February TBR

I know February is the month with Valentine's Day so some people might want to be reading sappy love stories but that's not for me. I sometimes can be in the mood for romance, but I haven't been lately. Because I recognize that I'm feeling less like reading, I am not going to push myself to read every book on this list. More its a guideline of what I'd like to read.

Here are the books I chose for February:

1. Beartown by Fredrik Bachman
2. Hunger by Roxanne Gay
3. Refuge by Dina Nayeri
4. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
5. My Name is Leon by Kit De Waal
6. How to Train your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
7. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
8. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
9. Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson
10. Blankets by Craig Thompson
11. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
12. The Unseen World by Liz Moore
13. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
14. Sold by Patricia McCormick
15. The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman
16. The Diary of a Teenage Girl by Phoebe Gloeckner

Beartown, Mistborn, Allegedly, The House on Mango Street, and How to Train your Dragon are all choices for my Popsugar Challenge. Refuge is for a book club.  I'm pretty sure I will listen to the audiobook of How to Train your Dragon since it is narrated by David Tennant and I lurve him!

Last week January Wrap Up

This week was definitely much slower. I finished 2 books. I picked up a few others but then put them down quickly (like after 3-30 pages later) just because I wasn't in the mood for anything.


I finished reading The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. This was one of my most highly anticipated books for 2018. Its about the 4 Gold siblings and they go to a fortune teller to find out the date of their death. Then each section focuses on one of the siblings and how the knowledge of when they will die affects their decisions. I loved the first section, felt the 2nd and 3rd perspectives were left slightly ambiguous, and the fourth person's perspective made me feel so sad. As a person who fears death, (more than others, I'm quite risk-averse.) the fourth person's focus on survival without focusing on living really resonated with me. Overall, this was very enjoyable and I will purchase it in the future. I gave it 4 stars.

Then I picked up the graphic novel Thornhill by Pam Smy. This was creepy and sad. It's different than most graphic novels because instead of boxes with pictures and dialogue, this was comprised of diary entries of text only followed by several pages of illustrations. The art style was bleak which fit the tone of the book well. Its about a teen girl who is being bullied in an orphanage. She leaves a diary to be found after some tragic circumstances. I gave it 4 stars.


So that wraps up the month. I did a pretty good job checking off a lot of my TBR books.

Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash
A Brief History of Time Lords by Steve Tribe
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park
I am Malala by Malala Youfasazai (DNF)
Bird Box by Josh Malerman 
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
How Green was my Valley by Richard Llewellyn
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
Saga Volume 8 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples


Plus my 2 TBR JAR picks which I started but quickly lost interest in.

Third Week Wrap Up

My reading has slowed a bit this past week. I've been ill which has led to not picking up as many books. Still, I've managed to read 3 books.

I picked up In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park. This was a memoir of a young woman's escape from North Korea. This was unbelievably sad but ended on a happy and hopeful note. I was apprehensive because the last memoir I tried to read was about Malala and it was terribly written but this was very easy to understand. All sorts of trigger warnings for this. This was my book club pick. I gave it 4 stars.


Then I was able to get ahold of Persepolis 2. This finishes out the memoir of Marjane Satrapi, focusing on her teen and adult years. I didn't think this one was as good as the first because she became a drug user and a whiner which made her less likable. However, I still ended up giving it 3 stars.


Lastly, I read Heartburn by Nora Ephron. I chose this because it was supposed to be funny. Let me tell you, it was not. It was a rambling mess of a marriage crumbling due to infidelity. In addition, she kept adding recipes in the middle of the plot, which seemed to me to only pad the length of this short book. I liked the main character. She seemed real and complex. I gave this book 1.5-2 stars.

After an amazing start to the month, I need to choose wisely so I can end with some great books too.

New Year, New Books Tag

I love watching booktube but I wish I could participate in book tags more often. Well I was watching Simon of SavidgeReads on booktube and he said he was tagging everyone. So I decided to do the challenge.


The questions:

1. First read of 2018?

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
2. Which books you read in 2017 do you want to share with everyone this year?

My favorites of last year were Stay with Me by Adebayo Ayobami, Eleanor Oliphant is Complately Fine by Gail Honeyman, Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, and the whole Saga series by Brian K. Vaughn.
3. What is your reading goal for the year?

My reading goals for the year are: to re-read more, to read 90 books, to complete the Popsugar Challenge, and to DNF more when I don't like the book.
4. Which new author, book or genre would you like to try this year?

I'd really like to read Brandon Sanderson which will also help me branch out more into fantasy.

5. Which reading habits would you like to change?

I stick with books even when they're terrible or just not in the right mood. This leads to slumps. I will DNF so that happens less. Also, I would like to read more frequently, even if its just 15 minutes before bed.
6. Most anticipated release this year?

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

TBR Jar

One of my January resolutions was to read books off my shelf. I created a TBR jar and I will pick 2 books a month. This is inspired by the booktube channel booksandlala where she reads through books she's had for ages. I will give myself 1 save. (total, not per month). I must either read them or get rid of them. So by the end of the year, I will have read or donated a total of 23 books. (1 save remember?)

January picks:

Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy




The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi



The first one has a somewhat low rating on goodreads and it a YA "sick lit" so I probably will donate it. That is just not my type of book. I think I bought it at a library sale for 25 cents.

The second has a similar rating and looks to be a family drama. Those are typically my favorites so I will definitely try to read this.

Second Week Wrap Up

I'm trying to post more often that way my feelings on the books is "fresher." I think this is going to be the year of graphic novels. I read more graphic novels these last 2 weeks than I've ever read in my life.

So the first book I picked up this week was A Brief History of Time Lords by Steve Tribe. I'm a huge Doctor Who fan although I've almost exclusively watched the "new Who" episodes, the ones from 2005-2017. I felt a lot of the information was based on the old episodes which made it slightly less fun to read. I gave it 3 stars.

Then I picked up the graphic novel Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Again, it was okay. It had an interesting time-traveling plot but overall was a little predictable. 3 stars.

Then I continued my graphic novel streak with Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash. This was a graphic memoir of her coming to terms with her sexuality at a summer camp. I really enjoyed this but felt the ending was a bit anti-climatic. 4 Stars

Then I picked up the 5th Harry Potter book. Oh, so good. I breezed through it in 2 days. . My absolute favorite one. 5 Stars

Then I picked up another graphic novel, this time called My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf. This was a true story of a friend of Jeffery Dahmer who knew him in middle/high school. This was absolutely fascinating and I didn't think it possible to feel sorry for a serial killer. But oh man did he have a rough childhood. 4 Stars

I also read The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth which is about a lesbian who gets sent to a religious "get straight" camp. I was really enjoying it for the first half, but the last half languished. It was too long but also didn't have a very satisfying ending point. I gave it 3 stars.

My kindle ebook of Dark Matter by Blake Crouch was about to expire (from the library) so I picked that one up next. This was so good. I read this in one day. I couldn't put it down. Some of it was a bit too overwhelming and mind-bending but overall such an enjoyable read. 4 Stars.

Lastly, I picked up Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction. I read on a list that this was a good graphic novel. It was also for the popsugar challenge of "reading a local author." OH MY GOD! So terrible.  Not funny, not sexy, not interesting. Very confusing in terms of time jumps. One page she's a little girl, the next she's a teenager/adult, then back to childhood. 1 star


Yes, I read 8 books this week. I am on a roll. And I don't know if you noticed but a lot of them were on my original January TBR list.

First week Wrap Up

What is it about starting over the year that refreshes my interest in reading? Is it setting a new goal? I'm not sure but whatever it is, I've started and finished 4 books this week. I also DNF'd one.

The first I read was Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It's a graphic novel about growing up in Iran during the war and revolution. It was funny, sad, and enlightening. I gave it 4 stars. I am excited to read the second installment whenever my library gets it in stock.


Next I read Saga Volume 8 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. I preordered it and was ecstatic to receive it in the mail. Once I started it, I didn't put it down until I was finished. It was very good, but not quite as good as volume 7. I gave it 4 stars and am now eagerly waiting for volume 9.


I then picked up I am Malala: The Story of the Girl who Stood up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafszai. I read about 60 pages before deciding to quit. While the concept was interesting to me, the writing was disorganized, was often nonsensical, and overall left me not wanting to pick it back up.


Next I picked up The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I found out she will be coming to my town in the next few months and wanted to read her work before meeting her. I thoroughly enjoyed this book while at the same time feeling incredibly uncomfortable. It is such an important book and really well written. I gave the book 4 stars.

Lastly this week, I picked up The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I had heard a lot of buzz about this book and was worried it was overhyped. It was not. At first glance, it appears to just be women's literature, a cheeky beach read. But it goes much deeper than that. The characters are realistically and beautifully flawed. The love in the story is so authentic and the characters' losses are nearly palpable. It made me sob. It made me angry. I both hated and loved Evelyn Hugo. I gave it 5 stars.

This has been a very strong first week. I'm at a loss as to what to read next because I know I can't keep this streak up forever.