January Wrap Up | ’17

Hello!

Happy February! Last year, I did wrap ups and currently reading posts in the same post, but I feel like doing so made me give less detail in my wrap ups since I didn’t want to make the posts too long. So I’m splitting them up this year. Yay organization.

This past month has been my best reading month in well, months. It’s given me a solid start to my 2017 reading goal and I’m very happy with all the books I’ve read. :”D

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This month, I read a total of nine books: Two manga, six YA fantasy, one DNF’d fantasy.

Manga

Attack on Titan vols 9 and 10 by Hajime Isayama

Continuing the series from where I left off in 2016, I’ve finally surpassed where the first season of the anime left off. Let me tell you what, son. The second season is going to be awesome! I can’t even begin to give a synopsis for these volumes without just vomiting out spoilers. I’m thinking I’m going to do a blabber on these, maybe ten volumes at a time. It’s been ages since I’ve been this obsessed with a manga – the last one I can remember was when I was buying Fullmetal Alchemist. I was reading them as they were first being released and kept getting more and more frustrated when the releases were a month apart, then two months, then three, then six… it was awful haha. It was great though, too. This series makes me feel the same. Luckily, I haven’t caught up to where they’ve been released yet – I’m still about six volumes behind on that (I own up through 14). Ahhh it’s so good.

5/5 stars each

Books

The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

I read all three of these books rapid fire and have blabbers for each one (during which I developed the name ‘blabber’ for my book talky reviewy things). If you’re interested in my full thoughts on each book, you can find the blabbers on the first, second and third books linked below. Overall though, I
thought this was a pretty solid series. I rather liked it but as I said in my Ruin and Rising blabber, the ending wasn’t what I wanted. It was good, it was solid, it made sense, but it totally missed the mark for me.It’s definitely made me want to jump on that Six of Crows bandwagon though. Maybe I’ll do that soon.

4.5/5, 4/5, and 4/5 stars respectively

A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas

Guess who jumped on this bandwagon late! It’s me! But I’m glad I did. This series has become one of my favorites, I think, especially the second book. I liked the first one but the second one, man. The second one. My first non-manga 5 star rating of the year. I think it’s going to make it’s way onto my ‘favorite books’ list, too. Not the first, just the second. But anyways, I had avoided these books for the longest time, both due to hype and a lot of mixed reviews. I remember even watching a spoilery gripe on the first book that made me not want to read it even more… but when I found both for cheap in a Half Price Books I kinda bought them anyways. Luckily for me, that gripe had been watched so long ago that I had forgotten all the plot points. So yay me, I went in blind. And I surprisingly liked the first one -I can see where there are issues in it though, but those issues are definitely addressed in the second book and corrected, which is why I feel I love the second one so much. So yeah, I’ve become ‘another one of those people obsessed with Sarah J Maas’.

One thing though – Maas’s sex scenes are kinda totally 100% awkward sometimes. Quit using the word ‘shattered’ to mean ‘orgasm’. Bro, you make me think of a breaking glass window when you say that – totally flings me out of the book. Buh.

Awaiting the third one on bated breath.

4.5/5 and 5/5 stars respectively

Weaveworld by Clive Barker

This one, I DNFd at just slightly less than 50%. It just wasn’t jiving with me. I feel really bad for putting it down too – it’s one of my mom’s favorite books and she lent it to me hoping I’d love it too, and I just… didn’t. Like, it wasn’t bad it was just, I don’t know, boring? I guess? I wasn’t invested in the characters, the plot kinda told me ‘hey I’m pretty awesome’ without showing me that it was. I just couldn’t get into it! Honestly I wanted to drop it about a hundred pages in but I forced myself through more of it in hopes I’d see what my mom did. I just didn’t. 😦 She’s lent me two other books though, so I’m hoping I’ll like both or at least one of those so I don’t give them all back saying I disliked them all. Fingers crossed. She doesn’t know I put this one down yet and if possible I’m not going to tell her unless I am able to also say that I liked the other two. Waaaah.

DNFd at <50%, no rating

Kiss of Deception by Mary E Pearson

After the DNF, I was worried I’d fall into a reading slump. I tend to do that after dragging a book out and ultimately not finishing it. Luckily though, Ace offered to buddy read this one with me along with another of her friends, and all three of us blew through it pretty damn quickly. This book is honestly the one that got me into book blogging. When I first started reading book blogs and watching booktube, this book was everywhere. I didn’t end up actually getting my own copy though until this past fall, two years after I started in the community. And now I’ve just read it – I feel like I’ve completed a huge task or something, haha, like I’ve been working towards it for years. 😛 Overall, this book was pretty decent! I liked it a lot – enough to get the second book, which will also be buddy read when it arrives in the mail. I think my main problem with this book is that it’s nothing that I haven’t read before. Nothing really blew me away plot-wise or character-wise. I feel like if I had read it two years ago, it would have gotten a 5 star rating from me but at this point, I’ve read parts of this plot already in 100 other books. So like I said, I like it but I’m hoping it strikes into original ground here pretty soon.

4/5 stars

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Blog Activity

12 posts created:

• Three discussion posts
  • Series I Won’t Be Finishing
  • Most Anticipated Releases
  • My Slightly Overwhelming List of Unfinished Series
• Two book tags
  • Ringing in the New Year Book Tag
  • Goodreads Book Tag
• Three blabbers
  • Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
  • Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
  • Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
• One blog award
  • Blogger Aesthetic Award
• Two Top 5 Wednesdays
  • 2017 Goals
  • Most Underrated Books
• One haul
  • January Book Haul

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Reading Goals

Progress on 17 in 2017:

1. A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin – Currently Reading
2. The Kiss of Deception by Mary E Pearson – Complete!
3. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
4. Caliban’s War by James S. A. Corey
5. The Traitor Comorant Baru by Seth Dickinson
6. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
7. The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
8. Weaveworld by Clive Barker – Complete! (kinda)
9. Queen of Shadows by Sarah J Maas
10. Dragon Wing by Margaret Weis
11. 14 by Peter Clines
12. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
13. The Edge of the World by Kevin J Anderson
14. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
15. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (illustrated) by J. K. Rowling
17. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (illustrated) by J. K. Rowling

Progress on 2017 Reading Goals:

Complete a Goodreads Reading Challenge of 50 Books: 9/50

Count how many books I own and determine how many are not yet read – Complete!
As of Jan 31st, it’s… 264 unread, 590 total… :”D Heeeh. I need to uh… I need to work on that.

 

Discard books I don’t like or lose interest in reading – None yet, but 2 or 3 are currently lined up to be booted. Just need to get to the nearest HPB.

Read all of the books on my 17 in 2017 list – 2/17

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And that’s it! As I said at the beginning of the post, my currently reading posts will now be separate, so that’ll be up either tomorrow or Saturday, depending on how much work burns me out. Happy reading!