Books I've Finished Reading So Far in 2017!

     So, with being a college student, I only put a total of 14 books as my reading goal for 2017. Sounds a little on the low side, but I'm sure I'll exceed that number by the end of the year. And I'm not going to include the books I have to read for my courses. Strictly leisure reading, this is! I'm still working on reviews for all of these, and they will be on my blog and on Goodreads in due time. 

Books I've Finished in 2017: The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

The Children's Book is one I've featured quite often on this blog, and one that I was very happy to finish after trudging through it for quite a while in 2016! I've done a couple of updates on it, and while some parts were admittedly a bit of a bore to read, the ending really rounded out this captivating story, and Byatt's vision of art and the concept of life through art was really masterfully done. The excessive number of characters was a bit unnecessary (seriously, a month after finishing it and the only characters I remember are the Todefright Wellwoods, Benedict Fludd, young Philip and his sister, and the puppeteer guy), but I overall learned so much about the European arts movement through all of those other characters because they were each involved in a different sector of the arts as far as their professions, and boy, will I say that there was no shortage of character development! I will be reading more of A.S. Byatt's work!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

      This year, I'm deciding to tread more into fiction, and I was severely proven wrong when I was trying to convince someone in my family that Neil Gaiman is a predominantly young adult or children's author. Ohhhh no, was I mistaken. I had read Stardust before, and while I enjoyed it, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, for me, had a much better premise and theme, and seemed more authentic, and less of a recycled concept than what was presented, and how I perceived Stardust. So, since Ocean was the second book I approached in Gaiman's archives (albeit with some hesitation after my nostalgic inner child was entertained by Stardust, though I wasn't sure that I could always get in that mode for every Gaiman book I read, even if it did have predominantly adult narrative), I know I will be reading more from Gaiman after reading this one!

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

     The series of Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell is one that I had been wanting to read for a while after starting the Sherlock television series with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson. The BBC series keeps so well to Conan Doyle's vision, and let's just say that I think Laurie R. King kept true to the 'Doyle spirit' as well! Mary Russell is a sharp tack of a woman, and I never thought I'd say this, but I may even like Russell a bit more than I like Dr. Watson! She and Holmes have personalities that bounce off each other so well, in such a believable way! Witty, engaging, intelligent, and suspenseful, this was definitely a page-turner! After sinking my teeth into and finishing the first volume, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, I'm definitely going to be reading the rest of this series!