes you CAN have too much detail. I'm sure I was drowning in detail to the point where I physically said aloud: "Why do I care?"

I like to see myself as fairly tolerant when it comes to books. I have a pretty average standard and can overlook certain aspects in exchange for other traits a book may display more favorably.

The world had potential: Seven Realms, wars going on, a rich back-history of conflict, a legendary warrior queen who saved the world, some snippets of human drama between opposing groups of people who hate... well, just because the hate has been expanding for generations. There is a lot of potential in this world.

But I'm not sure if I could find anything in The Demon King that was to my liking at all. I didn't like the characters (except maybe Prince Liam Tomlin, what little appearance he makes with his witty banters and nonsensical responses), there appeared to be very little direction in the story line, despite the fact that you knew exactly where the story was headed, and (I repeat) there was too much info dump.

To me, the entire book felt like a prologue of sorts -- as if this one book was the build-up and back story behind the true story that has yet to begin.

So I resent this book, but not for all the things mentioned above; I resent this book because of the fact that the actual story doesn't even really begin until the end. Things actually start to get intriguing in the last 20% stretch of The Demon King.

If I cared enough, maybe I could overlook the first 80% and be happy to continue the series. I'm not sure if I'm feeling as generous right now though.

***

This book was read as part of my 2014 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader.

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Related Posts:

• Reading progress update: I've read 12%.