So far this month I have completed 0/5 of my TBR books so doing well on that, obviously. But! I have re-read an entire book and I’m almost through another re-read, they just aren’t ones that were on my list of books to re-read in 2018, but oh well! That said, I’ve read nine books already this month, but I’m only going to talk about six here so it shouldn’t be too long.
1. Beyond Jealousyby Kit Rocha
This book was so good, y’all. It’s the fourth book in the Beyond series and it’s the book where Rachel, Cruz, and Ace figure their ish out and get together and are just so beautiful. I love them. I loved this book. I just cannot rave about this particular book in the series enough, but that does not mean that I don’t love Noelle and Lex the most too. I just love these women and these characters. The heroes are all great too, I guess, but like… These women are amazing. It’s like The Bachelor this season. These women are so much cooler than Arie, tbh. Anyway… Moving on.
2. Adulthood is a Mythby Sarah Anderson
I read this book as part of the Read Harder Challenge for the challenge that’s to read a comic that’s written and illustrated by the same person. I enjoyed eight of these so much because #relatable. Basically, this is about being a cat lady and being an adult, but being bad at it, which is… Um, yes.
3. What Lies Between Usby Nayomi Munaweera
This book defies my command of the English language, which is why I can’t seem to review it. This literary fiction novel was the December pick for StorytimeWithSquibbles and I was obviously late in picking it up. The book is a suspenseful book about a woman who is currently in prison and I don’t think it’s super clear why at first so I won’t spoil it. However, the book is told chronologically from this woman’s childhood to the present day. Her name is never given, which is not something I realized until it finally was given at the end of the book. It’s masterfully written and thematic and just… Yes. Set in Sri Lanka and then California, much like the author’s own life, and yet there’s a scene in West Virginia that captures what home is like so well that I spent too long Googling the author trying to figure out if she’d lived there. I would recommend this book to lovers of literary fiction and to lovers of slow and quiet thrillers or suspense novels.
4. You Bring the Distant Nearby Mitali Perkins
This book is a family saga in YA, which I have not read enough of and I don’t see very often. I think that’s because family sagas done in 300 something pages can be pretty difficult because you have to make people care about all of the characters and that’s not a lot of space. Well, Mitali Perkins did not care about those difficulties and she didn’t need to worry about them because she aced it. This book is lyrical, the characters are all unique and wonderful, and I loved every single one of them. I love the threads that connected each of the characters, loved the way it dealt with racism in this particular Bengali family, loved the family dynamic, the sisters thread, the… Everything. All of it. This book was nominated for the National Book Award and though it ultimately did not win the award, the nomination was more than earned. This book is incredible and I’m so glad I read it. I hope you pick it up too!
5. Hold Me by Courtney Milan
I got my physical copy in the mail and I was so excited that the next thing I knew, I stayed up until 2:00 in the morning even though I had a work out class at 7:00. I’ve talked about this book a thousand times already and have a full review. It was my favorite book of 2017 and it’s beautiful and wonderful and now it’s annotated. I would not be surprised if it gets re-read again and again this year.
6. The City of Brassby S.K. Chakraborty
This book is 533 pages, also known as 19 hours on audio, and it could have been several hours shorter. The beginning of this book was really amazing. I think I flew through the first seven or so hours and really enjoyed it. And then things really started to slow down. What it mostly comes down to though is that this book doesn’t feel complete. It’s part of a series so to an extent that’s to be expected, but there are so many threads that feel dropped to me and I’m sure that they’ll come back, but they were huge parts of the story and then they disappeared. It’s very confusing. A lot of this is confusing. I’m definitely going to continue the series, but I think if you haven’t read this book yet, you should hold off until you can pick up the sequel right after, honestly. That said, a lot of people have absolutely loved it. So… Your choice. Here is the (very long, sorry) Goodreads synopsis to help you make up your mind:
Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles.
But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass?a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.
In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.
After all, there is a reason they say be careful what you wish for.
Let us hope the choice to only talk about six books in this part of the wrap up was a good idea and I don’t wind up talking about too many in the end of the month wrap up. Haha. I like to check in halfway through the month, but I don’t like to overwhelm. Let me know if you have thoughts down below! And if you’ve read any of these books, feel free to tell me your thoughts!
xx
firewhiskeyreader 