2010 Reads

If 2009 was the year of Twilight and Harry Potter (revisited), 2010 was no different--it was still fantasy and adventure year for me.

The series that stood out were The Watch by Sergey Lunkynenko, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. Towards the end of December, I took on The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

I mostly went for the completed series because I didn't want to wait for installments. Also, the paperback box sets I bought were way cheaper than individual copies. My copy of The Mortal Instruments was the 3-in-1 version, which meant I had look like a total geek lugging around a chunky book until I was done with the trilogy.

But The Kane Chronicles and The Heroes of Olympus, also by Riordan, I couldn't resist, although they each had only one book out yet (if it's not obvious by now, I'm a Riordan junkie). The next Kane book will come out in May, and the next Heroes in October. I'm guessing I'll have to reread the first books when they come out.

Reader response
I have written some very candid reactions to The Mortal Instruments and His Dark Materials in this blog, as well as that stray I picked up to kill time, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, which I've never forgiven for raising my expectations and then helplessly letting me down. But for the Lukyanenko and Riordan books, I had nothing except a few lines in some entries. I'm hoping to rectify that in the coming months.

I've mentioned Lukyanenko in an early entry in my Twilight blog--for which I should probably arrange a decent burial soon--but that was when I've only seen the movie and haven't yet read the books. That was also around the time I saw the Swedish movie Let the Right One In, and I was totally obsessed with vampire lore and imagined myself dazzling mortals.

As for Riordan, well, what can I say? He's the one I'd like to be when I grow up. His stories are ingenious, witty and unpretentious. They're the kind of stories I like to hear--and tell. In Percy Jackson, he has creatively woven the story's magical elements into the New York City backdrop, and Percy's Manhattan sensibilities into the Greekness of Camp Half Blood. So now I can't get enough of demigods with dyslexia and ADHD. And from the only Kane book I've read so far, it looks like Sadie and Carter Kane can hold their own next to the Greek godlings.

In the pipeline
For 2011, I'm exploring the crime genre and I've started with The Millennium series. But I'd also like to revisit the roots of the fantasy genre--Tolkien and Lewis. Then I'll retrace my way back to contemporary urban fantasy, starting with the sequel to The Mortal Instruments, City of Fallen Angels, due this April. There's also the prequel, the Infernal Devices, but only the first book--Clockwork Angel--is out, and I have to wait till December 2012 for the trilogy to be completed.

I might also do the interactive novelty series 39 Clues, the first book in which is by Riordan. I'm also thinking about the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which I started reading last year but never quite appreciated. The comedy was mostly hit-and-miss--at least for me, because I never find obnoxious kids cute or amusing. But I'd like to see if the succeeding books can justify the hype around this series.