Inspired by the videos of Becca and The Books I decided to make my own Bookopoly Game Board.
Bookopoly is a game that is inspired by the game Monopoly, only that instead of buying streets, railroads, houses and hotels, I’ll be reading different genres of books according to the spaces I land.
If you want more details on how this game works, please watch Becca’s introductory video. I changed the Bookopoly board game she introduces to how the spaces would work better for me and I won’t be playing with two dices but only one but the ways how both TBR choosing games work are very similar.
COLOR SPACES
The genres I have set for the following space colors are:
Yellow – Fantasy (Adult or YA)
Red – Romance or Retelling (Adult or YA)
Pink – Science Fiction (Adult or YA)
Purple – Mystery or Thriller or Horror
Brown – Genre-benders (Books with two or more genres)
Lavanda – YA mixed with other genres Fantasy/Sci- fi/ Contemporary/Mystery/Retelling/Horror or Middle-Grade.
Green – Classics/Nonfiction/Audiobook/Short Story Anthology or Collection/Graphic Novel.
Dark Blue – Paranormal Fantasy/PA Romance/PA Mystery or Magical Realism
Depending on how these settings work for me I might change these genre settings later, therefore I’ve not written the genres on the board. And if anyone else decides to use this board for their own TBR choosing game, they can also choose the genres for each of the colors according to which genres they prefer.
CARD SPACES
Apart from the genre spaces, I also have the “Chance TBR” spaces and the “A to Z” spaces.
The Chance TBR spaces (orange space with books) will have cards with books I have in my TBR and the “A to Z” spaces (light blue with letters) will have cards with books I chose for my A to Z Challenge.
CORNER SPACES
The first corner space where START is written is my starting point.
The “Numbers” corner space may be used in two different ways. Either by reading a book with a number in the title or by picking a number in a random number generator and picking the book correspondent to that number on a physical shelf.
The other two corner spaces are “Five Star Predictions” where I’ll pick a book I think will be a five star read, and “Mood Reading – Super Bubbly” where I’ll read a comfort read.
“PUBLISHED IN” SPACES
Finally I replaced the Monopoly Railroad spaces with Published-in-the-Year spaces. In the first you can read books published until 1990s, the second is for books published in the 90s decade, the third for books published between 2000 and 2010 and the fourth for the books published between 2010 and 2020. All these squares encourage readers to read their older books.
MY BOOKOPOLY TBR
I’m playing this game for the first time now in August and here are my rolls and books:
1st Roll: 4,Third Yellow space – Fantasy: I’ll be reading: The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade #1) by Seth Dickinson.
2nd Roll: 2, First Red space – Romance/Retelling: I’ll be reading a Retelling: War of the Cards (Queen of Hearts Saga #3) by Colleen Oakes.
3rd Roll: 2, Second Red space – Romance/Retelling: I’ll be reading a Romance this time. A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane.
4th Roll: 5, Third Pink space – Science Fiction – I’ll be reading Local Star by Aimee Ogden.
5th Roll: 3, Second Purple space – Mystery/Thriller/Horror – I’ll be reading a Mystery/Thriller book that has been for years on my TBR: The Last Policeman (The Last Policeman #1) by Ben H. Winters.
I’ll be posting my Wrap-Up of this challenge in the beginning of September and roll again five times to pick a new monthly TBR.
Would you like to play too? Let me know in the comments.
In my last blog post, I said I still had a couple of yearly challenges to talk about. And one of them is my A TO Z CHALLENGE 2021.
At first I thought about calling this blog post “Reading Goals 2021 Mid Year Update -Part 2” since this is what I was aiming for when I started it, but when I included all the book reviews, this turned into a longer post. So I will concentrate on the A to Z Challenge alone and write about my other challenges later.
I was in doubt last year about repeating the A to Z Challenge in 2021 but when one of my favorite groups in Goodreads, the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club (SFFBC) started it, I had to take part too.
So far I have done the letters E, I, J, L, M, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V, and W.
I will try to stick to the TBR I have set up in January for this challenge until the end of the year. I know I could have more letters accomplished if I would just pick up books I have already read and sort them into the challenge but I don’t see the point in doing that.
And I’ll be reviewing the books I have finished in this post so that I don’t have a five pages blog post at the end of this challenge in December.
Internet Sensitivity alert: I have now and then very strong opinions on books and some of the following reviews are negative. Therefore, if you are sensitive to negative reviews of books you liked don’t continue reading this post.
So here are the books I have read:
E
Edgedancer (The Stormlight Archive #2.5)by Brandon Sanderson
Interesting Novella with additional information on the Stormlight story world and the Cosmere. The tone of the Novella was in the young adult direction, so different from the Stormlight Archive series which has a more adult tone and this was a bit jarring for me. Even though this Novella was very entertaining. Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite fantasy authors and I will be certainly be reading more by him in the future. My rating: 4 stars.
Emergency Skin (Forward Collection #3) by N.K. Jemisin.
I read five of the six Novellas in the Forward Collection until now, but this is by far my favorite at this point. Brilliant, I want to read more from this author for sure. My rating: 5 stars.
I
In the Vanishers’ Palace by Aliette de Bodard
I often struggle when a story is mainly focused on the characters and their relationships, but in this case the resolution was masterfully done and the character’s arc of Vu Côn and all other characters was deeply tied with their situation and setting, in a way that this Novella’s theme development is complete on its own. I would want to read more about this post-Vanisher’s World past or future so that I could better grasp it’s puzzling nature. Aliette de Bodard is an author I want to read more in the future. My rating: 4 stars.
Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1) by Rachel Caine
I’m not sure how to review this book, it has a harsh dystopic/alternate history world, but the plot moved slowly. I liked the writing style so I’ll give it one extra star for that.
*Spoiler Alert* What I didn’t like was that the story was mainly about a school class in a cruel school with a cruel teacher (who was much worse than Snape ever was) and I have read so many books with this kind of trope I can’t really stand this kind of plot anymore. I won’t be continuing this series. My rating: 2 stars.
J
Jade City (The Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee
This book reminds me a bit of The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi where the world was interesting and there were loads of action but I had difficulty caring enough to go on reading even though. I can’t explain why, really… This sometimes happens when there are many characters who are interesting but nothing that really makes me care about one special character and what will happen to him/her. This is very subjective, as some people told me they loved this book. I continued this book but I won’t continue the series. My rating: 2 stars.
L
The Last Conversation (Forward Collection #5) by Paul Tremblay
An intriguing and eerie dystopian Novella. My rating: 3 stars.
M
Machinehood by S.B. Divya
This had a very good premise and ideas but the narrative style wasn’t unfortunately for me. I would recommend this to people who like science fiction technological thrillers and are OK with a narrative in Michael Crichton’s style.
I would also like to say thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. My rating: 3 stars.
O
Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3) by Brandon Sanderson
Please don’t ‘hate’ me, I did like this book a lot too, only that I considered some of the character developments of Dalinar quite jarring with the character he seemed to be on the first two books of the series. I also got the impression that his ARC wrapped up too neatly and too fast at the end without enough foreshadowing. Too many battle scenes and not enough character interactions. I missed more development on Shallan, Adolin and Kaladin, and it all got decided too quickly for me. Maybe these impressions will change once I have reread this series since this time I was mainly hearing this as an Audiobook.
Still a brilliant series that I’ll go on reading for sure. My rating: 4 stars.
Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter
Exceptional story, and one of the best novellas I’ve read this year. I want to read more from this author for sure. My rating: 5 stars.
P
Pride and Prescience: Or, A Truth Universally Acknowledged
This was a very entertaining historical/ paranormal/cozy mystery with the universally loved characters of Pride and Prejudice. I’ll be continuing this series. My rating: 4 stars.
Q
Questing Beast (Koslov Universe) by Ilona Andrews
I like most books by Ilona Andrews and this free short story that can be found on the website of the authors was no exception. Very creative, I wish they write more stories in this universe soon. My rating: 4 stars
R
Randomize (Forward Collection #6) by Andy Weir
This wasn’t my favorite story by this author since it wasn’t funny like “The Martian” and “Artemis”, or intriguing like his short story “The Egg”. It also wrapped up too conveniently, but it was still all right. I still really like his books though and will read “Project Hail Mary” asap. My rating: 3 stars.
S
Sorcerer to the Crown (Sorcerer Royal #1) by Zen Cho
This was one of my biggest disappointments for the first half of 2021. I gave this audiobook a fair chance by hearing 50% of it, but the plot development was too slow, so slow that I thought there wasn’t really a plot and if there was one that I didn’t care anymore. What also tired me were the often repetitions of character names when all these repetitions were completely unnecessary, since I knew the scene was in that character’s POV most of the time. Honestly, I can only hear “Zacharias” so many times before getting completely bored. I won’t be continuing this series. My rating: No rating since I DNFed.
T
To Have and to Hoax (The Regency Vows #1) by Martha Waters
This was a really disappointing historical romance and sorry, but I’ll rant in this review. I’m tired of reading romance books where the male character says toxic, horrible things to the female character all the time because he is supposed to have zero emotional intelligence. I believe that most guys are smarter than that, and if they are saying horrible things to a woman is because they don’t want to have that woman around and not because they are overly stupid like some romances imply.
I don’t like books that try to explain toxic relationships by saying that all problems are just misunderstandings that can be solved if women are humble enough or hustle enough. If both characters aren’t at least trying to meet halfway, what’s the point of a romantic story? My rating: 1 star.
V
The Vampire Knitting Club (Vampire Knitting Club #1) by Nancy Warren
This was a very entertaining story I could not put down. I really liked the writing style and the lightness of it and as of now I have read this series until its 11th book! This is a perfect series to binge read or hear if you like cozy mysteries with a dash of paranormal fantasy and romance. My rating: 4 stars.
The Vela (The Vela #1) by Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, S.L. Huang.
This serial packs a punch! And has four things I really liked:
1) Skilled writers collaborating in a cohesive and well done narrative,
2) Well done, many layered, characters,
3) A surprising and fast-paced plot that never gets boring and
4) Food for thought of utmost importance.
We could translate many of the questions this story asks to our current world situation and how we handle world problems like refugees and climate change. I liked how it made me think about a lot of important things and I recommend it to anyone who wants to get out of their comfort zone while reading a very entertaining science fiction story with fast-paced action. My rating: 5 stars.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
W
Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive #2) by Brandon Sanderson.
This is my favorite book of the year so far. You know you liked a book when you feel like rereading it as soon as you finished it. I’ll be continuing this series for sure. My rating: 5 stars.
My Reader's Journey 