Thoughts While Reading

Wild Country by Anne Bishop

“There are ghost towns in the world—places where the humans were annihilated in retaliation for the slaughter of the shape-shifting Others.

One of those places is Bennett, a town at the northern end of the Elder Hills—a town surrounded by the wild country. Now efforts are being made to resettle Bennett as a community where humans and Others live and work together. A young female police officer has been hired as the deputy to a Wolfgard sheriff. A deadly type of Other wants to run a human-style saloon. And a couple with four foster children—one of whom is a blood prophet—hope to find acceptance.

But as they reopen the stores and the professional offices and start to make lives for themselves, the town of Bennett attracts the attention of other humans looking for profit. And the arrival of the Blackstone Clan, outlaws and gamblers all, will uncover secrets…or bury them.”

 This is my current audiobook.

I love, love, love these audiobooks. I just want to wallow in them and this world.  I get torn between listening extra because they are so peaceful (to me) and wanting to ration my listening so I don’t finish them.  They are so relaxing for me.  That’s actually a bit of a weird thing to think because these books are dark.  Each one seems to be getting more gritty.  There’s torture and murder and abuse and attempted rape in this one.  But the narration is so upbeat and positive and warm and cozy that you almost don’t notice.

There isn’t actually a lot going on in this book.  New people are coming in to resettle a town that was previously purged of humans.  I’m most of the way through and that’s all that really happened and I don’t care because I’m wallowing.

My Soul to Take by Tananarive Due

“Essence bestselling and award-winning author Tananarive Due delivers a heart-stopping novel continuing the story of descendants of an immortal line of people are the only ones capable of saving the world.

Fana, an immortal with tremendous telepathic abilities, is locked in a battle of wills. Her fiancé is Michel. But Johnny Wright, a mortal who is in love with her, believes that if she doesn’t stay away from Michel, they will become the Witnesses to the Apocalypse described in the Book of Revelation.

Fana and the Life Brothers are rushing to distribute their healing “Living Blood” throughout the world, hoping to eliminate most diseases before Fana is bound to marry Michel. Still, they cannot heal people faster than Michel can kill them. Due weaves a tangled web in this novel, including beloved characters from her bestselling Joplin’s Ghost, in a war of good against evil, making My Soul to Take a chilling and thrilling experience.”

This is book four in a series where I loved book 1, book 2 was ok but it took a weird turn from book 1, and I DNFed book 3.  Now I remember why I DNFed book 3.  Teenagers.

This series in what YA should truly be like.  There is an all powerful teenage girl at the center of this story.  She doesn’t make good strategic choices because she is a teenager.  The adults around her keep trying to tell her this but she blows them off because she is teenager and knows everything.  I want to smack her because … know -it-all-but-really-doesn’t-teenager.