This month I officially leaned way into reading romance. It’s the only thing that I’ve been able to get through lately. I’ve enjoyed reading other books, but they seem to take me way longer than usual. So yeah! Lots of romance this month.
- The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black – Read
- Love & Olives by Jenna Evans Welch [ARC 11/10] – DNF 15%
- The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White [ARC 11/10]
- It Only Happens in the Movies by Holly Bourne [ARC 12/1]
- The Umbrella Academy vols 2-3 by Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba – Read
Also read/reading:
- The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J Klune – Read, review coming
- Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher – Read and reviewed
- Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore – Read and reviewed
- Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes – Read and reviewed
- The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman – Read and reviewed
- If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane – Read and reviewed
- Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters – Read, review coming
- Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane – Currently Reading
Books finished this month: 10, 1 DNF
Books currently reading: 1
Overall TBR:
TBR at the beginning of the year = 296
TBR at the beginning of November = 325
Books added to TBR = 7
Books read/deleted from TBR = 1
Total on TBR now = 331
I thought this book was maybe going to be a Sleeping Beauty kind of thing (I mean, there’s a giant hedge) but it’s not. So if you thought that too, just know it’s not. Zuhra as a main character was…okay. I really wanted to like her, but I just found her to be a little whiny and overdramatic at times. I also thought she lacked consistency? I hoped this book would be really focused on the sister relationship and while that was semi-present, it felt like both Zuhra and Inara’s romances got in the way of developing that. And (as is often the case in YA unfortunately) there was almost no basis for the TWO romantic threads that we’re given. Literally, almost no context for why the romantic interests are drawn to our leads. *sigh* I guess I’ll just keep waiting for a well-developed YA romance. My main issue with the book, though, was pacing. It took me SO LONG to read this book. Honestly, I felt like the author could have cut out half the words and it still would have been a well-written book. HALF THE WORDS. At around 70%, I just started skimming. In addition to that, hardly anything happens from chapter to chapter and a lot of them alternate perspectives between the sisters which does NOT help–it just makes the story end up feeling really jerky. In the end, I’m a little intrigued by where the story goes next, but I probably won’t continue the series. 2.5/5
I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever read a King Arthur retelling…? At the very least, I haven’t read one in a long time. I mostly liked Guinevere as our main character, but she kept coming to these conclusions that just seemed completely wrong to me and barreling full steam ahead. I mean, I recognize that the reader usually has more information than the characters do, but she just really needed to slow her roll. It was also difficult to fully embrace Guinevere because she doesn’t really know who she is (literally). Her memory of her past is super spotty and it made it hard for me to get a good sense of who she is as a character. So while I liked her, I didn’t feel like I could get completely on board with her. The plot was intriguing enough and we’ll see where the next book goes. I have one big issue with this book, but it’s kind of spoiler-y so I won’t talk about it, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending. I’ll just close by saying that book two better have like five times as many Arthur/Guinevere moments. 3.5/5
What's She Reading? 