TTT: Books We Loved But Did/Could Not Review

This meme brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish. This week: Books we loved but didn’t or couldn’t review . . .

Steph

For me, it’s mostly books that my book warriors reviewed before I read them and so I didn’t want to review again and be redundant.

1. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, for the above reason. My fellow book warriors are big fans and they’ve interviewed Meyer and reviewed the books and so I happily just read them and enjoy my colleagues’ reviews.
2. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, and also the film. I loved the book, but I read it after I read The Hunger Games and after I wrote a whole lot about The Hunger Games and this books, Battle Royale puts into question the validity of The Hunger Games and I just haven’t worked myself up to writing a post about this yet . . . just, not yet.
3. Loads of Board Books, Picturebooks and Middle Grade stories that I can’t even remember. I can hardly distinguish one from the other in my memory, to tell the truth. This is probably the biggest issue I have, I read through so many books and so many little quick ones that they blur together and I forget their titles and authors–that isn’t to say I didn’t love them, I just didn’t write about them quick enough.
4. Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver, read by Sir Ian McKellen. This one is an audiobook that I listened to and adored because it was read by Sir McKellen, and the story itself was very rich and enchanting but it is an older series and a survival series and I suppose it’s just never fit into our monthly themes. Maybe I’ll write a snapshot review of it . . .
5. A Favourite Authors’ secondary works. I have read tonnes of Kenneth Oppel, or Neil Gaiman, or Diana Wynne Jones, or Patrick Ness, or Susin Nielsen, or Susanne Collins or Teresa Toten, or . . . well, there are lots. But I haven’t reviewed every single one of their books. And I won’t either. I stick to the books that I think are the best or at least that I think are the ones that’ll get you, dear reader, and child readers too, to continue reading these brilliant authors’ works.   

Janet

1. Books that one of the other three got to first, like Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina and Shadow Scale.
2. Books that I read because one of the other three wrote about it – yes sometimes I read a book because of another Book Warrior’s post, then wish I could blog about it myself because the book is just that good :)
3. Books I really, really love. I frequently mention DWJ’s books, and MWT’s Eddis, Attolia, and Sounis, and Garth Nix’s The Old Kingdom and Elizabeth Wein’s Aksum, and maybe a half dozen other worlds that I love. When it comes to writing a full post, or series of posts, however, I can’t do it: I love them so much that, to my own ears, anything I might say would be insufficient, my words somehow degrading their worlds with clumsy, inadequate expressions of their glory.
4. A surprising number of picturebooks. Academic analysis feels easier – and less repetitive, at least when it comes to adjectives – than publicly swooning over the loveliness of books like The Moon Princess (illustrated by Kancho Oda; retold by Ralph F. McCarthy) or Princess Stinky-Toes and the Brave Frog Robert (by Leslie Elizabeth Watts), much as I would love to get everyone else to join me in drooling over these books.

Yash

I feel like I do review a lot of stuff I’ve read … and yet, oh look, I have a list:

1. Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido, Alan Davis: I don’t know. I am slowly catching up, and I’m loving them, but somehow I end up writing about the novels I read more than the comics?
2. Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Roc Upchurch: Okay, I think this one has less crossover appeal than Hawkeye? Maybe? But I did enjoy this one too, so, maybe I’ll wait till December to talk about it.
3. Court of Fives by Kate Elliott: Because Nafiza reviewed it, of course. (She’s also thanked in Kate Elliott’s acknowledgements section, which I think is pretty awesome and tell everyone who will listen to look in the back. I am like a proud blogger sister.)
4. The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson: I enjoyed it, but maybe not as much as the first two. So, I figure I will wait till book four comes out and then re-read this one before diving into book four. I think it would make for a better reading experience–which is usually what pushes me to write my long, chatty posts.
5. Sometimes I read books that don’t work for the month’s theme and then … forget about them. Those mostly end up on my list-type posts, including TTTs. I just can’t remember right now. My mind is eerily blank on this …

Nafiza

I’m trying to be better at reviewing things but honestly sometimes I just want to keep the feels to myself. And sometimes this just isn’t the medium for the review in question.

1. Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peter-Freund
   I feel like there are a lot of things I could have said about this one but the book though it mostly stands alone is the companion of another book that I read quite a while ago and don’t really remember much of. Maybe sometime in the future I will talk more about the gorgeous worldbuilding and characterization of this one but who knows?
2. Saga comics by Brian Vaughn et al. Way too explicit to actually review here. I do like the comics but I feel like it’s for an older audience than to whom we cater to here.
3. Mad Miss Mimic by Sarah Henstra. I don’t know why I haven’t said anything about this. Have I?
4. Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. I love this series but it’s not really YA lit.
5. Any book by Haruki Murakami. His books are not ones you review but ones you just sort of…experience. And grow up around.