Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



The first quarter of this book was SO GOOD...

Set in the not too distant future, drinkable water is almost all gone. Society has broken down. Not that many people are left. Anyone who has water must fight and kill to defend it.

The main characters are a mother and her teenage daughter. They have a small piece of land with a pond on it. The first quarter of the book is about how hard it is to defend that water, how they have to kill strangers on sight, how they have to work from morning to night to survive.

Then about 25% in, the book changed. The teenage girl, who in her whole entire life met only one other person besides her mother, and that was just for a short period of time, meets other people. Becomes friends with them. This girl who was raised her whole life to not care about people suddenly did. She lessened her chances to protect her own life and water over other people, including a boy she had so quickly fallen in love with. (At least, unlike other books, she didn't fall in love in her first meeting with him... but it was the third or so meeting.)

The first quarter of the book was so good, I actually stuck to the end of the story (though I skimmed the last 10% or so). I kept hoping it would get better, but it never did. I should have read the Goodread reviews, because so many of them echoed my experience -- I could have abandoned this book instead of finishing it.

It wasn't HORRIBLE TERRIBLE, it was just so far downhill from the first quarter... I did appreciate some things that happened at the end, but all in all it wasn't worth the reading time.

Thank you, Animorphs. Including my credit for unfinished books, this is book #49 for the year. I'm only going to hit 50 because these books are so fast to read.

The Forgotten (Animorphs #11) by K.A. Applegate
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



I keep wondering how these books are so dark and how much darker they'll get. This is book 11 of 50+ books, and if this pattern continues, in a few books we're going to have outright torture.

As seems to be my trend with this series, I didn't like the plot so much, but I loved seeing the effect of all this on the characters. I'll put spoilers behind a cut, since now I'm ahead of another reviewer who is reading these for the first time.

( Spoilers )

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd love a better written version of this series. One without plotholes and eye-rolly action. I bet there's good fanfic out there...

LitRPG books should be a perfect match for me. They're the genre of books where people are either willingly or unwillingly trapped in MMORPGs -- massive multiplayer online games. Unfortunately, almost without exception, these books are trash, the bottom of the self-published barrel. In addition to having some of the worst editing of any self-published books, they're generally about the most unrealistic male characters beating the game in completely unrealistic, wish-fulfillment sort of ways, with the most beautiful of women beating down their doors.

Once I realized that about the genre, I deleted all of the litRPG books off my Kindle. Or so I had thought...

Travail Online: Soulkeeper by Brian Simons
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Knowing the above information, I almost deleted this book without trying it. I'm glad I didn't. While it is litRPG, it was nothing like all those other bad books. The main character was not just female, her main job in the book's game is seamstress -- so far from an overpowered job!

The book wasn't perfect, and like all other litRPG books the out-of-game scenes were quite bad. For example, the CEO of the gaming company was sitting in his office. An engineer brought him news about a major bug in the game. The CEO said something like "What the hell? This doesn't hurt me personally! Get out of here, you idiot! Stop bothering me with this trash!".

But the in-game scenes were quite good, and the book was fun and entertaining. A rare exception to the "all litRPG books are trash" experience I've had.

Awaken Online: Catharsis by Travis Bagwell
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Another litRPG book, and though it didn't work for me, at least it wasn't in the typical way I have issues with this genre. In this book, we met a kid who...zzzz. It was so boring, I never even got to the gaming parts. Stopped at 3% in.

If a litRPG book doesn't hook me right away, it doesn't get much of a chance.

Partial book credits:
Point reached in this book: 3%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,363%
New total: 1,366% (13 books!)

Currently reading: Custodians of the Cosmos. Completely unsure if I'll continue with it. It's a comedy scifi book, but thus far the humor isn't at all working for me.

The Secret (Animorphs #9) by K.A. Applegate
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



At long last, I returned to this series. And it's not just because they're so fast to read and I'm in danger of not hitting 50 books this year... *cough*

I had liked the earlier books in this series, but this one really did not work for me. The whole conflict of the book (the alien race wants to log a forest to cut down on the places the Animorphs could be hiding) was silly. They can transform into anything -- ants, flies, mice, rats. They don't need the forest. They could fly somewhere else to feed -- anywhere in the world. All of the internal/personal conflict didn't work for me either (Mostly it was: how can you both love and eat animals?).

This may sound cold, but the only part of the book I enjoyed was how PTSD-y the kids are getting. They're so frequently nearly killed, and they have to do violent things as animals, and I'm enjoying seeing the effect on them.

Maybe because the books are so fast to read, I hate how the POV character changes from book to book. I feel like I don't know any of the characters at all, other than at the most "snarky boy", "fashion girl", and "animal rescue girl". I'd much rather have the POV character be the same through the series.

Hello LJ, it's been a while. You can blame this first book for that, it took me FOREVER to read. Nearly a month, looks like.

The Mammoth Book of Mind-Blowing SF by Mike Ashley (Editor)
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Loved (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



The worst part of this book? The title. How often does anything in media blow your mind? How often does a book? What are the chances that all of the 21 stories in this book would blow your mind?

The "mammoth" part of the title I cannot protest. Oh my god, this book was long.

While these stories may not have been mind blowing (not a single one of them), they were almost without exception very good. Maybe 4 of the 21 didn't work for me, which is a really, really good ratio. Many of them were downright great. (I'm only sad at how this book further killed my chances of hitting 50 this year...)

So many authors I hadn't previously read (but should have!). Arthur C. Clarke, Timothy Zahn, and Robert Silverberg were some of the biggest names. Only a couple stories were newly written for this book, the rest went back as old as 1958.

All of the stories were hard scifi -- all were about science and discoveries and such, which I completely enjoyed. After the 50% point I was chomping at the bit to move on to a different book, but since there were so many different stories I kept reading until the very end. And I'm glad I did, since they were all so good.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: LOVED (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)

This is read #5 of this fic, and I love it just as much every time. You can read my other reviews here. I only wish I could read it more often, but I know the story too well by this point, so I try to wait between my rereadings.

My rule for including fanfics in my 50 book per year goal was that I had to read it completely and it has to be longer than multiple books. This fic is almost as long as the seven book HP series, so it counts.

Clan of Wolves (Tarin of the Mammoths #2) by Jo Sandhu
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Well, I made a mistake on this book. I thought I had LOVED the first one, so I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get into this second one at all. Turns out, looking at my previous review, that I hadn't liked the first one...

Set in prehistoric times, a crippled boy has to go on a journey to find the spirits and save his clan. In the first book, he failed at his mission. In this second book (at least in the 16% I read), he found new home with another clan.

In the first book, my complaint had been that the writing was too basic, the characters too black/white. In this one I didn't even get that far. There were so many new names, I had no idea who anyone was... and I really didn't care. I deleted the third book of the series off my Kindle without trying it.

The Stolen Herd: The Adventures of Mandamus and Luco by K. Madill
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



The very best thing about this book was the cover. Sadly nothing else about it worked for me. A "talking animal" story (horses), but the characters all might as well have been human. They spoke just like people, they knew everything people knew (like what a galaxy is), they had a queen and politics and such... Just completely not for me. Stopped at 6%.

Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 16 + 6 = 22%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,341%
New total: 1,363% (13 books!)

Theme of this post is: Oldest books on my Kindle. Usually when I pick an older book, I get that "Why didn't I read this sooner!?" reaction. Not this time...

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Set in an alternate version of Earth, magic exists. Each magician is bound to one material -- metal, plastic, rubber, etc. The least popular, and seemingly least useful, is paper. A young, promising magician is forced to bind to paper, and through her we learn it's not that useless at all.

If I had read only the first third of this book, I would have rated it top marks. I LOVED the magic system. Loved the main character. Loved the minor characters.

The downside was the last two-thirds of the book. For the most stupid, cliche reasons ever, the bad guy (woman) steals the main character's teacher's heart. Why? Because he doesn't love her anymore, so of course stealing his heart will fix that. (She is a bad guy, she practices what is basically necromancy, but still.) The whole last two-thirds of the book is spent in the teacher's memories. It just so completely does not work. Luckily I checked Goodreads before forcing myself to finish. Most people agree with me. I gave up at the 60% point, which was much further than I should have gone.

Throne Of The Werewolf by Warren Smith
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Hated (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Typical bad self-published book. Lots of typos. Story made little sense. A boy was turning into a werewolf, it ran in his family, but took too long and nothing happened... other than he has golden eyes so apparently he's a super special werewolf. Stopped reading at 17%.

Hunger: A Zombie Novel by Max Allan
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



I really, really have no interest at all in zombie books, but this book was on my Kindle so long, I must have added it before Walking Dead pissed me off to the point of hating all zombie stories.

Self published, but didn't have too many typos/mistakes. Main character was completely unlikable though, so add that to zombies and I bowed out fast. Stopped at 14%.

Ratscalibur by Josh Lieb
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



The best thing about this book was the cover. It was a cute story: a boy meets a ratician (a rat who is a magician) and is given a quest. To accomplish the quest, the ratician turns him into a rat.

Problem was, this was a story for very young kids, and the writing style was too simple for me to enjoy. Stopped at 15%.

Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 60 + 17 + 14 + 15 = 106%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,228%
New total: 1,334% (13 books!)

Tooth and Claw by Stephen Moore
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Looking at the cover and the book's blurb, you wouldn't guess this was actually a really well written story.

Abandoned in the depths of winter, the once-pampered pets of men are left to their own fate. It's a battle to survive the cruel weather and the feral cats and dogs. But Man becomes the worst enemy. To survive, the animals must unite in the most desperate fight of their lives.

Very little about that is accurate and it's also so poorly written...

The story does indeed center around animals that were once pets, though very very few of them were ever pampered. Set sometime after World War 1, all of the people in a town are being moved out -- the town is located in what will become a No Man's Land border between two countries. The people are not permitted to bring their animals, so all the cats and dogs are left behind.

This story does what I love most: The animals are able to talk to each other, but in every other way they're completely normal animals. They know and understand no more than any real cat or dog would. So, when all the people leave, the cats and dogs have no idea why or if they're ever coming back. All these house pets have to learn to survive on their own.

There was a supernatural element to the book, which personally I could have done without. But, for a supernatural element, it was handled as realistically as possible. I just wish the author had chosen to go a natural route instead.

I completely believed all of the animals as animals, which is sadly rare when it comes to talking animal books.

Hm, I see there's a sequel, Skin and Bone. I started a different book already, but I think I'll pick that up to read next.

Currently reading: The Girl They Sold To The Moon, which is pretty darned bad. Mostly I'm sticking with it to see just how bad it gets.

The Soul Keepers by Devon Taylor
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Loved (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



What an interesting, unique book this was! The first thing that happens in the story is the main character, Rhett, dies. Souls exist in the books's reality, and some special ones become syllektors (those meant to collect other souls and see them safely off). Rhett is one of those special ones, and most of the book is about him learning to become a syllektor, learning about his new home (a ship, sort of, named The Harbinger), and getting to know his fellow syllektors. To me, that was the best part of the book -- the worldbuilding and training. Once we reached the story's conflict/climax, my interest waned a little. But all in all, I completely enjoyed the story. Original and well written.


Free Space by Sean Danke
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Free Space is the second book in the Admiral series. It starts a couple weeks after the first book ended, with the Admiral character dodging security forces trying to kill him.

Like the first book, the whole of this one takes place over the space of just a couple days. I stopped reading at the 51% point, and only one day had passed in the story. That's quite an interesting thing, I don't think I've read a book based on such a short period of time before.

If I had had nothing else to read, I would have finished this book. It wasn't bad, it just didn't hook me anywhere near as much as the first book had.

Partial book credits:
Point reached in this book: 51%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,162%
New total: 1,213%

I'm so tired of dishonest authors. Two out of these three books are self-published, but as is the trend in self-publishing, they do what they can to hide that fact. The author of one of the books, the Sidekick one, actually wrote: "In an attempt to ... look more professional, I created an entirely fictitious publishing imprint."

On to the reviews...

Song and Signal by M. E. Patterson
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



I enjoyed the beginning of this book. An orphaned boy being raised by an alien in some mining colony. The human race on its way to extinction. Most humans left doing grunt work, like mining, basically slaves to the other races. But this boy was different -- having been raised by the alien, he knew a lot more about the "Internet" of the universe.

Then the story went all over the place. An Evil Evil McEvil company. Some kind of assassin with nanotech added into his DNA.

If the book had focused just on the kid, I might have stuck with it to the end, but the other parts (especially the black/white E-V-I-L company) were too much for me and I stopped reading at the 50% point.

The Rule of Three by Eric Walters
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



This book should have been a good match for me, but instead somehow was a complete miss.

Set in current times, something happens to make all computers stop working. Every computer. Computers in cars, phones, everything. A teenage boy, the former spy who lives next door, and his somehow completely useless police chief mother have to cope.

My biggest issues with this book were the mother character and the ex-spy character. The mother, the city's police chief, somehow was completely useless and ineffective. The former spy, a man, continually stepped in to tell her what to do, correct her when she was wrong, etc. He was kind about it, they were friends in the story, but she's a chief of police, she should be able to handle these things without a man's guiding hand.

It might just be because I just finished marathoning both seasons of Handmaid's Tale, but I cannot cope with that kind of thing right now. Stopped reading at 15%.

The Sidekicks Initiative: A Comedy Superhero Adventure by Barry J. Hutchison
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Hated (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



When a book is subtitled "A Comedy Superhero Adventure", if it's humor doesn't work for you, there are problems. Nothing in this book was funny to me. Every "joke" in it annoyed me because it was the opposite of funny. The non-humor parts of the story worked for me no better than the jokes. Stopped reading at 8%.


Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 50% + 15% + 8%= 73%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,089%
New total: 1,162%

The Silent Invasion by James Bradley
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



This book went downhill very very fast. It started with such an interesting idea: Set in the real world, current times, one night something falls from the sky. Green sparkling somethings. No one knows what it is, but it happens all over the world. Soon almost everything (plants, people, animals) is Changed (capitalized as in the book). The Changed glow like the stuff that had fallen from the sky. Their eyes change colors. Animals try to talk -- they make sounds they never made before. The whole story was creepy and cool.

Then the story took an annoying left turn into unrealistic, unbelievable YA stuff, including a Dark, Silent, Sexy boring love interest for the teenage girl main character. I stopped reading about a third of the way into the book. I'm really disappointed that the writing didn't live up to the cool idea.

STARGATE UNIVERSE: Air by James Swallow
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



While there was nothing wrong with this book, it was just an almost word-for-word novelization of the first few episodes of SG:U. I loved that show endlessly and watched the eps a bunch of times, so the book did nothing for me. Rarely it added a short sentence of a character's thoughts, but it was nothing I couldn't glean from the episode myself. Stopped reading a couple chapters in.

Raven and the Phoenix by R. D. Bernstein
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



Ugh this book. Way too simple, too unbelievable. Set in some fantasy world, a girl named Raven tries to save her village by summoning an ice giant to fight a phoenix. Very little in the book made any logical sense, even as a fantasy world. Stopped reading early on.

Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 28% + 6% + 10% = 44%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,035%
New total: 1,079%