What I'm Reading (Or Re-Reading) This Week

At the beginning of last year, I decided I was going to set a reading goal for myself. A certain number of books for me to get through between January 1st and December 31st. For 2018, it was 35 books. I read 35 1/2. A good mix of new reads, and re-reads. This year I decided to challenge myself and set my goal for 45. Might seem quite ambitious since last year I JUST made my goal, but I figure, go big or go home, right? And if I don't make it, I'll just lower it again next year and try again.

So, what does this have to do with what I'm reading this week? Well, let me tell you ...

It's already May and I'm only at 7 1/2 books! I'm VERY behind in my goal for 2019. About the middle of February I got sick. When I'm sick I can't focus enough to read. That lasted a week. After that, I was in a slump for about 3 weeks and still couldn't focus. FINALLY, I was out of it and I flew through the rest of the book I was on, finished the next book in the series in a few days and then I was on the finale. The fourth book in the series started ... So .... Slow!! It Took me almost 2 weeks to get through the first 200 pages! The entire book was 657 pages! Once it finally picked up, I got through it quick enough. But now I'm behind in my goal.

To rectify this, I decided to re-read an 8 book series that I am so in love with I have a symbol from the series tattooed on my leg.

The Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas is a phenomenal read of epic proportions. The final book in the series only came out in October 2018. I read the entire series then. I was having such withdrawals of the series this year, that I am reading it from beginning to end once again only 8 months later. I cannot get enough of this series!

I will admit, I am that reader that gets overly invested in the stories I read. I smile like an idiot when the characters are happy. I laugh out loud when the characters do something stupid. I get angry beyond belief along with my favourite characters when they are going through tough times. And I fall apart and ugly cry when something devastating happens. No matter how many times I read the Throne of Glass series, I have all these emotions every time. Each time it's worse because I know it's coming and I know what is going to happen. What emotion I am going to feel in the next scene. And I just feel the emotion so much harder than the previous time I read the series. However, it's not just because of my nature that I get this way when reading. It is also because of how the author writes and what they invoke in their readers. When you sit there and get so angry at the ending of a book, because the events that happened lead to the cliffhanger of the century, you literally throw the book across the room; you know the author did their job right.

On top of Sarah J. Maas being a fantastic author that can make her readers hold their breath with every turn of the page, she is also a Queen of foreshadowing. Each time you read the series you find something that leads to something in the later books that you didn't notice the last time.

I'm only on the first book right now, but I'm already excited for what I might discover this time.