Book Challenge Update (March Books)

Okay! So, I have done pretty well last month for my book challenge, not great, but it could have been worse. I am going to lay out the categories I have read books for, and then write a brief summary of the books and all of that.

Number of books read: 8

Categories completed: 2
To Be Read
Kindle Books

Categories not completed but started: 3
Bookclub Frenzy Month 1
Rereads
Golden Oldies

Books read:
Grave Witch by Kalayna Price
Storm Glass by Maria V. Snyder
Sea Glass by Maria V. Snyder
Spy Glass by Maria V. Snyder
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
The Culling by J.C. Andrijeski

Summaries:

Grave Witch: This was a good interesting start of a book, very much followed the structure for a paranormal investigation style adult novel, but it was a good book to read, I enjoyed it.

Storm Glass: This was a reread, I wanted to read it before I read the second and third one. Still don't like the series as much as I enjoyed the Study Series.

Sea Glass: I really didn't enjoy this book, it was boring and suffered from 'middle book syndrome'. It didn't really hold my attention well.

Spy Glass: This one was ten times better than Sea Glass, this was my favourite of the series.

The Hunger Games: Had to reread it for the film coming out, do I need to explain how awesome it was?

Catching Fire: Again rereading for the movie.

Death of a Salesman: This was a class book, American Literature, I'm not a fan of the play.

The Culling: Far too short, seemed like it was literally just a first few chapters, so yeah.

That was it for March, I'm slowly slowly slowly getting out of my reading lull, hopefully I'll be reading more soon.

Spirit Fighter

Author: Jerel Law

Publishing Company: Thomas Nelson Publishers

Blurb: Seventh-grader Jonah Stone discovers that he is one-quarter angel—his mother is the daughter of a human and a fallen angel—and after she is kidnapped, Jonah and his sister, Eliza, must try to rescue her, with the help of prayers and a guardian angel.

The Review:

Before I start this review, I’d like to say that I’m definitely not the target audience of this book, so I’m going to tell you all of the things I’ve enjoyed about this book, and then explain the things I didn’t, and why I didn’t, but mainly it will be because I’m not the target audience. So I did have a few problems with this book, but I don’t think that the people who are likely to pick up this book will have the same problems.

It’s hard not to compare this book to the Percy Jackson series, because of a few things. One, same target audience, two, it’s mentioned to be what the book is supposed to be a replacement for, three, there are a lot of similarities in the series and characters. I can definitely see some of the same characters in the two books. I’m not saying that’s bad, but it’s unexpected to see so many similarities.

I think for what the book is aiming for, the author has definitely achieved what he wanted, you have a good adventure story, with a lot of Christian background, so it’s educational and interesting to read as well as having enough action to keep you invested in the story.

I think one of the things I would have to say about it though, is that I don’t really feel much for the main characters. Jonah and Eliza are two kids who are the good kids in the school. You can see that, they obviously love their parents, one of them is really smart, the other tries out for the basketball team, you see these amazing kids go into this fantastical mission from a higher power. But throughout the book you don’t get this emotion and feeling that you’d expect. You see them go from one thing to another and you don’t get enough of their thoughts and feelings. We get their thoughts and feelings on religion and God, which is fine, but you only see this slight panic at the beginning when everything goes bad, and they just seem to go through everything else.

Now, I can’t be sure if this is done on purpose, because I know that this is about faith in God, and they might not have the emotions the same because they’re putting all their trust in God, but it didn’t feel right to me.

I liked the contrasts between the good and the bad, and how you could never really tell when something was good or bad. It gave you a lot of times where you did want the characters to pull through and realise what was going on. It kept you thinking that something bad was going to happen all the time, and it’s interesting to see how they’d get out of the predicaments they were in. Plus, it’s telling you all of these Bible stories that you might not have known before you read this book, and gave you an insight to all of the interesting things that are in the Bible.

I have to admit I loved the idea of corruption that oversaw the story. You got this idea that anyone at any time could become corrupted because of the Fallen, and it was interesting to see how it was achieved. I think that because the underlying message of how anyone can lose their faith was there, it was interesting to look into this world of complete faith from someone who isn’t religious like myself. The end of chapter 22 is an example of this that is very alien to me, but at the same time you can admire it for someone being so invested in what they believe.

I think my main problem with this book was the fact that I’m not overly religious, and because of this it seemed very pushy when I was hearing about all of this faith that the characters had in God. However, I think that people who are religious and who do follow the Christian faith will be able to read it and understand this faith that the characters have, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing about the book, I just think it’s something that should be taken on board if someone who isn’t religious picks up this book.

I do have to say that the end of this book, the way it wrapped up was very cool. I did definitely enjoy it.

Over all I have to say it’s not something I would have picked up by myself, it’s not something I’m used to reading, but it was a pretty good book to read.

Thanks to net-galley for letting me review this, and if you guys check this book out I hope you enjoy it.