I just want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Month: December 2021
Series I completed in 2021
These are all the series that I have either read all the books this year or read the last book in the series that was published this year! I haven’t included any series that have unreleased books still, I will just add them onto future lists!
The Devouring Gray Duology by Christine Lynn Herman
The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty
Empirium Series by Claire Legrand
An Ember in the Ashes Series by Sabaa Tahir
Shattered Realms Series by Cinda Williams Chima
Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
Cursebreakers Series by Brigid Kemmerer
Fable Duology by Adrienne Young
All the Stars and Teeth Duology by Adalyn Grace
The Aurora Cycle by Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufman
The Mirror Visitor Quartet by Christelle Dabos
Disappointing Books of 2021
This is five books I read this year that disappointed me for one reason or another. These aren’t necessarily books I hated, I just might have been underwhelmed by them or they didn’t live up to the hype.
My most disappointing books are:
Aurora’s End by Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufman
This ending wasn’t as impactful and as fulfilling as what I was expecting
Witchshadow by Susan Dennard
The story just veered far from where I thought it headed..
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
This book was really hyped and it took me a long time to get into it
The Storm of Echoes by Christelle Dabos
I was confused and underwhelmed throughout this book
The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence
Another book I was highly anticipating and it fell a little flat
5 Books I Want to Read Update
Back in January I posted about 5 books I really wanted to read in 2021 and now that we are at the end of the year I thought I would post a final update and see how I did! At this stage I’ve completed 3 out of the 5 books and honestly I’m okay with that. This is has been my worst reading year in terms of quantity in a few years and I had a massive reading slump in the middle of it all so I’m quite proud with what I was able to complete. Obviously, I am going to be prioritising the other two books in 2022 and get this list completed!
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
This was a wonderful introduction to this trilogy and I can see now why so many people love this book. The writing was descriptive and the world building was immaculate. All of the characters were distinctive and diverse and the way the storylines merged was masterful. I am kicking myself for putting off reading this book for so long and I am happy to have finally completed it. I have a feeling I am going to be continuing on very soon!
My Rating: ⭐️4/5 stars
The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Multiple timelines and POVs can get a tad confusing for me and it’s hard to keep track of all the characters and who is a host and who isn’t. I have to say as he switches from each host and the days start ticking down the level of urgency felt throughout the plot kept rising. I had no idea at any point in time what was actually going to happen, I had my suspicions but at every twist I was definitely surprised!
My Rating: ⭐️3/5 stars
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
I really enjoyed the format of the book with the countdown to the trivia night. Knowing that one of these characters is now dead and trying to figure out who did it and who died really built up the anticipation. The mystery behind who was the school bully was intriguing and it was entertaining to see these mothers going around gossiping about their lives. This was definitely better than what I was expecting and it was nice to read a book with the setting here in Australia, I don’t get many of those.
My Rating: ⭐️4/5 stars
The other two books I still need to read are:
The Storm of Echoes Review
*SOME SPOILERS AHEAD*
The distrust between them has been overcome and now Ophelia and Thorn love each other passionately. However, they must keep their love hidden. Only in this way can they continue their journeys toward an understanding of the indecipherable code of God and the truth behind the mysterious figure of the Other, whose devastating power continues to bring down entire pieces of arks, plunging thousands of innocents into the void.
Ophelia’s journey to the truth about who the other is was really dragged out throughout the course of this book. I just felt like not a lot happens throughout the course of the storyline even though the book was over 500 pages. We are mainly focused on Babel again and even though we discover more about the Ark and venture into the Observatory we are mainly in Ophelia’s head struggling to figure out how to get to the horn of plenty and who the other is.
We get a few chapters from Victoria’s perspective that I didn’t quite understand. What were the reasons for having them? Sure we get to see the infamous LandmArk and see the interactions between Archibald, Janus and God but I was left more confused than anything. Why was Victoria able to see these things, how did she come to be on the Other side and how did she end up at the bottom of the well for Thorn to find.
I struggled more than anything with a lot of the terminology in this book. I understand that its a translated book but a lot of the phrases of what was happening to Ophelia at the Observatory just didn’t register with me. The concept of the crystallisation creating the echoes and having these revelational moments just went over my head and I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
I think what was the issue is that this book really veered so far away from where I was envisioning the story to go and I was disappointed with how it ended. The fact that Thorn gets stuck in the Other place and we don’t get to see him and Ophelia truly get to live in peace as husband and wife really irritates me after being kept apart or having to pretend they didn’t have feelings for each other this whole time.
This was definitely my least favourite book in this series. I wasn’t all that invested or interested in the direction the plot was going and it took me a while to get through it. If this wasn’t the last book in the series and me being a completionist I probably would of DNF’d it at 30%.
⭐️2/5 stars I’m just disappointed and underwhelmed.
Amy Leigh Reads 