Wrap Up: February 2016

I had another pretty good reading month in February but I went through a tiny bit of a slump in the middle of the month when I wasn’t really enjoying what I was reading. I’ve been slowly overcoming that though and hopefully March will be a stellar reading month. I guess another reason why my reading month was a bit sluggish this month was because I was in the process of moving house and I was just too exhausted to read and enjoy my books (shelfie coming soon, I promise!).

1. The Weight of Feathers – Anna-Marie McLemore 

This book has one of my favourite things in the world: magical realism! It’s a beautiful retelling of Romeo and Juliet, with lots of diversity and a romance that you’ll be rooting for. I loved it so much and it was probably my favourite read of the month.

2. Ask the Passengers – A.S. King 

This was a really quick LGBTQ+ read, featuring a girl who is trying to figure out who she is. It was a fantastic coming out story that I think a lot of people could relate to. A review of this will be up on Happy Indulgence in a few weeks.

3. Stars Above – Marissa Meyer 

A short story/novella bind-up featuring the characters from The Lunar Chronicles. I would rate each individual story at least 4 stars and I highly enjoyed them all. My favourite was, of course, the epilogue/wedding, followed closely by the Little Mermaid retelling. It was so beautiful.

4. Anna and the Swallow Man – Gavriel Savit 

A WWII historical fiction YA novel, set in Poland. This book follows a young girl called Anna who becomes orphaned at the beginning of the book. She meets the Swallow Man who takes her under his wing and they wander around Poland trying to survive. This is definitely more of a literary YA novel that focuses on the personal journeys.

5. You’re the Kind of Girl I Write Songs About – Daniel Herborn 

This is an Australian YA contemporary romance that has music as a theme. I didn’t really enjoy this book. It was a bit of a snooze-fest. The plot was boring. The characters were boring. The romance was boring. *falls asleep*

6. A Tangle of Gold – Jaclyn Moriarty 

The concluding novel to Jaclyn Moriarty’s The Colours of Madeleine trilogy, A Tangle of Gold was by far the best novel of the series. It had the perfect balance of fantasy, magic, humour and just everything you want to see in a novel. I had the honour of kicking off the blog tour and you can check out my review and Q&A with the author on Happy Indulgence!

7. YOLO Juliet – Brett Wright 

This book is Romeo and Juliet told in a series of text messages. It was definitely hilarious but I was slightly disappointed with the execution at times. You definitely don’t get the full impact of the story and there were some things that just didn’t make sense.

8. Wolf by Wolf – Ryan Graudin 

I read this for the Diverse YA Book Club this month and I absolutely loved it. It’s an alternate history novel, set in a world where the Axis powers won WWII. We follow our main character as she competes in a cross-continent motocross race. It was thrilling and mysterious and I cannot wait for the sequel to come out!

9. How Not to Disappear – Clare Furniss 

This book is about a young girl, Hattie, who discovers she is pregnant with her best friend’s baby. She doesn’t quite know what to do, and when a distraction is presented in the form of a crazy great-aunt who she never knew existed, Hattie jumps at the chance to get to know her better. I thought the story was really heartwarming but I had a few problems with the writing and the execution of the book.

10. These Broken Stars – Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner 

This is a book that I hear nothing but good things about. Aila sent this to me for Christmas and I finally got around to reading it. I thought it was just okay. I wasn’t really into the first 150 pages of the book and when I finally started getting into the novel a little bit more, some really weird stuff started to happen. I thought there were a lot of things that were underdeveloped and I wasn’t a fan of the characters or the writing. If you’re looking for a similar survival story, I think The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness is a much stronger book.

11. Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour – Morgan Matson 

I didn’t love Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour as much as I did Second Chance Summer and Since You’ve Been Gone, but it was still a highly enjoyable read. Amy and Roger are given the task of driving Amy’s mother’s car from California to Connecticut and they decide to go on a big detour. There are lots of things that happen along the way and both characters grow in leaps and bounds. It was a heartwarming and adorable story that I could reread over and over.

12. Ink and Bone – Rachel Caine 

This was a fascinating book about books. In this world, the Great Library of Alexandria still exists and knowledge is more powerful than anything else, even human life. Our protagonist, Jess, comes from a family of book smugglers but he’s never really been interested in taking over the business. He’s entered into a contest to become a Scholar at the Library and the story begins from there.

13. Captive Prince – C.S. Pacat 

There is so much hype surrounding the Captive Prince trilogy right now and I wanted to see what it was all about. I was a little bit disappointed by it. The premise of the book is a bit weak and the plot is a little bit predictable. The characters were complex and interesting  though, so I’ll continue on with the rest of the series. Just a warning though, this book is pretty graphic.

14. Sweet Filthy Boy – Christina Lauren 

This is another book that’s been getting a lot of hype recently. It’s been a really long time since I’ve read a New Adult novel and I was hoping that this one was going to be amazing. Sadly, it was kinda underwhelming. The beginning and end were okay but the whole middle section had pretty much no plot. It was all just smut and I found myself skipping over a lot of it.

15. When We Collided – Emery Lord 

This is a book about mental illness that’s done right. When We Collided deals with bipolar disorder, and grief and depression. I thought it was an accurate representation of bipolar and depression and I highly enjoyed it. I’ll have a review of this up on Happy Indulgence in mid-April.

I have a whole page dedicated to following my progress on my 2016 reading challenges but I thought I’d include some monthly updates anyway. I’m doing pretty well on my Goodreads 100 book challenge. I’ll probably increase it to 150 books in a few months because it looks like I’m going to reach 100 books pretty quickly. Another one of my goals for this year was to participate in Aentee @ Read at Midnight‘s #DiverseYABC chats and I did manage to read the February book, which was Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin.

I was a bit naughty this month and didn’t read the assigned pages from my Complete Sherlock Holmes book. But I’ve read The Sign of the Four before so I don’t feel as bad. There’s still one day of February left so maybe I’ll read it tonight? I also haven’t made any progress on the ‘read all the Youth Media Award YA titles challenge’. I don’t own any of the books that I need to read for that challenge so I’ll need to make a conscious effort to complete the challenges by either borrowing or buying the books in the following months.

I did make really good progress on the Aussie YA Bloggers Book Club Challenge. The rules are kind of complicated but you can find them on my Reading Challenges page. Here are the challenges I completed this month:

• Read a book with diversity in race – The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore
• Read a book with diversity in sexual orientation – Ask the Passengers by A.S. King
• Read a book where a character has a disability – The Stars at Oktober Bend by Glenda Millard
• Read a book that is split into parts – A Tangle of Gold by Jaclyn Moriarty
• Read a book with flashbacks – How Not to Disappear by Clare Furniss
• Read a book with two or more male points of view – Stars Above by Marissa Meyer
• Read a book with no romance – Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit
• Read a book with a red or yellow cover – YOLO Juliet by Brett Wright
• Read a book where something is burned – Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine
• Read a book that features a sun or star – These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
• Read a book with an orange or brown cover – Sweet Filthy Boy by Christina Lauren
• Read a book with a white or grey cover – When We Collided by Emery Lord

Hidden Challenges:

• Read a book with a name in the title – Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit*
• Read an adult book – Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat
• Read an alternate history – Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
• Read a contemporary romance – You’re the Kind of Girl I Write Songs About by Daniel Herborn
• Read a magical realism – The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore*

*Anna and the Swallow Man and The Weight of Feathers unlocked two of the hidden challenges so I don’t need to read extra books to complete those challenges.

I did four Top Ten Tuesday posts this month:

• 02-02-16: Favourite Historical Fiction Novels
• 09-02-16: Ten Characters Who Need to Join My Reverse Harem
• 16-02-16: Books with Music
• 23-02-16: Books I Hesitated to Pick Up But Ended Up Loving

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What was your favourite book of the month?