January Wrap-Up

Wahey there! How’s everyone? It’s a late wrap-up, but it’s here!

Life Updates

I flew back to South Africa on the 3rd of Feb! I’m here until June and then will be flying back to Melbourne for my cousin’s wedding and then probably back to South Africa. I thought I was going to read like 5 books on the plane and then, uh, only finished Tweet Cute…

But still!! I finished a book!

And the first week back home was trying to deal with all the jetlag – being tired by 2/3 pm because it was about midnight in Melbourne and then I’d randomly wake up at 3 am because it’s noon over there. But now I’m good! Coffee of course, helps.

Books I dnfed

I usually do a mini-review of the books I’ve dnfed, but decided to add them here and a quick review of why I’ve chosen not to read them further. Please note that just because I didn’t finish a book doesn’t mean it’s not a good book or that you won’t enjoy it. It just means that I didn’t like it.

Odd One Out by Nic Stone

• I dnfed this very early on – didn’t think I even reached 20%
• I didn’t like any of the main characters – couldn’t connect with them – which I think is a very important thing in a book.
• I also didn’t like the narration or how the characters spoke with each other – which is another reason why I didn’t choose to carry on with the book.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

• I lent this book from a friend who really liked it so I tried finishing it (and probably could’ve, but I was so busy with packing so I just…didn’t finish it. I could’ve, definitely could’ve, but by then I just didn’t have the motivation to finish it.
• I understand that the book is set in extremely sad and really bad times – I know, I studied history in high school, I know all that. But I had no interest in the characters? They were…boring? Is that rude to say of characters in a concentration camps? Probably. Definitely.
• I read that it was originally a script and you could definitely tell that, because it was very dialogue-centered, but even the dialogue wasn’t enough to want me to keep reading.
• And the way they did all the transition scenes (so many) was too fast to gauge a good understanding of everything.

The Thousand Steps by Helen Brain

• I admit, I had high expectation for this novel because it was set in Cape Town – which is close to where I live and I am always up for reading books set in my province (similar to a state). After reading a bit of this, I should have lowered my expectations.
• It wasn’t necessarily a bad book and I did like the main character most of the time, I just couldn’t deal with her actions and emotions.
• Like a lot of the plot (or at least I’m guessing, since I didn’t even finish it), revolves around Ebba and this guy – who she thinks is THE MOST PERFECT AND WONDERFUL AND BEAUTIFUL GUY SHE’S EVER SEEN whenever he does something like open a door or smile and that’s when a little big part of me went 👎👎👎👎 because honestly, I thought we were past the whole his eyes looked at me and I just decided that even if he killed my whole family and my dog I would still marry him.
• There was also a lot of sexism – ‘oh, you’re a girl, you can’t do this or you only need to worry about this’ blah blah blah, another reason for not finishing it. Like there was literally this quote of: All you’ve got to do is learn how to be a good wife and catch a husband and my reaction was: Not to be dramatic or anything but I’d rather die. Why yes, I did have fun reacting to the quotes.
• There was also the trope of ‘seemingly plain girl gets a makeover and suddenly everyone, including her crush loves her’, which I’m very much not for (though some stuff do get it right).

 

Books I read

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

• I FINALLY read the book after having seen the movie like twice or something?
• Unfortunately I didn’t rate it 5 stars, and just 4 stars, because I did not like Simon’s friends and especially how they reacted to Simon sometimes.

The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees 

• I was actually near to dnfing this when I decided I’ll just keep on reading it. AND I WAS RIGHT IN DOING SO
• I ended up LOVING this book and it’s so great and spooky and mind-blowing, please read.

Release by Patrick Ness

• I finished this all nicely on the first of January (Which feels like a year ago now, seriously)
• And reader – I loved this book. The characters, the plot, the spooky, near-magical happenings; great, great, great.

 

My posts

2020 Reading Challenges I’ll be Tackling!

What I Watched This Month: End of Month (December)

Anticipated Releases Book Tag || Why are so many good books coming out this year?

Black Badges || Badges and badges and is it too late to become a spy?

Best Books of 2019 || More books than I anticipated!

What I Watched This Month: Mid-month (January)

Poetry Mini-Reviews #2

A Spark of White Fire || Space Opera and a fantastic warship we should all love

WWW Wednesday #4

A House of Rage and Sorrow || Basically my feelings throughout this entire book

What I Watched This Month: End-of-Month (January)

 

And that’s all for this month (meaning January! So basically last month). I haven’t finished other books this month but that’ll hopefully change soon!