Wrap Up: June 2017

I am honestly so surprised that I’ve had two great reading months back to back as that hasn’t happened yet this year! But I’m so excited that I’m reading a lot and more importantly: enjoying most of the books I read! As I sit down to start writing this post, I have finished a total of six books make that seven! (including a book I finished on the last day of May but was too lazy to add to that month’s wrap up) and I definitely plan on reading at least another book before the month is over! Let’s get into this wrap-up!

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Books I Read

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And I Darken and Now I Rise by Kiersten White

Let’s start this wrap-up off with the book I officially finished on May 31st but was too lazy to include in last month’s wrap-up (which was already really long anyways): And I Darken! I was listening to this via Audible and I have to say, I was positively surprised by this! I didn’t really know what to expect going into it as I hadn’t really looked into this book before requesting an ARC of the sequel, but I’m so glad I got accepted and got the chance to read this series because of it!

Once I finished reading And I Darken, I quickly moved on to Now I Rise and I have to say, I actually ended up enjoying the sequel even more than the first book? And I’ve kind of made it my mission to get people to read these books too! I know I was late to the party (and if I remember correctly, people did really hype this book when it first came out last year!) but at least I finally got there and got to witness the awesomeness, right?

I also took the opportunity to write a bit of a different review after I really enjoyed writing out reasons as to why people should read the ACOTAR trilogy and did the same thing for The Conqueror’s Saga which you can find right here (there are no spoilers, so you’re good to go)!

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Lord Of Shadows by Cassandra Clare

If you’ve been reading our blog for a little while, you probably know that I am a huge fan of Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter Chronicles so it probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you that I finally read Lord Of Shadows this month!

I was really hoping I would get to chance to read it closer to its official release date, but I had to read and review Now I Rise first as the publisher asked for the review to be posted about two weeks before the official release, so Lord Of Shadows got pushed back a little bit. But the wait was most definitely worth it and I can’t believe Cassandra Clare would do her fans so dirty with that cliffhanger of an ending and then have us wait two years for the final book in the trilogy! You just don’t do that, Cassie. You don’t.

And I can’t believe I complained about Sarah J Maas not going there with ACOWAR and then when Cassie does go there? I complain about it too, because how dare she?! I’m funny like that. But yes, definitely a great book and so worth the read! I actually shared my thoughts in a review too and also talked a bit about why you should read all of Cassandra Clare’s previous works before you start reading The Dark Artifices!

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Words On Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton

Words On Bathroom Walls was another ARC I got accepted for and finally read this month and I honestly couldn’t find anything to like about this book? I wasn’t a fan of how the character (who is schizophrenic) kept referring to himself as crazy, the character’s view on other people with mental health issues or someone else’s relationship with sex. I did talk a bit more in depth about all my feelings in my review so you can check that out for more of my thoughts as I really don’t want to talk about this book any longer.

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The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

After I finished reading Words On Bathroom Walls and ended up not liking it at all, I figured I needed to read something that I would enjoy to make sure I don’t fall into some sort of reading slump and The Carrie Diaries was supposed to be that book. Well, turns out it wasn’t. I ended up enjoying it about as much as WOBW – though for different reasons. I remember really enjoying the CW show of the same name and figured it would be fun to dive back into this world and get to follow young Carrie Bradshaw but it just wasn’t my type of book. I didn’t like the characters, the relationships or the writing. This is definitely going to be my first and last Candace Bushnell book!

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Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

I think at this point I was almost desperate to read a book I would love and so I decided to go back to something I know I love: Clockwork Angel, book one in Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices trilogy! And I definitely enjoyed it – not as much as I did the first two times I read it, but still very much! I was definitely a bit tired of the world building after being thrust right into the story with the first two books in The Dark Artifices that I also read this year, but other than that, I loved getting to revisit all these characters and their stories! Even though I didn’t review this book on my blog (and don’t plan on doing it in the future, to be honest), I did write a review for it during my first re-read a couple of years ago and you can find it on my Goodreads page! I can’t wait to continue my re-read of this trilogy soon!

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

Love & Gelato is the last book I finished in the month of June and unfortunately, I finished the month off on a rather bad note, so I’m definitely hoping to at least start something else that I am going to enjoy more! I got really excited when I saw that HarperCollins Germany offered eARCs of this in time for its release here in Germany and I jumped on the chance to read this book – ended up being disappointed by it. I talk more about it in an upcoming review and before that in a bit of a rant. That’s one great thing this book gave me: inspiration for an extra post! Thanks, book!

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Books I Bought/Got

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After going a bit overboard with my spending on books last month, I definitely had to take it a bit slower for the month of June and I only ended up getting two books, one of which was a physical copy of an audiobook I had listened to before!

And I Darken by Kiersten White

As you’ve already read in my reading wrap up, I finished the audiobook for And I Darken at the end of May and I ended up loving the story so much that I really, really wanted a physical copy of this book to put on my shelves and hopefully re-read in the future too! I once again ordered this book as a used copy and I was really happy with the quality too! I can’t wait to add Now I Rise to my collection too, probably next month or so.

When I finished my order for And I Darken I had to decide between paying 1€ for shipping (which really isn’t much at all) or finding another book I really wanted and get my total over 10€ and you’ll never believe the deal I managed to get for the next book. 

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The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

My copy of And I Darken ended up being around 7€ (for a paperback) and so I had about 3€ left to get over 10€ for free shipping and as I was looking through a bunch of YA hardcovers, I stumbled upon The Scorpio Races. It was just over 3€ and I don’t think I’ve ever clicked ‘Add to basket’ as quickly as I did when I found it! Just over 3€ for a hardcover? In great condition? Yes, please! And the book really was in great condition once I saw it! I can’t wait to read this (hopefully in the next couple of months) and find out if I enjoy Maggie’s writing outside of her The Raven Cycle quartet! I sure hope so, as I’m really excited for her next release later this year! Have any of you guys read this book and can tell me some of your thoughts? 

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The Oxford Inheritance by A. A. McDonald

I’ve recently been watching a couple of German booktubers because I was interested in seeing how things worked for them and what kind of books were being published here in Germany and The Oxford Inheritance kept popping up and that cover really drew me in! I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I recently joined Random House Germany’s program for bloggers and they had this book up as a book you could request to review, so I went for it – not realizing that it’s not Young Adult. Oops But I’m still interested in reading it and can’t wait to get to it. Also, can we just talk about how they sent me an actual hardcover edition of this book? I was speechless.

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What I Posted

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Before I get into some of my favorite posts of this past month, I just want to take the opportunity to thank Kourtni, Dani, Christine and Reg for shouting out our blog in the past few weeks and linking to some of our previous posts! It was really appreciated! Thank you, once more!

I recently participated in Mikaela’s Big Blogger, Little Blogger Project and introduced you guys to my little blogger Christine this month. We did a fun Q&A and Christine shared a guest post all about critical reading and why we should all be doing it! You guys seemed to really enjoy it – it is the most popular post this month!

• 6 Ways To Get Me To Follow Your Blog – I shared all of the things I’m looking for whenever I try to decide if I want to follow a blogger or not
• My Experience Buying Used Book – I ordered used books for the first time and shared my experience with you guys
• Why You Can’t Read The Dark Artifices Without […] (that title is ridiculously long) – After I finished reading Lord Of Shadows I realized that you really can’t read this book without having read every other book by Cassie and I talked about why!
• TBR Spotlight: 8 Books Featuring POCs – I wanted to try a new and different way to look at my TBR and highly specific sets of books and my first installment was all about books featuring people of color on their covers!
• 5 Series I Started – But Haven’t Finished Yet – I shared some series I’ve started reading in the hopes that me talking about them to you guys will get me excited to start reading them. Let’s see if this works!
• The Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag – I think a lot of us bloggers jumped on this train and reflected on our reading for the first half of 2017 which was so much fun to do!
• Amanda Foody Is Killing It On Twitter – Daughter Of The Burning City author Amanda Foody shared a super fun thread of details for her 2018 release and I got super excited about it and dedicated a blog post to her to celebrate!

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