It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? Landscapes Fantastical, Harsh, and Provincial

I have a thing for fantasy. I’m sure that’s really difficult to tell.

I have decided that the shelf at our public library that contains the award winners for young adult literature is pretty much golden.  I mean, how can a bunch of Texas librarians be wrong?

Continuing on in my pile from that shelf, this week I read Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo.

The young protagonist, Alina, is an orphan with a latent power.  After this power reveals itself in a moment of terror, Alina is much sought after by the group of people in this society who regularly wield such power: the Grisha.  The leader of the Grisha takes a special interest in her; and she has to leave all she has known, including her best friend, to train to use her ability.

Along the way she meets several people of varying abilities and ambiguous motivations.  Everyone reveres her for her power, she discovers. However, why her power is so important to everyone remains a mystery.

Until the end of the book, of course.

And then, like most good young adult novels, we prepare for the sequel, which will apparently be out in about a month.

Whew.

I am also in the middle of two other books:

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

I was motivated to read this book after I finished her second book, Out of the Easy, which I gushed about in an earlier post.  The content of this book is much more sobering than her second book, but the character development is still powerful, and Sepetys keeps the focus on the people rather than the environment.

Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani

This book has been a surprise.  I’m pretty sure I found it on one of my Goodwill half-price day shopping binges.  Somewhere I read about this and heard it was pretty good, and I remembered that I had it sitting on my shelf.  The main character of this novel lives in a small mining town in Virginia and is friends with quite a diverse cast of characters.  When she finds out a secret about her past, her life is turned upside down. But it needs to be.  Apparently, this book is also part of a series.

What are you reading this week?

“It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?” is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It’s a great way to keep track of what you’re reading and see what others are reading each week.