WHAT I READ THIS MONTH: JANUARY

Ok sooo… I read a lot of books this month. I absolutely never thought I would read ELEVEN BOOKS this month, especially as I had a couple of assignment deadlines and a whole load of uni work to do. Maybe being motivated to do uni work has helped me get in the zone to read and write more? Who knew. Annoyingly I can only photograph three as the rest were ebooks, which is a change for me!
The first book I finished this month was Ruin and Rising, the third in The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, on my Kindle. I can’t say too much about the story without ruining the entire series, but I can tell you that just like the first two stories, the team are trying to stop a terrible evil from destroying the land, with very drastic consequences. I really loved the characters, even though it took me a little while to warm up to the protagonist. The side characters were also super interesting too! The book wasn’t super fast paced but I loved being able to see the plans being made and then put into action. You can find out what I thought of The Grisha Trilogy in my upcoming review!

Next, I read two e-books my Colleen Hoover (in the same day… it seems that when I say I’m “taking a day off uni work” what I actually mean is “I’m going to sit and read all day”). I read It Ends With Us and Confess. Apparently these are the ‘better of Colleen’s books’, or so I read online. Both were captivating and fast paced, and covered some seriously important issues – especially It Ends With Us. While I couldn’t help but notice a few problematic tropes in both books, they were full of emotion, inspiration and love, and I devoured them both.

One of my favourite books I read this month is Frostblood, the debut novel and first in a fantasy saga by Elly Blake. Wow. It absolutely blew me away, everything about this book was perfect, from the writing style, to the world building, to the character development, to the pace. I absolutely loved it and you can check out my full review (and even read a sneaky little excerpt) here.

I finished the audio book of The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck this month too. I started it months ago, but I’ve found myself preferring the radio (and definitely CD’s over the festive period, particularly Now That’s What I Call Christmas…), so I’m glad to have finally gotten around to finishing this. I think that, had I read it as a book, I would have found it repetitive and would definitely have skipped a few chapters, like those on children as it’s not relevant to me. However listening to it in chunks whilst driving before work and university, it definitely made me feel motivated and have found myself taking on Sarah’s advice and generally I just give less of a f*ck about things that I’ve put up with for too long.

My other favourite book from this month is Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton. I know, I know, it came out like a year ago right? I can’t believe I waited so long to read this book, because man it’s great. A Middle Eastern fantasy with a western vibe and a kickass female lead – what’s not to love? Read my full review here.

With all the uni work I’ve been doing, I’ve found myself reaching for an easy read, contemporary to be specific. Years ago I read the Perfect Chemistry trilogy by Simone Elkeles and loved it. I recently heard about it again on booktube and decided that as I still had the ebooks on my phone, I’d give them another go. I know that this time around, I didn’t love them as much as I once had. I found some of the language a little cringey and some of the storylines jarring and like they came from nowhere, but overall they were great little pick me up books, despite the somewhat heavy storylines, and I’m glad to have read them again.

Another contemporary e-book: The Roommate by Kendall Ryan. I saw a tweet containing the synopsis of this book and thought it sounded interesting and a pretty light read. Unfortunately I felt like not much happened, it was predictable and didn’t really grip me at all. However, I enjoyed Ryan’s writing style, and have to say that the character descriptions were spot on and I had a pretty strong image of them in my head throughout.

I had to sneak another one in here as I unexpectedly finished another book on January 30th, and I’d written this in advance thinking it wouldn’t happen! So the last book I read this month was Caraval by Stephanie Garber. Oh my god. This is now one of my all time favourite books. I read the last 90% of the book on Monday night, I literally could not put it down. The writing was amazing; the way that Stephanie describes the scenes and the characters, I literally felt like I was a part of Caraval too. It’s full of shocks and definitely makes you re-think everything you thought you had figured out, and my heart even broke a couple of times. A totally magical and stunning book that I will highly recommend to absolutely anyone! I feel like these words don’t do the book justice and don’t get across just how much I LOVED this book and how incredible it is, so make you sure to check out my full review which will be up soon for more ramblings on this awesome book. Brb while I go swoon over the US edition which I will most likely end up buying.

So January was a mixed month of reading; I read some amazing books, and I read some not that amazing books, and for once I read more e-books than physical copies. Overall I’m pretty chuffed with the number I read, and while I’m sure this will decrease as my work load at university increases, I hope to keep up with my reading challenge!

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