Burn, Rewrite, Reread Book Tag – Part 2

I was tagged by Heather @ The Sassy Book Geek to do this tag. I’ve already done it once (you can check that out here), but I’m going to do it again because it’s fun. 😀 So thank you Heather for tagging me! Also, I may have reviews of some of these books, so hover over their titles if you’re interested and see if there’s a link there!

Rules:

• Randomly choose 3 books (Tip: Use the “Sort > Random” option on your Goodreads’ Read shelf.).
• For each group, decide which book to burn, which one to rewrite, and which to reread (a lot like Kiss, Marry, Kill).
• Repeat until you completed three rounds (or six).

Round 1

Burn: Tribulation Force by Time LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. I enjoyed this book. But not tremendously. So I don’t really have a problem burning it.

Rewrite: I’m going with The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Don’t get me wrong, this book is AMAZING and beautiful and I absolutely loved it. I would just much rather reread the other one because I love Artemis Fowl and for some reason, it’s very difficult for me to reread historical fiction.

Reread: I have spoken before of my love for this series. It’s one of my favourite series and why wouldn’t I want to reread it?

Round 2

Burn: The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I love Sherlock Holmes, but I can’t say that this was my favourite Sherlock Holmes story and it can’t really compare to the other two, so it’ll have to go.

Rewrite: The Hundred Year Old Man That Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. I really enjoyed this book, but it’s not really the kind of book I could reread.

Reread: Of course it was going to be the Harry Potter book. I love rereading these. I have reread them several times and I’ll do it again.

Round 3

Burn: Iron Kin by M.J. Scott. I didn’t really like this book. It’s my least favourite in the series. But even if it were my favourite in the series (which is Shadow Kin, if you were wondering), it still could not compete with the other two.

Rewrite: Power Study by Maria V. Snyder. I actually really loved this short story. It was really cool. But A. It’s a short story, so it can’t really compete with a novel and B. It’s up against ASOIAF. So it’ll have to be rewritten.

Reread: I’ve actually been meaning to reread ASOIAF before Winds of Winter comes out (so like, in the next decade).

Round 4

Burn: For once, there isn’t one that I would clearly burn out of the three. Maybe I’ll go with Scorch Trials by James Dashner because I think this was my least favourite Maze Runner book.

Rewrite: Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie. I really enjoyed this book. I love Agatha Christie and she had me guessing with this one. But with detective novels, rereading them isn’t very fun because you already know who did it. So I’ll have to rewrite this one.

Reread: Two Years Holiday by Jules Verne. I remember reading this when I was like 12 and really loving it. I’m curious if I’d enjoy it as much now, so I’d reread this one.

Round 5

Burn: The Forty-Five Guardsmen by Alexandre Dumas. I don’t even remember much of this book other than Chicot. I used to read a lot of French historical fiction for some reason and I really loved it. But that was when I was young. Now I just read YA. I was such a pretentious kid.

Rewrite: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare. I would write some more Magnus into it cause there can never be enough Magnus.

Reread: Of course I wouldn’t change a single thing about The Hobbit. And of course I want to reread it!

Round 6

Burn: Neanderthal Seeks Human by Penny Reid. I actually really loved this book, but it just can’t compare to the other two. Sorry!

Rewrite: This is where the hard part begins. Both of them have that one thing that happens that just pulls your heart right out and uses is as a chew toy. So that could be rewritten for both of them, I guess. But I also definitely want to reread both of them. Hmmmm… I’ll go with Crooked Kingdom, because in CoM, at least that unspeakably horrible thing leads to a lot of things being set in motion and it’s really important, whereas in Crooked Kingdom… it’s just cruel.

Reread: And that leaves Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas.

I’m too lazy to tag people right now, but this is a fun tag to do, so if you want to do it, I tag you to do it. Leave a link below if you do so I can check it out!

 

July Wrap-Up

Another month has come and gone. July was a better reading month for me than June. I read 11 books this month. In an attempt to buy fewer books, I decided to read some of my impressive collection of ebooks. So there have been a few books that I didn’t really know what to expect from.

First book I read in July was The Giver by Lois Lowry. This was a great, haunting and thought-provoking book and I really loved it. You can read my full review of it here. 5/5 stars.

 

Second book I read was The Gifting by K. E. Ganshert. This is pretty good as far as paranormal YA goes, although I took issue with the ending, which cause me to only give it 2/5. You can read my full review here.

 

Next, I read My Own Mr. Darcy by Karey White. This is a really light, easy-to-read book. It’s not very high-quality, but I enjoyed reading it nonetheless. I also have a review of this one which you can read here. 3/5 stars.

 

 

Then I read Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. I actually audiobooked this, which was a mistake. I really do not recommend this as an audiobook, it doesn’t work well. I think I might have enjoyed it a lot more had I read it instead of listening to it. Some books work well as audiobooks, but this is not one of them. 3/5 stars. I also have a full review of it which you can read here.

 

Next, I read A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab. This is now one of my new favourite series, I love it so much. It’s just awesome. I have a full review of this one as well, which you can find here. 5/5 stars.

 

 

Next, I read Iron Kin by M. J. Scott. I didn’t like this one that much. You can read my full thoughts on it and the series in general here. 2/5 stars.

 

 

Then I read The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. I just went to the book store and saw a really cute edition of this and I just read it there and then. I actually really enjoyed it, which is a testament to my level of maturity, I suppose. 4/5 stars.

 

Next up, in a rare display of consistency, I read A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab, which is the second (and current) book in the Shades of Magic series. Which means that for once, I started a series and finished all the books that are currently out! I loved this one as well, although not quite as much as the first one. See my review here. 4/5 stars.

 

After that, I read Touch A Dark Wolf by Jennifer St. Giles. I wish I hadn’t. Just, do yourself a favour and don’t read this book. 1/5 stars.

 

 

 

Thankfully, my next read was a pleasant surprise. I read Neanderthal Seeks Human by Penny Reid. I surprisingly really liked this book. It brightened my mood. I have a review of it here. 4.5/5 stars.

 

 

 

Another 4.5/5 stars book. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge. I’ve been wanting to read this book for a long time now and I am happy to say I loved it. I have a review of this one as well.

Iron Kin by M. J. Scott – Book Review

Rating: 2/5

Genre: NA, Fantasy, Steampunk

First published: 2013

Author: M. J. Scott

Synopsis: Saskia lives in a city divided between the four races: humans, Blood, Beast and Fae. The treaty that keeps a fragile peace in the city is about to be re-negotiated. Saskia is human and a metalmage and her family expects her to live a safe life, befitting a noble human like her. But when Fen walks into her life along with an opportunity to do something for her City, Saskia jumps in regardless of what her family thinks. 

*This is the third book in the series. The first and second aren’t strictly necessary for understanding this one, but they are recommended. This review is spoiler free.

Book Depository | Goodreads

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The problem with this series is that it’s very repetitive. The overarching political plot is quite interesting and the reason I have read so far into the series and the reason I intend to finish it. But the individual plot of each book, is nearly identical. Especially the romance aspect of it. It’s like Scott used a stencil and just substituted the appropriate names in each novel.

The world and setting are pretty cool and, if not unique, definitely remarkable. It’s a mixture of medieval with steampunk and paranormal and fantasy. It’s an interesting combination and I really love the world and I’ve really enjoyed learning more about it throughout the series. The main plot is very political in nature and centers around the various power plays of the different species.

The first book, Shadow Kin, was my favourite in the series from every point of view. It had the best characters and the plot-line was new, so I didn’t roll my eyes as much, despite the insta-love. Which is a major element in all of them. But even the romance was the best in this one. Moving past the insta-love, or insta-super-attraction, I could really see it and I could see the characters growing together.

Iron Kin, was in my opinion, the worst in the series. The main character, Saskia was whiny and annoying and while I liked Fen, I didn’t feel like his potential was explored. At all. It also didn’t feel like much happened in this book besides the romance between Fen and Saskia. And it wasn’t even a good one. It wasn’t cute, it wasn’t sexy, I didn’t feel it at all. I didn’t like it. Everything that did happen, happened in the last third of the book and it sort of felt like the purpose of this book was to set up the events of the next one.

Still, I am curious what will happen next, as the ending of the book left a lot of questions. I didn’t really expect what happened to happen. I would say that overall, this series has a pretty interesting plot and setting, but as an individual book, Iron Kin wasn’t very good. I will still read the final book in the series, because I’m just curious what happens.

Have you read any of the books in the series? What were your thoughts?