two friends and too many books
**Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Romanov by Nadine Brandes is an alternate history version of the execution of the Romanov family, the last royal family of Russia with magic.
March has come to an end. I have no idea where the time went, but here we are getting ready for April. This wasn’t my best reading month, and I seem to recall that last March I read almost thirty books. So this month wasn’t quite that, but considering I took a lengthy vacation where I visited one of my best friends in the world and had minimal time to read, I did pretty good. This month I read 20 books, and I will say on the whole that it was filled with some really good reads. My lowest rated book was two stars, and I had several five star reads. Without further ado, let’s just get into the breakdown of what I read in March.
Let me first say that I really loved Hex Hall. So in reading this second book in the series I didn’t expect any less from Rachel Hawkins… I was not disappointed! Even though it was set in London, there was not a lot of mention of the actual city (minus some tourist stuff), but it didn’t really bother me. I was so engrossed with the story of Sophie getting to know her dad, plus the whole mystery of “who’s making the new demons” that I didn’t miss much else.
Where do I begin with this book? It had been on my “to read” shelf for a long time and I finally found it at the main branch of my local libraries. I can successfully say I was not disappointed one bit!
***Disclaimer: I received a free early access copy of The Sword and the Dagger by Robert Cochran from NetGalley and Tor/Forge for review purposes. Thanks so much!
What initially drew me to this book was the title and cover. Once I read the summary, the historical fiction aspect drew me in, especially since takes place during the Crusades which is a time period you just don’t see much of in young adult fiction.
***Disclaimer: I received a free early access copy of Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for review purposes. Thank you so much!
Wicked Saints is one of the most anticipated reads of the year with good reason. It’s been compared to Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse, but I feel like that’s where the surface similarities end. The world in Wicked Saints is very eastern European inspired and also very dark, which is extremely fitting.
I have never read a Chuck Palahniuk book before. Many of my friends have a really love his stuff so I finally bit the bullet and got one. All of his books are rather intense and make you think. Lots of irony and there’s a lot of social messages in them. Beautiful You was no exception by far.
Ace of Shades
Ace of Shades was advertised to me as one thing, and then it turned out that the thing it was advertised was a super tiny part of the book. I was really, really looking forward to the scenario described in the synopsis, the shadow game, and it was barely a part of the whole story. That being said, I still really enjoyed the book, but I just felt like it wasn’t completely what it was advertised and that was disappointing to me.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
I read this one because the movie was coming out and I thought that I ought to read the book before the movie came out. I wasn’t expecting much because I was in this place where I wasn’t feeling YA contemporary, but this one just blew me out of the water. I was obsessed with the story and read it really quickly. I loved, loved, loved it. It was sooo cute and Lara Jean was a fantastic protagonist. It made me really rethink me thoughts on YA Contemporary, and made me open my mind a bit more!
I had a pretty good reading month to start off 2019, because in January I read 19 books. That was completely unintentional but seemed appropriate in hindsight. I really, really enjoyed almost all of the books I read this month. None of them were super disappointing. Additionally, I did really well on my TBR for the month of January. I read all of the things that I put on it, with several extras that weren’t on it. I even read a couple of brand new releases that I had been anticipating, which is always super fun. Most of the books I read were audiobooks this month, but I had several physical books along with one eBook and one graphic novel. Below is the list of books I read, and I’ll give you my rating, the format in which I read it, and a quick review. So without further ado… Here we go!