January 2019 Wrap Up

I’m happy to say that I’ve started the year off right and I managed to read 11 books this month! Any month I read more than 5 books I’m happy, but double digits are rare! Especially when a lot of the books were near or over 500 pages! I read some absolutely FANTASTIC and completely unexpected books this month! I also read a few that were just meh and I didn’t enjoy them. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get into it!

A REAPER AT THE GATES by Sabaa Tahir <—– click for full review – 3 stars
This was the very first book I read this year, and I really hoped to start the year off with a 5 star read…. sadly, that didn’t happen. I’m not going to lie – this book was a struggle for me. I had an impossible time relating to the characters, I missed there interactions and connections, and I just couldn’t relate to it no matter how hard I tried. I do feel that it set the book up well for book 4, so I’m still content to continue with the series!

LET’S GO SWIMMING ON DOOMSDAY by Natalie C. Anderson <—– click for full review – 5 stars
Now THIS was a great way to start the year!! This book was absolutely INCREDIBLE!!!!! A hard hitting and emotional read that sucked me in from chapter one. I loved basically everything about this book! It was so well written and handled the sensitive topics with ease and understanding. I wish I could see more people talking about this one!!

THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ by Antonio Iturbe <—– click for full review – 2 stars
Ugh…. this book was just NOT for me. It sounded great, but it was just so painfully slow for me. I was bored, and couldn’t relate to the characters. It was just all together underwhelming.

WILDCARD by Marie Lu <—– click for full review – 4 stars
This book got dark! Way darker than I was expecting! I ended up loving it because of that! I liked the first book in the series, but I think I liked this one a little more. There was so much grey area between good intentions and bad decisions. I kind of wish this could be a movie. The world building sets itself up well for a screen!

PAGES AND CO by Anna James <—– click for full review – 5 stars
AWWWWEEE! This book was just SO good! Middle Grade isn’t something I read often, but the premise of a girl being able to travel inside books was too interesting to pass up! This was such a light, happy adventure, filled with great atmosphere and magic. It was a great book to reset my thoughts and emotions!

SKYWARD by Brandon Sanderson <—– click for full review – 5 stars
Brandon Sanderson is quickly making his way to being one of my top 10 all time favourite authors! I LOVED this book! The main character was fantastic, and the idea of a group of pilots defending their planet against an alien force is never something I expected to love! I also really enjoyed the pilot school setting and all the action that comes along with a space war. Can’t wait for book 2!

 

The City of Brass (reread) and THE KINGDOM OF COPPER by S.A. Chakrabortty <—– click for full review – 5 stars
Since The City of Brass was a reread, I didn’t link it above (but if you want to see the full review, CLICK HERE!). And it’s official – this author has made it to my auto buy list! I am in awe of her writing and can’t get enough of her words! The way she writes has a way of pulling me in completely! This one went in a bit more of a political direction, but we still had the amazing world building, magic, and characters. I LOVED this book so much!

ENCHANTED by Gita Release <—– click for full review – 4 stars
This book was so much fun! A little slow moving in the beginning, the atmosphere totally made up for it in the end! I really loved the dual lives these characters lead and all the magic and deception. Check out my full review for an exclusive author Q&A!

HAMMERED by Kevin Hearne
I didn’t do a full review for this one as I felt it was too short and there wasn’t a whole lot for me to talk about. This is the third book in the Iron Druid series and we FINALLY get to see why basically the whole world hates Thor…. hilarious! Well, the situation is hilarious, not what Thor did to be so hated. I would plot the ass hat’s death if I were them as well. The book was good, fast paced, and had all the usual crazy types of people, beings, and gods. But what made me sad was that there was little to no Oberon the talking dog. He was my favourite and comedic relief through this series so far! I hope we get more in book 4.

IN AN ABSENT DREAM by Seanan McGuire <—– click for full review – 5 stars
I didn’t expect this book to be good. It was another prequel and I thought it would be another disaster for me that I couldn’t relate to. This book blew away all my expectations! It was so interesting! The Goblin Market setting and its rules was something that I could have read for hundreds of more pages! And the ending had me wanting to curl into a ball and cry….. I’m still broken!

There’s all 11 books I read this month! January already flew by and some of the books that I read in the beginning felt like I read them months ago. I hope that’s not a clue that the rest of this year will fly by just as fast….. slow down time!!!!

How did your first month of reading go for 2019? I hope you started off strong!

Until next time, happy reading!