Day 23: Book you tell people you’ve read, but haven’t (or haven’t actually finished)

It is not really a book I tell people I have read, but it is a book I really wish I could finish. Over the years I have tried to read this book multiple time, because all it’s themes and elements suggests that I should absolutely love this book. It is considered a classic and I know a lot of people love it. The books touches closely on mental health which is another topic very close to my heart.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

By any parameters this book should click very well with me and it should be a joy for me to read. I am also a big fan of Plath’s poetry, so loving this book should be a nobrainer. Unfortunately I have started this book 6 times, and never gotten past the 3rd chapter, and I don’t really understand why. I just find it so hard to become engrossed in this book and keep reading. Every few years I pick it up from by TBR and try again, but I just cant get through it. Although I will keep living in the hope that one day I will pick it up and manage to finish it.

I even have this stunning hardback copy of the book to try to entice me to complete reading it:

Day 22: Book you plan to read next

I have quite a few books on my TBR list, by now the list is never-ending. Since I am a mood reader most of my “read next” plans end up being scrapped. Right now I hope to start reading The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon next because I have heard great things about it.

In 2059, Scion has taken over most of the world’s cities, promising safety for all the citizens it deems worthy and wiping out clairvoyants wherever it can find them. 

Paige Mahoney, though, is a clairvoyant–and a criminal just for existing. Paige is determined to fight Scion’s power, and as part of the Seven Seals, Paige has found a use for her powers: she scouts for information by breaking into others’ minds as they dream. 

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly–as soldiers in their army. 

Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives. 

I have never read anything by Samantha Shannon, so I look forward to exploring her world. It also helps that I have the special edition of this book from The Broken Binding which makes it a beautiful reading experience.

I rarely read only one book at a time. I tend to read one physical book, a digital book and an audiobook. There are some times when bringing a book along is impractical, like at the gym where I prefer audiobooks or on the bus or out and about where it is very easy to open my phone to do a little reading. When reading multiple books at once I find it very helpful to read different genres so it is easier for me to separate the books from each other.

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco is the next audiobook I plan to read. Since I loved The Girl in the Well so much I would like to explore more works by this author. This book is also part of a Reading Challenge I will be doing in October for Halloween (Reading 13 spooky books in October to fulfil different prompt)

Tea can raise the dead, but resurrection comes at a price.
When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.
In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha-one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles and make a powerful choice.

The Crimson Moth by Kristen Ciccarelli is the next digital book I plan to read. This book will also fit in for my reading challenge under one of the prompts. I did start reading it now, but realised it would fit one of the prompts and decided to stop reading so I can read it in October instead. It is a book about witches who do magic with blood, which I found interesting.

On the night Rune’s life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is.

Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe – a notorious and unforgiving witch hunter loyal to the revolution – who she can’t help but find herself falling for.

Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Rune’s merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. He soon realizes that beneath her beauty and shallow façade, is someone fiercely intelligent and tender who feels like his perfect match. Except, what if she’s the very villain he’s been hunting?