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Down from 400+ unread books on my Kindle to 279!

Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder. Set on a small island, nine children (always only nine) live together with no adults. Everything on the island is completely safe (even snakes are just colorful, never dangerous). All their food and needs are supplied.

Once a year, a rowboat shows up on shore with a very young kid in it. The kid gets out and joins the group, and the oldest one gets in and sails off, never to be seen again. (The oldest kid always feels the need to leave, like it's time.)

The book felt like there was no plot (which sounds like a bad thing, but it worked here). It was just the kids living on the island together, day to day life.

Then one day the rowboat comes and the oldest kid leaves, leaving the main character (young teen) as the new "elder". The book goes for another year of day to day life. Then it's her turn to leave, but unlike every other elder in the history of the island, she doesn't want to go.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH. While this book has been on my Kindle for 5-6 years, I somehow remembered reading a review of someone saying the island was an afterlife -- a holding area before the dead kids stay before (whatever) happens next. I read the story through that view of it, and it really fit. So I was very surprised when I went to read reviews on Goodreads when I was done and most people said the island represented childhood, and when kids got old enough, they left the island (grew up). That fit as well.

Be warned there are no answers at the end of the book. Not a single question is answered, no information about what happened is given. I think that's great, it makes you think about the story, but some reviewers raged about it.

Wolfsbane and Mistletoe by Charlaine Harris (Editor). An anthology, all the stories in it had to involve werewolves and Christmas. I can see why I got this book many years ago -- that seems like an interesting combo of themes.

Every time I read an anthology book, I get less and less happy with them. This book has 15 stories in it, so 15 chances to find a new author I like, right? But instead it was miss after miss after miss. And unlike a non-anthology book, with an anthology you can't just give up on the book when you're not enjoying it, you have to try every single story in it...

The first story, and a couple others, were set in an author's preexisting book series. I HATE those. It feels cheap on the author's part -- write something original for this anthology! Not a short story you can later just package with your series.

A couple stories had major editing issues (grammar issues). How they made it through as-is into the book is beyond me.

A couple stories barely had anything to do with werewolves at all (usually focusing on vampires instead).

Most stories I just didn't enjoy and didn't finish.

Of the 15 stories, I finished a grand total of three, and those three were only good enough to finish, I didn't enjoy any of them at all.

DNF

45) Journey Beyond the Burrow by Rina Heisel. This was one of those sad "talking animal" books where the animals might as well just be human. They talked like humans, mostly acted like humans, and the story just didn't keep my attention.

46) The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley. Bad author, no biscuit. A roughly million page book, a doorstop of a book, where every woman's chest was described in great detail. Anyone overweight was an evil character. A story in great need of both an editor and a less misogynic author.

47) The Beginner's Guide to Curses (Spellchasers Book 1) by Lari Don. I read a lot of MG/YA books. Good ones are great reading for adults as well, but this one wasn't one of them. Plot was about a girl who got cursed (because she yelled at a man (a witch) because he threw dog poop on her...), and how she had to go to a school to learn how to break curses.

48) The Evolution of Claire (Jurassic World) by Tess Sharpe. I was so excited about this one! A book filling in the backstory of a Jurassic Park movie character? Sign me up! ...but turns out it was the woman who ran from a T-Rex in high heels. The story never hooked me, and as soon as I realized who Claire was in the movies, I lost all interest. Reading other reviews, it wouldn't have been a story I liked anyway (unbelievable romance, completely predictable plot). Oh well.

49) Warcross by Marie Lu. Very rarely, I somehow get a duplicate of a book on my Kindle. This is only the second time in my memory that it happened. As I was reading this one, I was certain I had read it before. Turns out I had, and I hadn't liked it much the first time either.
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Finished:

The Accidental Apprentice by Amanda Foody. It's been years since I accepted a book for review, but I really liked how this one sounded and the cover was cool, so I made an exception and took it. Because of that, I felt obligated to finish it. If I had read it on my own, I would have given up on it a few pages in.

Set in a (dull, dull, uncreative) fantasy world, an orphaned boy ends up being chosen by a magical beast (because, no matter that he lived in a dull, dull town creatively named Dullshire, he was special). He went off into the wild woods to Hogwarts the magical town there where things followed the same plot seen in 48327432740 other YA/MG books.

This book was an unoriginal mix of Pokemon, Harry Potter, and one of those books where someone bonds with a magical beast and it spends time as a moving tattoo on that person's body. It followed the same plot I've already read dozens of times.

While you can't blame a YA or MG book for not being enjoyable for adult readers, I was really grumpy about how unenjoyable, unoriginal, black/white characters this one was. Young kid readers (target audience is age 8-12) would like it, I guess. Adults should skip it.

Warcross by Marie Lu. Set in the near-ish future, the world had embraced augmented reality. Everyone wore special glasses so they could see VR laid over the real world (like Pokemon Go x1000000). The world was so so so so cool and I wanted to live there so badly.

The creator of those VR glasses also made a "video" (VR) game that was shipped with them, one free to play. So the entire world played, and it became the biggest event worldwide. A young, poor hacker girl got herself involved in the game, and through it met the creator of the game/VR glasses. A most wonderful relationship slowly, slowly, so wonderfully slowly grew through the book.

I LOVED the worldbuilding and the relationship, but much of the rest of the plot did nothing for me. Half whodunit, half hacker story. I wish the book had just focused on the relationship (an odd opinion for me to have!).

There's a second book in the series, but I'm not going to read it. The non-relationship plot was just not enjoyable enough for me to spend time reading the next book.

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