My Reading Pile #66

It was a fairly quiet week this week in terms of bookish arrivals. Though I did get one surprise book in the mail. And as the post office partially reimbursed the blogger I traded with for all those missing books, I will hopefully be getting a few different books in next week’s mailbox. But for now…

Credit for mailbox sharing goes to TSS

I received an awesome surprise – a signed copy of The Beginning of After  by Jennifer Castle with a few signed and unsigned bookmarks tucked inside. I have been dying to move this book up in my TBR pile ever since I first heard about it. It sounds beautiful and heartbreaking and incredibly tragic. And I know there will be tears.

I will definitely be reading this in early July because I just can’t wait any longer to discover this story for myself.

Anyway….

Here are the books I have in my reading pile this week.

(June 17 – June 23, 2012)

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First up on the pile is Stray by Rachel Vincent. I know, I know, it’s not a young adult book, it’s not a new book and it’s not a review book, but I can’t help it. I actually started reading it at about four-thirty this morning.

I have never read a story about werecats before. Werewolves and other Shifter books have not been on the list of my “go to” reads, though I have loved most of the ones I ended up reading. So, it remains to be seen whether Rachel Vincent’s writing style will be enough to turn me into a rabid fan of this niche in the genre.

I also have read even fewer books about Shifters in the non-YA genre, except where the creatures that shift are nothing more than flesh rending monsters. So, I’m kind of excited to see them being kick-a**. I just have to get the image of a certain musical out of my head when I imagine these werecats.

But I’m already starting to like Faythe and I’m only four percent into the book. And the book’s description on Goodreads makes me grin. I already saw those claws of Faythe’s come out and can’t wait to see what else she does.

Next up on the pile is Before I Wake by Rachel Vincent. I’ve marked it as a “back on the pile” read though it’s not technically one. I went off pile to read it the first time and I’m adding it to the pile to re-read it. So, it’s officially on the pile for the very first time, but as I’m going back to it I figured it’s easier to mark it as “back on the pile.”

Anyway….

I read Before I Wake a couple weeks ago and then re-read If I Die to see if knowing what happens in Before I Wake would change my experience with that book. It definitely did. So, now I’m all tangled up in the emotions of that book and I hadn’t written my review for this book, so I need to re-read this to sort all that out.

I’m sure I could probably do so without having to re-read Before I Wake, but who am I kidding? I WANT to re-read this book. It was amazing and heartbreaking and shocking as all heck. So, yeah, I definitely need this on the pile this week.

Lots of things happened with lots of characters. But if I even mention what characters made it into this story I will be spoiling what happened in If I Die. And while my review will end up doing that just a little, though my Pile Talk post didn’t, I don’t want to do it here. So I won’t even mention what the description on Goodreads talks about.

But I am so looking forward to re-reading this book and I can’t wait until everyone has so I can talk about it with more than just Jaime of Two Chicks On Books.

Wishful Thinking reads:

For the first week ever I have no wishful thinking reads. Well, unless you count books that aren’t released, like With All My Soul or the sequels to Sweet Evil and Everneath. Or non-YA reads like Biting Cold or One Foot in the Grave. But I’m perfectly content with the two books I have on the pile, which took forever to settle on.

I am in a strange reading mood at the moment and it’s been nearly impossible to pick books for this week’s pile, hence the late post, let alone wish for books. But I hope this all clears up by next week and I’ll have a few new books I’ll be wishing for.

Those left behind:

I did not end up finishing The Golden Lily. I set it aside to read Reaper and My Soul to Lose. And aside from yet another read of If I Die, I didn’t manage to read anything else this past week.

Returning to work did take a toll. But it was getting caught up in the Soul Screamers world that kept me from wanting to start anything else. Though I did read a chapter of both Queen of Swords and Easy, I wasn’t able to continue either book this week. Because they weren’t Before I Wake.

For the past four weeks I’ve gone off pile, and I have a lot of catching up to do because of that, but I decided to not try and fight my mood and so I picked two books I will definitely plan on reading this week.

Once again I blame the Chicagoland Vampires series for getting me in the mood to read lengthy series books back-to-back without having to wait a year in between. I really hope I can shake this current moody trend of mine because there are so many amazing books releasing or just released that I know somewhere in the back of my mind I do want to read.

Well, here’s to hoping I can stay on track this week and get caught up in the next couple of weeks.

NetGalley Pile Adds:

I may have requested a book or two on NetGalley this week. I had to login to download a couple of books and I couldn’t resist requesting Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian and Dualed by Elsie Chapman as they look so interesting.

I don’t think I’ll be approved for either, but it couldn’t hurt to try. And yes, this time I’m really hoping I’ll be approved for both. So. Not. Good for the pile.

I am still feeling a wee bit guilty for not writing up any formal reviews, though I did write two “Book Thoughts” posts and a “Quickie Review” this past week. But it’s not the same.

I hope I don’t get too caught up in Rachel Vincent’s Shifters series as I don’t want to fall into the same pattern of devouring the series and not writing any reviews like I did with Chloe Neill’s. While I’m sure I’ll have to fight the urge to pick up book two immediately, this time I’m really going to try to write my review for book one first. As always, here’s to hoping!

And I hope you all have some amazing books on your pile this week. Happy reading!

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Do you create a reading pile?

If so, what’s in your pile this week?

And feel free to leave a link to your post if you create a reading pile. I’d love to check it out!