It’s time again to ask ourselves the three W’s:
What if your favorite video game became a theme park?
What if said theme park was really a virtual reality game?
Would you take on the dragon?

Wait, no, that’s not right. We ask these three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words.

       

So this week was a bit of a bummer as far as reading, and I don’t think I actually really finished anything. Mostly, it’s been a week full of DNFs, one right after another.

The Edge of Everywhen by A.S. Mackey
DNF @ 35% || Goodreads
I loved the idea of this book, but I didn’t love the execution. The story was supposed to be told from the point of view of a book, which is cool … and it sometimes was. But it jumped and meandered too much. It started at the kids getting to the house, and then it backtracked to what happened to lead them there, then it jumped to another character, then back to the kids at the house. The flow was just wonky. The narrator also dropped these mentions to other super popular books and was like, “You’ve read this, of course, right, dear reader?” I thought it was cute at first as a way to draw a young reader’s attention to other books they might like, but then it started feeling a bit pretentious, and what if the readers haven’t, in fact, read those? Or have no interest in reading them? Where I stopped, I felt like literally nothing had happened. The kids had just found this book, and that was it. The rest of the book thus far had been filled with quotidian moving into a new house and learning the rules, but nothing that grabbed my attention. The final nail in the coffin was when Phoenix, a little boy with autism, suddenly started exhibiting behaviors he hadn’t in a long time after finding this book, very heavily implying that the book was “fixing” him. Whether this narrative continues in the rest of the book, I can’t say because that was enough for me to decide not to finish when added to the fact that I was just plain bored with it. That definitely felt squicky to me.

The Taken by Inbali Iserles
DNF @ pg 124/252 || Goodreads
This felt like 120 pages of describing a human city from the point of view of a fox and that’s about it. This is another one where I was so far into the book, and yet, I didn’t feel like much of anything was really happening. It was just starting to happen when I stopped reading, but it had already lost my interest. I read Pax last year and enjoyed it, even though I don’t normally like animal books, so I decided to give this one a try because foxes are cool and that cover is gorgeous. Yes, I’m shallow. The perspective was cute at first, when Isla first stumbles upon the city. The highway is called a Deathway, and cars are seen as mysterious beasts known as Manglers. I liked it. But as the story went on, it got a little tedious to try to parse what the author was describing from the point of view of the fox. I got most of it, but there were some things that I was scratching my head like … I’m not sure I know what that is? Even that would’ve been fine if something had just happened. The book relies heavily on foreshadowing and hinting, while waiting too long to actually deliver the dang thing. There’s hints of fox magic early on, but it’s not until just before I stopped reading that it’s really introduced or explained. Then, when it is, it’s done so in giant paragraphs of exposition, which went on for pages about fox magic and the difference between foxes and wolves.

The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson
DNF @ 1 hr || Goodreads
I’m gonna be honest and upfront about this: this isn’t a genre I normally read. So that might very well have been the problem here. I just … didn’t like it. I gave it a fair shake, even though it felt like not much was happening in the first hour. There was talk of treason and things the president may have done that seemed shady, etc, so that was enough for me. But by the end of the hour, it’s revealed that the whole first hour wasn’t an actual trial, it was just a mock trial, and this is a trope that I absolutely hate. I don’t like these “gotcha” switches where suddenly everything you read didn’t actually happen like you thought it did. It was this other thing. So that immediately landed it on my DNF.

This Week’s Reviews

Dragon Ops by Mari Mancusi
Status: 58%

One wrong move, and it’s game over.

Welcome to DRAGON OPS, the world’s first augmented-reality video-game theme park. Set on a once-deserted island, our three beta players-classic gamer geek Ian; his adventure-seeking sister, Lily; and their too-cool-for-gaming cousin, Derek-have been lucky enough to score an invite to play before the fully immersive experience opens to the public.

But once inside, they find themselves trapped in a game taken over by a rogue AI dragon called Atreus, and suddenly the stakes go beyond the virtual world. With no cheat codes, guidebooks, save points, or do-overs, they’ll need all their cunning and video-game hacks to beat the game? and survive in real life.

Action-packed and unputdownable, Dragon Ops will thrill gamers and reluctant readers alike with high-tech adventure and electrifying twists and turns.

This book is every bit the geeky goodness I’d hoped it would be. Oh, how my gamer heart sings and soars. Trapped in a Video Game is one of my all-time favorite tropes, and this lives up to that. There are definitely some very strong Sword Art Online vibes to it, and it seems like the influence is a bit obvious? I’d be highly suspect if the author claimed it wasn’t an influence. Still, this is a fresh enough take on it, and geared to younger kids, so the pre-SAO crowd. This would be a great lead-in for that anime/manga, honestly.

There’s also a lot more humor in this, which I appreciate! Even though the situations are dangerous, it’s not as dark or scary. Sure, the threat is still real, but I never get the sense that everyone’s going to die, so there’s that. There’s also all sorts of really cute gamer reference (even Leroy Jenkins makes an appearance), with just enough explanation surrounding them that even non-gamers could follow along.

The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi
Status: 4/15 hours

One wrong move, and it’s game over.

In epic YA fantasy about a girl with a special power to communicate with magical beasts and the warring kingdom only she can save.

Elin’s family has an important responsibility: caring for the fearsome water serpents that form the core of their kingdom’s army. So when some of the beasts mysteriously die, Elin’s mother is sentenced to death as punishment. With her last breath she manages to send her daughter to safety.

Alone, far from home, Elin soon discovers that she can talk to both the terrifying water serpents and the majestic flying beasts that guard her queen. This skill gives her great powers, but it also involves her in deadly plots that could cost her life. Can she save herself and prevent her beloved beasts from being used as tools of war? Or is there no way of escaping the terrible battles to come?

I DNF’d so many books this week that I am determined not to DNF this one, darn it! Even though it’s starting to drag a little. Translated works are hard for me, but this translation actually flows really smoothly. The narrator is absolutely fabulous, and honestly, she’s probably why I stuck around so long in the first place.

The first hour, hour and a half? Fantastic. I was pulled into this world of giant beasts called Toda and the struggle of poor Elin. Then … things derailed a bit. I’m pretty sure we spent something like 45 minutes to an hour on beekeeping. Yes, beekeeping. In the middle of an epic fantasy. If this had been a physical book, I would’ve skipped all that nonsense. It was nothing I didn’t already know (not even being into bees myself, but it was mostly pretty common knowledge about hives and queen bees and how honey is made). Mostly, it felt totally unnecessary.

Then, right after that, it just randomly switches characters to two boys I’d never heard of, and I was just … lost. Confused. I’m still a bit confused, so I set it aside last night because I was getting tired, and I’m hoping that when I pick it up today, it’ll be easier to follow.

It’s a little hit or miss for me, since this is supposed to be two books in one and it started with such a whiz bang that immediately drew me in. But now it’s just limping along. I’m going to try to stick with it, because it has such high reviews that say the last part is really good, but we’ll see.

               

I don’t even know, guys. I’ve been so out of it lately just emotionally, which has tanked my reading, even though I should be reading more and not less at this point.

Listen, I KNOW that Rogue Protocol is still there, after WEEKS, but I promise I will be reading it this week, darn it, because if I don’t, I’m afraid Nicole @ Book-Wyrm-Knits will find me and eat me. So it’s happening, okay?! For reals.

This Friday is my blog tour spot for Catalyst, and I was going to try to squeeze in the first book, The Field, first, but we’ll see. I’m hoping to be able to start it today, and if I do, then I’ll read The Field and maybe add a mini review of it for the blog tour. We’ll see. The books can standalone, so it’s not required to read the first in order to read the second. Catalyst sounds right up my alley, though, with archaeology and ancient civilizations.

Out of Body should be a quick read, since it’s a novella. It’s about a librarian who witnesses a murder and has to get to the bottom of it, and if that’s not perfect, I don’t know what is. I’ve been in a mood for some thriller, so I’m looking forward to this one.

Which then, of course, leads me to Something is Killing the Children #1, which also sounds all dark and creepy. I actually really dislike reading volumes as they come out (because 30 pages just isn’t enough for me, generally, and it stops just as things are getting good). I was so curious about this one, though, that I just couldn’t help it!

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