My Family Picks What I Read!

Hey hi hello friends, and welcome back to my blog! 

So I've been a little slumpy this past week and I wanted to do something about it. I asked my mother, my father, and my older sister all to look at my bookshelves and pick out a book that I haven't yet read. And then I read them, obviously. So today I'll go through the three books my family picked from my TBR. 

Now, my parents just randomly grabbed two books off my shelves and handed them to me, so there was no rhyme or reason to their choices. My sister took her time before selecting a book, and I think it was because she has either already read this one, or she's interested in reading it herself. (Can confirm: she has read her pick.)

These are the books: My mom chose Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte; my dad picked Wilder Girls by Rory Power; and my sister decided on A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan. All three of these books have been on my shelves for years now, so I'm glad I can finally get to them. Also, I know I just said these were random picks, but I find it interesting that my parents both chose YA books for me, and my sister picked an adult high fantasy. I'm sure psych majors can find some weird subconscious stuff about that somewhere. 

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Mom's Pick: Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte

First I read Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte. This is a YA fantasy/mystery about a kingdom split into four quadrants, each quadrant ruled by a separate queen. Our main character is a thief and a liar, and one day she steals information about a plot to assassinate all four queens. Now she has to work together with the person she stole from to try and save the queens before it's too late. 

I did enjoy this book, it was a classic YA fantasy, meaning it had a basic setup, an easy plot, and a romance tied together with a ribbon. Here's what I said about it on Goodreads: 

This was fine. It was a classic YA fantasy. However I felt like it was trying to do too many things at once. There was the murder mystery, then the underlying miracle drug motivating our protags, and the romance, and then separate timeline highlighting the queens, which was actually the part I enjoyed the most. The book didn't give me, as the reader, a chance to actually figure out who was behind the deaths of the queens before telling me, which in my opinion is the whole point of a murder mystery. I did think the world was well established, I liked the descriptions of the various kingdoms as well as the clothes, though it felt kind of weird that three of the four kingdoms were a classic fantasy setting while the fourth was a straight-up sci-fi setting. Also I didn't think the love interests had any chemistry at all, so the romance felt cheap and just thrown in to make the story more palatable to YA audiences.

I might pick up Astrid Scholte's other book, The Vanishing Deep, because I did like her writing style, but I've heard not excellent things about it, so we'll see. Also, I flew through this book, I read it in like four hours. Definitely a good pick to get out of a reading slump.

I gave this book three out of five stars.

Dad's Pick: Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Next I read Wilder Girls by Rory Power. This is a YA sci-fi horror following a boarding school for girls quarantined on an island off the coast of Maine. A year and a half ago, the Tox spread through Raxter island, distorting all living things coming into contact with it. The trees grew thick and wild, the animals rabid, and the girls, a little bit of both. Horrible body mutations, unique to each girl, plagued the school, one by one the body count slowly growing. Hetty has done her best to survive in this new, unpredictable world. Stay quiet, and stay alive. Until her best friend Byatt goes missing. Now, she'll do anything to find her, even if it means sacrificing everyone around her. 

I didn't really like this book. I found it lackluster, which was disappointing, especially because it had so much buzz surrounding it when it was first released. Everyone seemed to really love this book. I'm not really sure what they see in it, though. Here's what I said on Goodreads: 

Gah. That was so gross. But it wasn't really horror so I'm not sure how I would categorize this book. Sci-fi, maybe? Dystopian? I don't know, but not horror.

Hetty's chapters were interesting, but Byatt's chapters were so convoluted I had trouble keeping everything straight, and I couldn't trust anything was actually happening. Also, it ended so abruptly, like the author just ran out of ideas. Overall, it was kind of forgettable, to be honest. I'm not sure if I'll read her other works, because everyone I know says that they enjoyed this one way more than her other book, and the fact that I didn't enjoy this probably means I'll just not like her other books at all.

I gave this book 2.5 out of five stars. 

Samantha's Pick: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

I saved Sam's pick for last knowing that it would take the longest amount of time to read, based on my experience with adult fantasy in the past. And I was right of course, as it took five days. However, it was very easy to read. 

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan is a "memoir" by fictional Lady Trent, who was the first female dragon naturalist...actually, the first dragon naturalist period. Also, the world's most famous dragonologist. Now in her old age, she has decided to publish all of her adventures and discoveries in a series of memoirs, this being the first one, which details her childhood, her first marriage, and her first expedition to learn more about dragons. The book mainly focuses on the expedition to the mountains of Vystrana, where a curious mystery unfolds with Lady Trent at the center. 

When I asked my sister what she thought about the book, she said that she enjoyed it, and like the historical romance side of it. She always did like Jane Austen's books and the movie adaptations, while I preferred not to read or watch them, so I can see why she liked this book more than I did. 

Here are my thoughts from Goodreads: 

Docking a star for lack of dragons. There were not nearly enough dragons in this first book, I am hoping for more in the rest of the series.

This book was more about establishing Lady Trent as a character, and a mystery during her first expedition to Vystrana. In that sense, it felt like a Jane Austen novel in a fantasy setting, which isn't a bad thing at all, but rather not what I was expecting from this book, and therefore slightly disappointing. I'll revise my expectations for the future installments. The ending also felt rather abrupt, with one chapter spanning months after the climax of the story, which took several chapters to explain on its own. I will say, however, that this book was extremely accessible and easy to read; I flew through hundreds of pages at a time. Even though it was rather meandering in pace, the ideas presented kept me engaged with the story.

I am hoping to get the sequel, The Tropic of Serpents, soon. I gave this book 3.5 stars. 

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I really enjoyed this little experiment of my family picking out my TBR for the week. Maybe I'll end up doing it monthly, but I do know that I want to do it again. I'm excited to see what everyone will pick for me again! I hope you guys enjoyed this post, it's basically akin to a reading vlog and I was excited to try it out. Do you like this kind of post? What could I change about it? I'm open to all constructive criticism, of course. 

Until next time!