Katie Bachelder

With so much time on my hands, I’ve been reading through books like crazy. Even Wheel of Time goes pretty quick now that I’m able to read two to three chapters each day. As I result, I ended up buying a handful of books recently, adding to my growing list of books to read. It’ll be fun to see how many of them I’m actually able to get through during my time stuck at home.

1. Wheel of Time #12-14 by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. I’ve had Knife of Dreams (#11) and The Gathering Storm (#12) on my shelf ever since I was about halfway through Crossroads of Twilight (#10). Now that I’m well past halfway through KoD, I’m so eager to have the rest of the books sitting on my shelf that I bought Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light from my local bookstore, and I’m hoping they’ll arrive some time next week.

2. Renegades #2-3 by Marissa Meyer. These two have been sitting on my shelf for quite a while, unfortunately, but I’ve decided there’s no time like the present to read them. I found Renegades (#1) to be…alright. It wasn’t bad but superhero stories aren’t usually my cup of tea. I probably wouldn’t have finished the series if my friend, who works at the bookstore, texted me one day saying she had a copy that got slightly damaged in transit and I could get a discount on it, if I wanted it. Not one to pass up deals on a book, I said yes, and got book #3 while I was there. I will say that I found the Lunar Chronicles series to get progressively better under Marissa Meyer, so one can hope for the same here.

3. A Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I’ve heard such good things about this book over the several years since it first came to my attention, and the 4.34 star rating it has on Goodreads supports that conclusion. It just isn’t one of those books that you can happen to find sitting on a shelf in a bookstore, so I never impulse-bought it. Then, I heard that Hank Green’s A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is up for pre-sale on B&N, and in order to get free shipping, I decided it was well past time I put this book on my shelf.

4. Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake (Three Dark Crowns #4). The series so far has been good. Admittedly, it’s no revolutionary YA novel, but I’ve read the books as they’ve come. And, Five Dark Fates promises to be an intense conclusion to the series. It’ll be interesting to see what Blake does with her characters.

5. The Raven Cycle #3-4 by Maggie Stiefvater. The Scorpio Races is currently one of my favorite stand-alone novels, and The Raven Cycle thus far as proven just as good. I remember burning through The Raven Boys (#1) in a day around New Years, and The Dream Thieves (#2) almost as fast less than a month ago. I expect great things from Blue Lily, Lily Blue (#3) and The Raven King (#4), and I can’t wait for these books to arrive with the last of my Wheel of Time books.

6. Storm Front by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files #1). I really hadn’t planned on reading this series, especially since I knew that this was another behemoth series like Wheel of Time. Then I watched Daniel Greene’s video Before You Should Read for the Dresden Files, and I caved. I mean, urban fantasy isn’t my favorite genre because it’s usually rife with cliches, but there are some authors and shows that do it well. (The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare and the Supernatural show come to mind.) Plus I’ve apparently read Jim Butcher before; I’ve read Aeronaut’s Windlass and was pleasantly surprised with its steampunk vibes.

So there you have it: ten books, not including Path of Daggers, to get me through this stay-at-home order and beyond. I hope you, too, have plenty of reading material and are catching up on books you’ve been meaning to get to for far too long. Let me know in the comments what you’re reading, or what’s on your TBR list!