WWW Wednesday – September 15th, 2021

“The copper-haired rider looked at the black sky and swore.”

First line in In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce

Hi, guys. I hope you’re all doing well. WWW Wednesday is 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?

In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce, the second book in Song of the Lioness, and I gave it 4 stars. It worked better for me than the first book because I was more familiar with the characters and also felt that the story was a bit more connected than in the first one. In book one it was almost like each chapter was its own little short story, and while this book still had some of that, it was easier to see that overarching storyline. The only reason it’s not a 5 star is probably that it’s a short book with a fast pace and there’s something about that that’s making me feel a bit detached.

I’ve also been doing quite a bit of rereading as I finally attempted The Binding by Bridget Collins again. I rated it 3.75 when I read the first time a couple of years ago but had a strong feeling that a reread would do me good. I was right! My rating time is 4.5 as I loved the first part a lot more this time around now that I finally understood what was going on. For some reason, though, I think I liked the last part a little less so it’s not a full 5 stars.

I’ve also started my reread of The Shamer Chronicles by Lene Kaaberbøl with the first book, The Shamer’s Daughter. I’m trying the English translations for the first time (originally Danish), and it was actually really good. The books have been translated by the author herself so I can still feel her style which is often a problem with translations. It’s still an amazing book, although to be fair, I don’t know how much of my excitement is due to nostalgia.

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What are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson, and I’m 60% into it. It started out amazing. I was so sure this was going to be the next book I’d be raving about. However, I didn’t need to get many chapters in before it started to go downhill. We follow a concubine in the last standing emirate as the Spanish Inquisition is in full swing, so it looked to be a rather political story from the beginning, but it quickly moves away from that, to my big disappointment. Now it’s more a traveling story with an annoying main character that other characters keep telling me is such an amazing person. Oh, and nothing is happening.

I’ve also picked up the sequel to The Shamer’s Daughter, The Shamer’s Signet, although I’m not that far in yet. It’s the book that used to be my favorite in the series, but as I grew older I fell in line with popular opinion and realized it’s the worst one. Fun fact: they’ve been adapting the books into movies, but they literally just skipped the second one. So movies of book one and three exist. Apparently that’s how bad it is, but I’m reading it anyway.

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What do you think you’ll read next?

I’ll be reading the sequel to The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams, The Bitter Twins.