Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

5 Stars

“Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.”

Okay, sit back, I'm going to tell you a bit of a story about me and this book. I bought a copy last year after hearing nothing bu soaring reviews, I was excited. My copy came with the dusk jacket all damaged which was disapPOINTING BOOK DEPOSITORY WHY YOU GOTTA DO ME LIKE THAT. Anyway, I was that excited to read it, hoping it's magical greatness would pull me out of my slump. Now, let me tell you, I'm not a huge fantasy girl and fantasy sure as heck will not get me out of a slump so what I was thinking, I don't know. I need a completely open mind to read fantasy because I have too little patience. So, I read Six of Crows and absorbed absolutely nothing. I didn't even know what to write in my review and somehow I failed to pick up an entire character. So, I reread it because this book is supposed to be mind blowingly good, so I wasn't going to give up that easy. To cut this short, I reread it, I loved it, I actually retained nothing from the first read and I still don't understand how that happened, I expected to recognise some things but alas. So, now I'm going to dive into this review.

I adore the representation in this book, let's get it out of the way, it was great. I know literally every other blogger has said the same thing but here I am, reiterating. Honestly, I think fantasy is perhaps the genre with the least amount of representation which is crazy because authors are literally making up this whole world that can have anything. So, I think this is beautiful and I hope other authors can soon follow in Leigh Bardugo's footsteps. 

The characters are fantastic. In Shadow and Bone, I didn't love the characters but in Six of Crows they were electric. They were basically pouring from the page. I've said it before but characters make a book for me, I could more or less care about what said character is doing but as long as they're a strong character, you can usually tell I'll like it. I particularly love Inej and Nina and Jesper. They were my favourites. They were funny and strong and great characters but they're all so good. They all have stories to tell and they're just so three dimensional. It takes a very good writer to write characters like that.

The world building was something else. It was so vivid and that's something I look for in a fantasy. The world you're writing should be vivid and wonderful and almost real feeling. So, I really appreciated that. The atmosphere was perfect. It was dark and blunt and just perfect. World building is a strong second next to characters for a book, in my own opinion. 

I am dying to read Crooked Kingdom, you wouldn't believe it. The end was epic, the whole book was epic. I highly recommend it, even for those who maybe aren't the biggest fantasy fans. I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said about this book. I'm sure you've all read the reviews. It's a great book and that's from someone whose genre isn't really fantasy. Do yourself a favour and read it if you haven't already.

Books I Swore I'd Read But Still Haven't

Today, I was thinking about all the books I swore I was going to read as soon as they were released but still haven't. There's a lot of them. It's hard for me to get to these new releases since I usually have to actually buy a copy since my library is so small and the YA section is only a couple of shelves big. But, these are all fantastic sounding books that I'm still trying to get to.

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
This has been a read I've been anticipating ever since I first came across it on my twitter feed. I just think it is incredibly relevant at the moment and it's something I've been dying to read. It's about the police shootings and that's something that I can get incredibly passionate about. I'm hoping I'll get to read it soon, I can already tell I'm going to love it.

2. When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
This sounds like such a cute and diverse read. I've been anticipating this for so long and now that it's out I still haven't gotten the chance to read it. It sounds like it's going to be pretty rich in culture which I'm looking forward to. I'm looking forward to reading about a culture that I haven't read about much about before.

3. Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han
I'm straight up mad at myself for this one. I love the All The Boys series so much and when I found out there was going to be a third and final book, I died inside a little. I've been looking forward to reading it so much. And, I still haven't. I can't believe myself. Everyone I know has completely fallen in love with the conclusion to the gorgeously fluffy series and I am dying to read it.

4.We Are Okay by Nina Lacour
I've been kicking myself about this one too. I adored Everything Leads To You by Nina Lacour so when I saw this was coming out, I was so excited. I've seen so many of my favourite blogs loving on this book. I'm really looking forward to it, it sounds like everything I love in a contemporary.

5. Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor
I've heard everyone and their dog raving about this book and hyping about this book. I need to read it and I swore I would. I even got accepted for a copy on Netgalley but the next day it got archived before I got to download it. I was so disappointed. Maybe this is the universe giving me a sign that I should not read this book. But, nevertheless, I've heard nothing but fantastic things about it so I'm really hoping to get to read it sometime soon.

6. Gemina by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman
I loved Illuminae a lot. So, I was super hyped about Gemina. But, it's feels like perhaps an entire eternity since Gemina was released and I still have not read it. I fell in love with the way Illuminae was written and finished it dying to read Gemina but I still haven't managed to read it.

7. Summer Days and Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins
I really liked My True Love Gave To Me and I really like these little anthologies. There are always some absolute gems and I always find a new author to fall in love with. I've been meaning to read this forever, it's got authors I already love and authors I haven't heard of. The cover is gorgeous. I need to read it.

8. History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera
I haven't read one of Adam Silvera's books before but this one was getting so much hype everywhere and I was so excited. I knew I needed to read it but I still haven't and I'm kicking myself for it. Although, I think I may have seen this one at my local library during my last visit so I may be able to get to this one a bit sooner than I'd thought.

Okay, those are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head but I can assure you, there are more. Why must authors put out so many books when there are so many books that I still need to read. I don't have enough time for all these books that I'm still dying to read. Maybe if I spent less time talking about my never ending TBR, I'd actually be able to read some more books from my TBR. Hopefully I'll get around to reading each of these gems soon enough.

September 2017 Wrap Up

Guys, let me tell you. I feel like I blinked and September was over. It is so surreal. I can't believe how quickly the year is going and I am willing it with all my might to slow down.

This month I only read three books which is perhaps the smallest amount I've read in a long time. I read:
- Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

I DNFed a book sometime between the two books because I wasn't into it at all which took up some of my precious reading time. Genuine Fraud was okay, definitely not anything I'd rave about but I didn't dislike it so there's that. Gone Girl was pretty good, I had minor issues but overall, really goo, I enjoyed it. Six of Crows was a reread because the first time I read it I was in such a bad slump and didn't actually absorb a single thing so I reread it because I really wanted to love it and I did this time around so you can look forward to that review.

September has been pretty stressful, not going lie. I usually pride myself on my ability to not let the stress get to me but college is so completely different to high school in the workload and expectations. But, not long to go now and it'll finished until next year when I get to do it all again but this time with even more stress and expectations. I'm really enthused, I don't know if you can tell. But, I'm hoping to write some stress related posts with all the new coping mechanisms I've become reliant on. So, you should look forward to that.

I'm looking forward to October, it's going to be absolutely jam packed with study. It's the last month before final exams so, it'll definitely be study, study, study. I probably won't get around to doing too much reading aside from the texts from my English text which I'll be going over so much in an attempt to soak in as much as possible from all four of the texts. But as for recreational reading, that may be hard to come by. But, I'll definitely try to get some in as a bit a relaxer between studying and practising and everything else I've got to be doing.

I think I'll leave it there for now. I hope you've all had a great and less stressful September than I did and I hope you got a bit more reading in than I did. I'd love to know what you read. I wish you all a happy and comfortable October.

Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray

4 Stars

“Ten thousand skies, and a million worlds, and it still wouldn’t be enough for me to share with you. Nothing less than forever will do.”

I love this world. I love that we got to see a bit more of it in this second book and gain a bigger and better understanding of how it works.

This was a big and explosive sequel to A Thousand Pieces Of You which I also adored. It was literally filled of action. And so many different dimensions. It was wonderful. I was always so excited to see what dimension Marguerite was going to jump into next.

It focused heavily on the relationship between Paul and Marguerite. The dimensions making it even harder for Marguerite to decode all the feelings she has for Paul. It was quite interesting to see how it all unfolded between them even if Marguerite's Paul wasn't present through the large majority of the book.

My one flaw for this book would be, the way the author switches from present time to the past by the drop of a hat. Especially at the beginning. I understand the author is trying to get across as much information as she can but it's difficult to understand when she's jumping from present time to a past memory. The transition wasn't as smooth as it could've been. I think this could be a great info dumping tool if done well, unfortunately this wasn't done all that well.

Another small flaw that has nothing to do with the actual author themselves, I love Theo. I really, really want Theo to be with Marguerite in the end. Theo is absolutely gorgeous and Paul is just not my type at all. Obviously, Marguerite is but I am not. I want more Theo action.

But, asides from my massive love of Theo. I loved everything else about this book. I don't often read Science Fiction but this makes me want to read more of it. I love the idea of dimensions and I'm so excited to explore more of that in the next and final book. I think this was a brilliant and excited sequel and it left me hardly able to contain my excitement for A Million Worlds With You.

The TBR Spot No. 2

Okay, so this one is a little bit of a cheat since I started reading it about twenty minutes ago. But, I've been meaning to read Gone Girl ever since the trailer for the film was released. I got a copy back in June and it's just been sitting on my shelf waiting to be picked up. I'm really looking forward to it, I've been on a bit of a thriller kick ever since I read You by Caroline Kepnes. I've heard nothing but good things about Gone Girl and I've heard Gillian Flynn is a pretty great author.
 I think it would be really cool to watch the film after reading the book and do some comparison. The trailer looks pretty good and I still can't believe I've managed to hold out from watching it. But, I really wanted to read the book first.
I'm really excited and I'll hopefully really enjoy it because I'm already eyeing off Gillian Flynn's other books. But, I'm sure you'll find out if I love it or not very soon, probably in the form of a gushing review.

Cress by Marissa Meyer

4 Stars

"Bending his head, Kai presses his lips to her knuckles. The plating had no nerve endings, and yet the touch sent a tingle of electricity along her arm."

Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles. The series takes fairy tale retellings and puts a scifi twist on them. Each book introduces a new character and follows the plot of a different fairy tale. Cress is the third of four books, following from Scarlet.

God, I loved this. This is quickly becoming one of my favourite series'. Cress might be my favourite one yet, it was really great.

Okay, I loved Cress. She reminds me of myself a bit. She is such a strong girl. She is so thoughtful and just wonderful. One of my favourite things about the Lunar Chronicles is the powerful women. I love that is really is about the girls and the guys are just along for the ride. It's very empowering. All the girls are so strong and independent. I love how Cinder takes control and Cress tries her hardest all the time. It's great. I love it.

 Cress was jam packed with action. But not an overwhelming amount of action. Just enough. I think Marissa Meyer does a great job of packing her books with action and just the right amount of romance on the side. That is one woman who knows what I'm about. I love the scifi factor. I didn't think I was a fan of scifi until I started this series. Turns out I love scifi. Cress has set up a fantastic start for Winter, the final book. I think it's really important for predecessors of the final book in a series to do that. They need to build up to an electric last book. They need to create excitement and drama. Cress has done that fantastically and I am thrilled about it.

Honestly, I don't have much else to say. I'm basically holding out from giving this a 5 star rating because I want to save it just in the case that the final book Winter blows me out of the water. And, I'm predicting it will. I'm excited. I absolutely love The Lunar Chronicles so far and hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on Winter soon. It keeps on getting better and it's shaping up to be one hell of a series.

DNF-ing: A Discussion

It's been ages since I've done a discussion post and this has been on my min recently. I don't often DNF books. I just hate leaving them unfinished but, I've been doing it a lot more recently. If a book doesn't grab me in a reasonable amount of time, I just don't have patience for it anymore. I just DNFed a book today because I just wasn't feeling it. So, it's something I'm doing a lot more often.

I think I've started to just have less patience with books I don't like. I don't get a lot of time these days to read so when I do, it's like it's frustrating for me if I'm wasting my reading time on crappy books. Which is almost a theme with everything nowadays. With so little time in my days I don't like wasting my time doing things that aren't productive somewhat and for me, reading books I don't enjoy is counter productive. 

As I said, I don't really like to DNF books. It just feels every unsatisfactory. But, I'm trying to bring myself to be more comfortable with it so I don't end up forcing myself through books I don't want to read. And, I'm also a huge mood reader so I can get half way through books and just become uninterested because I suddenly want to read a high-action fantasy or something. So, why not just put it down and pick something else up. But, no, because my brain tells me I must finish every book I
pick up. 

DNF-ing for me, is really about quality and enjoyment. Which is something I struggle with especially with my blog because I want to read things to review for the blog or because everyone else in the blogosphere is reading it. Which sometimes takes enjoyment out of it so in my reading I'm trying to think a little less about the blog and letting myself DNF reads and not force myself through for the sake of a review. DNF-ing is all about being able to read the things you want and not waste time with crappy books. I want to read good books that I enjoy because I don't have a lot of time to read anymore so when I do read I want it to be good. 

So, I don't know. Maybe DNF-ing books is less of a big thing for everyone else. I'm trying to make it less of a thing for myself so I can get maximum enjoyment out of my life. I just don't really have time to be reading books that are unsatisfactory. So, I guess I want to know, what are your feelings on DNF-ing? Do you do it? Do you like doing it?