Guys, I’m not going to lie, March was a reading struggle for me. As things started to get really bad with COVID19 and we eventually stopped going anywhere, I became so desperate for human interaction that all I wanted to do when not working was to talk to people on social media. It was a challenge to read more than 20 pages a night - my usual is at least 50 pages an hour. And I can’t say that I’m feeling a whole lot better going into the start of April. All this meant that I only ended up reading 5 books in March, but there are some very enjoyable ones on the list.
Crown of Midnight: Sarah J Maas
Somewhere in the last year I become I prolific reader of fantasy novels and well, here we are. This is book 2 of the Throne of Glass series, and I can’t talk about the plot without giving away key parts of the Throne of Glass, but I will say that I couldn’t get through this book fast enough. (I also happened to read this in early March before everything went to sh*t). I know it’s never going to happen because the budget for this series would be SO outrageous but I would LOVE to see this as a TV show in the vein of Game of Thrones.
I love that the central character is a badass assassin and this book really dives into her past in a very satisfying way.
Overall grade: A
Anna K: Jenny Lee
Full disclosure: I’ve never read or watched Anna Karenina, but I’ve been told it’s one of the best love stories ever written. And I love a good romance. So when I heard this described as Anna Karenina X Gossip Girl, i was so it.
And this is very much like Gossip Girl - generally unsupervised 1% teens with lots of teen drama, the in-crowd, the outsiders, and lots of label dropping. If you want to read something that reminds you a lot of Gossip Girl set in the present day, this is definitely the book you want to read.
BUT. and there is a big BUT for me — the writing is verbose. I have no problem with long books (Sarah J Maas routinely clocks in over 500 pages) but this had descriptions that were quite unnecessary - and i’m guessing this is where the Anna Karenina influence comes in. There’s just a lot of “here’s what he/she was thinking at this time” and that is not my vibe. So while this is not 500+ pages, there were times when I skipped entire paragraphs because I wanted to get to the next plot point.
Overall grade: B
The Beautiful: Renee Ahdieh
This is a vampire hunter book. See prior mentions of my newfound fantasy genre obsession.
We’re in 19th century New Orleans, and 17 year old Parisian seamstress Celine Rousseau is a new arrival to the city, having fled her home under dramatic circumstances. She’s temporarily living in a convent while she finds a suitable husband, and her seamstress skills introduce her to the city’s party scene and Le Cour des Lions, who are more than just glamorous society people.
This book has a slow start — it takes a little over 50 pages to get really interesting and builds to a cliffhanger. I wish this didn’t take quite as long as it does to get interesting. There’s a sequel that I will probably read because the cover is pretty and I need to see how this story ends.
Overall grade: B-
Our Stop: Laura Jane Williams
If you’re feeling stressed out and weird, this book is the balm you need. Nadia gets on the same London train every morning-ish. Daniel sees Nadia on the train and writes a missed connection. Nadia sees it and responds. And that begins a series of near misses and coincidences that makes for the most charming romcom.
This book has some funny bits too - I laughed out loud a few times and was just so charmed by this book. If it were made into a movie I would watch it on repeat. Just saying.
Overall grade: A
You are Not Alone: Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
Ok, I’m officially obsessed with these two authors and the books they create together. Each one is written with incredible pacing that sucks you in from the very first chapter.
Shay Miller leads a bit of a dead-end life but aspires to more. And then she sees a woman walk in front of a train. Soon Shay is sucked into a glamorous world and making over her entire life, but nothing is quite as it seems.
Overall grade: A. Highly recommend.
So that’s it for this month. As you can see I’ve been rotating between fantasy, romcom and straight up psycho murder - not sure what that says about me, but this is where we are now.