March Wrap Up: The Month of (Almost) 5 stars! – & Announcing my ReadAThon!!

Hi all!

March is over … already. How? How? How? I can’t deal with how fast this year is going! But then on the upside, it’s now April and my readathon, #UnsolvedAThon, has started! I’m so excited for this and I’m so happy so many people have joined! You’re all amazing people!

Now — I read 17 books this month for March. And I rated them all 5 stars each … except for one. Can you guess which one? Yep, Gone with the Wind! That book I rated 2.5 stars.

I was so close — so close! — to having a perfect 5 star read month! I can’t believe I missed out by one freaking book! 😭

Books read

17 reads: 16 books (5 audiobooks), 1 short story

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Books reviewed

★★★★★

The Fever King was so much better than I thought it would be! It was a fast-paced political drama, with an intense m/m romance thrown in. I absolutely loved the main character, Noam, and adored his love interest, Dara. I also loved the bisexual rep!

This book was a wild ride from start to finish and I highly recommend it! Review.

 

★★★★★

I was very lucky enough to have been part of the blog tour for The Priory of the Orange Tree and I can tell you right now this is an incredible novel. I was so impressed with everything, from the writing to the plot to the characters … everything was amazing! I especially loved the f/f romance in the book; its probably the most beautiful romance I’ve ever come across. Review.

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Book of the month

THREE BOOKS OF THE MONTH! THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE! Wow, I read so many amazing books this month!

Bear, Otter and the Kid is the first book in TJ Klune’s romance series of the same name. I originally read this book because its part of my HamilAThon TBR and then I ended up reading the whole series! It was absolutely amazing — very angsty and sad, and it takes a lot out of you, but still so incredibly beautiful! I read all four books in four days (and it would have been three if I didn’t have to work one of those days)! It follows a young man named Bear (real name Derrick, but his little brother pronounced it Berrick and then it got shortened to Bear) who becomes the guardian of his 5-year-old brother after their mother abandons them. Cut to five years later and Bear’s best friend’s older brother, Otter (Oliver), is back in town and Bear has to deal with the feelings between them that he’s ignored for years.

I honestly can’t believe how good Mr Big Empty was! Its been a very long time since I’ve read a murder mystery and this book reminded me how much I love them. The first book follows 16-year-old Vie Eliot as he moves to small town Vehpese on order from the state to live with his father, after his mother was abusive. However, his father is a drug addict and just as abusive, and Vie spends a lot of his time trying to avoid his father, as the man steals the money Vie makes working at a burger restaurant. He gets involved in the disappearance of a girl called Samantha and works with two potential suspects, Austin and Emmett, in her murder to solve the crime — while becoming close to the two boys. This was a fantastic novel and I’m so impressed by it. It was fast-paced and kept me glued to the page, but massive trigger warnings for: self-harm, attempted suicide, suicidal thoughts, physical and verbal abuse, murder, kidnapping, homophobia, internalised homophobia, drug use; a child is shot and an underage relationship is mentioned.

I read Tipping the Velvet with my close friend for our bookclub and it was amazing! I can’t believe I hadn’t read it sooner! I read Sarah Waters Fingersmith and enjoyed it but it was really slow and long, despite the great plot twists. So I think I was a bit apprehensive to read her debut, but in the end I loved it! It’s very different from Fingersmith. Its set in Victorian London follows a young woman named Nancy who leaves her small-town family for London to become a singer in a dancing act, and becomes the lover to a famous female singer. Nan eventually discovers she’s a lesbian but her lover will not reciprocate. So she leaves her lover and sets out on her own to discover her sexuality. It’s so freaking good, I really want to read Waters other novels.

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Monthly disappointment 

★★.5

Ughhhhhh this book! I had such high expectations! So many people I know rated this book five stars and absolutely loved it, so I fully expected to as well! However, none of them mention the rampant racism and misogyny throughout the novel.

Of course the book is set during and after the American Civil War, for the South’s side, so I couldn’t be too surprised that it was pro-slavery but I was just so shocked at the novel! This book has been advertised as a classic love story but it’s not! There is barely any romance until page 600-and-something … and my copy is 800 pages long. Scarlett is in love with her friend’s husband for the entirety of the book but its always brought up in dribs and drabs, and they can never be together (plus its very obvious she loves the idea of him, not the real him). And he’s off in war for most of the book!

Rhett Butler is her real love interest but Scarlett doesn’t fall in love with him until page 700-and-something. Plus, he’s barely in the novel too — he’s always off somewhere and then shows up randomly to antagonise Scarlett. He eventually marries her very late into the book, but Scarlett doesn’t fall for him until the novel almost finishes. So how is this a romance? It’s not!

In my opinion, it’s a historical bildungsroman novel about a young woman, with romantic elements thrown in. Half of the book is about the Reconstruction of Georgia after the civil war, the other half is about how Scarlett grows from a naive and selfish girl to a headstrong and powerful woman who many people depend on, and only a small portion is about romance. So I feel like I was cheated a bit. I was promised one thing and got something completely different. Instead of a romance of the ages, I got a book that tried to tell me why black people were happier under slavery and why slavery should return. No thanks.

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Readathon announcement! 

(Click on the image above for more info!)

#UnsolvedAThon has officially started!

If you missed the announcement, never fear! Sign up will be available all throughout April, so you can even join up the night before it ends!

In case you missed it, I announced a readathon, based on Buzzfeed Unsolved! It took me four months to create and my amazing friend, Scathiee, worked on the artwork for over a month.

Basically, you’re an amateur sleuth working on an unsolved case. In order to crack the case, you need to solve the 10 clues on the investigation board that will help you solve the mystery!

There are two avatars you can play as: Ryan or Shane. Depending on which avatar you choose determines which path on the Investigation Board (the game board/bingo board) you take.

There are 10 episodes of Buzzfeed Unsolved for each avatar path: five supernatural episodes and five true crime episodes. These episodes work as “clues” that will help you solve the unsolved case! In order to solve a clue, you need to read a book that relates to that episode. Once a clue has been solved (meaning you’ve read a book) you can move onto the next clue by following the red string. Solve all 10 clues (read all 10 books) and you’ve solved the unsolved case and completed the readathon!

I also give a bunch of book recommendations for each prompt, for those who are struggling to find a book! Check it out here!

Hope you consider joining and to those who have joined, you’re amazing!

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Gone with the Wind readalong

This month, I hosted a readalong of Gone with the Wind. Each week, we read 200 pages of the novel with the aim of reading the whole book in a month.

Thank you so much to the lovely people who participated in this readalong with me! It was a lot of fun even when the book started giving me a headache.

If you’re interested in this book, or its something you’ve always wanted to read but don’t want to actually read, check out my discussion posts! The discussions posts are filled with spoilers and basically talks about the whole book with my reaction to scenes, plot points and characters.

Discussion post: part 1
Discussion post: part 2
Discussion post: part 3
Discussion post: part 4

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Bookish content

[To see each linked post, click on the corresponding image]

For this international women’s day, I drew up a list of 24 books that I believe to be recommended feminist reading. There’s 12 non-fiction titles and 12 fiction titles. My goal with this list was to recommend good books that are easy to read and draws you in. I’ve always felt that much non-fiction titles, and feminist titles, can be a bit slow and boring. Which is a shame because they’re important books — so hopefully these books are fun but interesting and educative too!

I also revealed my #UnsolvedAThon TBR! I’ll be following Ryan’s path because I’m a lot like him — I believe in a lot of supernatural stuff — and I’ve picked a lot of books that I’ve had on my TBR for ages. Including books like The Poppy War and the third book in the Nightrunner series.

This tag was super awesome and I feel it so much! There are so many books I want to read but at the same time can’t be bothered reading? Is there a way I can just know everything about a book without having read it, because that would be great.

This was another awesome tag because I actually love spring cleaning — I do it at least four times a year. I just get into one of those moves and then I can just go. I actually recently did this for a whole bunch of books and I was ruthless!

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ARCs I received 

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Books purchased 

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Non-bookish stuff

I haven’t done much non-bookish stuff this month! I’ve been busy with work and that’s about it? I didn’t even watch TV this month, because I was too busy working and reading.

BUT! I did manage to watch Captain Marvel which was amazing! Brie Larson was incredible as Carol and I was so drawn into the movie. I’m so freaking excited for Avengers: Endgame now, even more than I was before.

So aside from watching a movie, I didn’t watch any TV but I did watch a hell of a lot of YouTube. I didn’t discover Mac Does It this month, but I did watch a lot of his videos! Please watch Mac, he’s so funny! He’s most known for reacting to anti-LGBTQ+ content as well as racist content. He does so in a humorous way, but he has moments of seriousness. He does heaps of other videos too, so let me link to a few of my favourites.

But this month, I did discover a YouTuber called Dylan is in Trouble and he’s hilarious! He mainly does movie commentary, like watching bad or critically acclaimed movies, and then reacting to it. What I like most about Dylan is that he seems like a typical straight white frat boy, but he’s not. He’s genuinely funny and he gets excited over romance movies, is currently writing a YA novel, and shipped Elio and Oliver in Call Me By Your Name. He’s pretty awesome, here’s some of my favourite videos of Dylan’s!

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Looking forward: April

The most exciting thing coming up next month is #UnsolvedAThon! I’m so excited for this readathon and I’m so thankful for all the people who are joining and participating with me! #UnsolvedAThon starts April 1 and ends April 30, your time. Sign up is available all of April, so you can join anytime.

Reviews to come:

• The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
• Series review: Hollow Folk by Gregory Ashe
• Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

TBR (not including #UnsolvedAThon):

How was your March? How many books did you read? Are you joining #UnsolvedAThon? Let me know