My Book List Was F’ed Up

Currently reading: The Scorpion’s Tale by Preston and Child. This is the second in their newest Nora Kelly series that starts with Old Bones.

Let me start with a little horror story called “My Book List Was F’ed up 😱”. After I complete a book that will go into my library, I add it into two spreadsheets – books read by year and book list, which is a master list of authors in my library. Somehow my master list had several columns shifted upward and I had to go through it for about half an hour fixing the issue, and I’m still not sure it’s correct. I also have no idea how it occurred, and it was a nightmare to contend with as the list has at least 400 rows. I may still have to re-check when I have time. Laugh at my anal retentiveness if you must, but compiling this list took a long time and it still needs to be honed. What can I say? I’m fanatical about my books.

All of this mess was discovered because I finally finished The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon. I have to admit that I set this book aside for two days because: a) I didn’t want it to end and b) as someone who reads the end, I didn’t like where it was going, so I was not looking forward to it. But I did finally pick it up and as much as I dreaded the ending, I can’t wait for the next one because of the damn cliffhanger! Well, that and I really love her characters, even if the female protagonist makes some questionable choices (in the book, it’s phrased as “following her gut” but that doesn’t always excuse her decisions in my opinion). 

After I finished the final page, I quickly pulled up the authors twitter to see if there was news on the next installment. Nothing on that but she was pondering “Why can I not simply… write shorter books”. I would agree with that assessment if I didn’t enjoy the stories so much. Mostly, I never really notice the length as I’m reading (FYI the last one clocked in at 466 pages).

So, if you are interested in a supernatural, dystopian world, initially set in London in the year 2059, I would recommend checking out the first novel The Bone Season (2013). As always if you’re not sure it’s something you want to spend money on, check it out from your local library (shameless plug to support libraries).

I have enjoyed the series thus far (although book three The Song Rising fell a little short of the others) and I can’t wait to for what’s to come next.