While I read a lot of sequels and books by authors I know and love, I also ended up reading a lot of books by new-to-me authors last year. There are some I loved and am excited to read more of their works, but there are sadly others who I’m not sure if I’ll be returning to.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but as of January has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
This post comes to you a little later than planned as I started off the new year with a horrendous cold. There are so many books I want to read this year, I know I won’t get round to reading them all. My Goodreads reading goal for 2019 is 20 books, as I decided to set it to something more realistic. If I read more, that’s great, but I would like to read at least 20. I don’t have as much time for reading as I would like unfortunately. So, here are some of the books I particularly want to read this year.
I started re-reading all of the Harry Potter books over the last couple of years and would like to continue that by reading the next one – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I’m looking forward to re-reading this one as I remember when I first saw the film, not long after reading it the first time, that they had left a lot out.
There are a couple of series I have been reading for a while that I want to continue making some progress with. It feels like I’ve been reading Michael Grant’s Gone series for ages. I’m up to the fifth book, Fear, so I want to read that this year. I’m also trying to catch up on Cassandra Clare’s books. She’s released so many I’m really far behind! I only have one book left in the Infernal Devices series to read, Clockwork Princess. A book that’s been sitting on my shelf for a while is Four by Veronica Roth, a collection of short stories about the character Four from the Divergent series. I bought this book ages ago but as Allegiant was such a disappointment Four has been collecting dust at the back of my bookshelf for a little too long.
There are four series I started reading last year that I want to continue. Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray was my favourite book of the year, so I’m excited to read the sequel, Defy the Worlds. Marie Lu’s The Young Elites was also a highlight and I have the sequel, The Rose Society, waiting on my shelf. Last year I read the first two books in Sarah J. Mass’s Throne of Glass series, and I’m totally sucked in, so I need to get my hands on book three, Heir of Fire.
Having finally read A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin last year, I also want to read the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Clash of Kings. It’s pretty massive though so I need to psych myself up for reading it.
As well as all these series I’d also like to discover some new authors and read some standalone novels as I seem to end up reading a lot of series.
What books are you looking forward to reading this year? Let me know in the comments!
This year was my first year of reading freedom for quite some time! Having finished my literature degree last year, I was free to read whatever I wanted this year. I ended up being quite in the mood for fantasy and all of my top five books are either science fiction or fantasy. Without further ado, here are the books I enjoyed most in 2018.
There are many books I planned to read this year, but as per usual any ideas I had about what I wanted to read went out the window! I usually read what takes my fancy at the time. T5W is a group hosted on Goodreads, if you’d like to participate check it out here.
This week’s topic is a freebie so I’m throwing back to an old topic that I missed. There are so many series I want to read but haven’t started yet.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but as of January has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
This week’s topic is all about the biggest books we’ve yet to read. I have a lot of them! T5W is a group hosted on Goodreads, if you’d like to participate check it out here.
1) A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin – I read the first book, A Game of Thrones, earlier this year and got the second book almost straight away. However, I wanted a break to read some other books, and still haven’t got around to picking this one up.
2) The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan – I made it one of my ambitions to read the whole of Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. So far I’ve only read the first two books.
3) Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare – This will have to stay on my TBR for a little longer as I still need to finish the Infernal Devices before I can make a start on this series.
4) Ringer by Lauren Oliver – After reading the first book in this series last year, I was keen to read the next book. It’s still on my TBR though! I’m hoping to read it soon.
5) Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi – Having heard so many good things about this book, I went out and bought it. I hope it lives up to expectations!
Specials by Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia, Science-Fiction
Publishing Info: May 2011 Simon Pulse (first published 2006)
Pages: 350
Star Rating: 3/5
Back Cover Summary:
Tally thought they were a rumor, but now she’s one of them. A Special. A super-amped fighting machine, engineered to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid.
But maybe being perfectly programmed with strength and focus isn’t better than anything she’s ever known. Tally still has memories of something else.
Still, it’s easy to tune that out—until she’s offered a chance to stamp out the rebels of the New Smoke permanently. It all comes down to one last choice: listen to that tiny, faint heartbeat, or carry out the mission she’s programmed to complete. Either way, Tally’s world will never be the same.
Specials is the third book in the Uglies series, and the final book in the main trilogy. There is a ‘companion’ novel, Extras, and Westerfeld recently released Imposters, which is set in the same universe. While I enjoyed this book to a small degree, it didn’t blow me away. It didn’t leave me with any significant lasting impression.
The book opens with brilliant writing. Some amazing descriptions really make you feel like you’re seeing the world through Tally’s special super sense eyes. However, this isn’t carried through the rest of the book. That level of description all the way through would be too much, but I’d have expected more. If you introduce the idea that a character has these extra senses, you have to carry that through and show how they see the world with their super senses in the rest of the book too, not just at the opening to get the reader’s attention.
They’re supposed to be specials, superior to everyone else. They might be in terms of their super reflexes and senses, but they still go around doing tricks and acting not much different from how they did before in some ways.
There are so many books I have enjoyed, but haven’t read any more works by the author. I really should read the books on this list.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but as of January has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
1) Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows – I finished the Grisha trilogy this year and now I’m looking forward to diving into another of Bardugo’s series.
2) Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince and others – I feel very behind on Clare’s books. I still haven’t finished the Infernal Devices series and she keeps bringing out more and more novels.
I really need to watch more TV shows! In the past, I didn’t watch TV that much, but when I went to uni and lived alone, being able to watch whatever I want meant I started watching more TV. This list is a mixture of shows I loved and shows that were strangely addictive even though they were fairly average.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but as of January has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
This week’s Top 10 Tuesday looks at popular books that lived up to the hype. I could name quite a few books that didn’t live up to their hype, but here are the ones that I think did. We’ll have to leave the ones that didn’t for another day.
Top 10 Tuesday was originally created by The Broke and the Bookish, but as of January has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. If you’re interested in taking part click here.
The Last Book On The Left 