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I finished Hitchhiker’s yesterday. It was much shorter than I thought it would be. I pretty much already knew the basic story from the movie and the old TV show, so nothing really came as a surprise. My boyfriend, who’s read them all, said I’d probably like the other books in the series. I’m not going to bother going over the plot, if you’re any kind of respectable nerd, you know it. I’m about 20% done with Confessor, which is basically continual misery and misfortune for all characters involved. I just started the next book on my list for this month, which is The Silver Chair by CS Lewis. This is the 6th book in the Narnia series and the first book in which the Pevensies are permanently gone. The Earthlings for this book are return player Eustace, the Pevensies cousin, and his friend Jill. I’m 2 chapters in and so far Jill has met Aslan and they’ve barely made it to Narnia.

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Another 5 chapters into Hitchhiker's. I'm disappointed that I'm not finding it very funny, maybe its because I already know the story quite well. I'm already about halfway through.

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Amazingly I'm starting the month strong. I've started Hitchhiker's, Confessor, and Ninth House. I plan for Confessor to take all month since it's the longest book, but I'm already almost 100 pages in. I'm 5 chapters into Hitchhiker's and 1 into Ninth House. So far so good.

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Why???

It’s been awhile. Decided to try a challenge for November that my bookclub on Goodreads does every month. I’m not 100% following the rules, but I don’t care. Every month there are 10 prompts for a book and I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to have 10 individual books even if one book fits more than one prompt. I’m not doing that, if it fits more than one, then awesome. One less book I have to fit in. The prompts are:

Read a book published in November: Confessor by Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth #11, already owned)

Read a book with title or author starting with N: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (Kindle)

Read a book with the title containing 8 letters or words: The Trial by Franz Kafka (Audible, 100 books list)

Read a book rated 4 or higher with at least 1,000 ratings: Confessor by Terry Goodkind

Read a middle grade book: The Silver Chair by CS Lewis (Narnia #6, already owned)

Read a book set in Mexico or by a Mexican author: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (had to buy)

Read a book with a mostly black cover: both Confessor and Ninth House work for this

Read a book that’s been adapted for TV or film: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s #1, already owned)

Read a book by a male author: multiples apply

Read a book by one of your favorite authors: Confessor by Terry Goodkind

So my goal is six books this month. All of these were already on my wishlist.

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Day 19 of Les Miserables

Marius finds out Cosette’s new address from Eponine and can stalk her again. Yay! He breaks into the garden a few nights in a row and scares the crap out of Cosette. One night he leaves a book of love poems for her to find, and when she reads them she instantly knows its from him and falls madly in love with him...because that’s how it works. 

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Day 25 of LOTR

Sam and Frodo are doing a terrible job of navigating. They know that Gollum is following them, so they let him sneak up on them and manage to catch him off guard and capture him. Frodo makes him promise on the Ring to help them. He takes them across the Dead Marshes and they come to the Black Gate. They realize they can’t get in through the Black Gate and Gollum tells them there is another way. 

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Day 18 of Les Miserables

The Thenardiers, who live next to Marius, beg him for money, which he gives them. He doesn’t know that they are the Thenardiers yet. He notices that there is a hole in the wall between their two apartments and looks through it. He sees the whole family and learns that they managed to get a philanthropist to fall for one of their ruses to get money out of him. He arrives at their apartment with his daughter and Marius is shocked to see that it is the girl that he stalked. The man agrees to come back that night with the money that the Thenardiers need. When he leaves, Marius tries to follow to learn where they live, but loses their carriage. When he arrives back at his apartment, he overhears a conversation between the husband and wife. They know that it is Jean and intend to ambush him when he comes back. Marius goes to the police and Javert listens to him. They come up with a plan that the police will wait outside until Marius gives them the signal to come in and arrest the criminals. That night, Marius watches as the man comes back. Thenardier confronts him about his identity, but he says he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Jean tries to escape when he realizes that it’s an ambush but is overtaken and tied up. He’s forced to write a letter to Cosette to get her to follow Mrs. Thenardier. During this, Marius learns that this man is Thenardier, the man who saved his father’s life. He feels very conflicted about having him arrested, so he never signals the police. Jean had addressed the letter to the wrong place to give him enough time to escape his bonds and tries to escape again. Eventually, Javert stops waiting for the signal and just goes and finds the criminals trying to escape. He arrests them all, and while no one’s paying attention, Jean jumps out the window and disappears. Meanwhile, revolution is brewing...DUN DUN DUN!

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Day 17 of Les Miserables

So Marius is basically a stalker. Not creepy at all. He goes to this park everyday and there’s always a man with his daughter there. At first he doesn’t pay them much attention, but after a few months, the daughter becomes beautiful and he falls in love with her. He ends up following her home one day (wtf) and finds out where she lives. One day as he’s following her and her father home, her father turns around and sees him following them and moves the next day, which is a completely reasonable thing to do when you find out some dude’s stalking your young daughter. Of course, Marius is all broken hearted. It hasn’t said it yet but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that the man and his daughter are Jean Valjean and Cosette.

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Day 16 of Les Miserables

Marius is left a note by his father that says that if he ever finds a man named Thenardier, to help him in any way he can as he saved his life at Waterloo. Marius learns that his father gave him up because of his grandfather not because he didn’t want him. This makes him begin to resent his grandfather and royalists even more. He does lots of research into Napoleon and starts to have many revolutionist ideas. His grandfather finds out and kicks him out of his house. Marius meets some like-minded people, the friends of the ABC, whose names I’m afraid to even try to remember how to spell so I’m really hoping I can get away with never mentioning them by name. He doesn’t hang out with the group much and really only stays friends with one of them. He soon runs into money troubles and sells his watch and spare clothes. His aunt sends him a large sum of money but he won’t accept it and sends it back. He eventually graduates and becomes a lawyer. 

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Day 24 of LOTR

Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas stay behind with Merry and Pippin while the rest go to see Treebeard. They catch each other up on what happened with the respective groups. Merry and Pippin tell them that when the Ents got to Isengard, they didn’t have much trouble as they had seen most of the army leaving. This was the army that attacked Helm’s Deep. Most of the people who remained, ran away when they saw the Ents. A day or two after, the Ents flooded Isengard to put out all the fires and fill all of the tunnels. The hobbits mostly spent their time scavenging and exploring. When Gandalf and Theoden return, Gandalf wants to talk with Saruman, who’s trapped in the tower. Saruman tries to convince Theoden that he never wanted to attack them and that they can have peace. Theoden’s not having it. Gandalf tells him that he can leave the tower and be free it he will give up his keys and his staff. Saruman does not agree. Wormtongue throws something at them and Pippin picks it up. It’s a strange orb which Gandalf takes and wraps in cloth. They leave that night for Helm’s Deep. When they make camp for the night, Pippin sneaks over to Gandalf and takes the orb. He looks into it and lets out a cry which wakes everyone. Gandalf asks him what he saw, and he tells them that he saw a strange winged beast. He says that Sauron saw him and asked him questions. Luckily, the spell was broken before Pippin gave away any important information. They agree that Pippin will ride ahead with Gandalf and the rest will follow them. They then see a shadow pass over the moon. Gandalf recognizes it as a Nazgul and tells them that they all must leave immediately. He takes Pippin on Shadowfax and they quickly ride away. Gandalf answers some questions that Pippin has and then tells him that they aren’t going to Helm’s Deep but are instead going to Minas Tirith.

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Day 15 of Les Miserables

This section introduced a few new characters. Gavroche, who is the son of the Thenardiers. They no longer have the inn and live in the same building in the slum that Jean and Cosette were staying in before the convent. He mostly lives on the streets as his parents don’t care about him. In the same building lives Marius. We learn that Marius was raised by his grandfather, who is a staunch royalists. His father was a supporter of Nepoleon and fought at Waterloo. He is forced to give Marius up, as Marius’ grandfather threatens to disinherit Marius if he doesn’t. Marius grows up thinking that his father didn’t care for him and abandoned him. When he is older, he is told by his grandfather that he must go visit his father as he is sick. When he gets to his father’s house, his father is already dead.

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Day 23 of LOTR

After the battle, Gandalf tells Theoden that they must ride to Isengard. Most are wary of going there as they don’t have enough men for another battle, but Gandalf insists. When they arrive, they see Merry and Pippin relaxing and smoking. Merry sees them and welcomes them. Gimli gives them hell about lounging around while they have traveled many leagues and been in battle searching for them. While the battle of Helm’s Deep was happening, the Ents took over Isengard and trapped Saruman and Wormtongue inside the tower. Merry tells them where they can find Treebeard.

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Day 22 of LOTR

The army travels to the front lines of battle but see that it is going poorly and decide to retreat to Helm’s Deep. They arrive and get ready for battle as they were followed by the army of orcs. Gandalf rides off, saying he must do something and will be back. The battle begins and they manage to hold the orcs back, until they blow up a wall. As the sun rises, it seems like the battle is lost. Theoden and Aragorn decide to ride out of the gates and take as many orcs with them as possible. Just as they are riding out, a forest suddenly appears on the battle field, and they see Gandalf arrive with Erkenbrand, one of the lords of Rohan, and an army to relieve Theoden’s army. They manage to defeat the orcs.

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Opinion on The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

*Spoiler Alert*

I am a huge fan of The Hunger Games, so when I heard that there was going to be a sequel, I was so excited. I wasn’t sure how I was going to like a book where President Snow was the main character. How dare you make me like this person. I think a lot of the book really explained why he hated Katniss so much. Not only was she from District 12, but she sang some of the same songs that Lucy Gray did. She must have really reminded him of Lucy Gray and of his time with her. I thought it was kind of cool how it came full circle with The Hanging Tree. Lucy Gray wrote the song and then it became a symbol of the rebellion when Katniss sang it. Although the book was already longer than the three from the trilogy, I kind of wish it had been longer. Mostly because the last chapter seems a little rushed. It was very 0 to 60 with them being in love to trying to kill each other. All in all I loved the book. I read way ahead of how my posts are spaced out. I know I can have very detailed summaries and didn’t want them to be too long. Back to The Lord of the Rings.

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Day 18 of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: The End

Months later, Coriolanus is a promising student at the University and an up and coming Gamemaker. He has inputted many ideas into the Games, such as the winning district receiving a reward of more food. The Victor is also to be given lots of wealth and a nice house to live in, in the hopes that more promising tributes will volunteer. He has basically been adopted by the Plinths in honor of his friendship with Sejanus. He has been named heir to their fortune, and they provide all the money that his family needs. One day, he stops by the Academy to talk to Dean Highbottom. He learns that while the Hunger Games were the Deans idea, he didn’t want to submit the paper because of how horrible the idea was. It was Coriolanus’ father who submitted it to Dr. Gaul. That’s why the Dean hated Coriolanus so much. As Coriolanus is leaving the Academy, it is revealed that he had left a poisoned bottle of morphling, which the Dean is addicted to, in his office. We also learn that nobody ever found Lucy Gray, so is unknown whether she is alive or dead.

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Day 21 of LOTR

They arrive in Edoras and are stopped at the gate. They are made to give up their weapons, which offends them. When they meet Theoden, they see a very old man. They are not greeted very warmly. Gandalf eventually silenced Grima and takes Theoden outside. Theoden comes to his senses and released Eomer from captivity. He tells Grima to choose between fighting with him or going to Saruman. Grima runs away. Theoden calls for all of the fighting men in Rohan to meet him and they march to battle.

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Day 14 of Les Miserables

Fauchelevent, the gardener, agrees to the Reverend Mothers plan. He goes and tells Jean of it and Jean says that he can sneak out in the empty coffin.  Fauchelevent has to get the gravedigger, who is a friend, out and get him drunk so that he can then break Jean out of the coffin. Cosette and Jean are successfully snuck out, but when they get to the cemetery Fauchelevent is told that the old gravedigger has died. He tries to get the new one out for a drink, but he continuously declines. Finally, Fauchelevent steals his pass out of his pocket and then asks where his pass is. The gravedigger can’t find it and freaks out, as he will have to pay a 15 franc fine for not having it. He runs back home leaving Fauchelevent alone. Fauchelevent quickly gets Jean out of the coffin and they bury the coffin. They then get Cosette and return to the convent and meet with the Reverend Mother. She agrees to hire Jean and board Cosette.