In comparison to the first half of the month, the second half of December was absolutely awful. I’m in the middle of several books at the moment, so the first half of January is likely to be similar. I was trying to finish them up, but blogging takes a lot of time and I have so many posts to get out because whoops, I sucked at blogging in December too. I’m trying to be better in January, but man, it’s really hard to work full time and do literally anything else. Why is that?
This month I read 14 books for a total of 5,332 pages. The first half of the month contained all five of my five star reads, but the second half of the month had okay reads. Yeah… Let’s just hop right in!
12. Uprootedby Naomi Novik
I very much enjoyed the reading experience of this book, but I’m not sure it’s stuck with me the way that I thought it would. The beginning of this book is amazing and perfect. And then we have the usual young girl who winds up falling in love with the super old but looks young man, which is not a trope I love. I wish Twilight had been both the first and last book I read with that trope but it’s not been. That said, I enjoyed the magic in this book and I liked the female friendship elements, but also, I wish that the characters had been a little more developed. I gave this book 5/5 stars as soon as I finished it, but I’d say that upon reflection it might be much closer to a 3.5.
13. The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani
I have such mixed feelings about this book that can basically be summed up with I adore Agatha and Sophie can choke. For some inexplicable reason, every time it seems like Sophie’s going to learn a lesson and grow, she manages to still revert to being a trash can human and I just cannot comprehend that concept. That said, my love for Agatha carried me through the first book in the series and through the beginning of the second.
If you haven’t heard of this middle grade series, it’s basically about this village from which two twelve year olds are kidnapped every four years and taken to The School for Good and Evil. One of the children is “pure good” and the other is “pure evil.” In theory it does a great job of examining the fact that the “good” people are always beautiful and blonde (but Agatha is none of those things and is good) and the “bad” people are always ugly. In actual effect, Sophie’s fat shaming never feels like it’s appropriately tackled and happens what feels like incessantly. So I enjoyed the book, but did not love it.
14. Only Enchantingby Mary Balogh
I know that I didn’t love Someone to Wed, but Balogh pulled me right back into her writing with Only Enchanting. There was only one thing that bothered me–there’s this whole section where the Viscount is thinking about how Agnes is basically a virgin even though she’s a widow because of the lack of passion in her first marriage. So other than that extremely irritating piece, I really enjoyed this book and would love to read more from the Survivor’s Club series. Flavian and Agnes are a couple that I just really enjoyed. Flavian’s injuries from the war have resulted in memory issues and a stammer, but something about Agnes makes him feel safe. I’m mostly thankful for this book for breaking me out of my slump-y feeling. I hadn’t finished a book for 11 days before I finished this one. Ridiculous!
And there you have it! Everything I read in December. This month was full of a lot of starting and not finishing books though so genuinely, hopefully January gets off to a better start. What was your favorite December read? Mine was Lair of Dreams and I’m so excited for my Audible credit to come through tomorrow! Oh, and The Hate U Give and Hunger. All excellent novels.
xx
firewhiskeyreader 