Monday Reads: MONSTROUS, SIX OF CROWS, and PROM & PREJUDICE

I've decided to cut back my blog posts a bit. Blogging at the YA-NA Sisterhood, Meryton Press, and Austen Variations, plus three times a week here on my own blog, has all got to be a bit much for me. Frankly, I don't have that much to say. I'm still going to do my MONDAY READS, WEDNESDAY WRITES, and FRIDAY LOVES posts, but I'm going to alternate M,F, then W. 

The one teensy problem with this is my MONDAY READS post will feature more than one book, and I have a hard time remembering my feelings on the book(s) I read a couple of weeks ago. 

Such as MONSTROUS by MarcyKate Connolly. MarcyKate and I were in the same Writer's Voice contest a few years ago- her with MONSTROUS, and me with my YA time-travel DAZE AND KNIGHTS. I've wanted to read MONSTROUS ever since and it didn't disappoint. I had a lot of thoughts about this book and wish I knew someone who could discuss it with me. For one, I'm pretty sure the author changed it from YA to MG, but it still felt very YA to me. It makes me wonder what and how much she changed to make it so. I could see the twist coming from the start and wanted the MC to get there a bit faster- I wonder if this is what made it a bit more MG? Not sure. The book is lighter on the dialogue, which isn't my favorite thing, but the writing is beautiful and interesting and the voice kept me turning pages to the end. A great read.

The next book I read was SIX OF CROWS by Leigh Bardugo. I had no idea this book was going to take place in the same world as the GRISHA trilogy. I pretty much just picked it up because it's by Leigh Bardugo. I loved that it's the same world, but I had a hard time getting into the book. It wasn't until around 100 pages in that I really started loving it. There's a big cast of characters, and the author does a really good job of not info-dumping their backstories at the start. Because of that, I didn't really care about them though. I didn't know much about any of them other than they're all criminals. Once I hit 100 pages, I couldn't put it down, and I loved loved loved the rest and wish I had the sequel in my hands yesterday.

The third book I read was PROM & PREJUDICE by Elizabeth Eulberg. This was a fun and quick read. It's a modern take on PRIDE & PREJUDICE (obvs) and I loved the whole ritzy prep school feel to the book and the way the author made the story her own. My only complaint was some of the dialogue felt a bit forced- it was too similar to the original P&P, which to me didn't match how teens talk these days, fancy prep school or not. But it was a fun book and as soon as I finished it (in two days), my 12-year-old daughter read it even quicker and she loved it too.

So it was a pretty great couple weeks of reading. I might nitpick at books sometimes, but that usually doesn't lessen my overall enjoyment of a book. All of these books were 4-stars for me or higher.

What have you read lately?