March was a bit of a slow month for me in terms of reading. I did manage to read three books, and while that’s nice, it puts me short of my goal of reading one book per week. I blame that on the book I’m writing, partially, but also because March was a crazy month in general. Oh, and the fact that I’ve been reading tons of Calvin and Hobbes. Hopefully I’ll do better in April.
Here’s March’s Booket List:
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
I try to use the word masterpiece as sparingly as possible when it comes to any form of entertainment, but I have no qualms about dishing it out lavishly upon The Night Circus. A book about magic, imagination, love, revenge and regret, The Night Circus is a meticulously crafted story that spans decades, hops back and forth across time periods and back and forth between narrators, and does it all like clockwork.
The story follows two young magicians, who have been entered into a competition of sorts with one another by cruel masters that oversee them. The terms of the competition are a mystery, but all each champion knows is that the venue for this challenge is a fantastical, mystical Night Circus, which challenges onlookers’ imaginations and wins their hearts night after night. Over several years, the magicians create amazing feats of wizardry and ingenuity, and the resulting tale is particularly spellbinding. Seriously, read this book. And do it before the inevitable movie comes out, which will not be nearly as good.
The Girl of Fire and Thorns, by Rae Carson
If you keep up with this place at all, you’ll know that I’ve said most of what I have to say about the excellent Girl of Fire and Thorns already. However, I will add that this young adult fantasy is a great example of how to make fantasy entertaining without being overwhelming, and one of the great titles that shows off how great young adult readers have it when it comes to main characters. Elisa moves from fat princess to uber heroine over a few hundred pages, and it’s an epic little jaunt from point A to point B.
Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld
Behemoth, the second book in the Leviathan trilogy, an alternate history/steampunk take on World War I, picks up almost where the first book left off. What I loved most of all about returning to these characters was the very thing the first book teased at for so long — the way the two mains play off of one another. Whereas in Leviathan Prince Alek and Mister Deryn Sharp (a young lady disguising herself as a boy in order to be in the royal navy) spend the whole novel apart, here they are thrust together as the war picks up in ferocity. There are secret missions, new creatures, Tesla cannons (yes, they’re awesome), Turkish rebels and then some.
Behemoth is one of those great sequels that expands the world of the first book and kicks everything into a new gear. If you love history and steampunk anything, I heartily recommend it.
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So there’s the Booket List for March. In April, I’ll be reading Crown of Embers, the sequel to Girl of Fire and Thorns, as well as a monster of a book by Stephen King. Hmm, on second though, April might be a slow month as well.
What other books should I read next?
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