#lockdown reading

Hey pals! How is 2020 going for everyone? Or… is that a dangerous question?

*screeches into the void*

Reading (and blogging) in the context of a UK lockdown has definitely been a struggle for me. Hence the hiatus. Despite having observed quarantine from March to July and not doing very much at all in my spare time (apart from writing fanfic), I have only read 14 books.In April and May, I barely…

Hey there readers - the past few months I've been really struggling to find an engrossing read. I'm looking for a narrative to swallow me whole, good quality worldbuilding, readable language, plot twists and complex characters. Am I asking too much? Maybe, but this reading slump is starting to wear me down...

Review: Aurora Rising/Aurora Burning – Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Lockdown 2020 has given many of us the time to read books we have had stacked for a while. Unfortunately, for many of us, as time came in the door, focus went out of the window. Not a problem with the Aurora Cycle though. I have had Aurora Rising sitting for a year but once started, I hurtled through it, and like a runaway train continued straight through Aurora Burning too. The Aurora Cycle is due to be a trilogy, with the final book due out in 2021.

The Aurora Academy is a training ground for an army of galactic Scouts who rush around the galaxy, helping out the vulnerable and keeping order. Tyler Jones is an exemplary graduate of the Academy and as such he is entitled to pick his own team from the other graduates. Unfortunately he misses ‘the draft’ as he is busy rescuing Aurora, the sole survivor of a human cryoship that has been lost in the folds of space for 200 years. He is left with a team of misfits but the squad gamely sets off on its first mission. It does not go as planned. Squad 312 is soon running for their lives, whilst trying to unravel the mystery of Aurora’s new powers and thwart an ancient evil that threatens everyone.

These are fast paced books but they still find the time for character development. The point of view switches from squad member to squad member. Each has their own backstory, and as is common Young Adult books they display a complex range of emotions. Despite there being seven main characters each has a distinctive voice. There are also inserts from a quirky uniglass or palm computer with helpful information on geography, alien races, famous people and other such matters (think Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy but with more sass). Fans of Star Wars/Star Trek are going to love these books and will spy a few Easter Eggs seeded along the way.

Aurora Burning, particularly, leaves breadcrumbs, for the astute reader, of what will happen in the as yet unnamed final part of the trilogy. However the nail-biting ending to the book leaves the reader with one key question: #IsIt2021Yet?

lockdown productivity week 16 (!)

today : finish reading Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones ✅

Plautus translation ✅

Working through my second reread of lockdown. first was Howl's Moving Castle and now i'm 2/3 of the way through The Hunger Games. I read it ...I don't even know how long ago. I think I read them all right after Mockingjay came out.

That shit hits different a decade later. Oh my god though, like, Rue... the scene with the flowers, the district 11 bread, I had forgotten about half of it. I was ... hurt.

And while i'm thinking oh it, I hate my government even more. I can't help but to hate capitalism with every breath. I hate the skewed media, the disregard for the poor, not seeing people as people, people starving when there's so much opulence and excess surrounding the rich.