Showing posts with label march. Show all posts
Showing posts with label march. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 April 2016

March Wrap-Up




I knew I wouldn't repeat my February feat of reading 20 books, but two out of the four books I read this month, definitely made it to my favorites of the year list.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo


Rating: ★★★★★ 5 stars
"No Mourners. No funerals."
Reading this book was a great way to start off the month. Though I will admit that I read this so soon to keep my mind off the approaching release date of Lady Midnight. Nevertheless I enjoyed this immensely. I previously read the Grisha trilogy last month and I was really enjoying it until the last book fell flat for me. But still I went into Six of Crows with high expectations and was delivered just that every time. This book was excellent. If you didn't enjoy the Grisha trilogy that much and still unsure of whether you should read this I implore you do so. This book is leagues ahead of the Grisha trilogy. Not only do we get a diverse cast of characters, that are extremely well written, the plot is really fast paced and grips you, and also has you internally screaming at your book most of the time. This felt like a combination of Ocean's Eleven movie plus Heist Society by Ally Carter times 100. I am honestly anxious and terrified to see how this duology concludes in The Crooked Kingdom.


Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare


Rating: ★★★★★ 5 stars
❝ Once I was the elder, but now you are elder than I. When I was in the faerie country, each night I would think of each of you—of you and Helen, of Livvy and Ty and Dru and Tavvy. I gave the stars your names, so that when I saw them wink to light in the sky I felt as if you were with me. It was all I could do to still the fear that you were hurt or dying and that I would never know. But I have come back to a family not just alive and healthy, but whose bonds have not been severed, and that is because of what you have done. There is love here, among you. Such love as takes my breath out of my body. There has even been enough love left for me. ❞
No surprise here that I managed to read this in the same month. If you know me, then you know how much I was anticipating this book. Feeling both excited and mildly terrified when I finally procured a copy on release day. This book. THIS BOOK. I don't even know what to say about this book to convince you how much I LOVED this it. Just go read my review where I exhibit all the feels.

The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 2 stars
“Love is giving the world away, and being loved is having the whole world to give.” 
I went into this book with pretty high expectations due to all the buzz around its release, but I was not a fan at all. I read this book for my book club's The Reader's Guild, book of the month. Honestly I don't even think I could explain the synopsis of this novel. A main component of where it fell flat for me is due to the fact that I felt the author was trying to do too much at once. Like there's time travel, parallel universes, Native American folklore, and some other scifi elements that just felt weird and confusing. I did enjoy a lot of points on feminism and the stories that were told, but that's about it. There is so much going on in this novel in a short amount of pages that it begins to feel rushed. Not to mention that I really didn't like any of the characters, nor cared for the insta-loved that inevitably ensued. The main reason that I disliked this besides the busyness was that it was confusing up to the point where I had to ask someone to explain the ending to me because I had no idea what was going on. But I guess some books just aren't for everyone.

When We Collided by Emery Lord



Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3 stars
"I feel like I know him a little, like if I collect fragments of the six of you and tape them together; there he is: a mosaic of your pieces."
Usually I'm not the hugest fan of contemporary, but this novel sat in the middle of my love-hate spectrum. There is a lot of great aspects of family and love ingrained in here that I believe Emery Lord delivers excellent, in a way that is not cheesy. I did love the Daniel family for the most part, but was kind of off and on with our main character Vivi. Though I really enjoyed the realness of this contemporary and more of my thoughts can be found here.

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll


Rating: ★★★★☆ 4 stars
"He imagined the future I could have before I even wanted it for myself, and he was the one to push me toward it. That’s faith. Growing up, I thought faith was about believing Jesus died for us, and that if I held on to that, I’d get to meet him when I died too. But faith doesn’t mean that to me anymore. Now it means someone seeing something in you that you don’t, and not giving up until you see it too. I want that. I missed that."
I technically finished this in April, but it was near the beginning so I'll just count it towards March. This book is sold as a thriller, but I feel like that it doesn't read like a thriller at all which is why a lot of people are disappointed when they don't get something like Gone Girl from it. This is told in the present day and flashback rotations our main character, Ani, reflects at her freshman year of high-school and the events that occurred then. There is a lot of important themes of feminism and forgiveness in this novel, and even more so gut-wrenching when you realize that the author wrote this book based on events that happened in her own life. My full review can be found here.

March Book Haul




It's becoming a recurring habit to post my book hauls half way into the next month, but what can I say, I'm easily distracted and swift to procrastinate. I was expecting this to be an extremely small bookhaul, like one or two books, but somehow I ended up acquiring 9 books in the month of March.

Part I: Books I Bought/Gifts/Won


Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare


The first book to make its way into my possession is none other than my most anticipated book of the year Lady Midnight. I am still in awe of the beauty of this, both inside and out. This book already stands as my favorite book of 2016, if you want to know more of my thoughts I have a full non-spoiler and spoiler review here. I also created some Dark Artifices playlists that I listened to as I read, which you can check out here.

 

A History of Notable Shadowhunters by Cassandra Clare and Cassandra Jean


The next book is one of the most beautiful to have graced my life that my lovely friend gifted me for my birthday. A History of Notable Shadowhunters and Denizens of the Downworld by Cassandra Clare and Cassandra Jean, is a book that contains beautiful illustrations of various important shadowhunters and downworlders told in the language of flowers, and beside each photo contains a short bio about each of them. I have already started flipping through it and the illustrations are so gorgeous and there are so many little facts about characters that I did not know about. This is a must have for any fellow TMI/TID/TDA trash like me. ☺☺☺



The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman


This book I'm pretty sure I won this in a giveaway I entered awhile back. The main reason I entered was because it has the word library in the title like c'mon how can that not interest me. All I know is that it takes place in underground London and the characters have to retrieve a dangerous book, and its full of libraries and secret societies and honestly it was making me think of The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare, which you know I love. More like hopelessly obsessed enough to name my twitter after a fictional character. I'm hoping that it does have some magic involved and the synopsis also slightly reminds me of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.


Part II: Review Books

A Tyranny of Petticoats edited by Jessica Spotswood


This is a book that I'm really excited to get to. A Tyranny of Petticoats is a 15 story anthology all about belles, bank-robbers, and other badass girls. Some contributing authors include, Marissa Meyer, Marie Lu, Beth Revis, Jessica Spotswood, Robin Talley, Kekla Magoon and many more. There's so much diversity in this anthology and was perfect to receive during Women's History Month. I'll definitely have to get to this soon.

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Gutsy Girl by Carolina Paul


Gutsy Girl is a more unconventional type of book to come my way. In this book, Carolina Paul speaks about her adventurous escapades, and also those of other girls throughout history and offers insight on confidence and self-positivity. Throughout there are cute illustrations and even places to journal your own thoughts. Another excellent book to be received during Women's History Month. I can't wait to set out on my own adventures and catalog them as I go.

Publisher: Bloomsbury

When We Collided by Emery Lord



A rare contemporary finds it's way into my possession. When We Collided is actually a book I managed to finish in the same month that I received it. It was actually refreshing to read a contemporary after bombarding myself in fantasy novels. I wrote a full review on my thoughts here. And this book has already released so you should definitely check it out if you're a contemporary fan or enjoy any of Emery's previous books.

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll


Another book I managed to complete in the same month I received it. Yes, I am quite proud of myself ☺ I also wrote full review on this here. I was quite surprised to have really enjoyed this novel, it definitely did not feel like a thriller at all, but I think that's what I liked about it. I'm really interested to see how they adapt this to film.

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Desert Dark by Sonja Stone


I had requested an arc from the lovely people at Holiday House publishing, but had not known that the arcs weren't out yet. So in turn they sent me one of their finished books while I waited. From what I can gather from this novel, is that our main character is sent off to a government funded boarding school in the desert only to discover it’s a covert CIA program training high-achieving students for the Black Ops. Anything about spies or heists always intrigue me. This slightly reminds me of the Gallagher series by Ally Carter, which I have yet to finish, but also Heist Society trilogy by her, which I also loved.

Publisher: Holiday House

Have you acquired any exciting books this month?