So far I’ve read 714
pages, which isn’t spectacular, but it’s pretty good. I can spend most of today
reading, so that’ll be good. I have however finished three of the reading
challenges, so I’m pretty pleased with myself. The three I’ve finished are:
A book with pictures:
Saga, Volume #1, which is a graphic novel, so obviously it’s full of pictures.
I really liked it. I liked the art, I liked the story, the humor, the world
they live in, it’s very interesting. I’ll definitely want to read more Saga.
A book someone else
picks out for you: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. My
mother made me read this, but it’s sort of cheating, because I was almost done
and you know, I’m a cheater.
And a book from a genre
you’ve read the least this year: Vidunderbarn by Roy Jacobsen, which is sort of
historical fiction, slice of life in 60s Norway, something. It was actually
very interesting and I liked it a lot. I read it in one, not one sitting, well
sort of. I read it on the train, in the airport, and on the plane, and then I
was done just when the plane landed. So I guess that’s one sitting.
I also did one of the
video challenges, but as a blog challenge, and it was the top three books I’ve
read because of Booktube, so y’all can check that out.
And then there is the
day four video challenge, which sort of works for the blog. Use all the words
in three book titles and make a short story. So I did that, and go:
Kai lived in the republic of thieves. She had since
she was born, she had been pushed into the world in this godsforsaken place,
kicking and screaming. Her mother had smacked her back and told her to shut up
and Kai had. She hadn’t lived long with her mother, not by choice; her mother
had been a fucking idiot and had gotten herself killed. When you lived in Tarin
you paid the Company promptly and
correctly and you didn’t whine. If the money her mother hadn’t paid had been
going to feed Kai or make sure she didn’t spend every night shivering in her
rags, then Kai would have been more likely to forgive her mother. Instead the
money had gone to support her mother’s substance abuse, so when she sat there
with too much opium and no food in her system, so she couldn’t fight to keep
Kai from the Company it didn’t bother Kai much. She didn’t really fancy living
with the most dangerous criminals in the world, but maybe she could prove
herself a good thief and not end up as a whore. So that was what she had done.
She had worked hard and she had become a good thief and she earned more
creeping across roofs and robbing houses than she ever would in some asshole’s
bed, so the Company, and more specifically Conor Barco let her run across roofs
and steal. She loved it up there, it was like her own little world, a world
where she could spryly run around, jump and almost fly. It was the wise man’s fear these roofs. The
nobles built tall houses and if you fell down you’d be crushed, or caught on
spikes, but Kai didn’t care, here she was free, until the day she decided to
steal from lord Erel Fine.
Erel Fine had the biggest holdings, the biggest riches and the most
challenging house. Conor didn’t want Kai anywhere near it, but he couldn’t
completely control her. She jumped from the neighboring house and easily caught
a windowsill and pulled herself up. She had spent four weeks planning this
break-in, four weeks observing guard patterns, the lord’s comings and goings
and scouting where the most valuable stuff outside the vault would be kept. It
had all led to this moment when she dragged herself up, through the window, and
fell sort of gracelessly on the floor. She sat up and looked around. This was
the perfect room, a library sort of place with old necklaces and fighting gear
on display. Kai smiled widely and stood, took out her pouch and filled it with
old golden necklaces.
“Hello.” She turned and found a young man there. He was smiling
delightedly at his fortune, finding a thief mid-theft, then his eyebrows
furrowed slightly and he looked sort of surprised. He was handsome, dark amber
hair, big green eyes, skinny and sweet. “You’re the prettiest thief I’ve ever
seen.” He said. And even though Kai didn’t know it yet, that phrase would
change her life completely.
There’s my short story,
with a deeply unsatisfying ending, but I did write it on the fly. The titles
are italicized and I sort of made them work. And now to read on.