Ah, I do like going down memory lane oftentimes. Why don’t you join me? As usual, thank you to Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads for this prompt and go look here (link to be updated and this text to be removed when her post is up) for which thick books she’s read and/or owned!
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Inheritance by Christopher Paolini (GR/SG) –
It began with Eragon… It ends with Inheritance.
Not so very long ago, Eragon — Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider — was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders.
Long months of training and battle have brought victories and hope, but they have also brought heartbreaking loss. And still, the real battle lies ahead: they must confront Galbatorix. When they do, they will have to be strong enough to defeat him. And if they cannot, no one can. There will be no second chance.
The Rider and his dragon have come further than anyone dared to hope. But can they topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaësia? And if so, at what cost?
This is the spellbinding conclusion to Christopher Paolini’s worldwide bestselling Inheritance cycle.
Own and read – 849 pages. I don’t care what anyone says (because apparently people say it’s badly written), The Inheritance Cycle is one of my absolute favourite epic fantasy series ever. Probably because it holds a lot of my childhood memories. I do believe this is where I first encountered my favourite trope (enemies to lovers – although I’m unsure if they actually fall in love or are just attracted to each other).
AND it’s going to be a Disney+ show (after the absolutely terrible movie which we do not speak about) AND Paolini is writing another book in the world???
Babel by R.F. Kuang (A novel that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.
Babel is the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
Little Thieves by Margaret Owen (GR/SG) –
Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl . . .
Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother’s love. The adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, Vanja has long made her own way in the world as the dutiful servant of Princess Gisele. Until a year ago, when her otherworldly mothers demanded payment for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back . . . by stealing Gisele’s life.
With the help of an enchanted string of pearls, Vanja transformed into her former mistress and took her place, leaving the real Gisele a penniless nobody. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming the nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Until, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to turn into jewels, stone by stone.With a feral guardian half-god, Gisele’s sinister fiance, and an overeager junior detective on her tail, Vanja has just two weeks to pull off her biggest grift yet, or she risks losing more than her freedom – she could lose her life.
In this delightfully irreverent retelling of ‘The Goose Girl’, Margaret Own crafts an unputdownable tale about stolen lives, thorny truths, and the wicked girls at the heart of both.
Not owned but read – 512 pages. Definitely a book I recommend you own physically. It has beautiful illustrations and the cover alone is absolutely amazing! I can’t wait to reread the first book before reading the second book!
Wild Sky by Zaya Feli (GR/SG/My Review) –
Tauran Darrica has been retired from the Valreus Sky Guard for four years following the Battle of the Broken Wings that resulted in the death of his dragon. Now, all Tauran wants to do is spend his days forgetting the past and gambling his way to an unsteady income.
So when his old general from the Sky Guard hunts Tauran down to request his help with staving off the increasingly aggressive wild dragon population, Tauran refuses. But a fire ruins his rented room and leaves him without a place to stay, and Tauran finds himself on the road to Valreus, after all.
Tauran is determined to stay as far away from dragons as he can get, but a starry-eyed young man from Sharoani, land of the wild dragons, might just ruin his plans.
Kalai Ro-Ani has spent his life watching the stars, knowing he could never reach them.
With his wild dragon Arrow, he sets out for the city of Valreus in the hope of building himself a better future than he could have stuck at the foot of the Kel Visal dragon temples.But nobody told Kalai that only the Sky Guard is allowed to own dragons, so when Arrow kills a guard in Kalai’s defense, it looks like his adventure might be over before it can begin. But a chance encounter at the old Valreus archive offers Kalai the future he’d been hoping for. In the span of a single day, he has a home, a job, and a purpose.
In Valreus, something much bigger falls into his lap – along with a tall and striking Valrean man with a rather strange disposition.
A new, LGBT+ fantasy story from Zaya Feli, featuring dragons, aerial battles and epic journeys through dangerous wilderness.
Not owned but read – 764 pages. This was the first big book that I read after being in a big reading slump and not wanting to read big books and then I read this absolute CHONKER and enjoyed it so so much!!
The House of Hades by Rick Riordan (GR/SG) –
Hazel stands at a crossroads. She and the remaining crew of the Argo II could return home with the Athena Parthenos statue and try to stop Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter from going to war. Or they could continue their quest to find the House of Hades, where they might be able to open the Doors of Death, rescue their friends Percy and Annabeth from Tartarus, and prevent monsters from being reincarnated in the mortal world. Whichever road they decide to take, they have to hurry, because time is running out. Gaea, the bloodthirsty Earth Mother, has set the date of August 1 for her rise to power.
Annabeth and Percy are overwhelmed. How will the two of them make it through Tartarus? Starving, thirsty, and in pain, they are barely able to stumble on in the dark and poisonous landscape that holds new horrors at every turn. They have no way of locating the Doors of Death. Even if they did, a legion of Gaea’s strongest monsters guards the Doors on the Tartarus side. Annabeth and Percy can’t exactly launch a frontal assault.
Despite the terrible odds, Hazel, Annabeth, Percy, and the other demigods of the prophecy know that there is only one choice: to attempt the impossible. Not just for themselves, but for everyone they love. Even though love can be the riskiest choice of all.
Join the demigods as they face their biggest challenges yet in The House of Hades, the hair-raising penultimate book in the best-selling Heroes of Olympus series.
Own and read – 597 pages. I remember reading this for the first time in high school – stayed up to maybe 5 am to read it? And yes I did have school that day 😂. But I didn’t regret it because it’s Percy Jackson!
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Why, I am coming back to reading big books again! It’s just really fun to sink your teeth into a thick book and, well, either you don’t even realise you’re halfway through the book or you read the entire book in one sitting (Little Thieves to name one)! Of course there is the whole thing of reading a bit and then checking to see how many pages you have before the next chapter (I am very guilty of doing this, I also blame Kindle for having the feature).
My big tip is just to go for 50 or 100 pages per day (50 if you think 100 is absolutely no go). Yes, the lower amount will mean you take longer to finish it (like 10 days to finish a 500 pg book and not 5 days with 100 pg) but honestly a lot of the times where you read 50 pages you’ll find yourself wanting to read more. Or even if you’ve just read 50 pages, that’s more than what you’ve read before!
All right! That’s me done! Tell me down below any big books that you’ve read and/or own! I really do love chatting about big books 😂
DB's Guide to the Galaxy 
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