Hey everybody!
Welcome back to Tanner's Books and Beyond,
here today with my April Wrap-Up, which I'm
actually excited to do because I managed to
read more than one book this month!
Mind you it probably helps that most of those
books were fairly short...and I had already
started one before the month happened AAAA
IT STILL COUNTS!
Before I begin I'm just gonna say that all
my reviews for these books are available on
Goodreads, so this is basically just gonna
be a very quick summarization of my thoughts
on each of these books.
So let's get the ball rolling with The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova.
It was the first book I read this month; I
also borrowed it from my friend Lindsay and
I've already given it back so that's why I
don't have a physical copy.
This book tells the story of three different
generations of historians and their allies.
We've got the unnamed female protagonist who
narrates most of the story, we've also got
her father Paul and his wife Helen, and then
we've got their mentor Professor Rossi.
Each of their stories take place in different
decades, we've got the 30s and the 50s and
finally the 70s, so across a very wide swath
of history, especially considering that most
of the action takes place in Europe so we've
got all that Cold War stuff going on back there.
And over the course of their studies they
discover this trail of clues and evidence
suggesting maybe, possibly, Vlad Tepes, the
guy who was the Romanian Tyrant and the inspiration
for Dracula from Bram Stoker's novel, he may
have actually become Dracula, become a vampire
and has survived to this day.
And then what follows is this adventure throughout
Europe of them tracing down all of these clues
and hints and evading the followers that they
eventually realize "oh yeah, vampires are
real, they keep on trying to bite us and kill us."
It's a great book if you love history, it's
a great book if you love doing research.
I mean I for one when I was in university
loved doing research for essays.
Now the actual writing of the essays, that
was a huge struggle, but when I was doing
research for them I really did enjoy it and
so I really did enjoy a lot of the stuff that
the characters in the book had to got through.
Now there are some qualms I had with it - some
of the syntax and the grammar and just the
style I found kind of iffy, and because I'm
not as huge a history buff as my friend is,
there were some parts that really dragged.
But all in all it was a very well written
book, it's a great adventure, it's a good
historical drama, and there are even some
really good horror elements in there too.
And after that I read Power Rangers Aftershock,
which is the graphic novel sequel to the new
movie, which is the greatest movie that I
have ever seen, quantifiably the most diverse
film that has been released this year so you
should definitely go watch it if you can,
and then if you can watch it again after that
you should go watch it again!
So anyways, this book picks up directly after
the film and continues most of the ranger's
stories and follows their hopes and fears
about their duties and everything that that entails.
It's got some hints on where the sequel movies
can go beyond the obvious, and I really hope
the sequel movies get greenlit - Don't let
me down Lionsgate!
The one thing I didn't like about this is
that it's really not a full graphic novel.
It's basically three issues - maybe not even
three issues, maybe just two and a half issues
worth of single-issue material, and then the
back half of this is just a preview of the
Boom series Mighty Morphin' comics because
the Trade Paper Back is coming out soon.
So it's like they're good, but I already read
those years ago, so I was basically paying
twice the amount for half of what I expected essentially.
Still though, if you really liked the movie
you should definitely check this out.
It is a very good follow-up to the movie and
it'll still show your support towards the
movie and put more evidence to the fact that
they should continue with this film franchise.
And after I finished those I read The Star-Touched
Queen by Roshani Chokshi.
Now if you remember this is the book that
I was planning on reading for DiverseAThon
back in January.
I got a hundred pages in and I was just not
feeling it at all you guys.
I felt like there were some weird things going
on with the pacing and the writing style and
the characters, and I knew that if I tried
to force my way through it I was going to
lose all my motivation, so I put it on hold
and I started reading the other stuff.
Didn't get as far as I wanted to for DiverseAThon,
but I did get farther than I would have if
I read this book - and for good reason!
Those fears were completely founded.
The only reason I was able to finish this
as quick as I did was because A) I was in
some very long car trips over the weekend and B)
I'm almost out of data on my phone so it's
like...I couldn't use the internet on those
trips so I had to do something.
So yeah I ripped through this and it's...it's
not awful...but there's a lot of stuff that
I took umbrage with.
I felt the pacing was all over, the characters
were all over; there's a good story buried
in here somewhere!
I think the main thing was that it felt way
too rushed.
If you have a really strong hankering for
Indian mythology inspired stories then maybe
you should check this out, but I really don't
think it's worth your time if you don't have
such a huge passion for that.
And the last book I was able to squeeze in
was Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood,
which is the first book in the Phryne Fisher series
which of course is the inspiration for the...Phenomenal
television series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries.
I watched the show, or at least the first
season, before I read any of these books and
I wanted to start reading them to see how
they compared.
For those who don't know, the plot of the
show and the books is that it takes place
in 1920s Melbourne, Australia.
It's about a Lady Detective named Phryne Fisher
and she's a really unique character of the
time just because she bucks all the social trends.
She takes a lot of male lovers, she's very
accommodating of people of different religions
and races, she's super accepting of people
who aren't straight even though that was basically
illegal at the time but she's still Super
chill with it.
She's always supporting the needy and the
downtrodden because in her backstory she was
born into poverty and the only reason her
family is as wealthy as it is is because during
the Great War so many people died.
While I would say that the show in general
is slightly better than the novel, the novel
itself has few things that give it a bit of
an edge over the show in some departments.
Basically they're both really good.
Whether you're a fan of the television show
or not you should definitely check this out
if you like mysteries or historical dramas
or really strong female characters.
So that was my April, I think it was pretty
successful.
I mean if you've been watching my previous
videos I've probably talked about how
I've been really struggling to keep my motivation
up these past few months, but I think reading
all those smaller books really helped.
So my plan now in order to keep that going
is that on my queue shelf I've split up the
really thick books that I've got with smaller
books between, so it's like after I read some
daunting 500, 600 page monstrosity I can read
just some little 200-300 page thing or a graphic
novel that I can whip through in an hour or
two, and that'll be able to keep the ball
rolling for me.
I'd also like to take this time to remind
y'all that I am doing the bookshelf scavenger hunt.
I have been asking for coordinates for the
past few videos.
I don't want to be too annoying but I haven't
actually gotten that many coordinates sent
to me, so I'm really hoping you guys that
you can send me a few.
I only need like five more and then I should
be able to make a decent video for it, and
if I don't get them I'll probably just submit
myself to a random number generator.
And if you wanna be in the loop and know when
I bring that video out you should definitely
check me out on social media.
I have a goodreads as I mentioned, I've also
got an Instagram and a Tumblr where I post
all my videos as well as some other Bookish
stuff I've got going on, and as always you
can definitely like, share, and subscribe
to my channel - and Definitely subscribe to
my channel because then, you might be my 100th
subscriber, because I am sitting at 99...I
think I've been sitting at 99 for about a
week now, but I'm - I'm so close and I...
I don't actually know what happens when you
hit 100 subscribers, I think YouTube just
mails you a party hat and a chocolate bar,
but it'd still be a really cool thing to happen,
so definitely subscribe if you like my stuff.
And until next time, I'll see you all *snap* later!
