Hello everyone!
This weekend I uploaded a video where I talk about Big Little Lies - how I LOVED the book and am unsure about the TV show! Let me know what you guys think and if I should give the TV show another try!
February Wrap-Up
This year I've decided to change many things on my blog - including a new layout soon! - and besides my Tea and Booktalk section, I also wanted to do a wrap-up every month from now on.
I've really enjoyed reading these kind of posts from other bloggers, most specifically the wonderful Grace Latter, and decided to make my own version of this. Though it is still mostly book related, these wrap-ups will also include other things I've enjoyed and didn't enjoy every month!
Things I loved this month:
- Travelling: This month my boyfriend came to visit me and we travelled all over the Netherlands. While I was born in Holland, I never really explored it much so I really enjoyed having the chance to do that now. Also, I got to revisit my college town Middelburg, which leads me to my next point...
- Nostalgia: February was very nostalgic for me. I don't know if it is the crappy weather or the fact that I'm in this weird in-between phase of waiting for my thesis results and slowly planning out my future, but this month I thought a lot about the past and how far I've come. Going back to my college town and seeing how things hadn't change there just made me realise how much I have. Almost five years later, I have lived in London, wrote a novel and started this blog. College seems years away, but it was so much fun to reconnect with that part.
- Dutch bookstores: I don't give Belgium and Holland enough credit for their bookstores. While I haven't read a book in Dutch since I was little, I also forgot how nice their bookstores can be - and their impressive English selection. Perfect example of this is The Drvkkery, where I did a mini-bookhaul with two of my favourite book editions ever.
Things that weren't fun this month:
- My reading pace: I've been off. I read seven books in January and was so excited to discover many more in February. But it just didn't happen. As any reader knows, some days you just can't make yourself read. While I'm trying not to feel guilty about that, I hope that March will give me new motivation to read some books that I'm really excited about.
- No thesis result yet: Though the deadline to get my result back is March 8th, I was optimistic I might get it early! But I'm still waiting and obsessively refreshing my studenthome page!
Things I'm looking forward to:
- Reading: As I said, February wasn't a good reading month but March is already looking good. I started The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and am absolutely in love so far. I'm only a third of the way in, but this story is nothing like I thought it would be and I'm loving it. I'm also vowing to get a grip on my Netgalley list this month - whenever I know I'm caught up with reviews, I just feel amazing.
- Booktube: I have some great ideas for some videos. I can't wait to dissect The Picture of Dorian Gray in a Tea and Booktalk video (I have SO MANY THOUGHTS) and there have also been some amazing tags doing the rounds that I can't wait to try.
That was my month. How was your February and did anyone else have a reading slump?
I hope you enjoyed this post and hopefully my March wrap-up will be filled with more book news and less reading slump news!
The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden
I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a honest review. This in no way influenced my opinion of the book.
The Bear and the Nightingale is the story of Vasila, a girl who lives in Russia and whose mother died after giving birth to her. While Vasila seems to grow up in a normal household, with her siblings and father, she sees things that other people do not see. As she grows up, her connection to spirits becomes stronger and once her father brings home a new wife, one who hates all kinds of spirits, Vasila is the one who will have to save her family.
This book has gorgeous descriptions - I don't know a lot about historical Russia, but I absolutely adored the way Katherine Arden made that world come alive for me. There was enough description that it was easy for me to image the world, yet not that much that the story was hindered by it.
These descriptions do not only relate to the setting, but also to the characters. Vasila is a complicated narrator, who, due to her young age, is not always trustworthy. As a reader, it was a joy to figure out exactly what she was feeling and what parts of her story were her imagination and which parts were real. All the minor characters, and due to the size of Vasila's family there were many, were also well written. I especially loved her sister Olya, who is completely different from Vasila, yet is incredibly nurturing towards her little sister.
The only thing I didn't enjoy about this story was the pacing. While the descriptions worked well with the story, there were too many events that weren't relevant enough to the plot. The first half of the book progresses incredibly slow and then the major event, which is alluded to throughout the novel, is solved in a single chapter. I wish the action was more spread out through the story and that there was a bigger climax towards the end of the novel. Right now, much of the beginning seemed unnecessary and at the end, I was craving to know so much more about the events and characters.
Even then, this novel was a good read. While the pacing is off, the characters are enchanting and it was a pleasure to get to know them and their journey. This story is perfect for readers who enjoy magic realism and history fiction, in that it combines both with ease.
Tea and booktalk
I started a new unofficial section on my Youtube channel - my Tea and Booktalk. Basically, any book that I read that just leaves me confused and conflicted will end up in here. I grab some tea and talk about all my issues with this book.
I hope you will join me with a lovely cup of tea.
Costa Book Awards 2016
If you've been on my blog before, you'll know that I absolutely love the Costa Book Awards and have enjoyed both the longlists and shortlists in the previous years. However, 2016 was the year of my thesis and I missed out on reading the fiction shortlist like I usually do.
Now that I am a free woman again, I decided to make up for this loss and read both the winner of the fiction and poetry category to prepare myself for the announcement of the overall winner tonight.
Falling Awake by Alice Oswald
Before I start this review, I want to highlight my absolute lack of poetry knowledge. As I mentioned in my reading resolutions for 2017 video, I am not a poetry reader. Since I've never really read any poetry, besides the mandatory poems a English literature student has to read, I had no clue where to start finding poetry to read. And then I discovered that Falling Awake by Alice Oswald has won the poetry section of the Costa Book Awards and figured that was a good enough reason to start with that collection.
Falling Awake isn't an easy poetry collection to read. Its premise is based on Greek mythology, which I actually found a comfort because I am very interested and have learned quite a bit about mythology. The collection consists of two parts and I must say that I found the second part a lot easier to understand than the first one.
The key with Falling Awake, for me at least, was to really take my time to read and re-read and think about what exactly I read. This is probably true for a lot of poetry, which is supposed to pack a lot in a small package, but it wasn't really my thing. The second part of the collection was enjoyable and easy enough to understand that one, very focused, read was enough for me, but the first part was just exhausting.
While I think this is probably due to my inexperience, Falling Awake was only half enjoyable for me. However, I'm excited to pick it back up in a few weeks and see if some thinking and time has changed my mind about the collection and my understanding of it.
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
This book completely surprised me in every way possible. Days Without End is the story Thomas McNulty, a soldier who has fled the Irish famine and is followed through the Indian Wars and Civil War in America with John Cole, a friend he met when he was still a young child.
The first thing I really enjoyed about this novel is the new things I learned. Since I went to high school in Europe, my knowledge of both the Indian War and Civil War is limited. This novel really helped me understand how gruelling these wars were and also how incredibly futile for so many people. While Thomas fights against the Indians, he doesn't understand why he has to kill them. This is mirrored in the Civil War where he is on the side of the North, but none of the soldiers seem to realise that the war is about slavery. Neither of these wars, or maybe any war at all, is a grand moral fight. It is just soldiers following orders because they will be killed if they don't. Realising this was extremely eery but also made me realise, especially for the Indian War, how extremely useless and gruesome it was.
However, Days Without End is a lot more than just a war story. Thomas and John start a relationship together, something highly uncommon in that time, and Thomas also struggles with his gender identity throughout the novel. Without giving too much away, Thomas starts experimenting at a young age with cross-dressing. First just for work, but slowly he starts questioning his gender identity more and more. The way Sebastian Barry was able to combine the masculinity of the violent war with Thomas search within himself was beautiful. I really enjoyed the complexity of Thomas and John's relationship, both with themselves and each other.
Days Without End is truly remarkable in its original approach to a war novel. While Falling Awake was hard for me to grasp, Days Without End easily guided me through unknown topics and made me fall in love with the characters at the same time.
Relativity - Antonia Hayes
RATING: ★★★★☆
I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a honest review. This in no way influenced my opinion of the book.
Relativity by Antonia Hayes is the story of a broken family that is connected by their love and knowledge of the planets and physics. Ethan is raised by his mother Claire and knows absolutely nothing about his father. However, a decade later his father, Mark, reappears in Sydney and due to a complicated connection of events, he attempts to reconnect with his family.
Relativity switches between the perspectives of Ethan, Claire and Mark throughout the novel. I really enjoyed this aspect because it helps the story unfold in layers and as a reader you constantly change your perspective and ideas on what exactly is happening. There are also time jumps in the novel that kept me interested in the plot and wanting to find out what is going to happen next.
To say I am not a physics expert is an understatement. I about failed every single science-y course in high school. This meant that Relativity was a challenge for me at times. Ethan, and his father, are very interested in planets and the concepts of physics. While Antonia Hayes does a good job explaining these concepts, I sometimes did not understand how they fit into the story. There were pages of physics talk that I did not understand and I wish I was able to connect them to the story better.
The story overall was really interesting. I won't really talk about the big events that reconnect Mark to his family, because it is really exciting to see them slowly unfold on paper when you have no clue what is about to happen. Antonia Hayes is very successful in combining a character based story with an interesting and original plot. While I found the pacing often too slow for my liking, the story was gripping enough that I couldn't put the novel down.
Overall, Relativity is an original story, especially because it has an interesting and unconventional ending. I enjoyed reading this story and I would recommend it for people with an interest in our cosmos and physics. That knowledge will probably help you connect certain concepts better with the story, but even without it, it is still an enjoyable and emotional read.
My 2016 Reading Year
If you subscribe to my Youtube channel (which you should, because I'm going to upload a ton on it this year!!), you'll have seen my new Reading Goals for 2017 video.
In light of that, I wanted to reflect on this blog about my reading of 2016 and the books that I've loved and the goals I wanted to achieve!
Goodreads Reading Goal
I try to be a realist when it comes to my reading. Knowing this, I set my Goodreads goal to half of what I read in 2015. While I crushed over a hundred books that year, I knew that my thesis would get in the way of all the fun reading. 2016 was the year of 50 books and I actually read more than that (almost 70!), which was a pleasant surprise.
It was really enjoyable having a low goal and allowing myself the time to read books that would take a while to finish. Prime example of this is Gone With The Wind, which took me a month (HELLO, a 1000 pages!!), but is one of my favourite books of all time.
As I mentioned in my reading goals for next year, I definitely want to keep up this habit of reading big books and enjoying them - so my goal for 2017 is again 50 books. I'll have NINE months free to just read (YAAAY!!), but I really want to crush some classics so I'll need all the time I can get.
My Main Three Books of Last Year
So generally, last year was all about my thesis - which as a literature student I am happy to report was about some of my favourite novels ever. That means that I read three books over ten times in 2016. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald and Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald are permanently memorized in my brain and I just pray that some day I'll forget extensive quotes so I can remember more useful day-to-day things!
Diversity
Another thing I wanted to do in 2016 was to read more diverse. While I read more diversely than in 2015, I still think I can do better. The Mothers by Brit Bennet is a book that I picked solely based on the gorgeous cover and actually really fell in love with. I want to learn to be more aware of what diverse authors are publishing, so it isn't just a chance pick at the bookstore. So while I am happy with the progress I made last year, I am also motivated to do better this year - which will be interesting combined with a desire to read more classics!
Process from YA to other fiction genre
Though I didn't upload regularly last year, I think it is safe to say that my blog has been transitioning from a YA blog to include more genres, so I achieved this goal.
Don't get me wrong - I still absolutely love YA and I always will. However, as a personal goal, I want to make sure I am more exposed to different types of writing. While YA will always have a soft spot in my heart, many YA novels feel generic to me. I just have to be more aware of which novels I pick out, so I don't miss out on stunners as the Lunar Chronicles!
Overall, 2016 was an AWFUL blogging year, but not a bad reading year. In 2017, I want to make sure I can combine both and share with you guys more of what I'm reading and what I'm thinking.
How was your 2016 reading year?