Parker's Top 10 of 2016

Its d’final count doowwwnnnnnn

I read a SQUAD of books in 2016. To be honest, it might have been my most prolific, non-academic reading year of life since like 2005 when I read everything Stephen King wrote and also my grandma’s porn novels.

I did a lot of this reading drunk, and nearly 100% of it suuuuper sauced, so the following countdown may be comrpimised. (ir)Reregardless, I made a list!

DEESE (nuts) are my favorite reads of 2016. Some of them are individual works, and some are series; some I wrote about on this blog, some I read between or before or other prepositions relative to these reaads. Whatever. Shut up.

10. The Great Hunt (book 2: wheel of time)
9. The Dark Forest (book 2: Threee Body Problem)
8. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
7. Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin
6. Illuminae by Amy Kauffman and Jay Kristoff (post here)
5. Mistborn. The whole goddam series , by Brandon sanderson
4. between the world and me, Ta-Nahesi Coates

3. red rising: so the whole series was lit, but the first fucking novel in the trilogy was una lituacion, the first couple of pages were trite and predictable, and obvious as plot-fodder, but Pierce Brown made it rain in the subsequent 300 some-odd paginas. Fun as fuck, surprising, compelling. “Hunger Games in space” is an accurate but inadequate description. The second two novels carry the torch even farther

2. Coex alera: the series. so first of all, shoutout to Kitai, but for really real, thisseries was my favorite to read in 3016, I read 6 400 page novels in like 2 weeks. Tavi et all were so fucking compelling, the writing so fucking thorough, and the battle scenes so powerful that I had no choice but to power the fuck through them. My #1 recommendation for high fantasy in 2016.

1. Homegoing. Read my post. Not gonna cry again today.

You might hate all these novels. That’s fine. Fuck you. You dumb. And ya dick little.

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The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: A Response

So this entry is in direct response to what sam wrote about the same work. She recommended it, I read. It. Blah blahzz .

READ HER ENTRY FIRST!!

OK so what EYE drank prior: some margs, some vodka, some brews, idk. tonight got weird

What to pair it with - Editor's note: P - This is not what this section is about LOLZ
On a june night like this one, the moon barely rises beyond the cloud banks. The fog simmers underfoot, and once you realize your heartbeat is what’s clouding your ears, you acquiesce to silence. You can only see, then, the flap of the circus tent. Pairs in the crowd grip eachother’s palms; each individual wants for another to grasp in wonderment, in safety. Look at the sudden, foreign stars; they swim oh so rhythmically; they drip, blink of heresy. A neat scotch will do quite nicely with that, yeah. a double glenfiddich.

CALL ME NOW FOR YA FREE TAROT READING THAT INCLUDEDES SPOILER FREE THOUGHTS: 
This is going to be the first lukewarm review I write on this blog (I think, but, lol, who knows). The Night Circus was a beautifully written tale of magic and mystery that I couldn’t fully get behind. The idea was novel, and the writing was compelling, but, yanno, I ran through those pages without really giving a fuck about much besides whether I’m going 6/8 or 7/8 on the predictions I made an hour in to reading. There was a love story or something, some sacrifice, some maleficent magic, some heroics. To be honest? Read it. It’s beautiful Stunning. It just wasn’t for me

Spoiler free review shawty:
So early as shit we meet these two kids and they both get, like, “Bound” into this game their dads are playing. When we meet them we don’t know shit about what’s going on there. What we do know is that these chapters are interspersed with second and third person narratives of what really compelled me in this novel, “Le cirqe de Reves”, or (probably, given the title) “The Night Circus” (or something). The novel is the story of the circus. Other things happen, but they’re uninteresting. Other characters come and go, and they too are largely, boring as fuck. But yo. These barnum and bailey faced motherfuckers are incredible and enchanting and magical and brilliant. From the acrobats to the contortionists, to the watchmaker consigned to build a clock for em, the tricks and treats that this circus of folks executes is really compelling nd engaging and, again, the reason I couldn’t put this book down.

Writing stlye: There are some gorgeous, gorgeous pieces of prose in this novel. Morganstern has some vivvvvvid fucking imagery, like three v’s like they would be porn caliber if they were x’s but the’re v’s so it’s still kinky and luxurious, but there’s no peens. Thereis a depth to the writing. Characters’ development (though predictable af, to me, at least) is rich and interwoven with lesser characters and lesser plot points that do provide momentary pause. I almost would say that a lot of the prose here is >.> <.< magical lolololol.

I was not moved enough by this novel to want to share spoilers with you people. See sam’s review to get those. Plus she writes better than I do. So. yeah.

Rating: 2.75/5 vodka sodas.
Like. I got drunk off these drinks but I wish I drank something else, but I drank them fast so I def feel something, I think. But I really wanted to, so.

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A World Without You by Beth Revis

A World Without You by Beth Revis

What I Drank Prior: Tequila. A lot of tequila. I wish i knew how much, but i don't cause Parker poured. Not my fault.

Spoiler-free Overview:
Hokay, so this book is about a boy named Bo who thinks he's a super hero. He thinks he has the ability to travel in time. He thinks he's at a school for kids who also have super powers. Obvioulsy by all of the "thinks" you understand that he's not actually an x-man.

This story is in the POV of both Bo and his sister. According to Bo, the love of his life, Sofia, is trapped in time, and everyone else seems to think she's dead. Bo is determined to save her. Thingsssss happpennnn

Spoiler-free Thoughts:
Let's just say I finished this book in one sitting. This book isn't defined as "short" it's just really really engrossing. I was taken in very quickly. Like, I thought that MAYBE it wasn't mental illness. That it could possibly be something esle. Be cause the main POV, Bo, is SO unreliable. I am a sucker for unreliable narrators.

Characters: Alright, so look. Patrick (my brother) if you're reading this, please don't take this the wrong way. I read this book, and the sibling relationship in it was so fucking relatable. Like, my brother and i are fine, we're not like, lovey-dovey or whatever, but we're fine. If you take it one step forward, and you get the characters in this novel. A paraphrase is like "we're to separate people living our own separate lives and just happen to have the same genetic code." Now, Pat and I aren't like that, Bo and his sister are. But if my brother and I had one wrong move sometime in the past, it would have led us there. I related SO hard to these characters.

Side note: I really appreciated how it showed how a whole family is effected when one is mentally ill.

Plot: The plot to me wasn't the biggest part of this book. Like it was there, and it was important, and some things happened but like, it was so character driven that i just... yeah

Writing Style: tbh, like to be COMPLETELY honest, it wasn't the best. It wasn't beautiful, it wasn't metephorical or whatever, it was just fine. To me, the characters are really what made this story.

I'm not going to write a spoiler-y section because I don't have much to say, but what I do have opinions is with the message this book addresses. See. Below.

Message: Look. THis book is about mental illness. And I had the pleasure of reading the annotated version from the Quarterly Co. box. As someone who has a degree in Psychology, i think it was an excellent portrayal of how mental illness can effect a family. It was very interesting to see into the mind of someone who is mentally ill. Now, I thought maybe I was gonna be all like "i loved seeing how they think."

No one knows how the folks diagnosed with mental illness think. Let me repeat myself: no one knows how the folks diagnosed with mental illness think. EXCEPT those who are mentally ill. So, I can't be like "its so great to see into their minds!!!!" cause this portrayal isn't true. BUT it is close. It does help us healthy folk understand how delusions work. It helps us understand how things can get exacerbated by stress. YOU GUYS i just wrote 'exacerbated' super drunk and didn't misspell it. BE PROUD!

Just read it, ok? Like, it's good for everyone.

Rating: 4/5 Shots.

What to pair it with: Tequila. Because tequila makes us all a little mentally ill right? We never really know what's true or false.

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Find Me

By Laura Van Den Berg

Well, it's a happy doctor night (meaning we're watching Supernatural, finishign season 2, starting season 3) and we're celebrating my last day on the job so we're drinking plenty of champagne and eating Chinese food.  Pretty much an ideal night.

Spoiler Free Review: This book is about a woman named Joy.  The world she's in has been struck by a disease that slowly eats away at peoples minds, erasing their memories and then killing them.  Joy has become part of a test to see why people are immune and if they can help make a vaccine for the illness.  This hospital is a dark place and everything kind of sucks. Also there's a plot point that Joy was abandoned as a child and has finally been given enough information to find her mother. Part two of the book is Joy out of the hospital and trying to find her mohter, which means traveling across the United States.  In all honesty this book lacks a lot.  Joy is a mostly uninteresting characters.  At the point wehre an interesting character is added to the hospital, literally nothing is done with taht person.  The traveling across teh U.S. was also pretty much not memorable (I'm amused that his is a book about not being able to remember anything and I'm here not remembering much about this plot only a week or so after having read this... Which means I'm focusing on broad points.  If this makes you want to read the book more power to you.).  In traveling across the US she runs into a friend from when she was younger, probably the most interesting part of the book, who wears a mask most of the time to cover a scarred face.   This book would have been better if more happened in the hospital or if the entire book was the traveling across the US but the abrupt change in the middle wasn't really beneficial.  There was also a section with some rando's that they ran into where the book became a bit of magical realism which actually had me really intrigued. 

Spoiler-y Review:

Not sure how much I have to put here considering that this book didn't really have much happen.  Again the elements at the hospital were mostly uninteresting.  At some point, Joy learns that the 'nurses' are just normal people who are playing a role and getting to survive because of it, and that the doctor's main plan is making people believe they can survive. A very "mind over matter" plot line.
The bigger spoilers happen after Joy escapes the hospital becuase her favorite other patients have all died.  She and Marcus, the childhood friend are traveling all around and run into a scientist and his girlfrienf with wings have a house that has everything they need. This section really just seemed like filler, but the magical realism was intriguing, however I personally feel that the author should have dug into this if that's what she wanted.  As it was, it was mostly a disappointing side-quest.  Additionally the book ends right before Joy finds her mother, and I didn't care!!!!! If I don't care that I didn't see a pivotal scene between the main character and the family, that means the book ultimately failed in making me care about any of the characters.

Rating:  This book earns a shot and a half out of five.  The characters were lacking personality.  The author seemed to have trouble to actually commit to various plot points and I was disappointed that such an interesting premise ended up being such a lackluster book.  There would have been a number of interesting ways to focus on this book: what is the world like as people are losing their minds, what are the people who continue on in the midst of such chaos like, and how do people carry on afterwards.  The main character didn't do a great job of showing anything interesting about the world.

What to Drink: Drink a Natty Light.  It's not particularly pleasant, wont' really get you drunk but it's cheap and accessible. 

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