August 2017 Wrap-Up

Hey bookish friends. It’s that time of the month again. Time for a Wrap-Up of all the books I’ve read. This month was alright. I mean I read a lot. But there were none that I just LOVED.  You know what I mean? I’ve been reading a lot of good but not great books. That’s okay though, I will keep on reading.

On the plus side, I participated in a read-a-thon called readathin hosted by acourtofbooksandlove , averybookishgirl, and Jescamarie493 from bookstagram. I hosted reading sprints almost every Wednesday of the month and was able to ready many books on my physical shelves and thin my TBR. I’ll let you know as we go through the books what challenges they applied for. I did complete every challenge though there is some doubling up. Let’s get to this.

1. Kill All Happies by Rachel Cohn

Cute contemporary about recent graduate who decides to throw her graduation class one last party and their favorite diner which was recently put out of business. I enjoyed the audio of this book. It was fun and yet very relatable in the discussion of friendships and life after graduation.  3/5 Stars

This completed the readathin challenge to read a book with a warm colored cover.

2. Because You Love To Hate Me an anthology

This is an anthology of stories all about villains. Each story is a collab between a booktuber and a YA author. For a play by play of my thoughts on each story I suggest checking out my Goodreads. My biggest complaint about this collection is that it was advertised as Villain stories of big name villains and most of them were just randomly thought up villains. My favorite stories were “Beautiful Venom” ,” Death Knell”, and “Marigold”.  4/5 Stars.

This completed the readathin challenge to read a 2017 release and to read a book starting with a letter from TBR.

3. Tokyo ESP

This is about a world where flying fish have given people pyschic powers. It was hard to get through the art and I thought the premise was pretty cool. But the execution just wasn’t too awesome. 3/5 Stars

This completed the Readathin challenge to read a book in 24 hours

4. Written On My Heart by Cole Gibsen

Written on my Heart is about a girl with PTSD who starts falling for her friends’ tattoo artist brother. I love this author’s other books and was highly looking forward to this book. It was just okay. On the plus side I now want a tattoo and there was some real good sexual tension. But I thought the ending happened too quickly and the PTSD wasn’t handled as well as I would have liked. But it was New Adult so what do you expect? 3/5 Stars

This completed the Readthin challenge to Read an Adult/New Adult book and to read a book outside your favorite genre.

5. Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Stardust is about Tristan who goes over the wall and into the fae realm to bring back a falling star for the girl he loves. I really wanted to love this because HELLO Gaiman? But sadly this book really frustrated me. From the writing, to the storyline, to the characters I struggled and struggled. So at 60% I put it down. Because I made it past 50% I did rate it and count it for readathin. 2/5 Stars

This counted for the readathin challenge to read a book with a title or author with the same first letter as the first letter in my name.

6. Paperweight by Meg Haston

Heartwrenching story about a girl with a major eating disorder who plans on killing herself on the anniversary of her brother’s death. TW for Eating Disoders, Suicide, and Self-Harm. But if you can make it through the book I recommend it highly. Its very insightful and well written. The audio is decent but I probably would have read it faster if I’d read my physical copy. 5/5 Stars

This completed the readathin challenge to read a new to you author.

7. Please Ignore Vera Dietz

This is the story of Vera whose ex best friend and love interest Charlie was killed a few months ago. She is now seeing his ghost everywhere and doesn’t know how to deal with her grief. I thought this was a pretty good book and dealt with the topics at hand well. I listened to the audio and very happy with the narrating. 4/5 Stars

This completed the readathin challenge to Read a book related to my favorite emoji . \_(:/)_/

8. Roar by Cora Carmack

I buddy read this book with Booksandthebear and Suey_Library from bookstagram. We were all pretty underwhelmed with this story. It read like a romance novel. A lot of smut and lacking in plot. I originally gave it such a high rating because I liked the idea for the story. It was really unique and hopefully will be better fleshed out in the next novel. I especially enjoyed how the main character’s magic was related to her emotions. I found it very relatable. But if you liked your fantasy novels to come with lots of plot and actual fantasy then I’d stay away from this one. 4/5 Stars.

This completed the readathin challenge to buddy read a book and read a book that is the same color as my birthstone. My birthstone is opal.

 

9. Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

I buddy read Wintersong with Madalyn from NovelInkBlog.We both had pretty strong negative opinions of this book. While we loved the musical aspect of the novel and I personally liked the Gobin King. We also were both incredibly bored throughout most of the book and absolutely hated the main character and her decisions. I should have listened to Julie from Pages and Pens about this one. 2.5 Stars

This completed the readathin challenge to read a diverse book.

10. Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

Grave Mercy is a political fantasy about assassin nuns. It is similar to the video game Assassin’s Creed. I switched back and forth between the audio and the paperback of this one. It was hard to keep up with the names and places listening to the audio. But once I got them down I did enjoy the audio. If you like The political aspect of books like the Winner’s Curse then I recommend this book. 4/5 Stars

This completed the readathin challenge to read a book recommended to you by someone in the book community. The audio was recommended by Katesbookdate.

Then I went to the library and came back with the next two books.

11. Burning by Danielle Rollins

Burning is about a girl in Juvie who is assigned to mentor a new young inmate only to find out that her mentee has pyretic powers. It was really good in the beginning but then the plot started getting out of control and the ending was just blah. 3/5 Stars

12. The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

This is about a girl who years ago, with the help of her best friend, put a man on death row for a crime. Now years later she is questioning the verdict and unsure of what she saw. So the two decide to investigate the case on their own. I had been really looking froward to this book. It definitely had the creepy vibe I like in thrillers. And I was NOT expecting that ending. I knocked it a star because so many of the plots were cheesy or convenient which drove me nuts. 4/5 Stars.

 

13. Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

I listened to the audio of Made You Up which is about a girl who is learning to manage her schizophrenia. At first the narration really bothered me but within a few chapters I have to say I thought it was perfect. This story is hard hitting and so insightful. Alex asks many hard questions like “What is real” and “who defines that?” I didn’t think this one fell into the trap of “My love interest saved me from mental illness.” Rather Alex’s love interest Miles stood out for his response to her illness and utter acceptance and love for Alex as she is. On the negative side it was HARD to like Miles for a good portion of the book. He won’t be making book boyfriend anytime soon. And there were a few things that I found hard to believe or buy into.  Overall I did enjoy it though. 3/5 Stars

This completed the Readathin challenge to read a book with water on the cover.

14. A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas

A Wicked Thing is a Sleeping Beauty retelling about what happens after Aurora wakes up. Is life really ‘Happily Ever After’? I will be the first to admit that the writing in this book wasn’t fabulous. I could tell it was Thomas’ first novel. That being said I was instantly addicted to the story. I am a pretty big fan of retellings and thus had a hard time putting this down. Other reviews will note the lack of feminist ideals in Thomas’ female characters. But I didn’t notice because I was so sucked into the story. It was like a guilty pleasure. Overall I gave it 4/5 Stars

This completed the readathin challenge to read a guilty pleasure read.

15. Kingdom of Ashes by Rhiannon Thomas

This is the sequel to A Wicked Thing. It was pretty disappointing and def not something I enjoyed reading. Aurora started really getting on my nerves and I just couldn’t deal with her. 2/5 Stars

This completed the readathin challenge to start and finish a series.

16. Grit by Gillian French

I listened to this on audio, and do not recommend the audio. It was weird. The book as a whole kinda disappointed me because I was expecting an awesome Mystery Thriller and it was basically just a chill contemporary. There was a small mystery but it wasn’t very intriguing and definitely didn’t push me to keep reading.

This completed the readathin challenge to read a book set in summer and to read a book with a summer themed cover.

Well I had a pretty good reading month even if I didn’t love anything I read. How did your month go? Let me know down in the comments your favorite book you read in the month of August. I hope you’re having a fantastic Friday! TTFN.