My Pokémon Book Club Selection!

Yes, I play Pokemon GO. And once I got the chance to relate it to my book life, you better believe I jumped on that train. (Thanks, @Faith_theRivens.) So, here are my book equivalents to Pokemon:

My parents’ previous house burned down, but somehow they saved their collection of the little-known Serendipity books by Stephen Cosgrove. They were blackened and smelled of fire, but I reread them over and over again.

I think A Wrinkle in Time or The Golden Compass. Those stories are just so unlike anything else before or since. They stand alone.

I never read Fifty Shades of Grey because it was immensely popular following (and in the same vein as) Twilight. And I hated Twilight. So I never bothered to read more than one random page (which, though saucy, seemed to be saucy only for the sake of being saucy).

I feel like high fantasy tales tend to bleed together a bit, trope-wise, but although Wizard’s First Rule (first book in the Sword of Truth series) follows a lot of fantasy norms, it is definitely its own story and has a great deal more power to me than many similar titles. (Hint: you’ll love what the rule is.) I read the first book in Wheel of Time afterwards, for example, and was totally underwhelmed.

I’ve never feared long series (I absolutely adore the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind), but I am deterred by the book sizes of Song of Ice and Fire and the threat of being buried alive by immense amounts of detail. I also never picked up Dead Until Dark (a.k.a. the True Blood series) because I just couldn’t see how vampires could be interesting for that many books.

R. L. Stine’s Deep Trouble when I was probably a preteen. I remember there was one part where my heart was pounding; it was the only book I can recall prompting a physical reaction from me. But, I don’t read horror, so… I’m sure there are scarier things. (As for books I stayed up through entire nights reading, see anything Harry Potter or, randomly, the medieval romance The Prize by Julie Garwood. Stayed up until 7 a.m. rereading that one.)

Richard and Kahlan. Never has a relationship been based on more love, struggle, understanding, and genuine humanity. (There’s more Sword of Truth on this list. It has probably influenced me the most as an author.)

I’ll deviate a bit and say that Cinder and its sequels fit this bill. I think YA is generally a more fast-paced read for me, since it’s shorter, but I couldn’t put down any of these books. Marissa Meyer really did wonders with her fairy tale re-tellings. Gosh! I still have to read Winter! *runs to Amazon right now*

The Sword of Truth series. (Jeez, this keeps making my list, huh?) I don’t care if the sequels-after-the-series come off as a bit money-grubbing. I never want to stop reading about Richard and Kahlan.

Mine! (Okay, so I’m not really in the “debut novel” circles yet, to know about things before they come out. But I’m planning to immerse myself further in Wattpad and other book-buzz media within the next few months. Any suggestions?)

Paulo Coelho. I seriously need more of his books. They’re so diverse but so very soulful. He can go from an any-age, chapterless high fantasy with gold-leaf pages (like The Alchemist) to a near-erotic adult romance (like Eleven Minutes) without a bump in the road, and make you feel heavy stuff on both rides.

I’m pretty excited to finally read The Fifth Season, the first in The Broken Earth series. I’ve never read N. K. Jemisin. Also looking forward to reading the sequels to The Magicians, which I didn’t know had sequels until just the other day! (Win!)

I enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series immensely. As I was not a fan of the Wheel of Time series – which ended up being written by Sanderson when the original author, Robert Jordan, died – I made the very erroneous assumption that he must be an awful writer, if he was a back-up plan to someone I didn’t like. (I never even got to the books in the series that he wrote. I know, I’m so dumb.) But Mistborn… it just knocked my socks off. Its genius keeps me awake at night.

The Nausicaä collector’s edition. Nausicaä is my favorite Studio Ghibli film, and I can’t image how beautiful, intricate, and mesmerizing the full manga is… but I saw the collector’s edition once in a store and it was absolutely gorgeous. (In looking this up, it seems this was only a box set, not a collector’s edition. Seeing as how I consider simple hardcover to be luxury, I’m not surprised in the least.)

The next (and hopefully final) book in the Demon Cycle series. Better head on over to Peter V. Brett’s blog now to see when the next one is coming out…. Oh dang it. Still two more years. THANKS POKÉMON BOOK CLUB FOR RUINING MY BLIND BELIEF THAT THIS WOULD COME OUT THIS YEAR. Wow, what a very long wait between books.