Monday Reads: BLACK DOVE WHITE RAVEN and THESE BROKEN STARS

It's been a while since I've read two books in one week- which is almost sad to say for some reason, but there it is.

Anyway, first I read BLACK DOVE WHITE RAVEN by Elizabeth Wein, author of CODE NAME VERITY and ROSE UNDER FIRE. So... so. I loved CNV like crazy. RUF was also good but not as- I think it had something to do with knowing how the book would end right from the start. Unfortunately, I liked BDWR the least of the three.

Here's what I did like: the setting, ie: the Ethiopian setting (because some of it takes place in the US too). It's a place I'd never read anything about. To go along with that, the book is set in the 1920s and 1930s and I loved the history. The best thing about the book was the characters. Elizabeth Wein has a gift of making vibrant, full-of-life, relatable characters. I loved Em and Teo and Rhoda. Even Delia, although she was in such a short amount of the book, really jumped off the page.

Here's what I didn't like. Nothing happened. At least, that's what it felt like to me. We see Em and Teo as kids, we learn about their time in the States, we learn about their time in Ethiopia. But nothing really happens. Which isn't true- stuff does, every once in awhile. But to me this could have been such an epic story and it just... wasn't. :( This really makes me sad because I wanted so badly to love it.

After BDWR I read THESE BROKEN STARS by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner.

OHMYGOSH I LOVED THIS BOOK.

The book sort of starts out like Titanic in space, but then the two MCs Tarver and Lilac end up stranded alone on a deserted planet. I just... I don't even know what to say. I don't even really know why I loved it so much I just did.

This is the book I've been waiting for- the kind that keeps me up reading late into the night. No book has done that for me in awhile. Funny enough, it's sci-fi which is one of my least favorite genres. But this book was page-turning, tear-dropping, read-on-the-floor-of-the-movie-theatre-while-waiting good. Yes, I really did that- I was so near the end I couldn't help myself. Definitely a must read.

What have you been reading lately?