My favourite has probably been reading the final installment of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor. This has already made it's way into my favourite series' ever, and it's a wonderful and explosive conclusion to the series.
Less explosive is the second Vampire Academy book, Frost Bite, which is still a great story. Richelle Mead always does an awesome job of finding this perfect balance of schlock and darkness to the series. It's not exactly high lit, but it's such a fun series, who cares? Plus Rose's evolution even from the first book is such a terrific character arc, and it makes me really excited to see where the series goes with her character.
The biggest disappointment was Sin City. I hadn't read the series before - just seen the first movie - but I found it lacked emotional punch for me. Plus the sexism, homophobia and the fact that all the women tended to be naked no matter what the situation was a bit off-putting. I think I'll probably try the second one if I can get it cheap, but not stress too hard about it.
I read Uzumaki almost straight away afterwards, and the parallel was pretty huge. Uzumaki is the story of a town haunted by spirals. It sounds really weird, and it is, I suppose, but author and artist, Junji Ito does this insanely cool job of making it believable. It helps that the art is inspired and the characters well-developed. If you're into horror, I really recommend checking this one out. (There's a particularly nuts episode of it where all the pregnant women in town get infected with a mosquito-like virus that makes them crave human blood. It's amazing and horrifying and the vilification of women who are at a point where they are so often represented as sacred is very compelling).
Last two books I read were Lost and Found by Brooke Davies and Karen Russell's amazing collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. I've grouped these together mostly because of their really successful use of child protagonists. Both are wonderfully told and super emotive books. I probably was a little more drawn to Russell's collection because, as most people know, I love a healthy dash of magic in my stories, and her tales of ghost fish and girls falling in love with the demons possessing them makes for a fascinating and moving collection.
That's it for me for May! How about you? What did you read this month?
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