January Wrap-Up

And the first month of 2016 is officially over! Crazy, right? Welcome to my January wrap-up post.

I am linking up to both the Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer and the Sunday Post @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction.

Is anyone else having a hard time recovering from the holidays? Yeah, maybe it's just me. I did spend two and a half weeks in the States towards the end of the year, so I really think the first two weeks of January were me recovering from jet lag. January was a quiet and slow month. No travel and nothing special really happened. I guess that's a good thing, but on the other hand, I had no excuse for taking my time to replying to blog comments. I felt a little blocked this month with my posts. I had a bit of writers' block and then I just got lazy about posts that I wanted to write. But last week, I had a breakthrough of a couple of discussion ideas, so look for those next month. I have already started getting ahead of myself and scheduling quite a few posts for February ahead of time. Yay me! I am feeling productive for the first time this year.

Living on the coast of Italy means that we don't have much of a winter and we didn't get any snow. That actually bums me out because I love the cold! But it has gotten cooler, so that's good. Lower temps + off season months = no crowds while seeing some of the sights in my own city. Yay!

This is a picture of the Naples waterfront with Mount Vesuvius in the background. Such a gorgeous day!

This was a great month for reading. That was about all I felt like doing this month.

I read a total of 27 books this month. 

I read some amazing books this month. Most of what I read was really, really good. According to Goodreads, there were only eight books that I rated three stars or less. Yay. That does mean that I had a bit of trouble coming up with my favorite book of the month. I will just leave you with the books that received five stars from me. (I left out The Nightingale simply because it was a reread, but it was just as good as the first time around!)

5 star reads for the month:

Most disappointing read: 

Since it was the only one star rating, this one wasn't that hard. You would think that a book about a blogger who hires a ghostwriter to write her posts would be good, right? Nope. Not even a little bit.

Reviews posted:

Life At The Speed Of Us by Heather Sappenfield
The Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
52 Likes By Medeia Sharif
Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway
Any Other Girl by Rebecca Phillips
Little White Lies by Brianna Baker
Truest by Jackie Lea Sommers
Underwater by Marisa Reichardt
The Wrath and the Dawn (Wrath and the Dawn #1) by Renee Ahdieh

Top Ten Tuesday Posts:

Top 2015 Releases Still On My TBR List
Recent Additions to my TBR Pile
Top Books I Would Love To Read Again For The First Time

Other posts:

First book of the year
Participated in Bout of Books - hosted a villain mash-up challenge
Discussion: When An Author Doesn't Like Your Review <--- MOST VISITED POST THIS MONTH
I did the Goodreads Book Tag.
Discussion: Why I Don't Do Reading Challenges

How was your January? What was your favorite book read this month? 

BOOK REVIEW: The Wrath And The Dawn (Wrath and The Dawn #1) by Renee Ahdieh

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi’s wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.

This book had so much hype that it scared me. Would I really love it as much as others seemed to? The answer is a resounding YES!! The hype for this one is completely justified.

I was not super familiar with the original story of A Thousand and One Nights that this book is loosely based on, so I went in a bit blind. First of all, I absolutely LOVED the writing for this book. It was so incredibly beautiful and poetic and vivid. I felt like I was right there in the kingdom and like I was eating all the delicious foods. And okay, let's talk about all the food for a minute. I LOVE FOOD!! I love when food is described in books because characters have got to eat and I want to know everything they are eating. I was salivating at some of the descriptions. Amazing. 

Now, let's talk about the characters. I adored Shahrzad. She was so feisty and sarcastic and quick witted. Some of her responses to people had me laughing out loud. She just had a way of saying something to an enemy and she was smiling even while her words cut like a knife. Perfect. 

I didn't expect to like her husband, Khalid. He is a murderer after all. But yeah, I started to feel sympathy for him and I hated it. I was dying to know WHY he had to murder all of his brides at dawn. So was Shahrzad and she kept trying to get it out of him. The reason behind it was very sad and heartbreaking. I can see why Shahrzad fell for her husband. Despite the fact that she knew he killed her best friend, she could also see the remorse under the surface and she could see that he wasn't the monster everyone thought he was. 

There was so much suspense and mystery between the secret of Khalid's brides, his uncle trying to usurp his throne and Shahrzad's family (and childhood love) trying to "rescue" her from Khalid's evil clutches. We got to see a little bit of the POV of Tariq (Shahrzad's first love) and her father. I could see why Tariq was frustrated since he didn't have all the information that Shahrzad did. And there was even a little bit of magic. 

This book did start out a bit slow. I was still engaged because the writing was beautiful and the characters were very well written. But the action didn't really pick up until the 15% mark or so. That is really the only thing about this story that could have been improved. And now I am SO EXCITED for the sequel!!!

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one!!

BOOK REVIEW: Underwater by Marisa Reichardt

Morgan didn't mean to do anything wrong that day. Actually, she meant to do something right. But her kind act inadvertently played a role in a deadly tragedy. In order to move on, Morgan must learn to forgive-first someone who did something that might be unforgivable, and then, herself. But Morgan can't move on. She can't even move beyond the front door of the apartment she shares with her mother and little brother. Morgan feels like she's underwater, unable to surface. Unable to see her friends. Unable to go to school. When it seems Morgan can't hold her breath any longer, a new boy moves in next door. Evan reminds her of the salty ocean air and the rush she used to get from swimming. He might be just what she needs to help her reconnect with the world outside. 

Morgan had me at grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. Oh yes, she eats my favorite comfort food every single day so I love her. And she makes her grilled cheese with extra cheese, so I love her even more. Yeah, guess it doesn't take much to win me over.

Okay, so on to the story. This was my first 2016 book of the year and it did not disappoint. I am so glad I had this one on preorder! Morgan has a case of agoraphobia, brought on by the fact that she experienced a traumatic event the year before. She basically has a really severe case of PTSD. You can see it every time she freaks out about a loud noise or the position of someone on the couch next to her. She never goes outside and in fact, she has a panic attack if she even steps on her welcome mat right outside her door. She goes to school online and she is very isolated, except for her mom and her adorable younger brother, Ben. First of all, the author's writing was beautiful. It's vivid and beautiful and I wanted to savor every word. The author did such a great job with the descriptions of what Morgan experienced physically every time she even thought about going outside, let alone tried to do it. I really felt like I was there with Morgan and I just wanted to hug her and tell her to breathe.

I freaking loved Morgan's therapist. She was very cool and she was understanding enough to make house calls. And she did all that for free. Pretty awesome. She was very patient with Morgan and yet was also not afraid to challenge Morgan on some incorrect assumptions that she had. She was the perfect therapist and I need to call her for myself. One issue I had though was that the therapist got a little too close to Morgan and revealed a bit of personal information that she shouldn't have. Sorry, but I have a Counseling degree and it is pretty much Counseling 101 that you don't do that. Other than that, she was perfect.

I also loved Morgan's family. I do think that her younger brother was about the cutest kid ever. I loved their relationship and I loved the hope that Ben had for Morgan. Her mom, bless her heart (sorry, couldn't resist letting my Southern out), was trying her very best for Morgan. She was impatient, but was willing to do what Morgan needed and let her recover at her own pace. Morgan's dad was MIA. From the stories that Morgan told, her dad used to be in the military and got progressively more distant the longer he spent overseas in Afghanistan. Her dad seemed to be suffering from some alcoholism and PTSD himself. Her dad was not really a part of the story that much, but I could appreciate the author inserting that part in the story. It allowed Morgan to relate to her dad a bit more and it showed how badly PTSD can affect everyone, not just the person suffering. People were even suffering because of Morgan's distance and her PTSD and she had to realize that.

There was some romance, but it wasn't a huge part of the story. I could appreciate that, but I had an issue with the fact that she didn't show that much interest in wanting to go outside until he showed up. It didn't seem like her recovery was 100% due to him exactly, but it was just attributed way too much to him. And the ending seemed a bit rushed. In real life, someone would not have recovered from that kind of agoraphobia as quickly as Morgan seemed to. Another issue was the mystery of what happened and what was driving her guilt. The reader could pretty much guess what the trauma was fairly early on, but there was still a lot of mystery regarding what Morgan herself experienced and why she felt so guilty. When the reason behind her guilt was revealed, I could completely understand her feelings but I wish it would have been revealed earlier. It would not have taken anything away from the book if Morgan had just mentioned it earlier.

Even with the few issues I had, I thought this was such an emotional and powerful and beautiful book. This is well worth the read. 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one!

Top Ten Tuesday - Books that I would love to read again for the first time!

This is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. They feature a different top ten list every week. This week's topic was a freebie, so I chose to do a post on books I would love to read again for the first time. 

There are certain books that either give me all the feels or they have such shocking plot twists that you would just love to relive it . . . but alas, you can't. Rereading favorites still makes me happy, but let's face it: there is nothing, absolutely nothing, like that first time you read a beloved book. 

1. The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

2. Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli 

3. The Law of Moses by Amy Harmon

4. You by Caroline Kepnes

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

7. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

8  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

9. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

10. Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Are there any books you would love to be able to read again for the first time?

Discussion: Why I Don't Do Reading Challenges

It's that time of year again . . . the beginning of the year marks the beginning of challenge after challenge after challenge. There are diversity reading challenges and debut author reading challenges and TBR reading challenges and only read authors with your initials challenges. (Okay, that last one may have been made up, but you get the idea.)

I have nothing against reading challenges personally. I even tried to do one or two or five last year. After three months, I quit. I just couldn't do it. They drive me crazy.

Here are a few reasons why I don't do reading challenges:

1. I can't read what I want to when I want to read it.

I have books on my Kindle that have been there since I bought it years ago. There are also newer releases coming out all the time that I am dying to read. Do I really need to worry about reading a book that fits into a particular category? I don't want to read a book because it is by a specific author or because it fits into a certain genre. I want to read a book because the mood strikes me dammit.

2. So much pressure.

I already have way too much pressure coming from my ARCs. I always feel like I have to read those by the publication date. Now if I had to read a certain number of books every month just to fit the criteria of a challenge? My head would explode.

3. I am a perfectionist. 

If I were to say that I could read six books in a certain challenge, that doesn't seem like a lot, does it? It really seems like a small amount when you consider the fact that I read over 200 books last year. But I know myself. If I committed to six books in a challenge, I would feel compelled to read twelve. Argh.

That is exactly why I can't do the Goodreads challenge anymore. I did set a goal this year, but it's a number that I won't have to try too hard to reach. I also have to force myself not to look at the number. If the website says I am eight books ahead of schedule, then I feel compelled to increase that number.

Nope. Can't do that one anymore either. It's just too much.

Do you participate in any reading challenges? Why or why not?

Goodreads Book Tag

I first saw Olivia @ The Candid Cover do this tag. I love Goodreads and it looked like fun, so here it is!

1. What is the last book you marked as "read?"

Room was such an amazing book!! I can't believe it took me so long to read it.

2. What are you currently reading?

Normally, I don't read more than one book at a time, but my moods are all over the place right now. I have a case of reading ADHD. The Wrath And The Dawn is an ebook, while 2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas is a physical copy. I am enjoying both The Wrath and the Dawn and 2 a.m. at the cat's pajamas. I have been reading Marked since January 15. It is so unusual that I wouldn't have finished this by now, but it is seriously boring me to tears. I have been at the 57% mark for the last three days. According to my Kindle, I have about two hours left of the book and I just can't bring myself to do it. I am considering DNF'ing it.

3. What was the last book you marked as "to read?"

I just heard about The First Time She Drowned and I am so excited for its release. It is about an eighteen year old girl being released from a mental institution after being locked there against her will by her mother.

4. What book do you plan on reading next?

Rebel Bully Geek Pariah is an ARC and The World We Found is a book that has been on my Kindle for well over a year. I am trying my best to read some of the ones that have been on my Kindle the longest.

5. Do you use the star rating system?

When it comes to Goodreads, yes. I don't use it on my blog.

6. Are you doing the 2016 reading challenge?

I suppose so. I did set a goal, but I haven't really been looking at the number. I don't want to read just to reach a certain number.

You have read 21 of 200 books.

11%

11%

11 books ahead of schedule

7. Do you have a wishlist?

Yes, I do but it's on Amazon.

8. What book do you plan on buying next?

I have both of these books on preorder and the release date for both of them is next Tuesday! I can hardly stand the excitement. Both of them are among my most highly anticipated books for 2016 and I have heard great things about both. I guess the only question will be which one should I start first.

9. What is your favorite quote?

I decided to limit this to favorite quote from a book I have read this year. Otherwise, it would have been much tougher. Both Maybe In Another Life and Illuminae have been my favorite books of the year so far, so it was only fitting that I choose quotes from those two books.

10. Who are your favorite authors?

Such a hard question! Marissa Meyer, Courtney Summers, and Amy Harmon are among some of my most loved authors.

11. Are you a part of any Goodreads groups?

I belong to the Seasonal Reading Challenge, but I don't participate in it anymore. It was fun, but a lot of pressure.

12. What could Goodreads do better?

I wish it would be possible to have a DNF shelf without them automatically marking it as read. Maybe I am just missing something. But every time I create a DNF shelf, Goodreads automatically marks the book as read.

Who do I tag? Whoever wants to do it!

What was your last book read? What (if anything) would you change about Goodreads? Are you participating in the 2016 Goodreads reading challenge?

BOOK REVIEW: Truest by Jackie Lea Sommers

Silas Hart has seriously shaken up Westlin Beck's small-town life. Brand new to town, Silas is different than the guys in Green Lake. He's curious, poetic, philosophical, maddening-- and really, really cute. But Silas has a sister-- and she has a secret. And West has a boyfriend. And life in Green Lake is about to change forever.
Nope, I don't get it. 

I had such high hopes for this one because literally everyone I know loved it. While there were a few things that I liked, I had too many issues to rate this one higher than three stars. The true rating would probably be somewhere around 2.5 stars.

First, what I liked: Silas's sister, Laurel, is suffering from a mental illness and I do think the author handled it very well. I have a Master's degree in Counseling and I had never heard of her illness. When looking it up, it appears that it is not recognized (yet) as a mental illness, so maybe that's why. Anyway, I won't give away any spoilers except to say that it was very unique. I really wanted more of Laurel and her illness. Congrats to the author for teaching me something new. I also thought that Silas and his feelings regarding his sister's illness were so realistic. On one hand, he loves her and would do anything to protect her. On the other hand, he also gets frustrated by all the attention that her illness requires and the fact that he can't lead a normal life because of it. Laurel's feelings about her illness and her struggle was so real that I think that is why I gave this one three stars instead of two. 

Another thing I liked was Silas's shirts. He was always wearing shirts with funny slogans on them, like "Practice safe lunch: use a condiment." So yeah those were good for a laugh.

So let's talk about the characters. Silas was an ass. I kind of hated him for a good chunk of the book. Now I knew going into it that this storyline involved cheating. Cheating is not always a deal breaker for me, but it has to be handled well. I get that young people change their feelings all the time and they cheat. It happens. But I could not, for the life of me, understand what West saw in Silas. This was not a case of two people struggling with their feelings of friendship turning into attraction. Well, at least West was struggling. Silas didn't care at all. Silas had a girlfriend. West had a boyfriend. Yet, Silas continuously inserted himself between West and her boyfriend and he was just a jerk about it. West didn't help because she kept choosing Silas over her boyfriend (despite how awful he was) and she never, ever stood up to him. Why would she want to be with someone who didn't respect her relationship or his own? I picture a sequel where he does this to another girl and cheats on West. He strikes me as the type. Then of course, he blames West for something towards the end of the book that was not her fault at all. And I'm sure a lot of people would make excuses for him based on the circumstances, but I already hated him, so I didn't cut him any slack. Speaking of the ending, I really thought the author could have done better. I feel like she inserted this big dramatic thing that did NOT need to happen just to cause more drama between West and Silas. I don't really have much to say about West because she was kind of annoying.

I am sorry that I just could not love this book the way everyone else could.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: I would say skip this one, but some of you may love this one.

BOOK REVIEW: Little White Lies by Brianna Baker

I received an ARC from Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is February 9, 2016.

Seventeen-year-old honors student Coretta White’s Tumblr, Little White Lies—her witty thoughts on pretty much . . . everything—has gone viral. She’s got hundreds of thousands of followers; she’s even been offered a TV deal. But Coretta has a secret. She hasn’t been writing all her own posts. Stressed from the demands of the sudden attention, she hired an expert ghostwriter, forty-one-year-old Karl Ristoff, to keep the Tumblr going. Now consumed with guilt, she confesses. 

The premise of this book sounded really appealing, especially since I am a blogger. The idea of a Tumblr feed going viral only for everyone to discover that the voice behind it isn’t what they thought had a lot of potential. Too bad it was wasted.

Let’s start with the things I liked. Coretta is a young black teenager who is a perfectionist to the hundredth degree. Talk about relatable. She panics if she gets a B instead of an A and she is working towards her dream of being able to attend Harvard. So yeah, when her posts start to go viral, I get why she hired a ghostwriter. This is a young girl who never quits anything and she is trying to keep her head above water with all of her obligation. Then things just kind of went south.

Here’s what I didn’t like (which was pretty much everything else):

• The POV of the white forty year old ghostwriter. It added absolutely nothing to the story and just felt out of place. I didn’t care why he took the job and I really didn’t care about the five page rundown of his personal history of why he got into ghostwriting to begin with (yeah, that really happened). He bored me.
•  The speed at which Coretta’s post went viral was crazy unrealistic. Seriously. She writes one post and suddenly she is famous? No, doesn’t work like that. After that post, her followers increase to 7,000 and three posts gets her 30,000 followers (and counting). WTH? Even people who don’t have a blog or Tumblr account know this is not possible. And suddenly, she’s blogging every single day and after a month or two, she is offered a TV deal! WTH again?!
• Her blog was not even that great. I don’t see why her posts even went viral. Her views were not original and weren’t even that funny. They were actually kind of bland. And what was with people sending her random emails asking for advice? She isn’t Dear Abby people. Even adults were wanting her advice. And wouldn’t it have been more realistic for her to get a few emails or messages trashing her opinion. I think we all know that kind of fame does not come without its fair share of haters.
• When she meets with the TV executive, NO ONE (not even her parents!) suggest that she consult a lawyer before signing the contract. WHAT? They just slap a contract in front of her and show her the signature line and BOOM. She signs with no issues at all. She doesn’t even read the damn thing herself, let alone get anyone else to.
•  I hated her character. After the first few chapters, she fell flat. I think it was the pacing. There were parts of the book that just moved way too fast. One minute, she is an average girl who wrote a random blog post one day and then three chapters later, she is hiring a ghost writer and scoring a TV deal. Yeah, I had no time to get to know her or to care about her. Then, when she gets caught, she starts trying to blame other people for her decision, like the person who introduced her to the ghostwriter in the first place. I’m sorry, did anyone make you hire him as a ghostwriter? Uh, no.
• Oh the ending. There are no words for how much more things fell apart after Coretta’s secret came out. Here are a few things I was hoping would happen: I wanted Coretta to have to face her friends and the strangers she let down. I wanted there to be a discussion about the ethics of her decision or even why she felt compelled to make that decision to begin with. What happened instead? She got sick for a week and stayed out of school, she received a five minute lecture from her parents, her boyfriend broke up with her over voice mail and then . . . nothing. Nope, then the focus went to some stupid mystery about the company that hired Coretta for the TV deal. WHO CARES?? There was no character development and no resolution to everyone finding out she used a ghost writer for a lot of her posts. It was a whole lot of nothing.
• And can I just talk about how much I detest epilogues? I won’t give spoilers for the ending, but I can tell you there was a very long narration about problems with racism in this country and legitimate political concerns that people have. Oh, but the diatribe on racism was written by the white guy! Shouldn’t it have been written by the main character, who is black?

I really, really wanted to DNF this book after a couple of chapters, but I pushed myself to finish it.

Borrow/Buy/Skip: Skip it, please. Just skip it.

BOOK REVIEW: Any Other Girl by Rebecca Phillips

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is January, 26, 2016.

After a disastrous, reputation-destroying party at the end of junior year, Kat Henley has a new plan. When it comes to boys—especially other people’s boys:
 
Don’t touch.
Don’t smile.
Don’t charm.
 
In the past, drawing attention to herself helped distract people from what really makes Kat different—having two gay parents. But it’s also cost her friendships. Kat can’t afford to lose any more of those, especially not her cousin, Harper. They’re spending one last summer together at the lake, where they run into an intriguing newcomer named Emmett Reese. After years of trying to prove she’s just like everybody else, Kat has found someone who wants her because she’s not. A boy who could be everything she wants too—if Harper hadn’t liked him first…

This was another book that didn't really evoke strong feelings in me. There were things that I liked and things that I didn't. I didn't expect to like Kat at first. It took me a while to connect with her. The book starts with her flirting with her best friend's boyfriend at a party. It irritated me that she would do that at all, but then when her friend confronted her about it, she shrugged it off and said she didn't do anything wrong. She was just saying that the whole flirting thing was part of her personality and her friend knew about that and nothing was ever going to happen with the boyfriend anyway, so who cares? 

But as the book went on, I kind of understood just why she felt the need to flirt like she did and why she didn't mind extra attention. Kat grew up with two dads and she quit soccer after hearing soccer moms complain that it is not surprising she wasn't "ladylike" because she was being raised by men. Ugh. That kind of ignorance bugs me. So after that, Kat quit sports and started dressing up more and doing her hair and makeup, etc. She also drew extra attention to herself because she wanted people to pay attention to HER and not her dads. So I could kind of understand why she felt the need to show off her feminine wiles to any guy she met. 

After this disastrous incident at the party and her best friend shutting her out, she heads off to spend the summer at her family's cabin, along with her cousin, Harper. I really loved Harper and I loved their relationship. That was one of the things that I wished the book had focused even more on. I mean, there was a focus on the friendship, but only in the fact that a guy was coming between them. So Harper seems to be a great friend (and family!) and she called Kat on her issues. When Kat explained what happened with her best friend's boyfriend, Harper didn't hesitate to tell her that she was wrong. I think we could all use friends like these, right? 

So that brings us to the guy, Emmett. Harper has a crush on him immediately and is therefore off-limits to Kat. I think that's awesome because there is a girl code about not going after a guy that your friend likes (or at least, there should be). I can't really call this a love triangle because nothing really happened between Emmett and Harper. Emmett liked Kat, but Kat didn't want to do anything. Admirable, yes. But since Emmett and Harper were never really together, she really wasn't doing anything wrong. I feel like a lot of drama could have been avoided if Kat had just been honest with Harper. But she started keeping certain things from her and then things spiraled out of her control.

There was some character development and some growth in this book, which I liked. I just didn't like the romance as much and wished there had been more focus on the friendship between Kat and Harper, as well as a focus on some of the family issues that made Kat the way she was. Her dads seemed great and I kind of wanted more of that. Emmett was also a bit of a bland character. He was very sweet and also honest (which I loved), but I didn't sense much chemistry and there was some family drama with him that didn't need to be there. I thought his family drama took focus off of what was going on with Kat. This was not a bad book, but I think it could have been better.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip this one.