Rainy Day Reads

Goal: 265 - I managed to get there...by deleting 3 books.... Books finished Burn for Burn by Jenny Han (TBR book) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (TBR book) Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry (TBR book) The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker The Joy of Tax by Richard Murphy (TBR book) Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (TBR book) Books DNF’ed Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (TBR book) Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao Books added to my TBR King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo Trainwreck by Sady Doyle Books currently reading Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science and the World by Rachel Swaby All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (TBR book) From Twinkle With Love by Sandhya Menon Severed. A History of Heads Lost and Heads Founds by Frances Larson Books deleted Frida. A biography og Frida Kahlo by Hayde

September was way better than August, but there is definitely room for improvement still. I finished five books and currently reading 8…! That’s a lot for me to have going all at once and I do admit that a few of them aren’t really being read right now.   I had to delete one book, so now my TBR is at 270.  Books finished Invictus by Ryan Graudin American Panda by Gloria Chao Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson (TBR book) Easy by Tammara Webber (reread) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (TBR book) Books added to my TBR King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo Books currently reading The Joy of Tax by Richard Murphy (TBR book) Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science and the World by Rachel Swaby All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (TBR book) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (TBR book) Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (TBR book) Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë  Books de

August was ROUGH! I had an exam to resit and then a 3 week course on the other side of the country for my trainee position. Having school and classes all day and being away from my home comforts my brain was not wired for reading too much when the evening rolled around, so I only managed to get a couple of books off my TBR by reading them. I had to delete 4….but I’m pretty happy about the situation now and just hope September will be better. So now my TBR stands at 275 books.   Books finished La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles (TBR book) Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi (TBR book) Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner  The Rules of Persuasion by Amity Hope Books DNF’ed None…But I will admit that some of them are lingering a bit on my Currently Reading list… Books added to my TBR None! Wooo go me! Books currently reading The Joy of Tax by Richard Murphy (TBR book) Headstrong:

Books finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid - 5 stars (TBR book) I absolutely loved this book, even though I was a bit apprehensive because of the hype. But then again not a lot of people seem to have read it but those that have absolutely rave about it. And now I’m raving too. The book takes place in two different timelines; modern day and from the 1950s onward. It deals with what constitutes a family, LGBTQIA-themes, forgiveness and family history all shrouded in the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood.  Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World - 5 stars (TBR book) This is a non-fiction about women’s role in the history of the world. Not the newest resource, as it was published in 1988, but still really well written and informative.  Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli - 3 stars (TBR book) I finally got my hands on a copy of this book which has been all the rage since the movie came out. And I was sligh

Well, July is here. Am I the only one who is taken aback? I for sure thought I had a least a couple more days…But nope! Here we are! And surprise, surprise I did not manage to get my TBR down by 5. Well, actually I did but then I added more books, so now my TBR stands at 287. Meaning I have to delete 2 books off of it.   First lets go through all the books I read in June: They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera - 4 stars (TBR book) The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World by Steven Johnson - 4 stars (TBR book) One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus - 4 stars (TBR book) Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart - 3 stars Far From the Tree by Robin Benway - 5 stars My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows - 3 stars and by the skin of my teeth I managed to finish I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo last night and I gave it 2 stars.  Aside from finishing

I am a bit of a Youtube junkie when it comes to TBR challenges. I love watching other people get their TBR under control and The Closet Unhaul series on BooksandLala's channel was some of my favorite content last year. Basically she had an entire closet full of books she had bought when she first started doing Youtube and hadn't gotten around to reading yet. So she would watch her hauls from the same month 2 years earlier and any books she hadn't read she would have to read or get rid of. Sadly she isn't really doing that anymore but I have found another creator who does something similar - Drinking By My Shelf does Balancing the Books and is all about balancing the books she brings onto her TBR and the books she removes from it (by reading or unhauling). Anyway...I love watching that type of video (if you have any recommendations please let me know) and I thought I would try something similar myself. I'm starting out slow because I'm super lazy and don't

I had high expectations of this one, because “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque is my all time favorite book (along with “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen) and this one promised something similar.   Once I got around to it though, it turned out to be a meticulous diary of trench life, but instead of the intense emotions and philosophical ponderings on life of Remarque this was a rundown of the technical workings of the trench. It was one long list of “then this person got shot in the head, then we built another shelter, then these two people got blown up, then we laid out some barbed wire, then this one was shot in nose and bled out, then it rained and stuff got muddy.” I wasn’t very far into it when I gave up, because even 50 pages of that was just too much. It was weirdly cold and unemotional and he listed deaths with the same punctuality as improvements on their shelters. I flipped through the rest of it and it seemed pretty much the same so I decided t

I thought this book sounded really interesting, and I’ve been hearing good things about Katie Cotugno, so I decided to give this one a go.   This book is about Molly, who is returning to her hometown for her last summer before college. Returning to the hometown she fled from when her mother’s bestselling novel based on her life revealed all her secrets and turned her into a pariah.  Slight spoilers below.  As I said I had high hopes for this book, but they were not met. I really wanted to root for Molly but in the end I found her really annoying and frustrating. She ruined her relationship with Patrick when she hooked up with his brother, Gabe, wrecking her friendship with their sister Julia as well. She does nothing but describe how hard her life back in this town is because of her past mistakes, but then she makes the exact same mistake!! And keeps making it!! ARGH! I have never been in love, so I don’t know if feelings can actually make you that stupid, and maybe I’m

I decided to read this because it’s been in the back of my mind as one of those books that you ought to read. And I made a little challenge for myself this year to try and diversify my reading, theming the months of year and finding books to read to fit that theme and January was Jazzy January - books from the jazz age.   This book opens in the 1940s, but the majority of the story is set in the 1920s. We follow Charles Ryder, a young man beginning his studies at Oxford in 1923. His life so far has been pretty uneventful, solidly placed in the English upperclass with all the comforts belonging to that position. When he meets Sebastian at Oxford his life changes and he gets access to the world of the landed English gentry, when Sebastian introduces him to his family. Whether that was good or bad for Charles is uncertain.  Not a lot happens in this book plotwise. It’s more about the relationships between the characters and these are marked by absence, dislike and disappoint

This book follows Janna, an Arab-Indian American teen girl who is struggling with finding her place in the social life of high school and the mosque. She wears a hijab and that instantly makes her stick out at her high school, and when she tries to be a bit more “Western” it makes her stick out in the Muslim community. As she struggles to find a balance she must also deal with a predator who has set his sights on her, and as she slowly finds the strength to stand up to him, she finds new friends and loses some old ones along the way.   I’m a bit conflicted about this book, because while I liked the basis of the story, there was also a lot of things that I didn’t really appreciate. I listened to it on audio and I do feel like the narrator had a part in my not liking it too much. The narrator would over-enunciate everything and that would make conversations sound kind of fake and overly enthusiastic. Sometimes it would also sound really whiny, especially in Janna’s inner monol

The book: Initially this book was published as a serial in The American Magazine beginning in 1910. Already in 1911 however it was published in book form in both the United States and the UK. The initial publication in the magazine was apparently aimed at adults, and it was not as popular as some of the author’s earlier works. Only after children’s literature in general became popular during the past 50 years or so did it start to receive some notice, and these days it is often considered one of the best children’s classics of the world.  The author: Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was born in 1849 in England, and after her father died the family emigrated to The United States in 1865, where they settled in Tennessee. When she was 19 Hodgson started publishing stories in magazines in order to help with the bills at home. in 1872 she married and the couple moved to Paris, where they lived for two years. After this they moved back to the states and lived in Washington

This book follows Lily who is not doing so well in chemistry class. In stead of taking notes she scribbles song lyrics on the desk. Next day she discovers that someone has continued the lyrics, and the two start a correspondence hiding notes under their shared desk. Alongside this exchanging of notes we follow Lily’s slightly chaotic home life and her trials at school struggling with the popular kids, and trying to overcome her awkwardness to ask her crush out.   This was a cute and fun contemporary, but nothing more really. It is pretty obvious from the start who the secret letter writer is going to be but I didn’t mind it too much. I really liked the person and when we got their backstory through the letters it made me really invested in them. It was fun to see Lily balance her opposing views of the letter writer in the letters with the person in real life once she found out who they were. As I said it was fun and cute, but not much more. I gave it 3 stars out of 5, maybe 3,25,

This is a Cinderella retelling with an LGBT+ twist. We follow Aisling, or Ash for short, who loses her mother at a young age. When her father remarries she gains a stepmother and two stepsisters. So far so good. But here is where the story begins to veer away from the classic fairytale. In this world fairies exist. Not the kind fairy godmother kind, but the cruel hearted Fey kind. Ash seems to have some sort of connection with them, or at least with one of them in particular. She longs to belong in their world, but when she meets the King’s huntress, Kaisa, she changes her mind about leaving the human world behind.   I was really interested in this story because I enjoy retellings and because of the LGBT+ aspect. But I have to say I was pretty disappointed. The romance doesn’t really come into play until almost halfway through the book, and then it plays out pretty quickly and almost as a side plot to the fairy world. But then the fairy plot didn’t really feel that fleshed o

This is a non-fiction account detailing how three brothers built an entire Jewish community under the noses of the Nazi invaders in the Belorussian area during World War II.   I had never heard of this story before, and I doubt many people have, even though this group of Jewish people was one of the largest to be saved during the war. The story itself is fascinating. We follow the Bielski family, as they endure a number of discriminatory acts from diverse governments and the civilian population in their area, even before the arrival of the Nazis. When the Nazis come the family first try to tough it out, but after the death of the parents and the many mass killings three of the brothers decide to make a run for the forest to try and bring their family through the war in hiding. At first it is only extended family, and the small group manages to hide somewhat easily in the massive woods, but soon hundreds of escapees from the ghettos in surrounding cities join the group. Hidin

I listened to this on audiobook. I've never been a great listener when people read to me. I don't know why. I just zone out. But I'm dedicated to getting better at it, because audiobooks are a great way to spend a commute. I very much enjoyed this book on audio so I have high hopes for the future. I have to say, the narrator plays a huge part in the enjoyment. This  narrator  was  great, but I'm currently listening to "Saints and Misfit" by S.K. Ali and not enjoying it quite so much because of the narrator. But more on that in a later post.  Marin is staying behind at college while everyone else is going home for winter break. We soon learn that the reason for this is because her grandfather has died, and since he was her only family she has nowhere to go. She could go to her best friend's house and stay for Christmas. The best friend and her parents have even invited her, but Marin feels like she can't go back to that life. In flashbacks we

The Book This is Anne Brontë’s debut novel written under the pen name of Acton Bell. It was first published in 1847 and many believe that it depicts Anne’s own experiences as a governess. It deals with themes of oppression, treatment of animals, empathy and isolation, and at least one incident described in the book is based on real events (Agnes killing a nest of birds to prevent them from being tortured by the young boy of the family she is working for).  The Author Anne Brontë was born in 1820 and died in 1849. She was the youngest of the Brontë sisters and lived with her family most of her life. In her early 20s she worked as a governess, but after leaving that profession in 1845 she started writing. She wrote poems, which were published in a volume of poems written by her and her sisters, and she proceeded to write two novels, “Agnes Grey” and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” before she died. All of these were first published under a pseudonym; Acton Bell. Her sisters