February Reading Wrap Up and March TBR

Whilst January seemed to drag, like an unwanted, uninvited guest who just won’t leave your house despite your many hints, February was gone in a flash. One second I was celebrating the fact that I’d made it through January, and the next I’m wondering why it’s March and snowing.

Despite the very short month, I managed to fit in some brilliant books – and, quite aptly, started off with Winter by Ali Smith. I have to say, I’m never sure whether I really like Ali Smith or if I’m just confused by her writing – and I think I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s both. I far preferred Winter to Autumn, and I’ve started to get used to her style. Usually I tend to prefer great plots, but with Ali Smith’s books I have to leave that view point behind and just let her lead the way. There are time jumps, narrative changes, and almost no plot to speak of – instead you have these incredible characters, beautiful writing that flits between prose and a more poetical style, and insight into the world around us. Definitely the kind of writing that you would savour and read slowly, as a fast-paced read is not what you’re signing up for with Ali Smith – or, at least, that’s how I feel when I read her books.

Then, I had the delight of reading the short story collection by Jen Campbell, The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night. The way this author’s mind works is unbelievable, and the stories that she creates are as beautiful and charming as they are mad. With darker elements mixed in with the magical, this collection dipped into so  many different subjects, like love, deceit, relationships, friendship, and more. Each story was so vastly different from the next, but they all contained that thread of the fantastical. Not quite magic, but more of a suspense of disbelief, as the collection takes you on an adventure you won’t want to end.

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If you read my previous post, you’ll know that I ended the month reading the most wonderful, charming, heartbreaking, uplifting, beautiful tale of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. I’m linking in my review of it here, just because I needed a whole post just to work through my feelings about this book. I can honestly say that it’s by far the best book I’ve read in 2018, and even though we’re only in March, this book will definitely stay with me for years to come.

As this is a very short recap of the three marvellous books I enjoyed in February, I wanted to talk a bit about my plans for March. With International Women’s Day coming up, I thought for March I wanted to make sure that I only read books by women. Though, as I say this, when I look back at what I’ve already read this year, everything I’ve read apart from the short poetry collection by William Blake has been written by a woman. Still, I’m going to continue this trend for March.

Whilst I don’t expect to get through all of these, as well as half anticipating that I’ll change my mind for what I’m going to read, these are the books I hope to pick up in March.

1. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
2. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
3. Eat, Sweat, Play by Anna Kessel
4. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon and/or Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor
5. Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Ok, so the last one is half written by a man, but I’ve been looking forward to the finale of this trilogy for what feels like years. Jay Kristoff can stay.

Hopefully by the time April swings around, the weather will have improved and be warmer (one can only dream) so that I won’t have to read either curled up in a thousand blankets or on the tube whilst wearing gloves. Honestly, it’s so hard to turn a page with gloves on. Anyway, here’s to March and reading words written by wonderful women.

February Wrap Up

I actually managed to get through another three books this month which I’m especially proud of, what with the sudden onslaught of university work that came my way – and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up any time soon. Still, there’s always a few moments I can grab to do some reading (and although I’m not mentioning them, I also read two books on my Kindle this month, both of which were easy, fun, and the complete opposite of uni reading).

First up was ‘Caraval’ by Stephanie Garber, which I’ve discussed previously in a blog earlier this month. It’s definitely for lovers of magic and fantasy, for fans of The Night Circus, The Crown’s Game and Schwab’s Darker Shades of Magic series. It definitely has that unputdownable element, as I read it late into the early hours of the morning. Fast-paced with fun characters and great twists at the end, after I finished I thought it was one of the greatest books ever. Once I’d had some sleep and reflected, I thought that whilst it wasn’t the best book ever, it’s certainly a great debut novel.

Next up I read Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones. Inspired by Labyrinth with David Bowie as the Goblin King, this book follows Elizabeth as she tries to get her sister back. Surprisingly poetic, this is a book that is indeed pretty and dark at the same time. I almost wish it wasn’t tied to The Labyrinth as the writing really took off when it departed from the structure inspired by the classic. I did love how our heroine is always described as ‘unlovely’ of appearance, mainly because we were able to explore the different facets of her character. It was great fun to read, and I have a serious love/hate relationship with that ending.

And finally, I finished Hot Milk by Deborah Levy. I can easily recognise that this book is beautifully written, but for now I think I need to digest it and discuss it with others who have read it in order to truly understand what on earth has just happened. It seems I have more questions than answers, and I don’t know yet if that’s a good thing. I think I’ve found that I tend to prefer books that aren’t so literary, mainly because I find it difficult to escape within its pages to a different world. It’s a difficult one, as there are plenty of books considered to be literary that I’ve loved – take A Little Life, for example, which is still one of my favourite books. But as a wannabe writer, it’s good for me to see that complicated messages and symbolism don’t work for everyone, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good book.

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So for an update on the reading challenge – I can tick off Man Booker nominee thanks to Hot Milk, and both Caraval and Wintersong were published this year so that’s another one! I’ve decided in this ongoing process that books cannot have two ‘stars’ each or count for two different categories, just to make this more challenging for myself.

1. 4 ‘Classics’
2. *A Man Booker nominee
3. *A Baileys nominee
4. A Feminist Book cover to cover
5. *‘A Blue Cover’
6. A Graphic Novel
7. A Horror Book
8. Finish a series you’ve started
9. A friend’s favourite book
10. Poetry book
11. Book over 500 pages
12. Book under 150 pages
13. Book with a character with your name
14. An autobiography
15. A play
16. *A book from your TBR
17. **Book published in 2017

Here’s to March!

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February Wrap Up

I had anticipated a very bad wrap up for this month considering university work, but I’m happy to say that I did good this month (well, for me).

So we start off the month with an easygoing Kindle flick called Legend which I thought was perfectly enjoyable, thank you very much. A solid three stars from me. Then I hit perhaps my earliest reading slump out of all my years due to the book Da Vinci’s Tiger by L.M. Elliott. Now maybe that’s a bit mean and I’m sure plenty of people will like this book, but it just really was not for me. Admittedly there were parts that I enjoyed, which is why I gave it two stars, but the supposedly strong female heroine of the novel was pretty wishy-washy in my opinion. For those of you who don’t know, this is a historical romance (fiction) which is about the woman who is in Leonardo Da Vinci’s first portrait. I have read almost no historical fiction, so going in I was excited to see if I liked this, but found that I didn’t like it at all. I would have far preferred to see more of Leonardo himself in the book and the character Sancha, who was far more interesting than the main character. There was a great piece of imagery in the prologue of ‘excuse me, I am a mountain tiger’ with the comment on the juxtaposition of ‘excuse me’ to that of the unfaltering ‘mountain tiger’. It intrigued me, and I wish that it would have held that edge throughout. I may also be a little bit biased as well, due to the fact that I didn’t particularly like the cover of this book at all but did like the hardback book underneath which had a small embossed tiger on it. Much nicer.

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After that I decided that I was going to read something that’s been on my ‘to be read’ shelf for a long long long time, and that was The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. I had only read one other of his books, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, which I enjoyed but didn’t think it was brilliant. Yet every time I mentioned this to someone, particularly customers buying his books, I was almost hit on several occasions by outraged fans of his, on account of the fact that I didn’t start with his Chaos Walking trilogy. Welp, I started it, and did enjoy it but found it all a bit confusing and overwhelming to start with. You’re thrown into the middle of everything, with no clue what’s going on or what’s happening or anything really, and the main character is just as stumped as you are. You turn a few pages and think ‘huh?’ so turn a few more, think ‘I’m even more confused’, a few more ‘what the eff?’ and so it goes on.

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Next up is The Time Machine by H.G. Wells thanks to the inclusion of it in the February Owlcrate (which you can find a review of below this post), and I was glad to read a proper Sci-Fi classic for a change. I probably should have been able to finish it in a day, but I admit it did take two. And of course I listened to the audiobook of the first Harry Potter book this month, and finished it around this point in the month – and it was great fun. Loved Stephen Fry’s narration of it, especially impressed with all of his different voices, and I’m starting the second one immediately. After that I entered the biggest reading marathon of my life, and that was when I finally bought a copy of A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E Schwab. I mean, wow. Once again, I love fantasy – and it’s because I can read books that include cross-dressing, pirates, magicians, thieves, and all of it set across parallel Londons. There’s nothing like reading about a place where you live and know about – I absolutely loved it. So much so that I went out the next day as soon as I finished it and bought the sequel, which I finished yesterday on the 1st of March so I’m not counting it in this wrap up. Still, brilliant, brilliant, absolutely smashing. Read it. Five stars without fail.

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So, drumroll please…that means that I read five ‘proper’ books this month (yes I’m counting the audiobook, that took over eight hours of my time) and six in total. That means my overall total is 11/50 for my reading challenge and fourteen overall, which I’m incredibly proud of.

Owlcrate review

In my post about best bookish gifts I mentioned the wonder that is book subscription boxes, specifically Owlcrate. Created by Korrina and Robert, this is one of the first book subscription services I caught wind of and I’m so glad I did. For months I followed them on instagram, jealous of everyone posting all the wonderful things that they received every month. Still I told myself that, as a student, I needed to spend my money on my university books and food and all those important things – but it was November that I cracked. As soon as they said the word ‘myth’ I was there, desperate for a bookish box that revolved around the theme of myths (come on, I’m a Classics student, give me a break).

So my wonderful parents indulged me with the November box for Christmas, then I happened to get the December box, but forced myself to not get the January box as my money was running low, then talk of Valentines hit and as soon as I saw ‘Sci-Fi Love’ as a theme – well, you know what happened. Now I know I’m not particularly artistic photo-wise (if that’s what you’re after, then I’d definitely recommend hitting up Instagram as those photos make me salivate almost as much as chocolate makes does), but I tried.

I mean, seriously, how cute is that? Reminds me of that wonderful binary solo in ‘The Humans are Dead’ by Flight of the Conchords who, if you haven’t already heard of, you should definitely look up.

Back to Owlcrate, the first item included was a beautiful wooden engraved Tardis by vector engraving, which made the Whovian within me squeal. Memories of watching David Tennent and Billie Piper every week all rushed back – a perfect item for the Sci-Fi theme.

Next up we have a classic Tote Bag – and now with the 5p bag charge in England, this couldn’t have come at a better time. It features all of the couples that are found in the Lunar Chronicles series, which I take as a sign to spend some more money so I can start that series. After all, I now have the bag.

Now as you may or may not know, Owlcrate sends out one recently released YA book every month, so imagine my complete glee to find that there were two books in this month. Definitely worth my money (or so I convince myself as I eat baked beans on toast for dinner). A beautiful copy of The Time Machine by the legendary H.G Wells, from the company ‘Rock Paper Books’, which has now become a new favourite for me. That is one huge plus for me concerning Owlcrate – the independent businesses they feature deserve the attention they get, and I always find something new that I desperately want in my life.

Then, finally, we get to the book of the month, The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry. A book I haven’t yet heard of, but can’t wait to read. It even came with a gorgeous little signed sticker and the most uplifting note I’ve ever had from the author, which now holds pride of place on my wall.

Overall, a fantastic box with so many beautiful things and you can see the amount of thought and care that goes into it. Unfortunately for my bank account, it has only made me more hooked on the service and with March’s theme being ‘Writers block’, I think we can safely say that I’m going to be giving up nice food for another few weeks just to feed my addiction.

So, if you’re after a bookish treat for yourself, or even for a friend as you can give them as gifts, then I would highly recommend you check out Owlcrate. If you’re still not 100% sure, then check out their website (link included earlier) and you can have a little look at their story and past boxes – one of which you can buy with a 20% discount! (Go on, I know you want to)