800Plus

Hello! 

K here with some news. 800s Plus/ 800 Plus is having a butterfly moment. Well, I guess it’s actually a cocoon moment. We’ve built our own safe little pod and are starting to liquidate our guts to kickstart a transform! Ok enough of the metaphor: we are changing the format of 800 Plus. What that means for right now is that J and I are no longer having twitter chats. We have been rocking and rolling with this little book club for around 3 and a half years now and we’ve loved it. We still love it honestly.  But what we want to do and what we are able to do has shifted. (I’m sure you’ve noticed the chats getting pushed back...almost constantly? Yeah.)

What’s not changing is that J and I are still going to be reading! We love making space for diverse authors in our reading and we hope you do too. Our reading list will stay up till the end of the year, and we hope you’ll check out some of the books on it! Heck, we are still probably going to put out a new list next year too.

Even though we won’t be doing live chats, we WILL be posting some kind of reviews of the books we read. We aren’t just 100% sure what that looks like yet. As soon as we do, I’ll make another post to let you guys know.

If you have participated in our chats before, THANK YOU! You made the experience even more fun for us. If you’ve read along with us, watched us tweet from afar, or even just checked our reading list, big ups to you too.

For now, J and I will keep turning the metaphorical goo of 800 Plus that was, into the beautiful butterfly wings of the 800 Plus that will be. But I want to leave you with one tiny challenge: go read a book. Pick something new that will challenge you, pick something random where the cover excited you, pick an old favorite that reminds you of elementary school. Pick any book and remember just how dope reading is. Then, tell someone else what you thought about it.

I think it’s time for some science fiction, don’t you? This month we are reading: Infomocracy by Malka Older!

This book was on quite a few “best of” lists so we are looking forward to reading it. The story centers around a few people during an intense election cycle that is influenced by a supercomputer/ search engine… sooo kind of appropriate for now, yeah?

So, we did the reading for April, and you can check out our thoughts on Twitter but for the rest of May, we will be reading On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden! 

This is a graphic novel that centers around a love story set in space. I think it’s going to be incredibly lovely and touching.

Alllll right! We are back folks! 

J and I needed a bit of a breather, but now it’s back to books as usual. :) This month is about coming back to something too. 

Last year we skipped it so now it’s our first book of 2019 -  Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff! Here is the blurb for the story: 

Becca Thornton, divorced, middle-aged and trying to embrace a quiet life, discovers that there are still plenty of surprises to be had when her menopause kicks in with bonus lycanthropy. And she’s not the only one. The seemingly peaceful and dull town of Wolf’s Point has its own all-female werewolf pack and Becca has just become its newest member. But it’s not all protecting Wolf’s Point, midnight meetings at the Women’s Club and monthly runs through the woods. There are werewolf hunters in town and now they've got Becca and the Wolf’s Point Pack in their sights. As if that wasn’t enough, Becca’s cute lesbian werewolf neighbor, Erin, is starting to haunt her dreams as well as her doorstep. What’s a newbie werewolf to do, between the hot flashes and the unexpected physical transformations? Can Becca overcome her fears and help the werewolves defeat their greatest enemy?

ok HI! 

GUESS WHAT!! 

800 PLUS IS NOT DEAD! 

Guys? I don’t play sports but I’m pretty sure I just tripped near the end zone. I got tagged out when I tried to run from 3rd base to home. I hit the puck behind the goal. Ok enough of that, I forgot to post the book till the end of the month. :(  But here it is! This month we have been reading “The Penelopiad” by Margaret Atwood. It’s a re-telling of the myth of Odysseus from the point of view of Penelope, his wife. This one is more of a short story than a full novel, so it’s a pretty quick read. Which means you can still join us if you want! Our discussion date is going to be December 3rd at 8pm est on Twitter. 

New month new book! It’s October so we are reading something a little spooookkkyyyyy. Ok well, I find swans scary so it’s spooky to me. This month it’s “Blanca & Roja” by Anna-Marie McLemore, a retelling of Swan Lake. Join us in reading this twisted fairy tale that just came out! 

Guys? GUYS?! G U Y S!??!? IM SO EXCITED FOR THIS BOOK! 

Look at that, we are in the middle of July. So, of COURSE, I’m posting our July book right now. It wouldn’t be 800 Plus if I didn’t. xD This month we are reading another story that takes place in the past, but this one isn’t a romance (that I know of!) This month we are reading “The Devourers” by Indra Das.

Helloooooooo! 

It's June. It’s hot. So we are reading a ROMANCE! This month we’ll be reading The Gentlemen’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee! It’s a historical fiction, so get ready for some Dukes, and Earls, and ladies being modest, and people being not so into gay folk. But it is a gay romance! it’s gonna be fun I promise. 

Woo! So a per-usual, I’m late updating the blog. BUT! We had a really good time listing our recommendations. I’ve put them below but if you want to know why we recommended something, check out the #800sPlus tag on twitter with #OurRecommends   Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Sunshine by Robin McKinley 

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth Book 1) by N. K. Jemisin

Happy April! - it’s still April, so it still counts! It’s time for a new book and this one is a bit of an indulgence. It’s the new Star Wars anthology, From a Certain Point of View. You may not be able to see it in the photo but there are a lot of great writers associated with this, so it should be really fun.