BOOKS READ JAN – SEP 2023 + A TINY LIFE UPDATE (or: where the hell have I been?)

The other day, I sat down and made a list of every book I’ve read in 2023 so far. Maybe I was feeling particularly jobless, I guess (though, as someone pointed out, I was “jobless” enough to sit and read them anyway, so it’s kinda moot).

I hold a great enmity toward Goodreads reading challenges. Here’s what happens: at the start of the year, in a sudden burst of short lived enthusiasm, I set the Goal.

The next time I open Goodreads (months later), I see my sad, abandoned little challenge still at 3 out of 40 (or 50 or even 100 that one ambitious year) books read. I curse. I scramble to add every book I’ve read in the past few months. I give up five minutes later, because I have the attention span of a guppy fish.

So. Painstakingly writing down the name of every single book is better than the 0.5 seconds it takes to update that Goodreads challenge. Obviously.

Here’s what I’ve read this year:

I started out with Game of Thrones in January, which I ended up liking despite having no intention to do so for years.

I read Daisy Jones and the Six in March. The beachiest beach read.

It spurred me to binge read other books by Taylor Jenkins-Reid, so I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Malibu Rising, and Forever Interrupted in April. It’s hard to chose a favourite, but Malibu Rising wins.

A friend lent me Anne of Avonlea, which I found alright. She then suggested I try out Thomas Hardy.

I started with Tess of the D’Urbervilles. It’s the unlikeliest one-sitting book I’ve ever read, but I practically devoured it. I couldn’t look away from Tess’s despair. The short bursts of hope, and the eventual spiral down to tragedy. I fell in love with the writing. The countryside landscapes.

I could go on and on about Hardy’s writing. It’s so good. But maybe another post.

This lead to my spiral down a rabbit hole of victorian era classics. I read Jude the Obscure in May, at a more reasonable pace. I was depressed for a week after I finished it. Following which I read The Woman in White. I ADORED it, and it needs a whole other post to fawn over too.

Tiny mention to Agnes Grey, which was a sweet little read. (Controversial opinion: Anne Bronte is my favourite Bronte sister).

I wanted to read North and South, but since the bookstore didn’t have the edition I wanted and I’m picky, I bought Mary Barton. Which was great. I’m sold on Gaskell’s writing.

In June I read Yellowface by RF Kuang. Worlds away from the Poppy War, yet so good. Amazed how this woman churns book after amazing book yearly.

In July, another friend rec’d me Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. The title is very literal. It’s about a world where cannibalism is socially acceptable and humans are raised as meat for slaughter. Sighs. Another post.

My finals ended around July, and I spent the break catching up with a few thrillers. The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth and None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell were very fun to read.

In August, I read A Thousand Splendid Suns. I might have cried.

The last notable mention is the Hunger Games. I’ve always (unfairly) thought it was a silly little dystopian YA series. I ended up finishing the trilogy in a span of a week, and The Mockingjay overnight. I would have loved this when I was 12, but I’m glad I read it now to understand a lot of the themes and nuances I would’ve missed then.

I’ve read some pretty amazing books this year and I hope the list grows to 50 by the year end.

Phew. Now that I’m done rambling about these books, a tiny life update. Bear with me.

I didn’t think I would ever update this blog again. I wasn’t reading a lot the past couple of years. All my book reviews have mostly been incoherent rants on my instagram stories which probably no one reads. College kicks my ass more often than not.

My friend and I were bored out of our minds in our DSA class. So she did the logical thing and started reading my blog. Begging, pleading, threats of bodily harm, the slightly deranged look in my eyes didn’t stop her. And so she read. (Every. Single. Post. Which I doubt anyone’s done).

As I stewed in the embarrassment of someone reading what I wrote at 12 (in front of me), it was a weirdly nice stroll down the memory lane. And she was so, so incredibly sweet about it.

It reminded me how fun it used to be, to come on here and rant about books. I don’t want to lose that.

Who knows, I might still end up writing the next post a year later with another “life update”. I hope not. I have so much to talk about, so many incoherent rants to make.

And thank you, if you’ve reached the end of this incoherent rant. Until next time. < 3

THE CHALK MAN BY C.J. TUDOR

This book sounded exactly like my cup of tea. A creepy Stephen King-esque small town murder mystery? Sign me up. If that wasn’t enough, the delightfully creepy cover definitely was. I had the sudden urge of reading something creepy (bear with my overuse of ‘creepy’). Something messed up. And the Chalk Man had been on my list for a while.

This book was just unsettling enough to keep me waiting for something to happen, except that something never came. Sure, things do happen, there’s murder and a good amount of gore. But it falls flat.

There’s too much going on, all at once. It got confusing going back and forth from the 1986 and 2016 chapters, I had to go reread older chapters to understand stuff. I will say that I did like that eventual mystery it set up – until the ending.

Maybe I could have liked this book better if it hadn’t ended that way. The last chapter ties things together very loosely, a lackluster ending to all that build up. Which was also something I could have lived with, but what really, truly, ruined the book for me was this completely unnecessary twist at the last two pages that makes zero sense. It feels like it was thrown in just for shock value.

I liked how at least the book doesn’t drag on, things move pretty quickly, and it was still easy to read in one sitting.

But overall it feels like some run of the mill thriller and doesn’t have anything that actually unsettles you or creeps you out. I have another one of the author’s books, The Burning Girls, which I still want to read, but this one was a let down. There are way better books of this sort out there, but the Chalk Man isn’t one worth reading.

Rating: 2 out of 5

THE POPPY WAR BY RF KUANG

Fantasy books aren’t always my cup of tea but – THESEBOOKSARESOGOODHOLYSHITOMGAHHHHHH – end monkey brain. That should give you a clue about how I feel about the Poppy War trilogy, because these books are so good, holy shit. I finished all three, and I am screaming, crying, throwing up.

I’m going to save my thoughts on the other two books, the Dragon Republic and Burning God, for later because that requires a whole other post to unpack – with some fresh tissues. *sniffles*

The Poppy War starts off with the action right off the bat. Prodigy Orphan Gets Selected to go to Special School is probably overdone a million times. Faces Bullies, Eccentric Mentors and Other Challenges™ another million. The first quarter of the book is what you’ve seen repeated in every YA book. After that? Ha. Haha.

What I love is the transition from the sheltered life Rin and her classmates lead at Sinegard to the stirrings of tension and war. Even as war starts, you can still see that they’re kids – until they’re suddenly forced to grow up in the wake of horrors.

To everyone wondering – this series deserves the “grimdark” label. 101%. Just as you’re wondering why everyone calls this book dark – it hits you in the face. With a frying pan. And the best part is that Kuang never once throws in something gruesome just for shock value.

Speaking of the characters, Rin’s character arc is something I’m obsessed with. She starts off as your average Orphan With A Hidden Talent™ (although even then in the first quarter you actually see her work her ass off and struggle). As you go forward, you can see her slow downward spiral which builds and builds until the ending (you’re going to read and find out yourself *brandishes knife*).

The worldbuilding. I ADORE. Everything about it – the shamanism, gods, magic, was so unique. You usually see “practicing xyz magic makes you stronger and healthier” in books. Watching how the ‘magic’ destroys its user and drives them to eventual madness was a fresh take, and plays a big part in Rin’s arc. The role of ‘poppy’ or opium in fueling said powers was fascinating.

But the best part is: RF Kuang’s writing. It’s clean and simple, the prose never bored me for a minute.

So yes. I loved the Poppy War and would go as far as saying it’s one of my favourite books.

Rating: 5 out of 5

APPLES NEVER FALL BY LIANE MORIARTY

I didn’t even know Liane Moriarty had a new book out. I just saw it at the bookstore, I was out with it in the next minute.

Like her previous novels, she tells the story through flashbacks along with the present timeline, with POVs of multiple characters. See, I think this is something that is done really perfectly here, that Nine Perfect Strangers couldn’t quite get right. It goes back and forth from the past to present without being confusing.

The perspectives of all the four Delaney children + Joy is done very well and really captures what I love about the author’s writing: the complexity of her characters. Joy was given more screentime but even the other characters are well fleshed out in their chapters. Nine Perfect Strangers… was ambitious with how it juggled its characters. It was clumsy. Not this book.

I love how Liane Moriarty makes you care for all of these people. Hell, I love how she made me care about the tennis stuff, which is rare, I don’t like reading about sports in books usually!

The build up of the mystery is great, you feel that “Joy couldn’t POSSIBLY been killed/hurt by her husband, could she?” until you think, “maybe. . .”

So yeah. That’s how I found myself savouring this book slowly, torturously. Because I’m a masochist. I finally gave in last night and finished it in one sitting.

This is definitely the best book by Liane Moriarty so far. It’s a fun story laced with her usual humour, great dialogue, and a mystery that keeps you turning. This wraps all the good things in her writing like a good apple crumble pie (haha, see what I did there?)

5 out of 5

REMINISCING THIS BLOG’S PAST WITH A CUPPA (hot chocolate, preferably)

Yesterday was the first time in almost a year I opened my blog. A months old notification congratulated me on four years on here, and my god, is it already four years?

This prompted a little trip down memory lane. I scrolled down, post after post, reading comments of other bloggers and I was transported back to when I was 12 and first started this blog. Revisiting this blog over the past couple of years has usually been accompanied with plenty of cringing. Like looking back on that embarrassing phase you had that you can’t undo. I honestly couldn’t – and still can’t – bring myself to read an old post without wanting to sink into the floor.

But the realization about exactly how long this blog has been up hit me like a brick. And unlike all those times of embarrassment I can’t help but admire the 12 year old kid who shyly opened a blog called HubEverything and put out her thoughts on – out of all things – the Kepler space telescope. Ages 12 to 14 I loved to blog, to share my thoughts on books I hate and books I love, to shout out even the tiniest little thought that popped in my head. And there’s a lot to cringe about!

If you look at my posts circa 2018 you’ll find incoherent rants and the general tinge of I’m Not Like The Other Girls. Yes, I still physically cringe when I think of that phase. While I did write a lot of stuff, anyone going through my blog would probably can say it was written by a 13 year old.

Flaws aside, what I really admire is that I could write anything I thought about and just. Put it out there without a filter or thinking twice or pausing to see “is this NOT complete bullshit?”. Fearlessly. And for that I hold a grudging respect for my younger self. I probably couldn’t do what she did. Common sense would say that I’ve become more conscious of what I write and create, and better at it. But there is a freedom in writing without a fear of judgement, and just, you know, having fun.

THE PRIORY OF THE ORANGE TREE BY SAMANTHA SHANNON

So I finally finished reading The Priory of the Orange Tree a week back. It took me a month to finish this giant but it was totally worth it! Normally, I don’t read high fantasy. I hate high fantasy, anything GOT like. It’s a bias, I know, I just don’t prefer it.

I had no clue about the size when I ordered it online and boy was I surprised when it arrived. I was intimated tbh and I thought I’d end up DNF-ing it.

I read a review which said that the first 200-something pages are a bit slow but action kicks on from there. For me, I found it interesting right off the bat. First off, the world building is SO. GOOD. Excellent attention to detail. I loved reading about the different countries and their contrasting politics, religions, conflicts. Oh, and also, dragons.

For a standalone novel it really does pack up as much world building as it can without seeming boring. The plot does start off like 200 pages in, the premise wasn’t very eventful. Sort of like an introduction to the characters and landscape. But it is REALLY fun to read. And when the plot did kick in, it kept me hook.

THERE’S?? WLW?? Angsty slowburn, the good stuff. I did NOT know about it and it was probably the best surprise.

I LOVED the characters. Sabran, Tane and Ead’s development throughout the novel was great. Loth was my favourite, even if we didn’t get many chapters with his POV.

Overall I say you should definitely go for this. Don’t let the size intimidate you. I did take my time with it but honestly? It was so much fun savoring this bit by bit.

Rating: 5 out of 5

MALORIE BY JOSH MALERMAN

I’ve been waiting for Malorie: a Bird Box Novel ever since it was announced! I read bird box a year ago, after the netflix original came out and I LOVED it so much. I never expected that Josh Malerman would write a sequel. I was all knee-shaking excited but worried it would disappoint.

Did it live up to expectations?

Malorie is set seventeen years after the events of Bird Box. Picking up about two years into their stay at the school for blind, the book starts out with something VERY unexpected which I won’t say though I’m DYING to, for the sake of avoiding spoilers. We then see a time jump, ten years later. This book caught my attention right at the starting.

Does it hold my attention? Yes. I love that throughout the book the plot was so fluid. It didn’t feel boring at any point, nor did I see any info dumps. The world building is great, considering how many new things about the outside world was specified.

It was interesting to see the tense relationship between Tom and Malorie. They contrast so much in opinions, in nature. Tom wants to explore and innovate and stray away from the rigidness of Malorie. Even in this dangerous new world, he’s a bright eyed earnest teenager. Malorie does not like “getting lazy”, in her words. She takes no chances in keeping herself and her children safe. Malorie lives by the blindfold. Tom wants to see a world beyond it. Olympia is a girl with a secret (she quite literally has a secret). She isn’t as rebellious as Tom.

The book isn’t purely plot driven and what makes it so great is how it explores the relationships between the characters side along the plot. Bird Box was about a world confined to the indoors, and about surviving. Malorie is about an uncertain world rebuilding. It’s about finally living, and not just surviving.

So was Josh Malerman writing this just to ride off the hype of Bird Box? This was anything but. He’s a great storyteller. He wrote a satisfying sequel which does not disappoint.

Rating: 5 out of 5

A SORCERY OF THORNS BY MARGARET ROGERSON

Not gonna lie, the main reason I got this book was that the cover was gorgeous and I have A Thing for hardcover editions. Even if it had review quotes and New York Times Bestseller or something stamped at the back which tells me Nothing about the actual book. Pfft, books these days, amiright?

I read this book with zero expectations and ideas on what it was about. Here’s how it went.

Can I say I absolutely love the concept of the libraries and monster books? It was So fricking cool! A breath of fresh air from a bunch of recycled concepts circulating in YA lit. For a stand alone book, the world building in this was AWESOME. I fell in love with the whole concept – the libraries, sorcerers, demons, Books Gone Wild.

Also want to mention, the prose was beautiful to read. I loved the way this was written, it feels magical!

Elisabeth is “a true child of the library”. She’s bold, yet vulnerable. Into the book we see that everything she knows and understands about libraries, magic (and monster books) are wrong. She starts out as naive, someone who hasn’t seen the world outside the library she grew up in and slowly gains understanding. The character development is good, AND it’s all in one (standalone) novel.

I was Very Afraid that Nathaniel would be one of Those YA Brooding Bad Boys. The goodreads blurb also described him and Elisabeth as “sworn enemies”. Both assumptions? Wrong they were! Nathaniel and Elisabeth’s relationship is not a pointless rivalry for the sake of tension. Good ol’ sarcastic boi which I surprisingly, I didn’t mind :’) His tragic past isn’t just for the sake of it and is important to his character.

(bonus Bonus BONUS points for making nathaniel swing both ways. i screamed when i read that part, even if it was vaguely referenced. the casual rep gets Full Points from me)

But it was Silas I liked the best and found most intriguing! I stan one snarky and incredibly charming demon. Elisabeth, Nathaniel, and Silas make a great little disaster trio.

The one complain I do have is how fast the plot is. I hate slow books, I have very little patience. Which is why I don’t usually mind if books are a bit fast paced. In fact, I was happy the book started out with a fast plot and no beating around the bush. But this was a bit too fast. I didn’t have any time to linger on a scene or savor a moment. Would have been a lot better if this one was slightly slower paced.

Overall it was a very refreshing read! It’s entertaining and gets my rec.

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

 

CRESCENT CITY BY SARAH .J MAAS AND WHY IT ABSOLUTELY SUCKS

If you know me, (or my instagram/tumblr) you’d know I absolutely hate SJM’s books. Why would I read a 800-something page book by an author I hate, you ask? Good question. I have nothing better to do, I had (misplaced) hopes that it would not, in fact, absolutely suck. I wanted to know what the frick could an 800 page adult debut by a famous YA novelist possibly consist.

Either way, curiosity got the better of me and I tried to read Crescent City.

And failed. And picked it up again. And failed. Rinse and repeat. Somehow, god knows how, I finished it.

*cracks knuckles* aye let’s do this

Perhaps SJM took note of the critics on her world building. She definitely tries to world build. But it is NOT an improvement over her previous world building. There were info dumps every few pages which made me want to bang my head on the nearest wall. I *struggled* to get through them.

There is a HUGE array of species like Fae, Angels, Werewolves. Like a snack platter. They come under “Vanir”, something SJM borrowed from Norse mythology. I don’t know much about it but she didn’t even use the term correctly. (Vanir are supposed to be gods of wisdom and fertility right??)

She tries to achieve this futuristic, dystopian world with supernatural creatures but all I got was Fae and Magik™ with clubs and cellphones thrown in the mix. There’s nothing futuristic about it, just plain lazy writing. There’s the war between Vanir and humans But most of the characters are Vanir so human oppression doesn’t get emphasis.

Maas was going with this great, soulful friendship with Bryce and Danika but I didn’t feel it. Bryce is a cardboard-cutout sassy girl protag. Every dude is instantly horny for her and she is Drop Dead gorgeous. Her flaws include “being “too curvy to dance”. Huh.

Hunt the Love Interest has a new power never seen in his species. Which he uses like two times in the span of 800 pages. Oh, and he’s also gorgeous. The rest of the characters are basically rip-offs from her other books.

SJM needs a good editor BADLY. Either Blooms has editors who suck, or just think that fans will buy anything she writes because the bOOK DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THIS LONG. This reads like a YA book save for F-bombs dropped like confetti.

800-something pages of a badly written plot, info-dumped world building, random liberal usage of supernatural/mythological creatures, snarky Sexy™ characters, this is a gigantic mess which makes my soul cringe to the power thousand.

DO NOT waste your time and money on this. Run far, far away.

Rating: 1 out of 5

 

INSPECTION BY JOSH MALERMAN

I’ve literally kept my eyes on this book, since, like, December. Because it LEGIT sounded really interesting. And I thought it would be something like bird box. So I finally snagged an ebook two weeks back.

synopsis

J is a student at a school deep in a forest far away from the rest of the world.

J is one of only twenty-six students, all of whom think of the school’s enigmatic founder as their father. J’s peers are the only family he has ever had. The students are being trained to be prodigies of art, science, and athletics, and their life at the school is all they know—and all they are allowed to know.

But J suspects that there is something out there, beyond the pines, that the founder does not want him to see, and he’s beginning to ask questions. What is the real purpose of this place? Why can the students never leave? And what secrets is their father hiding from them?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, in a school very much like J’s, a girl named K is asking the same questions. J has never seen a girl, and K has never seen a boy. As K and J work to investigate the secrets of their two strange schools, they come to discover something even more mysterious: each other.

what i liked:

The whole crazy social experiment idea was really appealing. Reading about J, a kid who literally doesn’t know about the existence of the opposite gender, along with all the other alphabet boys, was interesting.

I really liked reading about the implications of a situation like that and how the Alphabet boys and Letter girls reacted.

what i didn’t like:

The main idea was interesting but the way it was written and explored didn’t do it justice. The plot seemed to drag on and on and ON, to the point I really just wanted to skip to the ending. I think a lot of scenes were unnecessary fillers that could’ve been avoided.

Mostly the story just kept going round and round in circles. I guess some parts were meant to create suspense but all they did was confuse me? (not in a thrilling way)

would i recommend it?

It COULD have been a really good, different sort of book. But it was a HUGE disappointment, especially after reading Bird Box. So no, I’d say give this a pass.

overall rating: 3/5