January Wrap Up

I’m pretty proud of my efforts this month! I completed all the books on my TBR as well as one extra from last month and the Harry Potter book I got through! I had some great reading experiences this month and I have found some books that are definitely sneaking their way up my list of all time favs.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin⭐️4.5/5 stars

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han⭐️3.75/5 stars

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh⭐️4.5/5

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson⭐️5/5 stars

Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend⭐️4.5/5 stars

The Wicked King by Holly Black – ⭐️2.75/5 stars

Wundersmith by Jessica Townsend⭐️4.5/5 stars

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

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell – ⭐️2.5/5 stars

Dance of Thieves by Mary E Pearson⭐️4.5/5 stars

Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling ⭐️5/5 stars

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Dance of Thieves Review

Dance of Thieves_FINAL 9.18Bit of a slow start but it definitely ensnared me in the end!

Kazi is a reformed thief who has worked her way up to become one of the Queen of Verdan’s esteemed Rahtan soldiers. Jase is the new patriarch of the Ballenger dynasty after the shocking, sudden death of his father. Kazi is sent by the Queen on a secret mission to find and capture a wanted war criminal and Jase and the Ballenger family are believed to be harboring the fugitive.

Like I said it started off a little slow and confusing for me. We are kind of thrown straight into the story with lots of different names and locations and it took me around the first 100 pages or so to be situated in the storyline.

Kazi is a wonderful character. I love that she is so competent and sure of herself, yet she still carries those feelings and memories of her youth with her and uses them to strengthen herself. To see where she has come from and how dire and desperate her situation was to the bright, daring, dangerous woman she is now is admirable! She is very multifaceted and is quite unique I feel as the main female protagonist.

I love how committed Jase is to his family and his oaths as the Patrei. We see how engrained it is in his demeanor and actions throughout the course of the book. I like how we get to know the real Jase before we see the Patrei side and how they differ. Another character that is complex and rooted around the concept of family and loyalty and trust. Once that is broken there is no turning back with the Ballengers.

I also appreciate how the romance aspect plays a role in the story, it isn’t just written in for the sake of it. I kind of like the hate to love trope but throwing the backstory of the characters and the situational timing really made me invested. I thought it came across as genuine and made sense in terms of the plot. It carried a lot of action forward and created some intense, awkward and charged scenes.

The actual storyline was fantastic. All of the history of the town and the family and all of the secrets really kept me intrigued and eager to read on. Once you surpass that 100-page mark the pace really picked up and you get swept away. I really made a connection with these characters and I was highly invested in their missions. I kind of didn’t want the book to end, I just wanted to keep reading and find out what’s going to happen next!

⭐️4.5/5 stars Gripping, engaging, a wonderful read!

Dance of Thieves

img_2764I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Remnant Chronicles as I gave all of the books 3 stars. There wasn’t really anything wrong with them, I just didn’t connect with the characters or the plot all that well. I did really enjoy how much the world expanded over the course of the series and the political intrigue was very interesting to read which is predominately why I decided to pick up Dance of Thieves. I think having a different set of characters with a new fresh plot has intrigued me enough that I want to read it. I also really like the premise of having a reformed master thief, it really keeps the stakes high and makes for more of a fast paced book which is more my style. Also this cover is absolutely beautiful, one of the prettiest on my shelves that’s for sure.

Happy Reading📚

January TBR

Its a New Year 😱! I had a great reading year in 2018 and I want to continue on with my momentum into the new year with some new releases as well as continuing my journey in catching up on some cult favourites! So with that being said my TBR for January is:

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh

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The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

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Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

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The Wicked King by Holly Black

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Nevermoor and Wundersmith by Jessica Townshend

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The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

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To all the boys I’ve loved before by Jenny Han

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Dance of Thieves by Mary E Pearson

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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.