Read in October

Hiya, sadly my predictions of October being a busy month was true. I did try to read as much as I could and honestly I am not that surprised, even though I 'should' have read more. Unfortunately I had to return a ton of books to the library which means no picture this month.

Okay here we go!

# of books read: 5

- Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
- Meet Cute by [several authors]
- Jilted by Lilah Suzanne
- That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston
- Till minne av en villkorslös kärlek by Jonas Gardell~

~ denotes an ARC

Best book of the month: Meet Cute! For a collection of short stories, it was surprisingly good and I loved a lot of these stories. A ton of them were very cute!

Worst book of the month: That Inevitable Victorian Thing simply because it was pretty boring and lacked a proper plot.

The 20 questions book tag

Hey guys, I know I haven't been around much lately because real life and everything that surrounds it has been crazy lately and therefore these coming weeks I won't promise you two updates a week but rather one. I don't have anything much to post lately, I haven't finished that many books due to crazy IRL things and the one book I finished I really don't have enough thoughts on for me to write an entire review of it? I have two posts coming for you next week though, one about what books I read in October and another one about what books I want to read in November. In the meanwhile, I found a fun book tag on Goodreads and decided to give it a go. I LOVE tags/other challenges like this so I couldn't pass up on it!

Here we go, with the '20 questions book tag' as per Goodreads: 


1. How many books is too many books in a book serie?

Hm, I tend to steer clear of series, especially ones that contain a lot of books (ironically, the enitre Discworld series is on my TBR...) because I feel like I've never been able to find a series where the quality stays the same throughout it. I think most series survive three books before the quality starts going downhill (even though there clearly are exceptions). So, anything above three books? Maybe.

2. How do you feel about cliffhangers?

They're the bane of my existence. I mean, if you end a chapter on a cliffhanger I'm guaranteed to continue reading your book but one of my pet peeves is if a book ends on a huge one, mainly because I'll have forgotten parts of the story by the time the next book comes out and then the impact of an epic cliffhanger is somewhat lost on me.

3. Hardcopy or paperback?

Paperbacks all the way! To be honest, I don't love hardbacks. They're usually very heavy and hard to carry around, and honestly what's even the point of owning a book if you can't bring it with you on the go?

4. Favorite book?

I'm going to limit myself to five books/book series here, otherwise I could keep going all day. The Harry Potter series, the Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda series, the entire Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar series, The Secret History, Brideshead Revisited. But again, I could go on forever.


5. Least favorite book?

Hm, there's a specific type of boy meets girl YA romance that I really cannot stand. Basically where weird, nerdy guy meets a dream manic pixie girl and yeah, romance happens. Think books like anything by John Green. So I guess it's a trope that I hate more than a book in particular.


6. Love triangles, yes or no? 

Usually a no. Polyamory is something entirely different for me, though. That I do love but regular love triangles are boring!

7. The most recent book you just couldn’t finish?

I usually force myself to finish books but that would probably be Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. It was too heavy for me in the sense that the book was so packed with information and I was confused because pretty much all characters had the same name. Which was a shame, because I usually love historial fiction!

8. A book you’re currently reading?

'Till minne av en villkorslös kärlek' by Jonas Gardell. I'll probably finish it tonight, though. 

9. Last book you recommended to someone?

I'll Be Gone In The Dark by Michelle McNamara to a friend of mine yesterday. 

10. Oldest book you’ve read? (Publication date)

I know it's technically a play but probably something by Shakespeare.

11. Newest book you’ve read? (Publication date)

Pick any of the ARCs I've read.

12. Favorite author?

Donna Tarrt, J.K. Rowling, Julie Murphy, Patrick Ness, Shaun David Hutchinson, Becky Albertalli, Adam Silvera, Nina LaCour.

13. Buying books or borrowing books?

I tend to borrow a lot of the books I read from the library!

14. A book you dislike that everyone else seem to love?

The Hunger Games.

15. Bookmarks or dog-ears?

Bookmarks all the way!

16. A book you can always reread?

Harry Potter obviously!

17. Can you read while hearing music?

Yes! I often listen to music while reading. 

18. One POV or multiple POV’s? (POV’s = Point of views)

I tend to prefer one POV.

19. Do you read a book in one sitting or over multiple days?

Usually over multiple days because I very rarely have time to finish a book in one sitting.

20. Who do you tag?

Anyone who wants to do this, I guess?

Review: Jilted [ARC]

TITLE: Jilted

AUTHOR: Lilah Suzanne
RELEASE DATE: November 8 2018

RATING: ★★★

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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Guys, do you have any tropes that you like extra much? For me, I could list at least 10 of my absolute favorite ones. One of my most liked one is the trope that is fake dating and while that is awesome, I wasn't prepared for this book because this is fake honeymoon. Which is even better, for obvious reasons.

In this book, you're following Carter, who's traveled to New Orleans to attend a wedding with his soon-to-be-husband, Matthew. One half of the couple getting married, Jamie, is Matthew's ex and long story short, the reason Matthew even wanted to attend the wedding was because he hoped that would give him a chance to win Jamie back. All said and done, Jamie dumps her partner, Link, on the altar and takes off with Matthew. This leaves Link and Carter to themselves, and they end up going out and getting really drunk together, which then leads to them going back home to sleep things off at Link's wedding suite and from there on, people assume Carter is Jamie and they pretend to be a newly wed couple in order to enjoy couple things that were already paid for.

All in all, this was a very light and quick read that didn't have much going on in it, neither in terms of character development or in terms of plot but it was very cute and fluffy and exactly what I needed right now. I usually need my books to be somewhat realistic and while this wasn't, not fully, I did really enjoy it still.

I really liked Carter as a character, although I wanted to kick his butt for not admitting his feelings for Link earlier. Link was...vague. They're an artist and I know half the point of their character was to be  ~mysterious, I still feel like their character could have been elaborated on a little bit more. Their relationship was cute and healthy and contained only a moderate amount of relationship angst, which suited the overall tone of this story. Also, I shipped them like mad. Hashtag #iwillgodownwiththisship. Paige, Carter's sister, could also have used a little bit more work because she comes off as slightly one-dimensional at times.

Aditional things I liked about this story was the fact that the LGBT rep in this book was incredible and very diverse, and that Link was a nonbinary character, which is something I've never read before. However, for some reason this book was marketed as m/m, which it isn't. Personally, that error surprised me but didn't really disappoint me. I just wanted to alert any future readers so that they know what to expect of this book.

I think my thoughts on this book could be summarized as "while maybe not the most rememberable book ever, it's cute and fluffy and also it gave me a new favorite trope".

My current waiting list at the library: October 2018

Hi guys,

I just decided to try something new for you. I don't know if I've told you this but recently I've been on a library kick of epic proportions, meaning I've made reservations for several books at my local library. I live in what is defined as 'Greater Stockholm' and while my local library sucks, the larger library fairly close to me does have quite a good stock of books. Most importantly, the larger library lets you request books from the whole entire Stockholm area and then they have them shipped to you. I don't know about you guys, but I am totally about that life. Requesting books is free as long as what you request is YA (adult list costs like, a dollar a book, for some reason). Since I am a big fan of libraries and getting books from them, I've decided to share my current waiting list at my local library with you. I know that it is small; however, I am really looking forward to reading all these books.



1. Till minne av en villkorslös kärlek ("In Memory of an Unconditional Love") by Jonas Gardell

So, as a rule I don't review nor do I normally even talk about Swedish books on this blog but I guess I got to make an exception for Jonas Gardell. He's my favorite Swedish author and he wrote my favorite series of books ever called Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar ('Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves'), which deals with the AIDS epidemic in Stockholm in the 1980s. Jonas is mainly a comedian but sometimes turned author too, and his novels mainly always deal with the same three topics; religion, homosexuality and otherness. This book I believe is a tale of life with his own mother and I can't wait to read it, because God knows I've been wanting to read a new book by him for years.


2. What If It's Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli 

So, both Becky and Adam are two of my all time favorite authors and I might have yelled several times when I got updates on this book (both when I first heard it was a thing, when the cover was released and when I saw that my local library had bought it). I don't really know what it's about other than it features two boys falling in love at a post office(?) and lot of references to pop culture. The reviews of this I've seen haven't been very good but I remain hopeful still because I want to believe that my favorite authors writing together equals actual perfection.


3. Darius The Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

All I know about this book is that it's about an Irani-American guy who travels to Iran? I think the MC is gay, of color and overweight which is something you very rarely see in YA MLM novels. Honestly, I don't need to know more about this book because what I know is enough to suck me in and want to read it, haha.


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So guys, that's it. I can't wait to actually go pick my books up and read them!

Review: Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Triology #1) by Robin Hobb

TITLE: Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy #1) 

AUTHOR: Robin Hobb

RELEASE DATE: May 1995

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This read is something rare for me; it's an adult, high fantasy novel which also happens to be part one of a trilogy. These are all things in books I normally tend to avoid; not always, but quite often. However, this one I'm really glad I picked up.

From what I've seen, this book has been heavily compared to Game of Thrones, which I get since both series are roughly the same genre and also roughly the same type of high fantasy. However, Assassin's Apprentice is way more enjoyable to me than Game of Thrones is, mainly because it's less bloody, less violent, less misogynist for absolutely no reason and has less of an abundance of characters. Game of Thrones just got super confusing for me after a couple of novels because too many characters got added in. However, in Assassin's Apprentice, the story focuses on a (to me) perfect number of characters and the story is only ever told from one character's perspective, which helps me understand the story.

My usual struggle with high fantasy is that it's very compact and therefore sometimes a little bit boring. Don't get me wrong, this book is at times a bit dense but it manages to stay on this side of boring. Instead, once I got properly into this story I got an highly thrilling tale of assassination and politics and I'm definitely planning on continue this. I really appreciate the lack of romance in this novel, too. I will definitely be continuing this series.

Meet Cute: Some People Are Destined To Meet

TITLE: Meet Cute: Some People Are Destined To Meet

AUTHOR: [various]

RELEASE DATE: January 2 2018

RATING: ★★★★

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This collection of short stories is created around the trope of ‘meet cute’, i.e. a way of introducing love interests to each other in fiction in a very simple, almost lazy way, and let me tell you, this is one collection that I didn’t know I needed in my life but damn, I do. This was very, very cute in an enjoyable way, not in a too sweet kind of way. I am going to review each short story individually but I’m just going to preface this review by saying that this book got the mix of characters absolutely spot on, there were quite a lot of characters of color, quite a few (surprisingly many!) sapphic characters, and even a lesbian trans character. Honestly, I always have a hard time rating collections of short stories since my opinion tends to change quite a lot between stories. This is one of the best collections of short stories I have ever read because there were no stories that were awful. The amount of heterosexual cringe was kept to a minimum and I even swooned over some of the heterosexual characters. Most of these stories would be considered contemporary YA, but this collection did contain some scifi stories too.

As for the reviews of each individual story, here we go:

1. Siege Etiquette by Katie Cotogno

Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis: Queen Bee Hailey is stuck in a bathroom with loser boy Wolf during a police crack down at a house party they both attend. The backstory was wonderfully sad and I really enjoyed the writing and setting but Hailey got on my every last nerve.



2. Print Shop by Nina LaCour

Rating: 3½ stars
Synopsis: Evie works in a print shop where she’s assigned handling a messed up order for a girl called Lauren. Nina LaCour is one of my all time favorite authors and I love her sapphic girls. This short story didn’t disappoint whatsoever, the overall LGBT representation was incredible but I wish the focus of this story would have been more on the girls’ romance and less on the setting of the print shop.


3. Hourglass by Ibi Zoboi

Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis: Cherish is a Black girl living in a very white town and she deals with racism, body shaming and her annoying ‘best friend’ while dreaming of getting out of there. I loved the main character and if this ever was turned into a full length novel, I’d read it.


4. Click by Katherine McGee

Rating: 2 stars
Synopsis: In a world where an app decides who you should go on a date with, Alexis is set up on a blind date with Raden. Me being no fan of scifi didn’t like this premise hence my rating, but this short deserves praise for letting girls in YA have no strings attached sex.


5. The Intern by Sara Shepard

Rating: 3 stars
Synopsis: A girl interning for a record label meets and falls for a famous singer songwriter. The writing was okay but this story didn’t leave a lasting impression on me, as is always the case with me and Sara Shepard’s stories. 

6. Somewhere That’s Green by M Russo

Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis: trans girl Nia is denied her rights to go to the bathroom at school by the parents of closeted, deeply religious lesbian, Lexi. I would have loved to have seen the premise explored more in depth in a longer story because as of right now it feels sort of rushed. Also yikes at how ‘transgender’ was being used as a noun. I did love Nia as a character though, she was BAMF!

7. The Way We Love Here by Dhonielle Clayton

Rating: 2 stars
Synopsis: Viola lives on an island where you’re born with marks on your finger that shows who you’re going to fall in love with and end up with for the rest of your life. This story was not my cup of tea since I am no big fan of these kinds of plots but there was nothing objectively wrong with the story. 

8. Oomph by Emery Lord

Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis: two sapphic girls meet each other at an airport after having gotten stranded due to a storm. I did love this one and it hit me right in the feelings, but in a good way!

9. The Dictionary of You and Me by Jennifer Armentrout.
Rating: 2 stars
Synopsis: A girl working at a library start talking to a boy. Not very rememberable and a little bit cringey in my opinion.

10. The Unlikely Likelihood of Falling in Love by J Davies

Rating: 5 stars
Synopsis: A girl bases her AP stats project on the probability of seeing a particular guy on the subway in NYC. This was very cute! I do love me some intelligent STEM girls, too.


11. 259 Million Miles Away by Kass Morgan
Rating: 3 stars
Synopsis: Two people compete to travel to Mars and get locked into a chamber for 24 hours to see if they could survive a trip to Mars without killing each other. I didn’t really care for the romance but I liked the premise.

12. Something Real by Julie Murphy

Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis: Two girls enter a dating show on TV to win a date with a famous musician. I always like whatever Julie Murphy writes and the fact that this was a sapphic story made it even better.


13. Say Everything by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Rating: 2 stars
Synopsis: A waitress crushes on a boy she serves at work. Nothing about this stood out to me unfortunately and I found it somewhat boring.

14: The Department of Dead Love by Nicola Yoon

Rating: 2 stars
Synopsis: In this story which is set in a near future, a boy goes to a department that’s responsible to figure out why your relationship ended. Again, I am not much for scifi and I found this boring and sort of cheesy. It’s me and not the story, though.

Theme: series I need to continue, part III

Hi guys,

it's finally time for my third and last installment of my series of series I want to continue. Here we go!


- A Closed And Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers

This is the second installment of this series and I know the third one was released earlier this year. I got this second one upon finishing the first one and then never got around to reading this. I am not that big of a fan of science fiction but I really enjoyed the first book in this series, which follows the crew of a space ship as it navigates through space. I remember it being super character driven and not a whole lot of things happened in the actual book but it didn't bother me. All I know about this novel is that it follows Lovelace, the ship's artificial intelligence, which should make for an interesting read!

- A God In Ruins (Todd Family #2) by Kate Atkinson

I read the first novel in this series called Life After Life this summer and enjoyed it tremendously. While that novel is pretty much a historical scifi that follows a girl who is born, dies and is reborn until she gets something right, this novel appears to have very little to do with Life After Life. This novel follows the main character Ursula's younger brother, Teddy, as he nagivates life in 20th century England. I am still really looking forward to reading this novel though.


- Harry Potter, The Prequel (Harry Potter 0.5) by J.K. Rowling

This is a reminder to myself to finally read all the short Harry Potter stories that were published on Pottermore! For some reason I never got around to doing it even though I love Harry Potter.


- The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #13) by Alexander McCall Smith

I know I've missed literally 7 or so novels in this series. I read the first 13 of them which is a feat in and of itself. I probably should continue this cozy detective series at some point, maybe if I'm home sick or something but honestly it's definitely not a top priority for me.

To be read in October

# of adult lit books: 2

# of YA lit books: 2

# of books I own: 1

# of library books: 2

- Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
I've already started this novel, and am around 20% into it. It's an adult high fantasy where you're following the Prince's bastard that's brought to the royal castle and trained to become an assassin.


- Meet Cute by [several different authors]
This is a YA romance short story collection featuring stories built around the 'meet cute' trope. Yes, please sign me up etc.


- The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding

This is a YA contemportat wlw romance and I'm so looking forward to this one.


- That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston

This is a magical realism take on what happened if the British Empire never fell, basically.

- Jilted by Lilah Suzanne [E-ARC]

I got approved for this ARC, which is an adult lit novel featuring two guys falling in love. I requested it because it had fake dating AND second chance romance!!

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Here's to a good reading month! Work is going to be crazy busy these coming months, hence why I only put five books on my TBR this month.