WWW Wednesday – September 30 2020

The storm howled out of the west like the terrible voice of God, shouting down the heretics who doubted the coming Apocalypse.
First line in A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

Hi, guys. I hope you’re all doing great. Today I’m using WWW Wednesday to give you a reading update. WWW Wednesday a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words, and it’s meant to give you all a little insight into my reading this week. I’ll answer the 3 questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish?
What do you think you’ll read next

What did you recently finish?

Well, technically I didn’t finish it because I decided to DNF A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden after reading 53%. I was frustrated with a lot of things about it without outright hating the book. It has very beautiful writing, but I feel like the author was more preoccupied with setting the scene e.g. showing the landscape, describing a culture, than actually using that scene to further the story. It became a little repetitive since it’s a story with a lot of travel. New scenes to describe all the time.
I also stopped because I could tell it was leading up to an event I didn’t want to happen. Like, that would have made me hate the book. Now I can just stay happily ignorant.

What are you currently reading?

I’m currently working on a book I’ve accepted for review called The Nephilim Protocol by J. D. Kloosterman. It’s a YA Fantasy about a half-angel boy who is being held prisoner on an island along with many others of his kind. It sounded really cool, but the reality is that I do not like it. There is a surprisingly big amount of racism and sexism in this book that make certain parts of it quite uncomfortable to read. If you ignore those parts (it’s difficult), then the book does show some potential, as I can see how it’s trying to fill the gap in the YA Fantasy market for books with male protagonists. I just wish it had a different angle and focused more the angel aspects.

I guess I’m also reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley, but I’ve literally only read one chapter. I’m already tentatively loving it, though, because that writing style just pulls you in, and I can’t wait to dive in further.