Read in December

Hi everyone,

December is finally over! I've had an okay reading month, but I always find that I tend to not have a lot of time to read because Christmas and family obligations and that definietly was the case this month too. But yeah, I've had a good enough month.

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# of books read: 6

-  Thick As Thieves (The Queen's Thief #1) by Megan Whalen Turner
- The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta
- Mangoes and Mistletoes by Adriana Herrera
- No Room At The In by Brooke Winters

- The Hanging Tree (Peter Grant #6) by Ben Aaronovitch
- The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson

Best book of the month: Mangoes and Mistletoes because lesbian, hate-to-love and adorable.

Worst book of the month: No Room At The Inn because BDSM things make me uncomfortable and I accidentally read a short story which such teams. This is definitely a case of "it's not you, it's me" though.

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Happy reading! I'll see you in 2020!

My 8 reading goals of 2020

In 2019, my reading has largely been characterized by me being lazy with my book selections. Most of the time I've happened to walk by a library, walk in there and picked up whatever's caught my eye. Which lead me to mainly read YA contemporary novels this past year. Thus, for this coming year I've decided to challenge myself with reading a bigger variety of books; I've created 8 different reading goals that I want to try to "finish" before the year is over.

Like in 2019, I want to read 50 books. When I was in uni, I could easily read 100 books a year. Nowadays though, I feel like 50 is what I can do without...not doing other important stuff that I have to do in my in real life-life. Now, if you do the math you'll see that my reading goals amount to way more than 50 books. Therefore, to make this challenge more doable, I've decided that it's okay for books to belong in several different categories at once. I mean, my challenge, my rules, am I right?

Now, are you interested in seeing what I'm challenging myself to read in 2020? Then click through and continue reading below!

2020 in books: top 10 most anticipated releases of the year

Okay, so. This hasn't been easy. And I realized just now that this post probably isn't that helpful because many books are part of series and not standalones and whatnot but. I'm going to post this regardless. 

Are you, like me, a fan of thrawling through Goodreads' lists of upcoming releases, and do you also enjoy making and/or reading lists? If so, I bet you're going to enjoy this post! Here I will list my ten most anticipated releases of the coming year, that I know of right now. I tend to discover a lot of new titles as the year progresses (well, duh) so this list will have to make do right now. Some of these titles are obviously really well known but others might actually be new to you!

If you're interested in seeing what releases I'm looking forward to the most and maybe even finding something new to add to your TBR, click through here.

2019 in books: my 5 worst reads of the year.

So, the time has come for me to present to you the five books I've read this year which I disliked the most...

Now, as a disclaimer, I just want to preface this with the fact that this is just my opinion, if you happen to love these books it's perfectly fine, of course! Taste is subjective after all and just because I didn't  like them doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't.

Now, onto the books!

2019 in books: my 5 best reads of the year

So, now the time's finally come for me to annouce my top five best reads of the year!

This is a post I typically love doing; I love going back to and revisiting all books I've read in the year that passed and to give you guys short reviews.  I usually find that picking just five books that were my best reads of the year is hard but this year it came much easier than previous years.

If you want to find out which books ended up on this list, click on through. Oh, by the way, these books are not 'ranked', I couldn't possibly choose a definite favorite so ignore the order in which I present them.

2019 in books: my longlist of books read

Hello everybody,

the time has come for my weirdest wrap up of the year - a full list of books I've read this year! On the off chance that someone's interested in this, I'll post the list under the cut.

2019 in books: a breakdown

If you're a stats nerd like me, you're going to absolutely love this post!

....because in this post I will break down my reading goal into stats. What was the average length of books I read? What was my top genre? How many books by female authors did I read?

If you want to know the answers to these questions, click the link below and you shall find out!

2019 in books: a general overview

2019 in books, or the post where I'm trying to make sense of my year in reading...

So, today is it. This is it. This is where I try to summarize my year in books. Please be aware that my more "serious", stats-heavy post with analyses and stuff of the books I've read will come another day. This is mainly me venting my thoughts...

So, how did it go then?

Now, if I *had* to rate my year in books, I'd probably give it 3 ⋆⋆⋆ simply because I feel like I did try. I hit my reading goal (which was 50 books, as of the date I'm writing this post I've read 55 books), but at the same time I slumped A LOT and overall I feel like I didn't have a lot of luck with my books. I read only a few that were awful but a lot were three-star ratings for me, which is honestly a book that's ranging from being slightly meh to being good but not very memorable. I feel like I genuinely can't tell a lot of the books I've read apart from each other, I don't remember the content to a lot of them and just. There were few that stood out and impressed me. Looking back at my stats, I did enjoy quite a bit of four-star books and even some five star ones, but still, somehow, my thoughts when I look back at the year is that I've read a lot of meh books.

I've sort of hinted at it this year, but I moved in July. To my very first own apartment, that I own myself. The period in which I moved (realistically it took nearly two months), I didn't get much reading done at all. I tried, I really did, but my mind was preoccupied with other things and I simply didn't have time. Now, adjusting to living alone has taken quite a bit of time. I'm only now settling in properly and I've come to realize that living alone and taking care of an apartment is nearly a full-time job. Which means I've had to adjust my reading habits to that. But looking forward, looking towards 2020 has me hoping that I'll be better at managing my time so that I can read. Also, I've got to be better at getting myself out of reading slumps. At the same time I feel like living alone has made me want to read more than before so yeah, this is overall quite weird..

The good...

I managed to complete my reading goal!! That one was a biggie for me; there were several times when I was certain I wouldn't and it made me really sad, because I had never 'failed' before. But I kept going AND I won! I know there are people out there on Goodreads reading 300 books a year but honestly that's not me so I'm going to be happy with what I've done! The majority of my real-life friends are beyond shocked when I tell them I've read 50 books in a year..!

I've read some series; I've completed (or caught up on, more likely) some and am currently reading some. Overall, looking at my stats, 25% of all books I've read this year has been series which for me is amazing.

I feel like I've definitely read more fantasy and science fiction than what I have previous years? (Looking at my stats I can confirm that I indeed read more fantasy than ever before but that I only read one sci-fi book so that's that I guess?)

The bad...

My luck with my books. I rarely went into reading a book wondering if I'd like said book or not so it's not like I chose books I suspected might be bad, it just turned out halfway through a lot of the books that I didn't really care for them but I still didn't want to put them down. So I finished them which lead me to my second problem of the year; I spent a majority of it slumping rather badly. Reading just sort of didn't appeal to me at all after a while and that was such a weird feeling because I normally love reading. I think this comes from me reading a lot of mediocre books and also from me forcing myself to actually finish these books.  

I also got lazy and only read books from the library, nearly all of which was YA and nearly all of which I just picked up on a whim...which lead me to fail my reading challenge exceptionally. Of all books on that list, I read 3 out of 19 books...so yeah, this is a call to myself to do better with my 2020 reading challenges (which will be up on my blog soon-ish). I think the reading of lots of random YA books that hardly ever were good also led to me slumping..

To summarize; I'll say that this year is a solid ⋆⋆⋆-star year and that I'm happy with what I've achieved but that I'm hoping 2020 will be better.

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Stay tuned for the next installment of this series which will be up on my blog tomorrow. Then we'll break down my reading of 2020 in stats/genres etc. It'll be nerdery galore and it'll be AWESOME!

TBR in December

Hi all,

December is approaching and so is my upcoming Christmas break! This honestly explains my sort of optimistic reading goal; I'm hoping I'll have at least the last week of December off so that I might read a lot.

Anyways, here we go!

* The Hanging Tree (Peter Grant #6) by Ben Aaronovitch
* Thick As Thieves (The Queen's Thief #5) by Megan Whalen Turner

* The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson

* Pulp by Robin Talley
* Like A Love Story by Abdi Nazemian
* The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta

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Happy reading!

Read in November

Hi everyone,

ah November. The month where Stockholm got a whole total of 12 hours sunshine in the whole month. I'm so glad it's (soon to be) December and there's snow on the ground now too!

This month in terms of reading can be summarized as starting out well, then I slumped and then I got super sick for a week where I didn't read anything. I did manage to finish my reading goal, both my monthly one and my annual reading goal on Goodreads too!

Okay so here's my monthly reading recap.

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# of books read: 6

-  Openly Straight (Openly Straight #1) by Bill Konigsberg
- Openly, Honestly (Openly Straight #1.5) by Bill Konigsberg
- Honestly Ben (Openly Straight #2) by Bill Konigsberg
- Heartstopper Voulume #2 by Alice Oseman
- The Near Witch (The Near Witch #1) by V.E. Schwab
- The Ash-Born Boy (The Near Witch #1.5) by V.E. Schwab.
- And The Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness

Best book of the month: The Near Witch, which was the perfect mix of creepy and fairytale-y. It was a very engaging story and I liked the way it was written; it was also my first V.E. Schwab I've ever read and I can't wait to read more of her books.

Worst book of the month: The Ash-Born Boy which is a short prequel to The Near Witch. I didn't find it very interesting and it didn't add much to the story. 

Bookish update on a Sunday: November 17

Hey y'all,


are you, like me, sick of my blog being absolutely barren? Well, I sure hope so! Because starting today, I'll start doing a weekly check-in here, where I'll talk about the week in terms of how much/what I've read and also about random bookish things that happen to cross my mind. If I did Youtube videos, this kind of blog post could be considered a vlog, does that even make sense?

I felt like I wanted to start interacting with you guys more, in a less "serious" way if you know what I mean. And hence, I came up with this idea. Continue reading below if you're interested in finding out what I've been doing, book-wise, this year!

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Yesterday I was in town (town being central Stockholm if you're curious) and I had fika with a friend. We went to the lovely Mr Cake, which, if you're ever visiting Stockholm, you HAVE to try. Also, I really want to come back here some other day to read when I'm alone because it's pretty cozy and I feel like it would make a nice place to read at.

Anyways, after me and my friend said goodbye to each other, I decided to pay a visit to the Stockholm city library. Aka the biggest library in Stockholm. It is, too, well worth a visit if you're ever going to Stockholm mainly because of its awesome architechture. I went there because I had finished some books so I decided to give them back to the library. I took a walk around the young adult section (which is super well stocked!) and found three reads that I brought with me home.

• Pulp, by Robin Talley. While I know of her, I've never read any books by this author before. I admit I hadn't heard of this book before either but I decided to check this out because 1) I know what a pulp novel is and 2) I know Robin Talley is known to write sapphic characters/stories so I figured why not.
• Like A Love Story by Abdi Nazemian is one of my most anticipated reads of 2019 and I nearly jumped when I saw it. It's an own voices story which tells the tale of ACT UP in New York City during the height of the AIDS epidemic (I mean, it *is* a YA fiction but I know I made it sound like it's non-fiction) and yeah, naturally I was very excited for this.
• I found The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson, which I talked about a few entries back. I didn't get around to reading it last time around so I checked it out again. Hopefully I'll actually read it this time!

I am currently reading The Near Witch which is my first ever V.E. Schwab! I admit it, I am totally sold on her stories and her writing already. I've heard that The Near Witch is sort of different from her other books but hopefully I'll like them all the same.

And this is pretty much what's happened to me this week in terms of books and reading. I'll check back in next week!

Until then, stay awesome and don't let that reading slump bite xx

TBR in November

This month, judging by how well October went, I'm looking to *not* swamp myself with reading. My reading goal is going to be boring and only contain of four books - all four of which are books I "should" have read last month, by the way - because I don't want to stress myself out over the fact that I'm *not* reading.

Anyways, here we go.

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This is honestly just a repeat of last month. 

Read in October

Hi everyone,

so today's November 1st. And here's my reading wrap up for October. All in all, October hasn't been that great for me on several different levels, I've struggled a bit mental heatlh wise, I've been slumping aaaand I simply haven't been in the mood for reading. Which is okay, isn't it? I've honestly neglected reading pretty bad, but I'm trying to convince myself that's okay (which it is!). Anyways, I'm feeling sort of in a blah mood so I'm just going to post this and then go to bed.

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# of books read: 4

-  Sjöhästar by Niklas Mesaros
- And The Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness
- Väntar tills natten kommer by Christoffer Holst
- When The Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore 

Best book of the month: I honestly didn't like any of the books I read this month all that mcuh (which probably helped contribute to my general reading slump...). I think if I have to pick one, I think I would have to go with Väntar tills natten kommer because of its slightly creepy horror-ness.

Worst book of the month: When The Moon Was Ours. My god, was I bored? It's objectively a very good book but despite the fact that I *should* have loved it, I definitely did not. 

TBR in October

Hi guys! Happy October. October is usually the month where I'll read a lot of thrillers, mysteries or even creepy books. This year, however, one or five trips to the library accidentally happened and thus I currently have 10 books out from my local library. Now, I don't expect to read all 10 of these, BUT I'm hoping to go through at least 7 of them; they're mostly YA so that should be doable.

I'm including the list of what books I'm planning to read under this cut here.

Read in September

Wow, September went by so quickly and surprisingly enough it was a very good reading month! I am so ahead of my reading challenge on Goodreads, which feels weird and awesome at the same time.

Something that has been lacking, however, has been updates to this blog (and to my Goodreads account, if you're also a friend of mine over there). Honestly, I only have myself to blame for this and a lovely mixture of me being too busy and too tired. I'm hoping to change this at some point but I'm not promising anything.

I can't believe October is just around the corner! Soon it'll be fall for real (which in the part of Sweden where I live, tend to start in October) which means lit candles, cups of tea and books galore!


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# of books read: 8 (that's two books per week!)

-  There's Something About Sweetie (Dimple and Rishi #2) by Sandhya Menon

- A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski*

- On The Come Up by Angie Thomas 

- Get it Together, Delilah! by Erin Gough

- Hetare by [multiple authors] 

- The Furthest Station (Peter Grant #5.5) by Ben Aaronovitch

- Girls Just Want To Have Fundamental Human Rights by Jessica Hallbäck^

- Heartstopper: Volume One by Alice Oseman^

* audiobook
^ graphic novel

Best book of the month: The majority of all books I read this month were good; however, I'm going to have to go with On The Come Up. There's just something about Angie Thomas's books that I absolutely love; she might just be one of my all time favorite young adult authors. Her writing is sharp, quick and funny. Both her books have dealt with very important and hard subject matters in a very good way and I just. I just love her books to bits!

Worst book of the month: I think I'm going to have to go with There's Something About Sweetie. I did love Sweetie as a character, and I do love me a well-written fat character. However, I felt like both her and her LI felt very immature and just overall not like their age (and I'm not one to normally criticize young adult characters for being immature because god knows teens usually /are/). I don't know, there were just something about this book that I personally didn't love and I've removed all other books from this author from my Goodreads "want to read" shelf because apparently the same things I was struggling with are repeated in her other books and that made me think her writing's not for me.

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xx.

Review: Beautiful Accidents [ARC]

TITLE: Beautiful Accidents

AUTHOR: Erin Zak

RELEASE DATE: September 1 2019

RATING: ★★★★

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Rep: lesbian MCs, black side character, deaf side character

TWs: N/A

Genre: adult LGBT romance
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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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TBR in September

I blame this TBR on a spontaneous visit to the library where I pretty much picked up books at random, haha. Concerning the sheer number of books on my TBR - 1) yes I am an idiot 2) this might send me back into my reading slump, who knows? I'll try to enjoy being in a bookish mood as long as possible! Also, this TBR is ridiculously long so I probably won't finish all these books but a girl can try, right?

Click thought to discover my ridiculously long TBR!

Read in August

I think I finally might actually have overcome my nearly year-long reading slump and hell yeah, this feels very good! I think what did it for me was the fact that I set explicit reading goals for myself and then really tried following them; for example at the start of a week I had in mind to finish three books that week and really tried to follow through with it. It really made me read more again, and I'm finally back to enjoying reading!

Honestly, August was an extremely good reading month for me and I'm finally ahead of my reading goal on Goodreads (for the first time since February...!).


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# of books read: 8 (that's two books per week!)

-  Foxglove Summer (Peter Grant #5) by Ben Aaronovitch

- A Conspiracy of Kings (The Queen's Thief #4) Megan Whalen Turner

- P.S. I Still Love You (To All The Boys I've Loved Before #2) by Jenny Han

- I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman*

- All The Better Part of Me by Molly Ringle [ARC]

- Beautiful Accidents by Erin Zak [ARC] *

- Kurt Cobain finns inte mer by Hanna Jedvik

- Sawkill Girls by Clair Legrand*

* = review to come (hopefully)

Best book of the month: Honestly, I have had quite the reading month when it comes to the quality of the books I've read, too. In fact, I have enjoyed reading most of them and I've even rated several of them above three stars (this has truly been a rarity for me this year!). I think I'm going to have to go with Sawkill Girls, though. It's my only five-star read this month (the first one in pretty much forever). I loved it for its badass female characters, its creepyness and its interesting take on a fantasy/horror plotline. (A more detailed review is forthcoming, so I'm deliberately keeping this sort of vague).

Worst book of the month: Hm. I think it's going to have to be a tie between P.S. I Still Love You and All The Better Part of Me. My review for ATBPOM is up on my blog, you can find it here if you're interested in reading what I didn't like about it, I won't rehash any of it here. PSISLY was honestly painful at times, mainly because the American moralism in American YA is honestly suffocating at times. Also, there was an unneccesary love triangle forming and let me tell you, I am not about that life.

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xx.

Review: All The Better Part of Me [ARC]

TITLE: All The Better Part of Me

AUTHOR: Molly Ringle

RELEASE DATE: September 1 2019

RATING: ★★

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Rep: bi MC, gay LI, latinx LI, lesbian side characters

TWs: homophobia

Genre: new adult LGBT romance
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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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“I’ll kiss you, just this once. If you want.”

He snorted. “Right. Sure.”

“I will. People do that. They kiss their friends. It happens.”

TBR in August

let's do this, Ida. You can do this!
   

Read in July

Hi guys, here I am again with another monthly reading wrap up. I had really been looking forward to writing this one since July is usually the month of the year where I'll have time to read the most. This year, however, things didn't really pan out that way. I think my will to read left me and died in January and ever since that, it just hasn't been the same for me. (although rn I'm actually pretty satisified with the book I'm reading) never mind I'm not even going to say anything if I jinx it.

I'm actually behind on my goodreads reading challenge of 2019, and I'm not going to lower my goal which probably means I gotta step up my reading game, doesn't it?

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# of books read: 3

- To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han (To All The Boys I've Loved Before #1)
- Jag kan nästan känna solen by Ebba Hyltmark
- Chronicle of a Plague Revisited: AIDS and its Aftermath by Andrew Holleran

Best book of the month: To All The Boys I Loved Before, which honestly took me by surprise! It's your average teen romance (to the point where it's almost funny or tragic, there's literally nothing that makes it stand out in comparison to other books) and yet, I LOVED it, even though I totally didn't expect myself to.

Worst book of the month: I only read books I thought were good but in terms of books being better than others, I think I'm going to have to go with Chronicle simply because it's non-fiction and thus heavier than the other books. That being said, there definitely wasn't anything bad about that book!

Review: The Stone Rainbow [ARC]

TITLE: The Stone Rainbow

AUTHOR: Liane Shaw

RELEASE DATE: September 17 2019

RATING: ★★★½

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Rep: gay MC, gay LI, latinx MC, Asian LI, disabled side character, gay side characters.

TWs: attempted suicide, homophobia (motivated by religion in part), violence. 

Genre: contemporary young adult
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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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"My reflection and I are not on very good terms at the moment. Nothing it shows me has much to do with who I am or how I feel inside where the rest of the world can see me."

TBR in July

Hi guys! Ah, July. The month where I'll get four weeks off. In a row. Four weeks of uninterrupted reading time (maybe). It's July 1st today and I have no idea what I want to read in this coming month so I figured I should just...not make a TBR for this coming month. Maybe? Maybe that'll make me read more? Who knows!

Anyways, the only books I know I'll read for certain are these two because I've checked them out from the library and I got to finish them before the end of the month.

Happy reading! Happy summer! I'll see you in August and then we'll see how this month turned out, reading-wise.

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Read in June

Hi guys,

my June/Pride month reading went just about as well as I'd expected it to (I swear this move - which is still happening by the way - is killing every last ounce of will to read I have left...). In hindsight I'm sad I didn't read more because I love reading, I love Pride month and reading LGBT content. Anyways, I feel like I just keep making excuses as to why I haven't been reading a lot instead of you know, Accepting the fact I don't read very much anymore! I guess we could talk about why that's happening but like..let's not. Let's continue to the actual wrap up instead, haha.

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# of books read: 3

- The Stone Rainbow by Liane Shaw
- All The Worlds Between Us by Morgan Lee Miller
- Queer City by Peter Ackroyd

Best book of the month: I think I'm going to go with All The Worlds Between Us because it had lesbians, a cute romance and sports. Which just happened to be exactly what I was in the mood for.

Worst book of the month: Queer City, which while it wasn't bad in any way, it was a tad info-dumpy which made me read it super slowly which almost sent me into a reading slump again so yeah.


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Review: All The Worlds Between Us

TITLE: All The Worlds Between Us

AUTHOR: Morgan Lee Miller

RELEASE DATE: May 14th 2019

RATING: ★★★★

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.
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"Forget thinking about the pros and cons of kissing Kennedy Reed. I just kissed Kennedy Reed." 

TBR in June

                                     Happy Pride Month!!!!

June is, as you may be aware, the official Pride month. Me being the bisexual loser I am, will naturally celebrate the hell out of this month. A part of my celebration will be in the shape of my TBR. My goal this month is to read LGBT-themed books only. I have a bunch (or rather, more than a bunch) that I really want to read. So here's my rainbow-themed TBR for June!~

- The Stone Library by Liane Shaw is an ARC I was approved of in April; It is LGBT themed (it has gay male characters I believe) and even though it's out in September I figured I might as well just read it this month!
- All The Worlds Between Us by Morgan Lee Miller is another ARC I was approved for (and I think it's officially out now too!). All I know is that it has sports, lesbians and is YA, which is pretty much everything I'm in the mood for right now.
- Chronicle of a Plague by Andrew Holleran. This is nonfiction, a collection of essays about the AIDS epidemic (mainly USA-centered, from what I've gathered). I chose this book because it's important to remember our history and to educate ourselves so that things don't happen again.
- Queer City by Peter Ackroyd. This is a historical nonfiction that I got in London last year; essentially it's about London from an LGBT historical perspective.

So, all in all, this is my TBR for June. I might read more books, or I might not. I decided to limit myself to four because of my Big Move. However, I'm lowkey hoping to read more because I do love me some LGBT themed books. 

Read in May

Hi guys,

today's the last day of May. AKA my big moving month. I'm still very far from finished with my renovations (I haven't moved yet!) and I fear this upcoming month will prove to be more of the same (i.e. unexpected things happening, one after another that set our renovations back more with each passing day...!). Despite this slight negativity, I am not at all that mad with how many books I've managed to read this month.

Here we go, onto the actual wrap up!

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# of books read: 4

- Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi
- The Queen of Attolia (The Queen's Thief #3) by Megan Whalen Turner
- Folk med ångest by Fredrik Backman
- Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin 

Best book of the month: I guess I'm going to have to go with Folk med ångest. All in all, I didn't read any one book that I absolutely LOVED. I've read everything from books that were okay, books that were pretty good and books that were outright bad. I did however like Folk med ångest the most, which I guess is saying something but at the same time, it really isn't saying a whole lot either.

Worst book of the month: Golden Boy, hands down. I'm sad to say I outright disliked this book. Like, a whole lot. On the one hand it was super informative regarding intersex conditions and struggles, but on the other hand it was very melodramatic (very much too much so, in fact) and I just struggled reading it. I didn't enjoy the writing, the characters felt like caricatures. Also, shout out to the mother character for being the worst character in anything, ever.

To be read in May

My TBR for May is probably too much for the coming month and might also be subject to change because I'm moving in a couple of weeks!!!!!! *cue screaming*. I'll be moving in the middle of May and I have a feeling I probably won't have that much time for reading then.

- The Stone Rainbow by Liane Shaw. This is a YA LGBTQ themed ARC I was approved for the other week; I might read this if my local library isn't coming through for me (see below) (also I'm in no hurry because this book will be released in September, meaning I have time).- Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi was on my TBR last month and I finally got around to reading it now!
- Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin was also on my TBR for last month and again I didn't get around to reading it.
- The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief) by Megan Whalen Turner was on my TBR for last month too, but I never got around to getting it from the library because my library waitlisted me..I'm hoping for better luck this month!
- Foxglove Summer (Peter Grant #5) by Ben Aaronovitch is another book I should put myself on the wait list for at my library but I haven't gotten around to this yet. I really want to finish this series in 2019 though, so I should get a move on.


I'll see you in June for my monthly check in!

Read in April

It's that time of the month again where I wrap up the books I've read.

This month was one of the best reading months I've had in a while. I had a week where work was pretty chill which gave me time to read, and I really pushed myself to read more than what I would have chosen myself.  Still, this effort didn't really manage to drag me out of my reading slump (maaaaybe it's time for me to admit that I'm in a massive reading slump. Also I haven't even looked at my 2019 TBR pile in months..........). Anyway, onto the actual wrap up.
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# of books read: 5

- King of Scars (Nikolai Duology #1) by Leigh Bardugo
- Broken Homes (Peter Grant #4) by Ben Aaronivitch
- Vad gör man inte by Maja Hjertzell
- Om vi bara kunde byta kroppar med varandra by Johanna Nilsson
- Vänd rätt upp by Emelie Novotny

This month, I decided to get a lot of Swedish YA from my local library. Swedish YA is sort of a hit and miss for me; a lot of it is very good but a lot of it also...isn't. I admit I am also very bad at keeping up with books being released locally, hence why I tend to check 4-5 Swedish YA books from the library out like once a year. (Instead of, I don't know, keeping up with current releases like a normal person).

Best book of the month: King of Scars, probably. While it wasn't perfect and there were things I wish were different (I rated this 4 stars I believe), I really did enjoy it. It was good fun and I enjoyed being back in this universe.

Worst book of the month: Om vi bara kunde byta kroppar med varandra. There were several things wrong with this book but what bothered me the most was that it wasn't realistic at all. I believe transgender teens benefit from realistic novels and not one like that. I do enjoy other books from that author though, so I believe this one was just a dud for me.

See you next month in my wrap up!

Review: King of Scars (Nikolai Duology #1)

TITLE: King of Scars (Nikolai Duology #1)

AUTHOR: Leigh Bardugo

RELEASE DATE: January 24 2019

RATING: ★★★★


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I am so glad to be back in this series. So, so glad! And by series I, of course, mean 'universe' because I am dumb and tired and can't think.

So, King of Scars is the first part of the King Nikolai duology. King Nikolai is the king of Ravka, one of the major countries in the Grisha universe. At this point I'm pretty certain very many of you have heard of Leigh Bardugo's Russia-inspired Grisha verse, where different countries are at war and you follow Grisha (basically people that have magical powers and were trained at the court in the kingdom of Ravka).

Honestly, I probably won't go into the background of this universe too much because it's so well known. This universe is high fantasy, there's definitely some magical elements to it and now also dragons! It's pretty much your standard YA high fantasy that also has magic; this series basically does a lot of really common things but what makes it different from other series, though, is that it does those things really well!

I personally think Bardugo's strenght lies in her ability to create good characters, lovable characters in fact, that are flawed and that you connect to. Coming back to this universe, I found myself longing to be back among these characters, with their unique sets of characteristics and whatnot. I may be alone but I care more about the characters than I do the actual series, and for me it's definitely enough to make me want to keep reading.

As for the story itself, it's your fantasy story. The story progresses from where the previous series and spin-off ended. It took nearly half the book to get going, but once it did I really enjoyed myself. It did feel like the first part of a series/duology and nothing significant in terms of how Bardugo's books usually go did really happen, but still I was entertained.

I will most certainly pick the next installment of this duology up!

To be read in April

My TBR for April is a mixed bag of goodies, both in terms of content but also in terms of genre.

- King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo. I'm still reading this book; I continued it the second I was approved for it from the library and I'm around 60% done as of today. I really am enjoying myself and I feel like it's really starting to pick up now. I can't wait to continue this series.
- Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch. I got this one from the library because I honestly couldn't wait to get back into this universe again. I've missed PC Peter Grant!
- Waves is a graphic novel by Ingrid Chabbert. It has lesbian mermaids and I was approved to read it as an ARC back in December. Its release date is in May so I figured I should read and review it now before it's released (and also; LESBIAN MERMAIDS! Do I even need to say more?)
- Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin is another book I got at the library. I know it has an intersex character (who, if I remember correctly, uses male pronouns) and I recognized it from my TBR while at the library and naturally I picked it up!
- The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. Because I've told myself I need to finish this series this year and also because I've been enoying fantasy lately. I'm currently on the waiting list at the library so who knows when I'll actually end up with the book.
- Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi. I picked this up at the library because it has a college setting, it seems easy/cute enough and I was in the mood for something lighter.

I think this might be a bit too ambitious; I'll check back in with you at the end of the month to let you know how this went!