January Wrap-up!

January was the first month I’d read any books for fun since August, and somehow I ended up reading 10! This month, I finished five regular novels and five graphic novels!

 

Starting off with the Regular Books:

The first book I read was A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos and translated by Hildegarde Sirle. This book took me a long time to get through, but I throughly enjoyed the process of reading. I had a lot of praises and few criticisms. However, the more time that has passed since I read this book, the more annoyed I became. A lot of annoying things in the book I remember (like Ophelia constantly being a wimp despite supposedly having an iron will), and fewer of the things I liked (the characters may have been well developed, but man were they terrible people). I think that this book was incredibly well written despite this, and that it just may not be for everyone. I do want to continue with the series, once the rest come out in English.

The next book I read was The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. I actually read this for a book club on instagram, and I was happy to do so because it had been on my tbr for a long time. I had heard a lot of hype surrounding this book, and luckily I really enjoyed it! It was the kind of book that I just kept wanting to read to see what was going to happen next, and it was exciting all the way through. There were some points I wasn’t as fond of (like a romance between two specific characters…….) but overall I liked how flawed and messed up everybody was: the protagonist, the antagonist, everyone you meet. I recommend this book and am super excited to read the sequel!

This was one of those books that all the cool kids in fourth grade were reading and I wanted to read too, but couldn’t figure out how to find at the library. So, I just decided to read it at the ripe old age of 18. I enjoyed it, and thought that it was well written despite the discrepancy between me and the intended audience. I do think I would have liked it more as a younger kid, but am glad I read it anyways.

I wanted to read The Year of the Rat because the author, Grace Lin, wrote my favorite book of my childhood and my life: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Year of the Rat is somewhat autobiographical, which I like, and it was cool to read. It’s also meant for a somewhat younger audience, and while I really did enjoy it I think that younger people would enjoy it even more. This is also a very important book, because it has lots of representation for different kids that may read it.

On a very, very different note, we have Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan. This book deals with abuse (mental, physical, and sexual) in a fantasy setting. It became gruesome fast and often, so major content warning for that. That being said, I think that all of the details and emotions are what makes this book so important. The message and characters are well developed and I feel deeply for them. The issues that I have with this book tend to have more to do with book mechanics than anything deeper (a couple of plot points seemed slightly illogical and I would have preferred the book to be told through Wren’s perspective). Everything deeper than that was very well done, and I think this book is so, so important for the topics it deals with.

 

Graphic Novels I Read This Month:

I read graphic novels from two series, so I’m just going to talk about each series together.

The show Avatar: The Last Airbender has a bunch of graphic novel trilogies that have come out now, so I thought I’d read the first trilogy (The Promise). The books are short, even for comics, and it didn’t feel like a trilogy as much as three chapters in one short book. They were a lot of fun, and I can’t say too much without spoiling the show, but the ~vibe~ is similar to the original series and I’m glad I read them!

I also read the first two manga volumes of Your Lie in April by Naoshi Arakawa. I want to watch the anime at some point, but I don’t know if I should finish reading the series first or not. I heard the ending was sad, but I still want to read and watch it! The first two were nice, and actually pretty inspiring, so we’ll see how it goes.

 

And there you have it folks! All the books I finished in the month of January 2019! I hope February will be even better! 🙂

Question of the Day: What did you read in January?

-Josanna

The Reading Quest Update!

Hi! So as I mentioned on my twitter, I’m on a semi-hiatus until school gets going  and I get situated. I start the day after tomorrow, so I should probably be posting regularly after about two weeks from then.

Until then, I still want to post once in a while, so let’s get into my reading quest update!

In the last two weeks, I have read four books, two from the mage’s path and two side quests.

First, I read The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. This fulfilled the requirement of The First Book of  Series.

 

Who doesn’t love a polar bear???

I really enjoyed it, although it took me a long time to read. I don’t quite know why, because it was really quite short, but I could only really manage like 50 pages a day. Despite this, it was a great book and I rated it 5/5 stars. I think I would like to review this one sometime.

The other mage book I read was Everyday Angel: Last Wishes by Victoria Schwab for A Book that Contains Magic. I. Cannot. Get. Over. This. Title. This is probably the most low-key and happy book out of all of V Schwab’s books, and it’s called Last Wishes??? Her book allllll about freaking dead people was called The freaking Archived but Last Wishes is about some kid dancer and a guardian angel? I loved it, and I knew what it was about before I started but still, pick a better title, Scholastic.

Awww adorable wittle tweenagers

Anyways, I gave it a 5/5 stars as well, because it was a beautiful end to the Everyday Angel series, and beautifully written. I really appreciated it even though it is a middle grade book and I, as you can probably tell, am not 11 years old. I will likely do a series review in the future.

 

Also, I read two side quest books concurrently with The Golden Compass because I needed some quick books to pick me up.

One of these was Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai for the Open World side quest.

I really enjoyed it, and it was a very quick read. It is under 300 pages and the story is told in free verse poetry. I rated it 4/5 stars and am not currently planning on reviewing it, but I could do so if requested. It was emotionally moving, and I’m grateful to have finally gotten a chance to read it since I’ve wanted to for a while now.

Finally, I read the Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs for the Expansion side quest. That book is basically a collection of short fairy tales from the Peculiar universe featured in the Miss Peregrine’s series.

And plus the book itself is just plain beautiful, complete with gold foiling

I did quite enjoy this, and had fun reading it, but I didn’t think it was really analogous to fairy tales, like it is marketed. A lot of the writing felt very modern, and a lot of the tales didn’t feel authentic. That being said, I certainly did enjoy it and thought it was well written aside from that aspect. I gave it 3/5 stars.

Currently, I have 110exp and 175hp which puts me at level 3!

Up Next:

I was originally going to read Sabriel by Garth Nix for the A Book Based On Mythology prompt, but I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it by next week, so I switched to Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi. I’m  not too far into it yet, but am enjoying it as of now.

Also, I have started reading Haru Hana: The Complete Collection by Yuana Kazumi, and it’s not my favorite so far. I think this is because the genre isn’t my favorite. Anyways, if there is time before the end of the week I’ll be sure to finish it up!

Are you participating in The Reading Quest? If so how is your quest going?