What I’ve Been Reading

booktrio

The Dragonbone Chair, 26/104; The Stone of Farewell 27/104; To Green Angel Tower 28/104

These are the books I bought to read on my flights/vacation, and although I read a lot it took me until last night to finish them all. Why? They are CRAZY LONG. The first two books are about six- or seven hundred pages each and the third one is like 1,100 pages. When it was originally released in paperback it was split into two parts because it was too long for one book, and this is something that pissed me off, but the kindle edition (or at least, the only one I could buy) is also in two parts! So stupid since it doesn’t matter how many pages a kindle book is, but I still had to pay for two books to get the whole story. Lame. ANYWAY.

I first read these books in high school. One day I was just really itching for a new book so my parents and brother and sister and I took a family trip to the bookstore, but I couldn’t find anything I liked the look of that wasn’t part of a series. Afterwards we went to the library, where I picked up The Dragonbone Chair. I’d seen the paperback at the bookstore, but the library edition was hardcover and didn’t say “book one of an enormous series that will eat your life” anywhere on the front and I couldn’t remember why I hadn’t bought it. Trickery! So I read it and I loved it and just when it was getting really epic and exciting it. just. ended. I thought there was another chapter but it was an appendix with lists of characters and locations and translations of the made-up languages. I was so mad! I had to wait six months until the second book, The Stone of Farewell, came out in paperback, and then it was another year and a half before the final book, To Green Angel Tower, came out. My then-boyfriend bought me the thousand-page hardcover as a gift with the stipulation that I was not to read more than one hundred pages a day, although I finished it in a week so clearly I didn’t stick to that! A friend of mine was reading the series at the same time and I remember us at a party sitting behind the couch discussing the last book for hours. At a party, you guys.

After that I reread these books every year, but I kept having to buy new copies because people would always borrow them and not give them back, or straight up steal them and move to Halifax. The last copies I had, which were old and crack-spined fuzzy around the page edges, I lent to a girl I worked with at Club Monaco, but when she got hired for a job I’d applied for at a different company she felt awkward and stopped talking to me so I never got them back. Consequently I hadn’t read them in a few years before now, but you know what? I STILL LOVE THESE BOOKS. Maybe fantasy novels with princesses and dragons and what-have-you are cheesy, but I don’t care. These ones are good, and in a surprising departure from the Song of Ice and Fire books Taylor is reading (and which owe A LOT to these books), there are likable characters and NO RAPING. I know, it’s crazy!

Since it took me so long to finish this series I was worried I would be behind in my goal, but this is the 14th week of the year and I’ve read 28 books, so I’m actually keeping a perfect pace. Also, with finishing The Dragonbone Chair, my 26th book this year, I am one quarter of the way to my goal! I think for my next book(s) I’ll choose something a little shorter though.

2 Replies to “What I’ve Been Reading”

Leave a Reply to mockingbirdsays Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *