May Wrap-Up and June Goals

 

May Reads

May Wrap-Up

• Finished: 7
• DNF’ed: 1
• Total pages read: 2,227
• Average rating: 4.29

Wow, I read a lot of pages! Partly that was because the one non-fiction book I read had a hundred pages of endnotes, but I really did read a lot. I finished seven books in May. Two of them were contemporary novels. I read my first graphic novel, Maus by Art Spiegelman (5/5 stars), and I loved it! The story was moving, and the pictures added another layer to the story. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (4/5 stars), on the other hand, was good but not as great as I had hoped. There were a few too many YA clichés in the book for me to fully enjoy it.

I read one non-fiction book, Naiset pyhyyden tulkkeina, which a collection of Finnish translations of texts written by women in the antiquity and Middle Ages.

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

The Atlas Six is an adult urban fantasy novel with dark academia vibes. It was a book I was supposed to finish in June, but unfortunately I had to DNF this book. I read 200 pages and to be honest, that was way too much. I won’t write a full review, but I will give you my reasons for not finishing it.

In the novel, six skilled magicians are invited to join the elusive secret society formed on the ruins of the Alexandrian Library. The catch: only five of them will actually become the members. Led by the Library’s caretaker Atlas Blakely, the six must show their worth in a competition against each other.

My biggest problem was the writing style, which I found tedious and boring. I honestly disliked this book from page one, but I kept going hoping that there would be something I would enjoy in the book, that I would like the characters or that the plot would be entertaining. But alas, that was not the case.

The characters were either annoying or too morally gray, or I simply did not understand their motivations. There were six points of view in the book, and that meant that I didn’t really get to know any of the characters well enough to care about them. The writing style was full of telling rather than showing, but weirdly enough, I felt that nothing was really explained. We only learn what the two physicians are able to do around page 120. We don’t really learn what the characters are supposed to do if they do get to join the society, we’re just told that it’s an opportunity they won’t want to pass.

I have a problem with not being able to DNF books. If I start reading a book, I want to know what happens in it, even if I’m not enjoying the book. But this time, after 200 pages, I had had enough and decided to google the synopsis, after which I decided that this was not a story I cared to finish. I won’t be continuing with the series. I do know that there are a lot of people who have enjoyed this book, so if you like dark academia with morally gray characters, read the first page. If you don’t mind the writing style, maybe you will enjoy this book better than I did.

 

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The fourth novel I read in May was The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Now I must admit that Dostoyevsky and I don’t always get along. I don’t enjoy theme-heavy books with long philosophical discussions. Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground is one of my least favorite classics ever, but I did enjoy The Double and Uncle’s Dream. Both are relatively short, and the latter is one of Dostoevsky’s earlier works and very different from Dostoevsky’s later works.

The Brothers Karamazov tells the story of three brothers and their strenuous relationship with each other and their father. The first half of The Brothers Karamazov unfortunately falls under the category of being heavy on theme. There are several long discussions on free will and morality that I just did not have the patience to ruminate in detail. On the latter half, however, the plot kicks in and after that I enjoyed the book more. Not my favorite classic, but I’m glad I’ve read it so I know what it’s about.

If you like Dostoevsky more than I do, or enjoy theme-heavy books in general, you’ll probably like this book. If you haven’t read Dostoevsky before, I suggest you start with Crime and Punishment and see if his writing style is for you.

 

Ancient Texts Project

The final three books were part of my ancient books project: collection of Sappho’s and Alcaeus’s poetry, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, and Horace’s Ars Poetica. The collection of Sappho’s and Alcaeus’s poetry was a fascinating read, as it contained some of their poems in their original Greek. The commentary was interesting as well, but as the edition was published in the 1950’s, the information was a bit outdated, and it did host a fair deal of “Sappho and her friends” argumentation.

Aeschylus’s Oresteia is the only fully surviving ancient Greek trilogy of tragedies. The three plays depict the events after the Trojan War, when Agamemnon returns from the war. In the first play, Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra murders him with the help of her lover. In the second play, Clytemnestra’s and Agamemnon’s son Orestes returns to revenge his father and murders his mother and her lover. The third play depicts the trial where Orestes is acquitted of murder charges.

Horace’s Ars Poetica (or The Art of Poetry) is a short poetical work where Horace gives advice concerning writing poetry and drama. It has had a great influence on western literary theory and introduced among other things the concept of starting a story “in medias res”, in the middle of the action.

 

June hopefuls

June Hopefuls (before I decided to DNF The Atlas Six) 

My goals for June got a bit messed up after I had to DNF The Atlas Six, but I plan to finish around eight or nine books. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to replace The Atlas Six with, but the books that I know I will read are two ancient books and four atlases.

Aesop’s Fables and a selection of Ovid’s Metamorphoses are the two final books of my ancient texts project. It has been fun to revisit some ancient classics, and both Aesop’s fables and Ovid’s Metamorphoses are fun reads to end the project with.

I own four Atlases (I like maps, okay). Two of them are actually my mother’s old schoolbooks from the 1950s: her school Atlas and a historical Atlas with maps from different time periods. The two others are my first Atlas from the 1990’s and another I bought maybe ten years ago. They’re not actually books that one would be expected to read, but all of them have some text about different countries, geological features, and the universe, so I want to read the texts. And to look at the pretty maps as well!

I will also be reading two or three books from my mother’s bookshelf when I go visit her later this month. I don’t know what they will be yet, but she owns a lot of books – it’s clear where my love of reading comes from! I’ll probably pick up some Hemingway or Steinbeck or some other twentieth century classic. I usually plan my reading meticulously in advance, but sometimes it’s nice to just relax and pick whatever strikes my fancy.

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Want to know more about my thoughts of my May reads and June goals? Check out the video below!