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Hi everyone!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Have my big halloween event this weekend, so I'm squeezing in a quick post.

This week I did a big comic binge, trying to clear out my queue.

So I'm listing a lot of titles because I mark them off as I finish a trade, but I didn't necessarily read the whole trades worth this week.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vol. 2 - it's ok, but I keep expecting it to follow the show because the character designs look so much like the show's actors. Kinda wish they'd changed the designs up if they weren't going to follow the plot.

Paper Girls, Vol. 6 - this was the finale of the series. I really enjoyed it overall, but the ending fell a little flat for me. There wasn't even a farewell from the author/illustrator at the end.

MARY SHELLEY: MONSTER HUNTER Vol. 1 - retelling of Frankenstein as though it were a real event, and that the doctor was a woman, along with her assistant Imogen.

The Wicked + the Divine, Vol. 9: "Okay" - conclusion of this series as well, i liked the ending a bit better. Still not amazing, but it did wrap everything up and give an epilogue. The art was always fantastic on it though.

Marvel Comics #1000 - shorts collection with a page comic by different authors and artists commemorating each year of marvel. It was ok, some were exellent others were meh.

Skyward, Vol. 3: Fix The World - this was a great story. It's nice to see a apocalypse story that isn't a straight up dystopia. Things are different, but a new society formed that has it's own set of good and bad. This was the conclusion, i really liked the wrap up. It finished it up for now, but there's plenty of room to continue if they get a chance to pick it up again.

Little Bird: The Fight for Elder's Hope - really didn't like this one. The story was weird and i really disliked the artwork

Xena: Warrior Princess Vol. 4 (Issues) & Xena Vol. 2: Mindgames - nice artwork, story's alright

Currently reading:
The Wreath - last prompt for last reading challenge, book in translation published before 1945. It's ok, i'm kinda paused on it. I don't like a lot of classics because it seems like the man avenue for women's rebellion is not marrying who they were told to marry and going off and taking up with some other guy instead. I was hoping since it was Norse based there'd be more viking and adventure.

Dead Witch Walking - Kim harrison is doing a group re-read of the hallows before American Demon comes out, so thought I'd join in a bit. Good to revisit the series.


QOTW:

Have you ever visited a location from a book? Did it feel familiar, different?

I've been to London, selected partially because I read so many books set there and I had no real mental picture for it. It was cool, and I liekd putting images to the places I read about.

This week I finished Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I loved it and found it a fascinating fantasy/mystery/thriller, but I will say it's not a book for everyone. It's not YA, and definitely adult. She goes to some very dark places in this book. I'm very glad I was forewarned about some of the content, because I think I would have enjoyed it less if I hadn't been forewarned about it.

I'm currently reading Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger, which so far is kind of a fantasy set in a Asian-inspired fantasy world, with inspiration from multiple real-world cultures including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and maybe Indian? It also feels somewhat steampunk, with cars and rifles. The magic involves bonding with animals who become shades you can summon. I'm not very far in yet, but so far I'm really enjoying it.

QOTW: I used to live in New York City, which is the setting of many books, so I kind of get this in reverse. Whenever I read a contemporary book set in NYC, I recognize things and they feel familiar.

Finished up Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas over the weekend. Definitely an interesting tour of the way that the evolution dairy has been tied to so many different aspects of life over the the history of mankind. I have several of Kurlansky's other books on my TBR list and I look forward to doing more exploring!

After a nearly 2-year anxious wait, The Burning White finally came out on Tuesday (well, actually on Monday, since it hit my Kindle on Monday evening due to the only known benefit to being in such a far western time zone following a midnight release). It's been a busy week, so I'm not nearly as far in as I'd hoped to be by now, but so far it's quite good. Here's hoping that the end is as epic as the series has been! Weeks is the king of major plot twists, so this could ultimately go pretty much anywhere.

QOTW: I lived in Chicago for three years, so any book set there brings familiarity. And with my family being from Cleveland, A Trick of Light was super fun, as I could vividly picture many locations described in the book.

I finished The Calculating Stars this week, which I enjoyed. Alternate post-WWII history focused on getting to space, with characters that could have been in Hidden Figures. Think many here would enjoy it.

Whenever I travel, I try to find a book to bring that is set in that location, because I always like spotting places that are in the books. Some places (like London, Chicago, New York) are easier to find than others.

No finishes this week. Life is going to get very busy in the coming weeks two as we have a major family event happening at the end of November.

I am still listening to Head On and still enjoying it.

I have been catching up on a pile of magazines so haven't been reading any actual books before bed. I need to get back to that.

QOTW: I have not planned visits to any specific locations from books, but have certainly read books where I'm familiar with the locations where they take place. I think those are two different things. In the first case, I'm thinking the question could be have I traveled to someplace just to go to the setting of the book, something like Nora Roberts' "Inn Boonsboro" trilogy.

At last check-in, I was in the middle of The Fates Divide. I finished it shortly thereafter, and it was fine - not as amazing as I hoped, but a reasonable conclusion to the multiple threads of the plot. I think I would have enjoyed it more as a single book, rather than two halves read years apart.

I then moved on to The Shining for IRL Book Club #1 - amazingly, almost none of us had read it, and when one member suggested Doctor Sleep, we decided to include both this month. I'm glad we did, because I enjoyed the book SO much more than the movie, and there are enough differences that I really wonder which one Doctor Sleep will follow. I'm way down the list for that one at the library, but I'll find out eventually.

I'm now readingBlood Brothers: The Story of the Strange Friendship between Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, which caught my eye at the book festival earlier this year and I recently saw at the library and decided to pick up. It's a bit scattered in terms of telling the story in chronological order, but it's interesting so far.

QOTW: I'm struggling a bit to think of anyplace I've visited because of reading about it in a book that's not a travel guide..but I've certainly read books set in places I've been. Recently, it kind of terrified me how many of the places in Assassination Vacation I've been, and of course Tigerland: 1968-1969: A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing is all about Columbus, and Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town is about Lancaster. And as much as I wasn't a huge fan of Where the Crawdads Sing, it did really capture the low country.