Weekly Round Up #12!

Welcome to another episode of what did I read this week! Featuring your host, Me! Hope you guys all had a fantastic week this week! I had a pretty good week, I got to teach an iPad and iPhone class at the library on Thursday which was a lot of fun! I really liked it and I’m hoping that I get to teach more classes the longer that I’m here. And then on Friday I got to go to our local Senior Center and meet all of the seniors and give them all the books that they had on hold. Also, Friday afternoon I went to the Key West Literary Seminar! I got to see three different presentations and afterwords I got to meet and have my book signed by Meg Cabot! I’m going to be writing a whole post on the literary seminar so stay tuned for that! Now onto the best and worst books that I read this week! (All opinions are my own and I’m not being paid or sponsored to review any of these books.)

Best books of the week:

• Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi (Finished for now)
  • I started reading this series last year and since the beginning of the year I’ve read the last four volumes. I really love this series. It doesn’t remind me of anything that I’ve read before which is really refreshing. The series is about Emily and her brother Navin who get sucked into a different world where Emily is a Stonekeeper. This means that she has a stone amulet that she wears around her neck that gives her magical powers. Throughout the series the two main characters grow and change from scared kids into leaders of armies. The art style in this graphic novel is not my favorite but I really think that is because this is geared towards children, not adults so I’m not faulting anyone for that. I give this whole series a five out of five and I am impatiently awaiting the next volume (which doesn’t even have a publication date yet ughhhhhhhhhhh).
• Final Girls by Riley Sager (Finished)
  • I finished this one in only a few days and I have to say it is my favorite book of 2019 so far. Final Girls is all about those women who are the survivors of massacres. Left behind by the tragedy that befell their friends and loved ones, they are the leftovers, the survivors, the Final Girls. This book is about three Final Girls, Lisa Milner, Samantha Boyd, and Quincy Carpenter. They are all living their own lives, dealing with their separate tragedies in their own ways. Until something shatters their worlds, Lisa is found dead in her bathtub, an apparent suicide. This starts a series of events that leads Sam and Quincy down a path of destruction. This book had me guessing right up until the reveal at the end of the book. There were plenty of twists and turns and it kept me guessing most of the time. I would highly, highly recommend this book is you like a good mystery.
• Shifted: Siren Prophecy 1 by Tricia Barr (In-Progress)
  • I’m only a few pages in to this one but I’m really excited to read it. I pre-ordered it as soon as I could so I can’t wait to really get into it. I will update you guys next week with my progress and what I think!
• Sweet Masterpiece by Connie Shelton (In-Progress)
  • This little e-book really snuck up on me! I read half of it in one sitting before I even realized it! It’s a cozy mystery about a women named Sam Sweet who keeps finding dead bodies in the course of her work (which is as a cleaner for foreclosed or abandon houses). She’s an older lady (according to the book) who loves to bake and is trying to save up enough money to open her own bakery. I honestly think the character of Sam is what really drew me in. She seems like such a fun lady and like she would be fun to be around – not to mention all the baked goods! I’m hoping to try and finish this one up over the weekend, but so far it is coming to you all very highly recommended!

Worst of the Week:

• No Matter How You Look At It, It’s You Guys’ Fault That I’m Not Popular! Vol. 2 by Nico Tanigawa
  • I tried with this series. I read the first volume and it was just ok so I thought I would give the second volume a try to see if it got any better. It didn’t. The MC is obsessed with being cool and yet is so stand-offish and mean that it’s no wonder that she doesn’t have any friends. This whole volume was her trying to look cool to her younger cousin and in her mind in order to do that she needed to be bitchy?? I won’t be continuing to read this series and I definitely do not recommend it either.
• Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Vol. 1 by Leah Moore
  • This was an ok graphic novel but it just wasn’t something I would revisit or want to read more volumes of. It was four short stories gathered into this first volume. The first story in the book was called Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book illustrated by Aneke. This was one of the ones that I wasn’t really a fan of. The story was confusing and it seemed like it needed to be longer and more detailed to make sense. The next story was called Lost Hearts illustrated by Kit Buss. This was one of the stories that I did like. It was creepy and had just enough information that you could understand what was going on. The art style was really nice too. The third story was called The Mezzotint illustrated by Fouad Mezher. This one was just ok. I didn’t dislike it like the first story but it was not my favorite, it was kind of forgettable and that’s not what you want when you read a horror collection. The last story was by far my favorite and was called The Ash-tree illustrated by Alisdair Wood. This was by far my favorite one out of the bunch. It was spooky and the story flowed nicely within the constraints of the format. This is one of those books that I wouldn’t really recommend to anyone.

That’s it for this week! Sorry this is going out a day late but I really wanted to finish Final Girls! It was one I couldn’t put down. Let me know in the comments below if you’ve read any of these and come say hi on Twitter!