That is what American Assassin is right now. And it was only released on the twelfth this month.

 

And let me tell you. It deserves it. Just finished reading it after getting it at that book signing on Wednesday [and with school and basketball, it wasn't easy to read it so quick -- but it kept me hooked, and I couldn't put it down]. Awesome lecture, too, that he gave. But anyway, back to the book itself.

 

I will say it wasn't quite what I expected. But it was amazing. It delved into Mitch Rapp's character a lot, and just allowed for a fascinating read with fascinating characters. It kept me hooked the whole way. I don't want to give anything away, so I won't say what specifically I liked, etc., etc. But I really don't think you'll be disappointed if you pick it up.

 

And it's the best time, too! If you're new to Vince Flynn, this is the perfect time to start. Besides Term Limits, this is the first book in the Mitch Rapp series. Y'see, he wrote TL as a standalone novel, which didn't include Mitch Rapp at all. He then wrote ten novels with Mitch Rapp, which did include some characters from TL. Anyway, in AA, he tells the beginning of Mitch Rapp, how he became a CIA agent, his first kill, and more. So if you haven't read a Mitch Rapp book yet, why not read AA first? That's what I did [i've only read Term Limits besides AA]. And so you see, it really is the best time to start on Vince Flynn's stuff.

 

Though of course go ahead and read TL first -- it's interesting to see some of the characters transfer over from that into AA.

 

So yeah, I know I've been advertising Vince Flynn a lot lately, but really, he deserves it. #1 New York Times Bestseller just after one week of the book being released.

 

Anyway, since my last book entry, I have gotten a few other books. This is because I was looking for The Third Option -- the last Vince Flynn book I need -- and so I went to several used bookstores where I unfortunately did not find it, but did pick up some other stuff [i decided to order TTO on Amazon]:

• Agatha Christie's Detectives. Five Complete Novels: The Murder at the Vicarage, Dead Man's Folly, Sad Cypress, Towards Zero, N or M?. Hey, it's five Agatha Christie novels, so no explanation necessary [though unless I find another "collection" (more than one novel in a book) I'm done with buying mystery for now, since I'm reading more thrillers at the moment -- once I finish everything I have I'll start buying again, lol].
• Marine -- Tom Clancy. No, not a novel. But a non-fiction reference book. And by Tom Clancy. So I thought it'd be good reference, considering two of my characters are Marines.
• Velocity -- Dean Koontz. I enjoyed Night Chills [though I actually didn't quite finished, because I got American Assassin and started reading that instead =P] and this one sounded cool.
• Separation of Power -- Vince Flynn. The second-to-last book I needed. And it was hardback, so I was very happy [i only have two of his books that are paperback, the rest are hardback].
• The Complete Guide to Middle Earth -- J.R.R. Tolkien. Do I really need an explanation to this?
• Fool Moon -- Jim Butcher. Next in the Dresden Files series -- I loved Storm Front, so decided to get the next one.
• Mirror Image -- Tom Clancy. This and the three below are the first in their respective series. After I'm done reading a bunch of other stuff, I thought that I'd try all of Clancy's series, so I got the first of these three.
• Hidden Agendas -- Tom Clancy
• Politika -- Tom Clancy
• Portraits of Murder -- Alfred Hitchcock. 47 murder short stories, picked by the great man himself. Of course I got it.
• The Bourne Identity -- Robert Ludlum. Heard this series was really good, and finally found the first one [i've seen Ultimatum and Supremacy a lot, but not Identity]. Will look forward to reading this some time.
• Path of the Assassin -- Brad Thor. Another thriller writer that I've heard is very good, and this sounded like the most interesting out of what they had.

And now for the last topic of discussion: NaNoWriMo. Am I doing it? I really do hope so. However, I am not doing the 50k. Think whatever you want of me, I don't care. The fact is that I haven't written a single story over ~5k. Furthermore, I've been extremely busy lately, with school, basketball, and just life in general. Lastly, I haven't written in a long time. I don't think I've written a thousand words with this month and last month combined [basically the only fiction writing I've been doing is for school]. And so, I'm starting small. This is the first time I'm doing this after all. And if I can get over 20k, I will be extremely proud of myself.

 

What will I be writing? That novel I've been talking about for over a year now. I've got it pretty much all outlined, I have the prologue and part of the first chapter written, I like what I'm doing with it, and I know what I'm going to do with it. The last thing that remains [and has been remaining since ~summer] is for me to write it, which I hope NaNoWriMo will offer sufficient motivation to do so.

 

Oh, and this year [school-wise] is really gonna suck. Especially because in my favorite class [English] I have one of the worst teachers and she hates me. Ah well. I don't like her either. =P I just wish I had my Freshman English teacher, who I still talk to a lot just because of how awesome he is and how good of a teacher he is. Which is actually another motivation for my novel. He likes my writing, and so I really hope to be able to show him my completed novel before I graduate. Which gives me a little more than a year and a half.

 

But anyway, enough of my rambling on [no one likes to read these long entries, do they?] -- gotta go clean and do some other stuff, and then I'll start Transfer of Power, aka the first of the Mitch Rapp series after American Assassin.

 

- Velox