Tiny Navajo Writes: Top Ten Books Still on My TBR

Hi guys! It’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday! TTT was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

Today is TTT’s 10 year anniversary with That Artsy Reader Girl, who co-created it and now houses it. She recommended that we do a different take on Top Ten today and so my plan is to go back through all the Top Tens and do one that I haven’t done, seeing as I’ve only been doing this for a year or two tops.

The topic that I’m choosing went live on February 5, 2018 and it’s talking about the books that have been on my TBR list the longest and still haven’t been read. And I may be in trouble with this one…I have so many books that still haven’t been read.

 

1. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle by Fiona Carnarvon. I went through a Downton Abbey kick a few years ago, and I was super curious about the “real” Downton Abbey, so I picked this one to read and expand my reading horizons a bit, as it is nonfiction. I do still plan on reading it, just…haven’t gotten around to it just yet.
2. The Galaxy Chronicles edited by Jeff Seymour. This one has been on for a while, as I had an anthology kick going on for a bit, still do to be honest, and this one popped up on BookBub deals and I just had to buy it. So I did and it’s just been sitting on my digital shelf ever since. But it’s on my Beat the Backlist for this year, so we’ll see about getting it read finally!
3. The Time Travel Chronicles edited by Crystal Watanabe. See above, same reasoning!
4. The A.I. Chronicles edited by Ellen Campbell. See above…I just need to hurry up and read all of these!
5. The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. These was suggested to be about 6 years ago, and it’s just been sitting on my list. I think I have the digital book, I just need to make myself focus and read it!
6. The Restaurant Critic’s Wife by Elizabeth LaBan. This honestly did sound interesting, and I’m all for novels that focus on women taking back their identity and figuring out who they want to be again.
7. The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace. I need to read more poetry and Amanda Lovelace’s books were extremely popular a few years back, so I put this one on my list.
8. Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII by Chester Nez. This is my heritage, my life, my history, and I know that I really need to read this, if just to know a little bit more about my own life.
9. The Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova. This just sounded so good!!! I need to know what kind of betrayal will happen and who exactly are the Alchemists of Loom?
10. NPCs by Drew Hayes. What do you think is going on through the minds of those non-playable characters you run into during round of D&D or World of Warcraft? This book seems to say that it will show us, and I have it on my Beat the Backlist list this year!

These are the Top Ten books that have been on my list the longest and that I have (hopeful) plans of reading this year. Or at some point anyway. What books have been on your list the longest? Why are they still there? Comment below and let me know!

 

 

Tiny Navajo Reads: Beat the Backlist 2020

Okay, I do apologize for ghosting out last week, but it was Christmas and I didn’t really want to write anything. I do realize that just not writing when I don’t want to write isn’t going to cut it this year, so I do promise to at least let you all know when I won’t be writing. Now, onto what today is really about:

Come one, come all, it’s that time of year! It’s time to Beat the Backlist for the year 2020!

Yep, for those of you who don’t know, this is a reading challenge set out every year by the amazing Austine at NovelKnight. It’s all about knocking out those books that have been languishing on your TBR list for YEARS now and you know that they’re looking at you with disappointed eyes. So, here is my challenge for Beat the Backlist 2020. 

I have 52 books picked out on my Goodreads shelf for Beat the Backlist. I am not locked in nor do I only have to read these books. I can add more and deviate from said list, as long as it was published in 2019 or earlier.

The point of Beat the Backlist is to read books on your TBR. I have selected 52 because that is my Goodreads goal for this upcoming year and I figure 52 would be a good number, especially now that I have a full time job that takes up a little more of my reading time.

And one last thing, if you so desire to join in with myself, Austine, and many others to get your TBR list to a more manageable length, then you can sign up at the link above at any point this upcoming year. You just need to have a goal of books you’re going to be reading.

I hope that you all will join me and my team, The Borrowers, as we strive to reduce our TBR list of books that have been languishing on that list. And if not, enjoy your year of reading.

What challenges are you playing on participating in this upcoming year? Do they help you get your TBR list down? Comment below and let me know!

 

Tiny Navajo Reads: The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

♦ ♦ ♦ ◊ ◊

*Published August 24, 2010*

This was on my 2018 Beat the Backlist challenge by NovelKnight, and that’s really the only reason I read this book. It was interesting, I will give it that. I liked this type of dystopian, but it didn’t really take me into a world that was extraordinarily different.

The first thing that Thomas sees when he wakes up is that he is in an elevator shaft and he has no solid memories, other than his name. When he comes up, he’s surrounded by boys, all around his age and been living in the Glade for quite some time. As he gets used to his new living situation, Thomas realizes that there’s a lot going on here that is not right but also feels familiar at the same time.

But when a girl comes up the elevator shaft, the first girl ever to come up the shaft, things take a turn for the worst. The doors that open to the maze the Runners try to solve each day; to solve the maze, they can hopefully get home, a home none of them no longer remember. But as the doors remain open at night, and the monsters that live there start to invade their safe space, the Glade. All of this starts to set off a chain reaction in Thomas’s mind, and he thinks he may be able to save the Gladers, if only he could remember what he’s supposed to do.

Now, overall, I did like this book. It turned out better than I thought it would. The problem though is that this is a dystopian book and that’s all that really is. There’s nothing amazing or fantastic, or mindblowing about it all. It was just a great adventure book in my book, but I’m not so invested as it read the rest of the books. Or if I do, I’ll borrow them from the library, rather than buy them myself.

What books from a certain time (dystopian, vampire craze, etc.) have you read? Did you enjoy them? Why or why not? Comment below and let me know!

Tiny Navajo Reads: August Update

August has come and gone, and in doing so has started what I call “Fall Fever” for my husband and myself. We absolutely love the fall and that means slightly cooler weather, a better running environment outside, and more general joy at the weather. For me, it also means that school has started and it’s time to start reading again. Now that I’m graduated though, it means that I can enjoy the sensation of school starting without all the stress! WHOO!

For the books I’ve read in August though, I don’t think I read as much as I usually would have due to focusing and worrying about my Master’s portfolio and a final paper. But both were done and I passed and I am now officially a Master! In Library and Information Science! Full time job here I come! In the meantime, lots of reading to catch up on.

In August, I read Uprooted (reread), Spinning Silver, The Dragon Book, The Air You Breathe, Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores, Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up, The Bookshop on the Corner, The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and The Maze Runner. So, 12 books this month, and no reviews are written for them here just yet. I need to write more now that I have more time and get caught up so you all know what I think of books as I finish them. And I would remember them more/better if I wrote the review sooner as well. So, goal for this month: WRITE. MORE. DAMN. REVIEWS!

Anyway, I enjoyed a lot of my books this past month. The few that I didn’t enjoy as much was because they took a turn I was not expecting and it didn’t quite feel like it fit to me. You’ll find out when those reviews come out. As for the others, there was a one that was an ALA New Orleans ARC, and a lot are about minimalism and decluttering. Let me tell you, these past two years with work and school, I feel like I have accumulated a lot of stuff that I didn’t use, so now I’m working my way through them and seeing what I do actually use and what can be donated or given away. It feels really cathartic to do so!

Others were for the pure joy of reading without feeling like I’m neglecting homework or forgetting to turn something in. So, reading with pure joy again is fantastic! I want to keep reading and will do so!

What books bring back the feeling of pure joy to you? And are you starting school again? Do you like school? Comment below and let me know!

Tiny Navajo Reads: Girls Made of Snow and Glass

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ◊

*Published September 5, 2017*

Those of you who read my posts and my reviews, you’ll know that I love retold fairy tales, especially ones that feel like they are a new way to retell a story. Girls Made of Snow and Glass is a new way of retelling the story of Snow White and the Evil Queen and I love it! And it’s thanks to NovelKnight’s Beat the Backlist challenge for this year.

Mina is sixteen years old, she is shunned in the village she lives because of her magician father, and her heart; her heart made of glass that will never beat or love anyone. Lynet is fifteen years old, the daughter of the King of Whitespring Castle situated in the North where it always snows; she also looks exactly like the late queen, which everyone seeks to tell her at every turn. The stories of these two girls are told from the past and the present and we see how they came to be where they are.

Mina with her glass heart and her father the magician move to Whitespring Castle where Mina develops the idea to marry the newly single king, who has lost his wife but has a newborn baby daughter he adores; marry the king and have a husband and a kingdom that will love her.

Lynet tries to escape the shadow of her mother, who she looks exactly like. The new surgeon, someone new to Whitespring, tells Lynet why she looks exactly like her mother; she is made from magic, snow, and blood. Shocked at what her father has done in order to preserve her mother, Lynet does what she can to be her own person, to be more like Mina.

But as these two women, thrown into a fight neither wants to have, seek to either reconcile or destroy each other, they have to figure out who they truly are. Is Mina the girl who cannot love? Is Lynet only her mother’s image? Can they find their inner strength to throw off their father’s expectations and be who they have always to be? Or will they end up destroyed?

To me, this is one of the best retellings of Snow White and the Evil Queen. We actually get to see the motivation of why the Evil Queen sought out Snow White’s heart, why she sought out her kingdom, and how she became Snow White’s stepmother. We can see Lynet and how being compared to someone who is dead can not only wear on one’s spirit, but it can push one to do what they never would have contemplated before.

Also, just to let you know, I am not a fan of the Snow White story. At least, the Disney Snow White story. This retelling though I thoroughly enjoyed, if only because this Snow White actually did something to alter her destiny rather than just let it come at her and wash over with no regard. I loved this book, and if you are looking for a different retelling then look no further than the Girls Made of Snow and Glass.

What retellings have caused you to like a character you weren’t a fan of before? What character were they and why? Comment below and let me know!

Tiny Navajo Reads: July Update

We are seven months down in the year. August is the month I graduate from grad school and celebrate my anniversary and my husband’s birthday. This is a month of celebration! It’s also going to be the first month in two years that I’ll be able to read all the books I want without the guilt that I should be doing homework! All in all, it’s going to be a good month. But, we are here to discuss July, not August.

July was a good month for reading. Overall, I read 16 books overall. Six books were graphic novels and six books were books that I had gotten at ALA New Orleans. There was some overlap, but overall a good selection of books. I read A Study in Honor, The Diary of a Bookseller, Wolves and Roses, The Collector’s Apprentice, Coyotes Vol. 1, Amazing Spider-Man: Edge of Spider-Verse, Taproot, Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, Competence, Star-Touched Stories, Speak: A Graphic Novel, Girls Made of Glass and Snow, Spider-Gwen Vol. 1: Greater Power, The Book Thief, The Seafarer’s Kiss, and Death of Wolverine: The Complete Collection. 

Unfortunately, I have no reviews for any of these yet…yes, I am so behind! But I will get reviews for these books up eventually I promise!

As for where I am with NovelKnight’s book challenge, I haven’t read anything that was for Beat the Backlist this month. I’ve read a lot of new books this month, but as you can see I am way ahead on my Goodreads Challenge. Hopefully, as I go through this month, I’ll be able to work on my Beat the Backlist challenge.

What are some of your favorite books you’ve read this year? Comment below and let me know!

Tiny Navajo Reads: Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

♦ ♦ ◊ ◊ ◊

Yeah…I don’t know what happened, I remember enjoying this book a lot more the first time that I read it. Granted, I was also going through a harder time the first time I read it, so that may have been why.

Eat, Pray, Love is a partial autobiography of Elizabeth Gilbert, a woman who thought she had everything she ever wanted in her life: a loving husband, a house in the suburb, a wonderful career. But as we start out on her journey of discovery, we see that she is deeply unhappy. And she isn’t sure as to why she is unhappy, she has all that she wants, right? Maybe not. For her, her life doesn’t feel fulfilled. Nothing is going well, she feels her marriage is a sham, her career unfilling, and everything else just isn’t going right in her life. She spirals into a deep depression and seeks to escape her life.

In doing so, she travels to three different places in the world to focus and entertain thoughts on how to find herself. She gets rid of her life as it is right now, has sold her furniture, and goes off to three different countries: Italy for pleasure, India for spirituality, and Bali for…balance(?).

Okay, honest opinion, here (granted, all of my opinions are honest, this is my blog). But I remember connecting to the author and her journey so much more the first time I read this book. I also read this book when I was going through a harder time in my life. Things weren’t looking their best and I wasn’t feeling my best either. Reading about travel and her descriptions of the places she went to helped me forget my own problems for a short time.

Now, though? I didn’t enjoy reading this book as much. Her writing seemed almost phony and fake like she was just writing to write. Yes, it is about her and her life, but when it comes to travel memoirs/autobiographies, I would think you would delve more into how you’re changing, and what is influencing you. And yes, she does do this, but it just doesn’t seem to click anymore.

Overall, I would say if you enjoy travel writing, you’ll enjoy this book. But if you’re here for Gilbert’s spiritual journey, you might want to find another book to read.

What books have rereading showed that they weren’t what you thought they were going to be? Comment below and let me know.

Tiny Navajo Reads: Mystery Girl Vol. 1

Mystery Girl Vol. 1 by Paul Tobin

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ◊

The only reason I had this comic is because I was able to get it as a free copy after buying a comic on my Kindle and this was the only one that really sounded interesting. And I’m really glad that I did get it, I truly enjoyed it!

Mystery Girl, or Trine Hampstead as her friends know her, knows everything. You come to her with a question, and she will be able to answer your question without any other information. The only question she cannot answer, the only thing she does not know, is how she came to be able to know everything. She has no idea how she got this impressive power, but that’s a mystery for her to solve another day.

Today’s mystery to solve is how are there wooly mammoths that are perfectly preserved in Siberia? Trine knows immediately how there are perfectly preserved wooly mammoths, but what she does is surprise all of New York friends by insisting she come along the journey to Siberia to find the wooly mammoths. As she leaves New York, Trine is also followed by a vicious killer who is coming after her for reasons she does not know. But she will know soon; as she always does.

I truly enjoyed this comic and it seems to have only the one volume, unfortunately. I would love to read the second volume to find out more about Trine and her life and her power to know everything. And I love Trine and her friends that accept her and her power to know everything, for what it is: almost a blessing, almost a curse.

What single-volume comic have you read has been one of your favorites? Was it meant to be a single volume or did it just end in that way? Comment below and let me know!

Tiny Navajo Reads: April Update

Again, the month has vanished and with it, I am close to the end of the semester. So close! And then I only have one semester left of my Master’s degree. Holy shite!

Anyway, in this month of April, I have read 16 books, a combination of ebooks, books, and comic books. I was glad to be able to read as much as I was able to. I read several series, the first books of which were on Beat the Backlist challenge, and I was interested, so kept reading the rest of the series. Others, I wish I hadn’t, but hey, that’s life when reading.

I read Howl’s Moving Castle, The Sable Quean, Wolf Tower, The Tropic of Serpents, Karma, and it’s two sequels Jinxed and Fated, The Golden Spider and its sequel The Silver Skull, Voyage of the Basilisk, In the Labyrinth of Drakes, Within the Sanctuary of Wings, Rat Queens Vol. 1, Paper and Fire, Rat Queens Vol. 2, and Muhammad Ali. As you can see, I haven’t reviewed everything yet. Part of that problem is I got behind with my reviewing last month, but I’m okay with that. I love reading, and I love that I’m able to share my love of these books with y’all.

There are about 3-4 books that I wasn’t terribly impressed with, but that’s just really my own opinion. I also got back into comic books some this month. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading comics and graphic novels. I need to reincorporate them into my life.

Oh, I’m also ahead on my Goodreads Challenge as well. I have 17 books ahead of where I am supposed to be, so WHOO!!!

If you are participating in any of reading challenges, how are you guys doing? Are you ahead? Are you behind? Or you just coasting along where you’re supposed to be? Comment below and let me know!

Tiny Navajo Reads: Karma

Karma by Donna Augustine

♦ ♦ ♦ ◊ ◊

This was a book from my Beat the Backlist 2018 challenge put on by Novelknight, and I have to say, I’m glad I read it was. It has such an interesting concept! It was just some execution points that I wasn’t a fan of. *Trigger warning: There are some non-consensual sexual acts.*

Karma is not just a random act thrown at you by the universe. Karma, is a person who is in charge of making sure you get yours in the end; Karma is pissed. Camilla has recently died in a horrific train accident and she has now been drafted to be the new Karma in this world where Lady Luck, Fate, Murphy’s Law, and the Jinxes all exist as real people. The only thing that makes Karma decide to stay and learn about being Karma, is the little fishhook that Fate and Howard dangle in front of her that she can try to find her murdered, the one who caused the train wreck.

Now as Karma learns to do what karma does best, she learns that there is more to being Karma than just giving someone the finger and then being on your way. She has to work with Fate, a guy who does not like “transfers” as people like Karma are called, and it’s starting to piss her off how much he seems to hate her.

Camilla, now as Karma, tries to figure out her new way of life, she also figures out that there seems to be more behind her death than what was originally told. And she intends to find out all that is wrong.

Okay, so that’s the basic premise, and while I love the idea that all those things we say like, “karma’s a witch,” and “you’ve been visited by Lady Luck,” and things like that, they are actual people. And they do what needs to be done in order for the universe to have balance. What I didn’t like and had to skip over in this book was the forced romance that kept coming up between Fate and Karma. It didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel natural, and it just messed with the flow of the book. And yes, there are some non-consensual scenes in that they both feel something and act on it without knowing why, and someone spikes a drink and it’s just nonsense in my opinion. The book was fine without it, and in my opinion, it would have been better if the romance was left out of it. They could have been friends and it would have been a lot easier on my stomach.

What books series have you read that was ruined by romance? Comment below and let me know.