Wyrd & Wonder Update Log #1

Hosted by Imyril & Lisa & Jorie
Image Credit: Banner by Imyril | Images by Svetlana Alyuk on 123RF.com

Hey, everyone! So, looking at my calendar, I figured the best time to do weekly recaps would be on Monday. (Besides the last day of the month being a Monday, this will also allow me a couple days to work on this when I won’t be busy with too much other stuff.)

May 2nd
Pop this in your book bag of holding
What one fantasy book have you read since last Wyrd and Wonder that you want to put on the rest of the party’s radar?

So, I thought about this a lot. Probably more than I should have. The fact is that last year was a really bad time for my reading. There were a lot of reasons that you probably don’t really care about right now, but the fact is, the only five star books I read last year were rereads. I think I read like two fantasy books last year and didn’t much like either of them. But then, I remembered a fun book I read earlier this year.

City of Strife by Claudie Arseneault

I was actually recommended this book over three years ago by one of my Goodreads groups. I was looking for a book with casual LGBT+ rep. You know, something that had the diversity, but it wasn’t about the diversity and the people were going around, doing stuff that didn’t really pertain to their diversity.

Honestly? This book is amazing and I so recommend it to everyone. It’s fun, the characters are great. There’s the solid building of friendship and trust and it is just such a great book. (And I am so excited to read the sequel this month!)

May 3rd
#MapMonday

I actually wasn’t even sure what this was at first. Then I did a quick Google search and… I never really realized how much people love their maps in fantasy books. I, personally, am distinctly indifferent towards them. I think part of the reason for that is because I don’t really like endless journey type stories. I like quest stories – though I’m starting to realize that I probably like them less than I thought I did – but I don’t really like reading about the characters traveling from point A to point B to EFG.

Also, most maps don’t look quite right to me. I don’t know what book it started with, but I’ve noticed a trend, specifically in YA fantasy, where the map looks backwards to me. So, the way the coastline is often drawn, my eyes immediately think that the water is the land and the land is the water. This doesn’t happen, ever I think, with adult fantasy, so I don’t quite know what it is about YA cartographers that seem determined to confuse me.

And no matter how neat I think maps are – they seldom are useful for me and even less seldom do I need them. … And now I’m suddenly wondering if I’m a very good fantasy reader because so many others love their maps. *shrug* Oh, well.

Reading Update

From the reading side of things…I’m already falling behind. So I’m like 20-30 pages into my first read this month, is all. Usually by now I’d be done or almost done with it. It’s just that the last 4-5 days have been really stressful and the next couple days are going to be really stressful – and when I’m stressing out and/or not feeling good (some of that, too) I only have enough bandwidth to read fanfiction. I’ve been doing a lot of that the past four days.

So, I’ve got a big job tomorrow and then a less stressful one on Wednesday (weather permitting!) but that’s just as long and hopefully by Wednesday evening, things will settle back to normal for me so I can blast through some of these books.

I hope to get a list post or two up this month, but looking at my schedule, it probably won’t be this week. If plans work out, I will be posting another update next Monday. I’m looking forward to that and hopefully I can tell you that I finished several books by then!