May Wrap Up – part 2

So to finish my long due May wrap up….

8. Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert (audiobook)

This was the third installment in the Brown sisters trilogy. Each book dwelves into each of the three sisters´lives, Chloe, Dani and Eve, as they fall in love. They are fun, quick reads which I’ve listened to in audiobook format (which I reccomend vividly!), and Eve’s was no exception.

It was a light, joyous and sexy read, and that’s what I expected from it. I didn’t really connect with Eve at first, she was quite an unlikeable character, but she really grew and won me with her honesty and feistiness.

In the Brown sister’s universe this one falls in the middle for me, I it was much better than Chloe’s but not as good as Dani’s. I will read more from the author in the future, specilly when I’m looking for a light-hearted audiobook for my walks to and from work.

My star rating: 3.0/5.0

9. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

I was seeing this book everywhere: Bookstagram, Booktube and Booktok; a coworker also read it and loved it and my expectations were high, so I was actually afraid of picking it up. But it didn’t disappoint.

It’s about a government worker that gets charged with the job of auditing an orphanage for potentially dangerous magical children. When he gets there, however, he finds more than just a group of abandoned kids, he finds a family.

This read like a Pixar movie, I kept picturing it in my head in the style of UP! or Inside Out, and it felt so colorful and heartwarming. Also, I alays wanted to pick it up, to just keep reading it, never felt sluggish or tiresome.

A wonderful book, and one I think that can please a wide audience.

My star rating: 4.0/5.0

10. Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne (audiobook)

Sally Thorne was an author in a tightrope for me. She wrote “The Hating Game”, which I enjoyed but didn’t love, but then she came out with with the absolutely shitshow that was “99 percent mine”. I was looking through Scribd for a new read and decided to give her a last chance; and I’m glad I did.

This book was cute, an entertaining play on the “good girl, bad boy” trope, although one with not much depth. I liked the characters in it, the old-people residence setting, the turtles and yes, the romance. It felt like those easy sunday afternoon movies, and I was in the mood for it.

My star rating: 3.0/5.0

11. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

THIS BOOK IS FUCKING IMPORTANT.

We live in a men’s world, and this book just shows us, with perfectly explained studies and facts, how everything in our lives, from day-to-day objects to city planning are done to fulfill the needs of men. It also brings to light the ghastly lack of gender specific studies (the data bias) for a lot of things, that are making women more and more invisible.

I specially enjoyed the medical part of it. I honestly had never noticed that every single picture I studied anatomy from are based on men’s anatomy (except when it came to women’s genitalia, of course), and how everything in my field is so freaking male biased. This made me sad, and angry, but also made me want to get educated on this, so I can try in my work, both medical and scientific, reduce that bias.

Go read this.

My star rating: 4.0/5.0

12. Every Vow You Break by Peter Swanson (audiobook)

Abigail is going to marry a millionaire but, on her bachelorette’s weekend, she sleeps with a guy, who is now following her. On her honeymoon she just wants to put all that behind her and enjoy her new husband’s company and the resort he brought her to, but things start to go sour when the guy she was with appears on the island.

Well this book had a weird effect on me. I was really enjoying it while listening to it, it felt the exact kind of creepy I really appreciate in books, but the themes in it, albeit important, left me with a bad taste in my mouth, that grew as the time passed since I finnished it.

In it, the author, a white male, tries to really transmit femminist vibes, but it comes off… wrong, forced and a bit naive, and I can’t get past that. I really enjoyed the other book from him, and actually appreciated this one A LOT while reading it, but reflecting on it, I’m conflited.

I have to say though, I was hooked from page one and loved loved the ambiance it portrayed, the wrongness of the male-dominated island, the slight odour of horror emanating from the words, and that kept me from lowering my rating that much.

My star rating: 3.0/5.0

13. With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

I had this book in my TBR for quite some time, and I was excited about it. It brings us the story of a teenager, Emoni, that has had a daughter and is struggling to finnish high school and to follow her dreams of becoming a chef.

This book had a lot of positives: I loved the characters, the family dynamics between Emoni, her kid, her abuela and her best friend. They felt true and homely. The main character was really well built, drawn with words and actions in a perfect way, she felt like a teen I could have known. Also, I loved the culture infused in it, the latin flavor of it. But it also felt kind of flat, like it could have gone somewhere running and instead just drifted calmly without a true purpose.

A good book, but nothing really memorable.

My star rating: 3.0/5.0

So these are the 13 books I (surprisingly) read in May. June was a much more sluggish month, reading wise, and to hold myself accountable I promise I’ll publish my wrap up soon!

May Wrap Up – part 1

I don’t even know how this happened, but I read a total of 13 books this month. THIRTEEN. So I’m splitting up this wrap up so I can speak a bit more than one paragraph about each one of them.

1. Jesus Cristo Bebia Cerveja by Afonso Cruz (Jesus Christ drank Beer; portuguese book)

Every year in my birthday I pick one book up and try to read it in the next weeks, and this was my birthday book for this year. Afonso Cruz is a portuguese writer I’ve heard a lot about, and I had never read anything from him. In this book, a young girl and a plethora of weird characters transform a small Portuguese village in Jerusalem, so her ancient grandma can accomplish her life’s biggest desire.

I still don’t know what to think about it. There were traits of this that really touched me, like how traditionally Portuguese, and old, and homey it feels, but at the same time there were a lot of pretentious “I’m really different and into philosophy” kind of writing, that annoyed me a bit.

I really want to check more from the author, since I’m still on the fence but I feel like I can find things I’ll really love in his writing.

My star rating: 3.5/5.0

2., 3. and 4. Saga volumes 7, 8 and 9 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples

If you like graphic novels, or scifi, you know Saga. It’s about a couple, each from enemy races, that have a kid and how they travel through the Galaxy to save their girl from the war that’s going on.

It’s one of the best series I’ve read. It’s funny, cute and brutal, all at the same time, and I’ve always felt really ivested in the characters. These ones, the last ones out so far, were particularly gory and there were characters that I really loved that were killed, and GODI was in tears for it.

I can’t wait to read the next installments, although the authors haven’t published anymore volumes for quite a few years.

My star rating: 4.0/5.0

5. The Project by Courtney Summers (audiobook)

Lo Denham has lost her parents in a terrible accident where she almost died too. During those awful months at the hospital her sister and best friend Bea finds a community that welcomes her with opens arms, and the two sisters’ lifes are torn apart. Now Lo is trying to find her way back to Bea, but understanding her sister’s fidelity to The Unity Project is very hard for her.

I had already listened to “Sadie”, by this author, last year, and I loved how dark and thought-provoking it was, so I came into this hoping similar vibes. Well, it gave them to me, but it was actually too much like Sadie.

Lo’s voice in this books sounds just like Sadie’s voice; she’s a girl with a tormented past trying to reach her sister. But this one felt a bit more boring, less thrilling than the first book, so Lo’s story dimmed down a bit in my eyes, specially during the first half of it.

After reaching a certain point in the book, there’s a very interesting shift in character development and in plot, and from then on I was much more into the story. It turned twisted, and I’m a sucker for both dire stories and cults.

Don’t get me wrong, this was good and I would reccomend it, but it wasn’t just as grabbing as I hoped it would be. Sadie is definitiely my favorite one so far, but I’ll pick up more Courtney Summer’s books in the future.

My star rating: 3.0/5.0

6. Daytripper by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

If you pick just one book from this list, THIS IS IT. This is a brilliant graphic novel authored by two Brazilian brothers, and it is perfect. It’s about the life of this ordinary guy, Brás Domingos de Oliveira, who writes obituaries in a newspaper. Aaaand I’m not telling you much more than this because it’s a joy to find out how this story will play out, so just go pick it up.

I genuinely cried with this book. Like big soppy tears and sobs. It was reccomended to me by a co-worker, and it was one of the best books someone has loaned me, ever.

My star rating: 5.0/5.0

7. A Noiva do Tradutor by João Reis (The Translator’s Bride; portuguese book)

This was borrowed from the same perosn who reccomended Daytripper, and I was excited about it. I’be been meaning to read more portuguese authors, since I’ve been really slacking on it for the last couple of years, and this sounded like something I would like.

It’s about a translator, in the beginning of the 19th century, whose bride has just left him to go live abroad. We follow his stream of consciousness during the next days and how he reacts to his mundane, sad life.

I didn’t really like this, if I’m being honest with myself. The writing was quite interesting, and I found fascinating how well the author brought the feeling of disgust throughout the whole story, toward the city and the characters in the main character’s life. But that’s about it.

This strongly reminded me of “The Catcher in the Rye”, the way how Holden Caulfield felt so superior to everybody else he encountered, and I always get really annoyed with this kind of characters. It didn’t go nowhere, no point came across to me, and I’m not interested in reading more from the author.

My star rating: 2.0/5.0

April Wrap Up

April’s my birthday month and it usually doesn’t go that well for me, for a reason or other. This year we were easing up lockdown measures in Portugal, and it was a weird month. It ran by, and I worked a lot, and worried a lot, but was finally catching my pace in the hospital. That meant I didn’t read that much, but I’m still happy with what I did read.

1. The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Záfon (read inPortuguese)

This was a long time coming re-read. I read Záfon’s “The Shadow of the Wind” when I hadn’t the correct age to read Záfon, or maybe when I had the perfect age, it’s hard to tell with him. I was 14 and I remember being fascinated by his world and his characters.

I love Záfon with all my being and I’ve been wanting to go back to the world that made me fall in love with his writing. This time, I decided to read them in chronological order instead of publication order, and so I picked up the Angel’s Game first.

It was great being back in Záfon’s Barcelona, the gothic, somber, grey feeling of it seeping from the page. In this book, we meet David Martín, a young writer whose life spirals into a dark game after he accepts the proposal of a strange editor to write a book in exchange for a fortune and maybe his very soul.

Zafón’s books, particularly this one, read like a nightmare that keeps deepening and deepening into darker alleys. This isn’t my favorite book by him, specially considereng the later half of the book, but it’s still such a pleasure to read. If you haven’t picked up any of his books start with “The Shadow of the Wind” and just let yourself fall in love.

My star rating: 4.0/5.0

2. and 3. Giant Days vol. 1 % vol. 2 by John Alisson and Lisa Tremaine

This is a graphic novel about three friends, Susan, Esther and Daisy and their time in University. And it was SO MUCH FUN to read.

I loved the three girls, specially Susan, a premed student who sounded quite like me. It’s just really a joyful series, and a great way to spend an evening.

My star rating: 4.0/5.0

4. A Cuban’s Girl Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey (audiobook)

In this book we accompany Lila Reyes, born and raised in Miami, as she unwillingly travel sto England to spend the summer and recover from her grandmother’s death, the fallout with her best friend and her break-up.

I don’t know how I ended up liking this, actually; in the beggining, I was strongly disliking the story, I kept making snarky remarks in my head while listening to it, and considered DNF’ing it, but something made me stay and I ended up actually really enjoying it.

Lila feels very dramtic, but she’s actually a teen, and I could see some of my thought process when I was seventeen through her. I also really liked her relationship with Orion (what’s up with the name, though?), and how it didn’t feature the typical bad-communication plot device. It was nice, good for a chill spring read.

My star rating: 3.5/5.0

March Wrap Up

March was a weird month, I kept working like a crazy woman, and almost only listened to audiobooks in my way to work. It was also weird since I picked up one of books I most disliked and my favorite one from this year so far, back to back. So here we go:

1. Group by Christie Tate (audiobook)

It’s been three whole months and I still get mad when I think about this book. Like MAD.

This is a memoir about Christie Tate’s years in a therapy group and how it changed her life. Sounds great, I’m all for therapy and mental illness recognition and awareness, but god this was infuriating to listen to.

I’ve always felt it’s really hard to critique memoirs, since they are the experiences of a real person, somebody who does exist and whose experiences are no less valid than my own. But what. the. actual. fuck.

Christie came through as one of the most unlikeble characters ever; in the book she is egotistical, childish and and has no logic thought whatsoever. She throws tantrums instead of actually thinking about her actions. During the whole book, she just picks up her emotions and experiences, throws them at a highly etically dubious therapist and hopes he runs her life. It’s exasperating and sadening, and I kept thinking there was so so many situtations that were badly dealt with.

Not a fan. At all.

My star rating: 1.0/5.0

2. Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam (audiobook)

And here is my favorite read so far this year. It’s about a family that has rented an AirBnB for a week, but during their vacation something happens, and the owners of the house appear in the middle of the night, wanting to stay there.

This came as an absolute surprise to me; it was a suggestion on Scribd and I took it, not having heard anything about it before. Well, listen to me, if you love weird, open-ended books with a deep vein of mystery running through it, PICK IT UP.

It’s paced quite oddly, I must say, with a first part where nothing happens but normal life, but then it becoms beutifully fucked up, with nothing palpable actually happening. During the whole thing, there was this perfect feeling of wrongness, of something being just at the edge of the precipice, and that’s one of my favorite things to find in books. We don’t know what’s happening, but the creepiness carries the story along. It made me feel utterly uncomfortable, in the best possible way.

I love dark vague books, and this was a dark (very) vague book. Superb.

My star rating: 5 stars

3. Persepolis by Marjane Satraapi

This is a graphic memoir that tells us Marji’s early life in Iran and her years as an immigrant escaping a hard regime.

I knew nothing about Iran and its history coming into it, and I felt this book opened up my eyes. It’s a very personal book, I could feel Marjane, her memories, her family, her childhood, really bleeding into the paper. There were some stories and anedoctes that didn’t work out that well for me, but still a must read.

My star rating: 3.5/5.0

4. The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn (audiobook)

This was the second book in the Bridgerton series, the one where we follow Anthony’s, the eldest brother and heir of the title, love story.

I enjoyed this much more than the first one, specially because of the female main character. She’s sensible, witty and funny, and I loved how Anthony became a different person around her. It was light and fun, exactly what I was craving; I just didn’t enjoy the whole plot point that pushed the characters to be together, since it was already used in the first one.

My star rating: 3.5/5.0

5. Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine (audiobook)

Welcome to another installment of “Inês has become obsessed with thrillers in 2021”. This one was quite the ride. In it we meet Gina Royal, mother of two kids and wife to a loving husband, when in an ordinary day a guy crashes his car into her husband’s woodworking place in their house, and a skinned body of a woman is found. If this summary doesn’t make you want to grab it right away, I don’t know what would.

This book is creepy in a very satisfying way, but maybe too thrillery, in a bad way. I loved the headspace it created, a panic rising from the pages, but didn’t enjoy the action scenes all that much.

Still, a good, entertaining thriller; I’ll be reading more from this author in the future, for sure.

My star rating: 3.5/5.0

February Wrap Up

1. Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed (audiobook)

This one was a enjoyable, nice read. It’s a contemporary YA about two teenagers, Maya and Jamie who volunteer for their local state candidate, and amidst the weeks coming up to the election, they fall in love.

It’s a good YA, I never felt forced to listen to it, I was always excited to get back in to their world, but although I think the message in political involvement is very very important, it lost me there a bit, since some parts seemed forced. Nonetheless, a good book, one I would gladly offer to a teenage relative to read.

My rating: 3.0/5.0

2. Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Motherhood by Emma Hansen (audiobook)

This one was a bit hard to read. I’m not a mother, nor I’ve ever been pregnant, but I felt really close to Emma Hansen in her loss. In this book, she takes us through her first pregnancy and the loss of her baby, and it’s very hard-hitting.

I really loved the first part, where she nakedly described what happended and how she and those close to her felt. It was raw and rough and very touching. Towards the later half of the book its pace became more sluggish, and I didn’t love it as much, but still feel it’s a very important and powerful book to read.

My rating: 3.5/5.0

3. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Oseman

A club of investigators with retired people just nosing around in murder cases – this sounds just like my kind of book. I heard its synopsis, bought it immediately and started reading it as soon as it arrived, but it took me SO FUCKING LONG to read it, I never wanted to pick it up, it became a chore.

I really enjoyed the characters, and I think the whole thing had a lot of potential, but the murder case in this was actually just a tad bit boring, and it lost my interest in the very begining.

I actually really appreciated the ending, it was twisty and surprising and I didn’t expect anything that happened, but maybe with a bit too much thrown in there.

It has been a couple of months since I’ve read this and I’m still divided on my opinion on it. I really struggled to get through it, but I did freaking enjoy the ending, and I might read the next book.

My rating: 3.0/5.0

4. Mrs Fox by Sarah Hall

This is a small short story, that I read in an afternoon while snacking. It’s about a woman who becomes a fox, and it was weird. Dry weird, actually, with no depth that I could find in it. Beautiful, beautiful writing, but WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL WAS THIS?!

This is the type of story that left me feeling I’m not smart enough for it, and I gave it 2 stars only because of its writing.

My rating: 2.0/5.0

5. The Duke and I by Julia Quinn (audiobook)

So I fell through the Bridgerton hole everybody seems to have fallen through during this quarentine. I watched the Netflix show, got absolutely hooked, and started listening to the book right away.

The series is quite different from the books, and I think the changes they made were very good improvements; the serires brought more diversity into it, and the characters felt more flushed out than in the book. It was light and fun to listen to, but actually nothing special, I just read it so I could carry on listening to Daphne’s brothers and sisters’ stories.

My rating: 2.0/5.0

6. I left the House Today! by Cassandra Cailin

I’ve been following Cassandra Cailin for a while, and I’ve always loved her cartoons. They are fun and relatable and this was a joy to read.

My rating: 4.0/5.0

7. Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens

This was the second book in “A Murder Most Unladylike” mystery series. I had read the first one last year, and really enjoyed it, and it was great to be back on the world of Daisy and Hazel.

These mysteries are fun and cozy, with a very “british” feel to them. This one particularly had a “locked room” kind of feel to it, which I always love, but it left me wanting more from it than what it was. Still, a good book, and I’ll for sure be reading the next ones.

My rating: 3.0/5.0

Trying to be a reader, not a doctor

So… with the possibility of repeating myself… I’m back. This time for real. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve been to the blog, but I’m just trying hard to adjust to my new life.

I’m a general surgery intern, now, and there was so much I had to learn to live with. There were weeks were I’ve barely slept, nights when all I could think about was one or other patient, days that felt that had no ending, infinite things to be afraid of or excited about, a lot of feeling lost, a lot of adjusting. But there was also the day I did my first appendix, and days with new friends and the feeling that I might have made the right choice, after all.

I’ve been struggling to adjust, to find a place for my old hobbies in my new life, but I’m posting this to hold me accountable. I’ll be posting a new monthly wrap up every day this week, and hopefuly I’ll return to some kind of a schedule here.

January Wrap Up

So I’m playing catch up here, it’s been quite a chaotic beggining of the year, but I’ve managed to keep reading quite a lot, specially thanks to Scribd. I now walk to work and listen to audiobooks during that time, which I enjoy a ton. So here is what I read during January!

1. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

For these first few months of 2021 I’ve been in a pretty deep Mystery kick and I blame it on “Eight Perfect Murders” by Peter Swanson, which I read at the ending of 2020. And what better way to bask in this mood than picking up an Agatha Christie novel?

As the title says, Roger Ackroyd has been murdered, and the suspects are reduced to the few who visited his house on that night. Poirot was amongst them, and he will solve the great mystery once again.

Because of Swanson’s book I already knew the ending of this novel, its great twist, but I still enjoyed it immensely. Agatha Christie is not only clever in her writing but she also has the amazing quality of soaking every word with swirls of surprise, familiarity and coziness, all at the same time. I specially enjoyed the narrator in this, its a new perspective from the other Christie’s books I had read.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

2. Kind of Cursed by Stephanie Fournet (audiobook)

I’m still mad at myself for listening to the entirety of this. Seriously, this book is quite problematic and I was actually angry with it when I finished listening to it.

Millie Delacroix is cursed… because women in her family are hyperfertile. I know, I should have seen it coming by the premise, but I was looking for something bright and fun and honestly, I liked the cover, the girl on it had scrubs on and a stethoscope, which implyed a health-related job, and I was sold, but oh god did I regret it. There’s insta-love, which never fails to annoy me, and weird “assholey” masculinity (the love interest goes crazy horny just from looking at the MC’s laundry and then goes balistic when other men in the room notice said laundry, for exemple), and just plain degrading plot points.

This wasn’t for me, not at all, and I won’t pick anything up by the author ever again.

Rating: 1.0/5.0 stars (and I’m being generous here)

3. The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell (audiobook)

So while on my search to saciate my thirst for mystery I found this one on Scribd and got hooked by the premise. On a beautiful summer night, in a picturesque communal garden where the children roam free, thirteen year old Grace Wild is found uncounscious by her younger sister, Pip. While trying to find what happened to her, dark secrets of the community are slowly unburied.

The atmospherical aspect of this book was on point, I felt very much into it while listening, I felt enwrapped in the words, the mystery, anxious to know what had happened. I also liked the characters in it, their inner worlds, their moral greyness. I could see it all happening in my head, like a movie. It did disappoint me a bit in its predictability, I figured what and why quite early on, and I was left wanting for more darkness at the ending.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

4. A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

In Novik’s new fantasy novel we enter a dark magical school that is populated by actual monsters the students must survive to to graduate. It sounds a bit ridiculous, I’ll give you that, and this wasn’t by any means the best fantasy book I’ve read, but I enjoyed it so very much.

It had the same vibes to me as “Ninth House” by Leigh Bardugo, with a Dark Academia atmosphere and a kickass protagonist, so I guess that if you enjoyed Bardugo’s novel you’ll also like this one. The worldbuilding is definitely vague and kind of weird, but I enjoyed its originality. I really really want the second book!

Rating: 4.0/5.0 stars

5. Tweet Cute by Emma Lord (audiobook)

Pepper and Jack are in a Twitter fight, each one defending their family’s business; Pepper is the daughter of the owner of a big fast-food chain, and Jack the grandson of a deli’s owner, which iconic grilled cheese recipe has seemingly been copied by Pepper’s mom chain. They go to the same school and slowly become friends, not knowing they are each other’s arch-nemesis.

When I mentioned I wanted something fun and easy, this is what I was talking about. It’s a very entertaining book to read, but at the same time it touches deeper subjects that young adults can identify with.

The two main characters are well rounded and quite relatable in a way or other, and the plot goes into much more than just their Twitter rivalry or the discovery of each other’s identities. I only found it a bit “teenagey” for me, but that was expected since the characters *are* teenagers and the book is targeted to a younger audience than almost thirty year old me! Overall pretty enjoyable book, I do reccomend it as a spring, sun-filled-days kind of read.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

So this month was not huge on reading, but it also wasn’t bad, specially taking into account I was moving houses, starting a new job and getting “recruited” to work long hours in Covid wards. I just hope I can balance it that well for the rest of the year.

Popsugar reading challenge for 2021

So, once again, I’m taking part in this. Last year I couldn’t finish it for just a couple of prompts, but this year I’ll try even harder. I’ve been trying to fulfill this challenge in the last 3/4 years, and it has brought me some interesting reads that I might never picked up. SO LET’S GO!

Standard Prompts

1. A book that’s published in 2021
2. An afrofuturist book
3. A book that has a diamond, heart, club or spade on the cover
4. A book by an author who shares your zodiac sign – Still by Emma Hansen (Aries)
5. A dark academia book – A deadly Education by Naomi Novik
6. A book with a gem, mineral or rock in the title
7. A Book where the main character works at your current dream job
8. A book that has won the women’s prize for fiction
9. A book with a family tree – Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens
10. A bestseller from the 1990s – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
11. A book about forgetting
12. A book you have seen on someone’s bookshelf
13. A locked-room mystery
14. A book set in a restaurant – Tweet Cute by Emma Lord
15. A book with a black and white cover
16. A book by and indigenous author
17. A book that has the same title as a song
18. A book about a subject you are passionate about
19. A book that discusses body positivity
20. A book find on a black lives matter reading list
21. A genre hybrid
22. A book set mostly or entirely outdoor
23. A book with something broken the cover
24. A book by a muslim american author – Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
25. A book that was published anonymously
26. A book with an oxymoron in the title
27. A Book about do-overs or fresh starts – Group by Christie Tate
28. A magical realism book
29. A book set in multiple countries – Persepolis by Marjanne Satrapi
30. A book set somewhere you’d like to visit in 2021
31. A book by a blogger, vlogger, youtube video creator or other online personality
32. A book whose title starts with “Q”, “X” or “Z”
33. A book featuring three generations
34. A book about social justice issue
35. A book in a different format than what you normally read – I left the house today by Cassandra Cailin
36. A book that has fewer than 1000 reviews on amazon or Goodreads – Kind of cursed, Stephanie Fournet (253 reviews)
37. A book you think your best friend would like
38. A book about art or an artist
39. A book everyone seems to have read but you – The Duke and I by Julia Quinn
40. Your favorite past Popsugar Challenge

Advanced Prompts

1. The longest book on your TBR list
2. The shortest book on your TBR list
3. The book on your TBR with the prettiest cover
4. The book on your TBR list with the ugliest cover
5. The book that has been on your TBR list for the longest amount of time
6. A book from you TBR list you didn’t read last year but meant to
7. A book from your TBR list you associate with a favorite person, place or thing
8. A book from your TBR list chosen at random
9. A DNF book from your TBR list
10. A free book from your TBR list (gifted, borrowed, library)

Books read in 2021

Just as last year, I’ll use this post as my homebase, the one where I just leave every single book I’ve read this year; I’ll try and keep it updated. If there’s a full review I’ll link it right beside the book, and I’ll leaver each month’s wrap up at the end, since all of the books have a little review there.

January

1. The Murder of Rocger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
2. Kind of Cursed by Stephanie Fournet
3. The Girls in The Garden by Lisa Jewell
4. A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
5. Tweet Cute by Emma Lorde

Februrary

1. Yes No Maybe So by Aisha Saeed and Becky Albertalli
2. Still by Emma Hansen
3. The Thurday Murder Club by Richard Oseman
4. Mrs Fox by Sarah Hall
5. Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens
6. The Duke and I by Julia Quinn
7. I Left the House Today by Cassandra Cailin

March

1. Group by Christite Tate
2. Leave the World Behind by Rumaam Alam
3. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Least Favorite Books of 2020

Since I can remember, I have a wide reading taste, and I love to explore new books, genres and authors for fun. This year I felt it was no different, and so in 76 books I had to find some I didn’t really like; and I do love talking about the books I love, but I quite enjoy dishing some books, so here it goes, in the order I read them. Of course, this is my opinion only, and if you’ve read and liked some of these, great! They just weren’t my cup of tea.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

This one was just enfuriatingly bad. It kept getting more and more ridiculous by the paragraph, and I couldn’t take it. In this book we have nine characters who want to change their lives and check in to a health resort, ran by a crazy-russian-type character, who uses weirder and weirder methods to make them change the way they face their lives.

The plot is ludicrious and just completely off-paced, and there’s no characters that aren’t a freaking charicature. There’s a particular one, an Instagram model, that just gets shamed and made a fool of the whole book, and it made me *maaad*. I had read two books by Liane Moriarty previously, “The Husband Secret” and “Big Little Lies”, but this one put me off her writting big time.

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

So… I seem to have identified a problem that I constantly come up with in my reading: I do’t enjoy classic children’s books. There are exceptions, of course, but in the last few years, every on of them I’ve read I was quite furious about thanks to their preachiness and their gullible environment. I know, times change, and in essence they are sweet, but I cannot find joy in reading them, and that’s exactly what happened with Black Beauty.

The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

Romance books for me are an easy and fun escape, and I usually listen to them on audio while I go running or walking, but they are kind of hit or miss situtations for me. I don’t expect them ever to be the best piece of literature that I’ve read, but I want to be entertained, to enjoy the experience of listening to it, and this one was not that good, and it wasn’t memorable for sure, I cannot for the life of me tell you anyhting that happens in it.

Defy Me by Tahereh Mafi

I think this one was the biggest dissapointment of the year. It is the fifth installment of the “Shatter Me” series, and I was a fan of the original trilogy, but these last ones were… awful. I read it for the Reading Rush and reviewed it here, and I was SO MAD about it when I finished it. It was just overall badly executed, and denied a lot of things that had happened previously, and I couldn’t stand it. If you’re planning on picking up this series, stay with the first three.

No Offense by Meg Cabot

This was an audiobook that I just picked up because when I was younger I loved all of Meg Cabot’s series, and decided to check out some “grown-up” stuff. It was bland, and a bit boring, nothing to write home about, and that’s why it made it into this list. Not the worst, for sure, at least I’m not mad at it, but not a great book.

The Honey Don’t List

This one I wasn’t counting on disliking at all. I’ve listened to a lot of Chirstina Lauren’s books, and I’ve enjoyed almost all of them, but this one was just meh. It’s about an assistant, Carey, that works for TV stars Melissa and Rusty Tripp, for a long time and that falls in love with Rusty’s new assistant, James.

I found it predictable and too over-the-top on some aspects to be enjoyable.