#occult for answers finding an ancient pokemon with control over the earth…maybe they can help each other out?

[lally-pops]

who understands my vision

[reincarnatedasacupcake]

Art by Simini Blocker

Summer Reading had me a blast.....

Sorry, I take back the bad Grease reference but for some reason I couldn't get it out of my head 

How is your summer going? Mine is filled with long walks in the sun, sunburns and heat stroke, catching Pokemon, summer weddings and, of course, reading.

This is what I read so far this summer:

Bride of Death (Marla Mason #7)

by T.A. Pratt

243 Pages (8:46 Hours)

Marla Mason has been a mercenary, chief sorcerer and protector of an entire city, and an occult detective, and now she's a goddess of Death... but only part-time. She gets to spend six months a year living as a mortal woman on Earth, and she's decided to devote those months to hunting monsters for fun and personal redemption. Armed with axe and dagger, with the living severed head of her worst enemy in a birdcage for a traveling companion, she sets off by motorcycle into the American Southwest on a journey of self-discovery and other-destruction.

I love how this series keeps surprising me and keeps making me want to listen book after book. Some series get tiring after awhile, but I find that I continue to enjoy this more as time goes by. I mean, I never really thought that the whole Goddess of Death thing would become as big of a plot as it has and watching Marla trying to "Do Better" is rather amusing to watch. I can't wait to find out what antics she gets up to next.

Avempartha (The Riyria Revelations #2)

by Michael J. Sullivan

378 Pages 

THE SECRET IS IN THE TOWER. THE PROBLEM IS THE BEAST. THE ANSWER IS TWO THIEVES.

When a destitute young woman hires two thieves to help save her remote village from nocturnal attacks, they are drawn into the schemes of the wizard Esrahaddon. While Royce struggles to breech the secrets of an ancient elven tower, Hadrian attempts to rally the villagers to defend themselves against the unseen killer. What begins with the simple theft of a sword places the two thieves at the center of a firestorm — that could change the future of Elan.

This RBA book was unexpected, as I had picked up the first book to read and found out while reading that it was an Omnibus, containing the first two books of the series. Thus it became twice as hard to read it for the challenge. 

This book is pretty fun in a easy sort of way. It's like watching a crappy action movie. The characters don't have much depth and the fight scenes are fun and it encourages me to read the rest of the series.

The False Prince (The Ascendance Trilogy #1)

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

352 Pages (8:14 Hours)

In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king’s long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Three orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner’s motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword’s point—he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. But Sage’s rivals have their own agendas as well.

Ever pick up a book on a recommendation based on something you've already read? That was the case with this book. It had been recommended to me through Audible, and I threw it in my wishlist. It came up on sale for a few bucks and I decided to pick it up and listen to it while I waited for my next credit to come in. I should've just gone back to Tower Lord (my in-between audiobook). This was YA but meant more for boys of a younger age. I can see that it would've been something I's have enjoyed when I was a teenager, but I feel too old for it now. The twist was so obvious that I was almost surprised that it was real. Maybe I've just read too much fantasy over the years to not see it immediately. I don't think that I will be getting the next books unless they somehow end up offering them for free.

Robopocalypse (Robopocalypse #1)

by Daniel H. Wilson

396 Pages

They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies…Now they’re coming for you.

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

When the Robot War ignites -- at a moment known later as Zero Hour -- humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

While passing one of the little libraries in my neighborhood, I saw this peaking out. Now my first thought was that it was the novel that inspired Robotropolis, an amazingly bad movie that you have to watch if you ever come across it. Then I remembered that the cover was plastered all over the subways when it came out and the rating for it were really good. I can see why. It was a fun read. I enjoyed the multiple perspectives this showed from people around the world, who made a difference in the war in their own ways and not just one hero's story. 

Fangirl

by Rainbow Rowell

438 Pages

A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family and first love

CATH IS A SIMON SNOW FAN. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan... But for Cath, being a fan is her life--and she's really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. 

Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to. 

Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath that she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words...and she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

This book reminded me why I love fantasy so much. It's so much easier to dive into a world that is so unlike our own. And with fanfiction, we can make our favorite characters do as we please. 

This book was harder than I thought it would be to read. It hit me in places I didn't realize were vulnerable. It was hard to escape into when I so badly wanted to escape from the feelings it was making me have, yet it was so good, I couldn't put it down. 

I'm really curious to pick up Carry On and hear the whole story that Cath wrote. I think it's great that Rainbow Rowell actually wrote the whole thing and published it for this reason. That's pretty cool.

Summer with My Sisters

by Holly Chamberlin

352 Pages

Bestselling author Holly Chamberlin’s heartfelt novel, set in a beautiful Maine beach town, tells of three sisters—and one summer filled with revelations…

When Poppy Higgins left Yorktide, Maine, for Boston, she pictured future visits home as brief diversions from her real life in the big city. Fate had different ideas, and at twenty-five, Poppy has been called back to care for her two younger sisters following their father’s death.

Sixteen-year-old Daisy resents Poppy’s long absence and chafes under her sometimes fumbling efforts to be a parent. Violet, now thirteen, is a virtual stranger to her oldest sister. Once a happy, united family, the Higginses seem adrift, and Poppy longs to escape her responsibilities. But when Daisy befriends Evie, an enigmatic newcomer to Yorktide, the young woman will be an unlikely catalyst in the sisters’ journey back to each other. For as Poppy discovers the deep loss in Evie’s life, she awakens to the truth about her own, and about the town, and the people, she’s tried to leave behind.

Filled with the candid warmth of real sisterhood, Summer with My Sisters explores the many forms a family can take, and the unspoken ties that endure, season after season…

After Fangirl, I needed a bit of a fluff book and this was perfect. It was a great example of a book that starts out with imperfect relationships and ends with a happily ever after for everyone. Just what I needed. None of the problems were overly intense as if knowing that I needed something easy. Not to underplay the seriousness of the issues they were dealing with; homelessness, the loss of loved ones, anxiety attacks, prescription drug addiction, are all super serious, but the book handled them with ease and not a lot of intense emotion.

Books that I am currently reading

Tower Lord (Raven's Shadow #2)

by Anthony Ryan

425 of 602 Pages (17:03 of 24:39 Hours)

A Fine Balance

by Rohinton Mistry

65 of 603 Pages

Ascent of Women by Sally Armstrong 70 of 320 Pages

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame 90 of 228 Pages

The Black Prism (Lightbringer #1)

by Brent Weeks 

102 of 661 Pages

Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)

by Sarah J. Maas

471 of 704 Pages (19:38 of 25:23 Hours)