Ship/Pirate Book Recommendations!

One particular trope or setting I have found to consistently enjoy over the last few years are books that involve ships, pirates or just generally travelling over water on an adventure. So I figured I would recommend a few of my favourites if this is something you are also interested in picking up!

5 of my Favourite Ship/Pirate Books are:

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

Fable by Adrienne Young

All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

If you have pirate/ship recommendations for me please let me know, I’m definitely looking for more to read!

December Wrap Up

I’m feeling great about my reading this month! I managed to read nearly all the books on my TBR as well as 2 extra books which put me at 99 books read for 2018!!!  I pretty much loved everything I read in December as well which really topped off my year. I have reviews on all the books I’ve read this month up on my blog so if you would like to see just click on the titles!

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner⭐️4/5 stars

Archenemies by Marissa Meyer⭐️4/5 stars

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor⭐️4/5 stars

Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare⭐️5/5 stars

Shadow Study by Maria V Snyder⭐️4/5 stars

Wildcard by Marie Lu⭐️4/5 stars

Night Study by Maria V Snyder⭐️4/5 stars

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli⭐️4/5 stars

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee⭐️4/5 stars

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K Rowling⭐️5/5 stars

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K Rowling⭐️5/5 stars

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The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy Review

y648I thought this was a solid sequel to The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue!

In this installment we follow Felicity who is currently in Edinburgh trying to find some form of apprenticeship to train to be a physician. However a sudden marriage proposal has thrown her off track and she makes her way to England to try to further her education at a medical school to get her life back together.

I found Felicity to be a very enjoyable character. She I tenacious and driven and isn’t afraid of hard work. I love that we see her strive so hard and fight for what she feels she has earned, despite the fact that she is a woman. I love that Mackenzie Lee has highlighted the plight of woman back in the 18th century. The growth that Felicity undergoes in the plot is wonderful and to see her become more self aware and ok with herself I feel was a great highlight in the story.

Another character I highly enjoyed was Johanna. From her introduction as the societal princess who enjoys parties and dresses and makeup and then to see Felicity’s perception of her change over the course of the book was great. I loved that we see Johanna challenge Felicity multiple times and expose her kind of elitist mentality. The changes in their relationship in the storyline was very well done and I loved how open and honest they were with each other in the end.

Sim was a little bit up and down for me personally. I didn’t really like her for a majority of the book mainly because we didn’t get enough information about her. She was very secretive and pensive for about three quarters of the story. When we finally get her backstory and history about who she is I became a lot more invested in her character and engaged a lot more with her. I thought the relationship between her and Felicity was a little too forced in my opinion. The three girls were already tied together closely by the plot that including that romantic aspect wasn’t really necessary.

This was a very fast paced and action packed with the storyline evolving and changing very organically which kept me turning the pages. I like the little cameos of Percy and Monty they added a lot of witty banter to the dialogue. I thought the story was very unique and adventurous but still has a relevance to present day.

⭐️4/5 stars I honestly didn’t expect to like this as much as I did!

December TBR

The majority of the books on this month’s TBR are books that I need to read to complete/continue on in a few series that I have been loving. I am super excited to read all of these books on the list and I will definitely have more time towards the end of this month to read because the holidays are coming up! I cannot believe that it’s the end of 2018 already, this year has completely flew by!

That being said my TBR for December includes:

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

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Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

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Shadow Study and Night Study by Maria V Snyder

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Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare

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Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

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The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Pirates by Mackenzi Lee

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Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

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Arch Enemies by Marissa Meyer

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Wildcard by Marie Lu

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My lowest rated book of 2018 so far

I double checked all the books I’ve read this year and the lowest rating I gave was a 3/5 stars which is kind of like an ok rating for me. There are actually quite a lot that I gave a 3/5 to but I’ll mostly be bringing up those I haven’t yet spoke about on my blog and I’ll give you like a brief overview of why I didn’t particularly like these books. I didn’t hate any of them at all, there could be varying factors about why I gave them a 3 star rating but I will get into all that below.

$_57__78189.1510015120The first 3/5 star rating was the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series by Rick Riordan. I felt that Magnus was a little bit too juvenile for me at the start of this series; I didn’t quite gel with him as a character in the first book and most of the second. I took me like 2 weeks to finish the Sword of Summer as I couldn’t get into the plot and Magnus just felt like a second rate version of Percy to me. That being said he did redeem himself in the Hammer of Thor and the plot definitely picked up and was more action packed and that was more entertaining as the series continued.

32320661The next book I gave a 3/5 rating was Everless by Sarah Holland. There wasn’t anything inherently bad about this book. I thought the premise was definitely interesting; the thought of time being a currency that you could trade and ingest was highly original. It had a lot of twists and turns and the magic system was nicely detailed and described. It really only got a 3/5 from me because I wasn’t blown away at the end of the book.

220px-TheNightCircusThe 3rd book on my list is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. The Night Circus was just kind of ok for me. The plot wasn’t action packed enough, it was very slow paced. The setting was beautiful and the prose was lyrical and detailed, it wasn’t capturing my attention whilst I was reading it. The ending as well was a bit underwhelming for me and that really influenced my decision to give it a 3/5 stars.

29283884The next book on my list is The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee. The plot was entertaining and fast paced and it was a quick easy read, the only reason I gave it a 3/5 was because I thought Monty to be a bit pretentious. I found him to not be too likeable for me, however, I thought Felicity was quite quirky and enjoyable, Percy also didn’t really leave an impression on me. Although I did enjoy the representation of diversity of characters.

remnant-chronicles-collageThe last series I will be speaking about on my list that I gave all books a 3/5 stars was The Remnant Chronicles by Mary E Pearson. This series includes The Kiss of Deception, The Heart of Betrayal and The Beauty of Darkness. I think at the time I read these books I wasn’t in the mood to read them. I’m the kind of reader where if I start a series and I have all the books in the series in my possession I like to marathon them and get through it as soon as I can. I don’t like to leave them too long because I either end up forgetting half the series or I never get around to finishing. I started the Kiss of Deception and I was like alright not too bad and I pushed through and read the next two books and at the end of them I just didn’t really have any overwhelming feelings. I didn’t really love them, I didn’t really hate them so I averaged my rating out and gave them all a 3/5.