July was a really interesting reading month for me; I spent the first week and a half reading a really long book, then I participated in a readathon and read 3 and half books, and lasty I became obsessed with a 10 books series and I read all the books in a week and a half. If you know your math that means I read 14 books in a month. I can't believe it! I have never read 14 books in a month in my life and I'm really excited about it!
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin (4 stars)
I want to say this one thing: I LOVE
TYRION! He is favorite characters of the series. With that said, this book was
told from multiple POV's, most of them were POV's that were in book 1 so I
already liked them and most of the new POV's I enjoyed as well. My main problem
with this book was the chapters told from Theon's POV, he was a new
narrator because his pov wasn't in the first book and I found him to be
really boring, which is weird because in this series even the bad guys I find
really interesting and the only character that I have not enjoyed so far is
Theon. Anyway, great writing, complex world and interesting character for the
most part. This was really good!
The next 3
books I read for the Make Me Read It Readathon, my goal was to read at least 4
books during the readathon, but the books I chose were a bit long so that
wasn't possible. Also, I also read half of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott
Lynch, but I was not enjoying it that much and it was pretty long, so after the
readathon ended I decided to stop reading it and maybe go back to it at another
time. So here are the 3 books I read:
Passenger by Alexandra Bracken (3,7 stars)
I think this book had a lot of potencial and even if I did end up enjoying it, I was expecting so much more. The characters were good but not incredible, I felt like there was something missing and I couldn't develop a strong connection to them. The time travel was explained in a very superficial way but that did not take away from the story, because it was more about the dynamic between time travelers than about time travel itself. Also, the time traveled to some interesting places and times at the beginning, but then there were some other places and times that were not as interesting.
Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (3,8 stars)
My main problem with this book is that I think the characters weren't fully fleshed out and they weren't distinctive at all, especially Alina and Mal, they got drag were the plot needed them and they didn't have any agency. If you took away her powers and his tracker skills, they both have such a basic and half-done personality. A lot of thing happened in the first 30% of this book and then almost nothing until the very end. Nonetheless, I flew through this and I'm pretty sure it was Leigh Bardugo's writing, which allowed me to lose myself in it. When I got to the last part of the book, I was actually surprised by some of the things that happened which is always good.
After reading a few Sophie Kinsella books, I feel like the main characters of her novels are variations of the same character, which is a bit annoying. Nonetheless, I always have fun reading her books, I end up laughing out loud which doesn't happen that often. In this book, the romance was really good and there was a very beautifully written scene in the woods.
Addicted/ Calloway Sisters series by Krista and
Becca Ritchie
(My overall rating for this series is around 4
stars)
These series were incredibly character driven,
which I love, and that made me become completely obsessed with the characters
so I couldn't stop reading, I finished a book and immediately picked up the
next one. These series dealt with so many important subjects like
consent, sex addiction, PTSD, alcoholism, OCD, depression, self-worth, the
power of the media, and all of them were handled so well and all of those
things made the dynamic between the characters really complex and interesting.
But what these series were really about was love and family, and it was really
beautiful. (I will post my series review soon, but for now, I made a Let's Put
Music to the Book post for these series.
CHALLENGES PROGRESS
RockMyTBR: A Clash of Kings, I've Got Your Number, Siege and Storm,
Passenger (16/12)
Flights of Fantasy: A Clash of Kings, Passenger, Siege and Storm ( 20/
30 )
Backlist Books: A Clash of Kings, 8 of the books in the addicted/Calloway Sisters
series, I've Got Your Number, Siege and Storm (41/ 20)
Finishing the Series: - (2/3-6)
Have you read any of these books? Did you enjoy them? Leave me links to your june wrap up, I would love to check them out!