I know this is super late, but I'm back with a post detailing all of the books I read in March! But first, let's go into my reading statistics.
First off, I decided to spend the month (with one exception) reading books related to Greece, whether it be ancient Greek literature, books written by modern Greek authors, inspired by Greek culture/mythology, or set in Greece. This was because March is the month of Greece's Independence Day, and I wanted to commemorate my Greek heritage.
So, in March, I read a total of 8 books, which is once again an increase from last month (which was only 7). However, in March of 2018, I read 10 books, but I'm not too disappointed. I am happy to say that I read 2,530 pages, which technically achieves my unofficial goal of reading 2,500 pages to reach my year goal of reading 30,000 pages.
This month, I read mostly library books (7 out of the 8), as I didn't own most of these Greece related books. I don't feel too bad about this, especially because I would eventually like to buy most of the books I had borrowed from the library for myself. I also didn't finish any series that I'd already started, but I'm okay with it. A plus is, though, that I read a majority of books written by female authors ( 6 of them), which is a great turn-around for my usual habit, which was evident in my February reads.
As for genres, I read 1 memoir, 3 literary fictions, 2 nonfictions, and 2 fantasies. Reading level was mostly adult reads at 6, with one young adult and middle grade. Again, because I wanted to read Greece related literature, I'm okay that I didn't read evenly across the different reading levels. Similarly, I didn't read diversely over the original publishing dates; 1 was written in the 1900s-40s, 3 from the 2000s, and 4 from the 2010s.
Finally, for my ratings. This month I amazingly read 1 five star books, 4 four stars, and 3 three stars.
So, let's get into the books as I'm super excited to tell you all about them!
13. North of Ithaka by Eleni N. Gage
North of Ithaka is written by the daughter of Nicholas Gage who wrote Eleni which I read last month. I am so glad I read this immediately after, because it gives the seriously depressing (but very important) story of Eleni a more satisfying end. In this memoir, Gage recounts her choice to go to her family's village in Greece to fix up her yiayia's house. During this project, she not only is dealing with the feelings that arise due to the horrific tragedies her family has been through, but she also faces herself feeling disconnected from her ancestral culture. This definitely resonated with me, as I'm sure it would with any American immigrant/descendant of immigrants. I really enjoyed this book, especially right after Eleni as it brings the story of this family to a heartwarming end. I gave it an A rating.
14. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis & translated by Carl Wildman
For some reason, this novel reminded me of The Great Gatsby, but I have no idea why; I haven't read The Great Gatsby in years, so I don't really remember it so well, and can't say why this comparison came to mind. But it did so...Anyway. Zorba the Greek follows an unnamed narrator who decides to go to Crete to mine lignite. He ends up bringing with him as his head worker and 'philosophical companion' a man named Aleixis Zorba. Zorba is eccentric and opinionated, and therefore helps the narrator broaden his perspective and experiences within the world. There's not much more to really say about the plot as it really just focuses on the interactions between these two characters. While I did find it interesting, I'm not a huge fan of character driven novels, so I gave it a C-.
15. Discovering Cultures: Greece by Sharon Gordon
So, when I put this on my list of books to read for my Greek literature month, I thought this was a nonfiction novel about the culture of Greece. While that wasn't wrong, what I didn't know was this was a kid's book; not middle grade age, but potentially infant level. I feel really strange rating this book, because I was not it's intended audience, so I just gave it a C, not great, not awful, but middle of the road.
16. The Scapegoat by Sophia Nikolaidou & translated by Karen Emmerich
For this, I didn't really know what to expect, as I didn't know anything about the plot because I picked it up purely because it was written by a Greek author. So I was really pleasantly surprised when I found myself enjoying it. The Scapegoat is a fiction investigative story that is based on real-life events: the murder of an American journalist and the subsequent false imprisonment of a Greek citizen. In the novel, we follow Minas Georgiou as he goes through his last year of high school, where he is tasked with collecting research on this murder/false imprisonment case. There's not really a strong plot to this novel as it's primary purpose, I feel, is to present the facts of this real-world case in an easy-to-digest fictional format. Despite the fact I don't usually like books that aren't plot driven, I was fascinated by the different characters, and how the were connected to the case, even if fictionalized. For that reason, I gave this a B+ rating.
17. Abandon by Meg Cabot
This novel peaked my interest for two reasons: 1) it's written by the author of The Princess Diaries series, which I devoured last year, and 2) because it is a Hades/Persephone retelling set in modern times. Thankfully, because of my familiarity with Cabot's Princess Diaries series, I wasn't expecting this to be much more than a guilty-pleasure, cheesy read, so I wasn't disappointed. There's nothing really special about this story, not the writing, plot, or characters, but because of my low expectations and the quickness of which I went through this, I actually really enjoyed my experience of reading this. Again, it wasn't anything special, so I gave it a B-, but I am eager to continue on with this series.
18. Greece: A Short History of a Long Story, 7,000BCE to the Present by Carol G. Thomas
This is a historical nonfiction that discusses the history of Greece by analyzing its environment, location, outreach, and influence by other cultures. It takes a somewhat scientific/archaeological theory approach which I was not expecting, but quite enjoyed. However, that was pretty much the extent of my enjoyment. While it does provide history from 7,000BCE to the present as the title suggests, I feel it was a bit unbalanced in its scope in favor of the ancient side of Greek history. Though this might be new information for other readers, the ancient history of Greece is something I am already well-versed in because of my undergraduate degree in Classics. Instead, I was really hoping for more modern Greek history. Yes, I know that the majority of Greek history is contained in the ancient half, but I feel like the ancient history was explored more in-depth than the medieval and modern history. Additionally, I found there to be a lot of grammatical/editorial issues in the writing, which took away from my enjoyment. Overall, this is an acceptable introduction to Greek history, but it had its issues, both general and more personal to me, and I therefore gave it a C+.
19. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Again, I had no idea what to expect with this novel because I had no idea what it was about before picking it up, although I did know that it was quite renowned. This is a novel narrated by a man telling his family's history, from his grandparents' immigration from Grecian Turkey to the United States to his childhood life as a hermaphrodite, in which he was brought up as a girl. I'll be completely honest, I was a bit uncomfortable with the subject matter, but I 100 percent attribute it to the fact that I don't have much knowledge of hermaphrodite-ism and have not, unfortunately, been exposed to this topic to make it 'normal' in my view of the world. That is a shame, so I was glad to learn a bit about it, though I'm not sure if its representation was an accurate portrayal. I will say that there might be an issue with its portrayal, because it attributes the hermaphrodite gene 'appearing' because of incest (there was sooooo much incest). Either way, I found myself roped in by my emotions towards not only the main character but others as well, and therefore could not put this down. I thought this was very well-written, especially in its characterizations, and therefore gave it a B-.
20. Peace and Turmoil by Elliot Brooks
This was the only book I read this month that was not Greece-related. In fact, I was gratefully sent an advanced ebook copy of this my the author/youtuber herself; I think this is important to note for a couple of reasons. Firstly, while I am thankful to have received this for free and before its official release, that won't stop me from giving my unfiltered, honest review of this novel. Secondly, I must admit that I don't have the best relationship with ebooks, which probably did affect my experience of reading this negatively. With these 'disclaimers' out of the way, Peace and Turmoil is an epic fantasy that follows multiple third person perspectives throughout multiple settings as peace between various countries start to crumble. Without getting into further details of the story to avoid spoilers, I do want to briefly point out two other aspects: the magic system is based on something called auroras that people find within themselves and can be used in various ways with varying degrees if proficiency; and that there are a handful of magical objects. Unfortunately I found myself disappointed by this novel. Specifically, I found myself not understanding a lot about this novel: the setting, magic system, characters, and plot were a bit confusing and disjointed. This might be due to me not getting along with ebooks, but I think that the book itself had issues that could be tied to the fact that there were way too many perspectives. Because of this, I couldn't connect with the characters, nor could I learn about them enough to understand their motivations; this then impacted all other aspects of the novel. I am disappointed with this novel, I was really hoping to enjoy, but I might try reading this in physical form before deciding on whether I will continue on with this series. However, upon further reflection, and after reading some reviews of this novel, I find myself agreeing more with people who rated this two stars; while I don't think this is worthy of a D rating, I might bump this down to a C-, instead of my previous C rating.