Fierce Female Reads Readathon TBR!

February 15, 2019February 15, 2019 Alyssa Cohen5 Comments

Hi everybody and welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Ashely from Falling Down The Book Hole is hosting the first ever Fierce Female Reads Readathon with the help of a few other fantastic bloggers (including myself)! It starts today on February 15th, and is running until the last day of the month – February 28th. If you are planning on participating in the readathon, sign up here! The Fierce Female Readathon is all about reading books written by fierce female authors or fierce female characters. There are six challenges that you can follow when selecting your TBR books for this readathon, or you can chose your own fierce female books! The challenges are listed in the graphic below!

I have chosen a book for each of the categories, but I highly doubt that I will be able to read seven books in the next 14 days!

The book we have selected as our group read is Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu. I will be posting my full review for this book on Feb. 17, and I am so excited to share all of my thoughts on it with you! Therefore, I have actually already read the novel and won’t be reading it during the readathon. However, I encourage you to read Moxie along with the group, and I look forward to reading all of your thoughts on the novel!

The first challenge for this readathon is to read a book with women/girl in the title. I am sort of cheating for this one, as I am picking a book with female names in the title (I hope that’s ok!). The first book I plan on reading is “Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee” by Jeff Zentner! The first thing that drew me into this book was obviously the beautiful cover, but the premise seems very interesting. Apparently there is a lot of humour in this book, and I can’t wait to read it! Thanks to Penguin Teen Canada for this ARC!

The second challenge for the FFR is to read a book written by a women of colour. For this challenge, I have chosen “Internment” by Samira Ahmed. This book is a fictional story based on what is happening at the boarders in the United States of America. While I am a proud Canadian citizen, I think that this story and the real events that are going on at the boarders in the USA are so important and need to be spoken about more. Words cannot explain how excited I am to read this book. Thanks to Hachette Book Group for the finished copy (hopefully I will get my copy in the mail before the end of the readathon)!

The third challenge is to read a fierce female recommendation recommendation from the book community. I thought this would be the perfect time to finally read “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid! I have heard SPECTACULAR things about this book in all of the book communities (book blogs, book tube, bookstagram, etc.), and I am eager to see what I think about it!

The fourth challenge is to read a book featuring/written by a fierce female or a book based off of women in history. I have chosen to read “Becoming” by Michelle Obama. This book has been the #1 best selling books on charts all over the world, and I am SO excited to finally read her novel. I am a huge Michelle Obama fan, and I was ecstatic to hear that she was writing and publishing her very own novel. I actually featured this book in my “Fierce Females in YA” post, which you can read here.

The last challenge for the FFR is to read a book with a fierce female leading a resistance. For this challenge, I have chosen to read an eARC of Crown of Feathers by Nicki Pau Preto, which has been sent to me from Simon & Schuster Canada. This book came out just a few days ago, and I am really looking forward to reading it! I have not read a YA fantasy book in ages, so I am interested to see what my opinions of this book will be since my reading preferences have changed drastically over the past six months. To be honest with you, I have heard very mixed things about this book, so it will be interesting to see what my overall opinions of it are.

And those are all of the books I plan on reading during the Fierce Females Reads Readathon! If you are participating, let me know what you plan on reading or comment the link to your post down below and I will be sure to check it out! Also make sure to follow the twitter for the Fierce Female Reads and use the #FierceFemaleReads, as there will be a lot of fun stuff going on there as well! I hope you will all participate in this readathon, since it is going to be a lot of fun!

Good Night Book Owls!

book reviews

Alyssa’s Reviews – The Black Coats by Colleen Oakes (ARC)

February 13, 2019February 13, 2019 Alyssa Cohen5 Comments

“You…” Her eyes fluttered as her skin turned pale. Thea could see from here that the (spoiler)’s leg was bent at an unnatural angle. “You could have been great.” Thea’s lips curled. “I’d rather be good.”

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

I am SO happy to share that my first 5-STAR READ OF 2019 is… THE BLACK COATS by Colleen Oakes! This book exceeded my highest expectations, and I am so thankful that I received an ARC from HarperCollins Canada/HCC Frenzy of this book!

TW: Rape, abuse, murder, violence.

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

Roses are read, violets are blue, if you hurt us, we’re coming for you.
The deeply secretive Black Coats have been exacting vengeance on men who hurt girls and women for years. And Thea has just received an invitation to join them. This is the opportunity she’s been waiting for to finally get justice for her cousin Natalie, whose killer went free.
Thea dives head first into the group, training every day with other girls whose stories rival hers. Together they carry out Balancings—acts of revenge guaranteed to teach a lesson. With every predator threatened, every blackmailer exposed, and every date rapist punished, Thea can feel herself getting closer to avenging Natalie’s death.
But then the Balancings begin to escalate in brutality, and Thea discovers that the Black Coats are not all they seem to be. Thea must confront just how far she’s willing to go for justice—and what kind of justice Natalie, and Thea herself, deserve. Because when the line between justice and revenge is razor thin, it’s hard not to get cut.

This book was phenomenal. I loved the writing style and vocabulary used in this book. I was hooked in from the very first page.

While this book is marketed as a contemporary novel, I would say that it’s more of a dark contemporary novel. There is a lot of killing and abuse talked about in this book, so it is definitely not like a fluffy contemporary book that you may be used to reading. There was no magic in this book, but it read almost like a book with paranormal realism in it.

The Black Coats was filled with some fierce and bad-ass female characters. They were all brought together because of past grief and tragedy, and slowly bonded because of their shared experiences. At first, they didn’t like or understand each other, but slowly their characters went through a lot of development, and considered each other family at the end of the novel. Thea, the main character, experiences her first love in this story with a boy named Drew. While the romance is definitely present in this novel, it is not overwhelming by any means. It does not impact the plot line and influence any of Thea’s decisions, which I really appreciated. Quite frankly, their relationship does not majorly impact the story until the last 100 pages. Thankfully and fortunately, I have not experienced any similar events that the main characters in this novel have experienced, but that does not mean I could not sympathize and connect with the characters.

The setting in this novel did not play a major role within the plot line, but it was definitely an important part of this novel. Many of the events in this story take place in Mademoiselle Corday, a huge mansion that the Black Coats group schemes in. I loved reading scenes that were set in this mansion, since I thought it was a really cool place for everyone to meet up in.

The plot/storyline in this novel is incredibly unique and unlike anything I have ever read before. To be honest, I thought that the plot would be quite problematic. Fighting fire with fire is never a good idea, and can be written/read quite poorly in books. However, as the characters developed, they realized this themselves, which opened their eyes to a lot of the problems within The Black Coats society (sorry if that was vague, I try not to include any spoilers in my reviews!), and further developed both the plot and their character. I thought that the plot flowed very nicely and was paced to perfection. Something that I appreciated Colleen writing about was the fact that women can abuse other women and man can be abused by both women and men. I thought that this book would just zone in on men abusing women, but it was much more expansive than that.

After the epilogue and acknowledgements, Colleen wrote a beautiful letter talking about the #MeToo movement and women’s abuse/freedoms. The letter alone is worth purchasing and reading the book, as it gives you a preview of Colleen’s wonderful writing style and story. I thought the letter was a very thoughtful touch and a stunning way to close off her book.

Overall, I absolutely adored this book and gave it 5/5 stars. I did not expect this book to be my first 5-star book of 2019, but the bigger the surprise, the better the rating feels!

I highly encourage you to pick up this book at a bookstore near you, since I think it is a great book to read in today’s day and age. Thank you to Harper Collins Canada/HCC Frenzy for an ARC of this book!

Good Night Book Owls!

Book Recommendations

Favourite Fierce Females in YA

February 11, 2019February 12, 2019 Alyssa Cohen7 Comments

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

In honour of Fierce Female February and the Fierce Female readthon, happening on Feb. 15th until the 28th, I am going to be sharing my favourite female characters in young adult fiction! All of the books that these characters come from would be great novels to read during the readathon! Myself along with several other fantastic fierce female bloggers shared what being a fierce female meant to us, and you can read that here! You can participate in the readathon by signing-up here, and can read some amazing fierce female book recommendations here!

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“The Black Coats” by Colleen Oakes is my first 5-star read of 2019, and features several fantastic female characters that stand up for what they believe in and aren’t afraid to speak their minds. Thea, the main character in this novel, goes through some very tragic events, but doesn’t let them identify who she is, and instead uses these events to do better. “The Black Coats” just came out last week, and my full review for it will be up in a couple of days!

One of my favourite books of 2018, “Dare You To Lie” by Amber Lynn Natusch, featured Kylene, a strong female character who needs to stand up for herself after past troubling events. If you’re looking for a great YA mystery book featuring a great cast of strong characters, look no further and pick up this book! You can read my full review here!

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“Roam” by C.H. Armstrong is a book about 17-year-old Abby and her struggles being a homeless teenagers. Abby is such a fierce head-strong character, and this book is such an important one to read. You can read my full review here!

As I am sure many of you already know, “Girls of Paper and Fire” by Natasha Ngan is a novel about paper girls whose sole responsibility is to please and honour the king. However, Lei, the main protagonist, has never wanted to become a paper girl, and fights for what she believes in and for the rights of the other paper girls. Lei is a very fierce LGBTQ+ character, and I loved reading about her adventure in this novel! You can read my full review here!

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While this post is mostly for YA novels, I wanted to include a non-fiction novel that I believe people of all ages and book preferences would enjoy. Michelle Obama is one of my personal inspirations and role models, and I am eagerly waiting for the Fierce Female Readathon to began, as that is when I plan on reading her book “Becoming” (my TBR post will be up later this week!). I am really looking forward to reading this, and hope that I love every second of it!

I hope you enjoyed finding out all of my recent favourite fierce female characters! In my opinion, these books will be great to read during the Fierce Female readathon, and I would love to hear if you are going to be participating! I will be sharing my full TBR for the readathon with you on Friday, so keep your eyes on the lookout for it!

Good Night Book Owls!

(P.S. Sorry these pictures are all sort of different and choppy, I didn’t really feel like taking new pics just for one post. I hope you all enjoyed it regardless!)

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BOOKSHELF TOUR 2019!

February 8, 2019February 9, 2019 Alyssa Cohen19 Comments

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Believe it or not, on this exact day four years ago I posted my first (and only… until now!) Book Shelf tour (click here to see it)! To this day it is still one of my most viewed blog posts ever! I’ve been getting a lot of requests on Instagram to do an updated one, so when I saw that it had been four years since my last one, I thought it would be so fun to post to see how different my bookshelves look! I am still using the same bookshelves, but I am using a lot more of them now (in my basement my family installed a huge bookshelf, so I use about 1/3 of the shelves, and my Dad uses just over 2/3). I have acquired A LOT more books since the last time you saw these shelves, thanks to all of the amazing ARCs I have received from different publishing houses, my discovery of BOOK HEAVEN (aka BookOutlet.com!), and the fantastic releases that authors have been publishing over the past several years. As you can see, my shelves consist of a lot more YA and Adult books, rather than in my last bookshelf tour where I had an even mix of YA and Middle Grade. I hope that you all enjoy this tour!

DISCLAIMER: I have received quite a few ARCs (which will be indicated with an astric), as well as a lot of books that have been purchased for me from friends or family from gifts. However, most of the books (including all of the books I have purchased from Book Outlet) were boughten by myself. I am not making this post to brag in any way, shape, or form. This post is very requested, and I am publishing it purely because people have asked to see my book collection. 🙂

Key: Bold – Sent for free. Underlined – Reviewed on blog (I used to review most ARCs solely on Goodreads, since I didn’t have much time to write full reviews in the past) (click on the title, it will take you right to the review).

This is my bookshelf! As I previously said, it is a huge bookshelf unit that is installed in the basement of my house, and this is literally only one third of it! My bookshelf isn’t really organized in any way. Some shelves hold books that have the same genre, while some just have random hardbacks. The far left column only holds ARCs and books that i have received for free from publishers (as does a few shelves next to it).

These are all hardcover books that I have received from publishers for free. All of them were sent to me from Penguin Random House Canada, except for “Hello, Friends!” by Jerry Howarth, which I received from ECW Press TODAY!

The Productivity Project ● A Ladder To The Sky ● Once Upon A River ● The Dreamers ● City of the Lost ● Illuminae ● Binge ● This May Sound Crazy ● Salt to the Sea ● Unhooked ● The Skeleton Tree ● Someday ● Final Report ● Hello, Friends!

This shelves houses my XL-Paperback ARCs! Like the previous shelf (and all other ones on the left side of my shelf), I received these from publishers. Most of them are from Penguin Random House Canada, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster Canada and Raincoast Canada.

The Cruelty ● The Square Root of Summer ● Flawed ● Yiddish For Pirates ● Golden State ● Piper Perish ● The Diabolic ● The Suspect ● The Hatching ● The Name Therapist ● Genius ● Everyone Brave Is Forgiven ● Holding On To Normal ● Her Father’s Secret ● Girls of Paper and Fire ● Once & Future

Most of these books were sent to me from Simon & Schuster Canada, Harper Collins Canada and Raincoast Canada from 2014/2015.

Since You’ve Been Gone ● Unravel ● The Defiant ● Chasing Before ● Servants of the Storm ● Black Ice ● Walking on Trampolines ● Me Being Me ● Hit ● City Love ● Galgorithm ● Three Day Summer ● Kissing In America ● Like It Never Happened ● In Real Life ● Paper Weight ● The War Against The Assholes ● Wild Ones ● Don’t Fail Me Now ● The Unquiet ● The Scorpion Rules

Most of these books were sent to me for Simon & Schuster Canada, Raincoast Canada and Harper Collins Canada!

Walk On Earth A Stranger ● Zeroes ● The Last Kids on Earth ● The Rest of Us Just Live Here ● A Step Toward Falling ● This Is Where The World Ends ● This Is Where It Ends ● The Forbidden Wish ● Where You’ll Find Me ● Scarlett Epstein Hates it Here ● Rebel of the Sands ● Teen Frankenstein ● Charlotte Cuts It Out ● Snow Job ● The Last Boy and Girl in the World ● The Unexpected Everything ● Black River Falls ● Gap Life ● Scythe ● This Adventure Ends ● Ice Like Fire

These books were all bought late last year on Book Outlet! You can read the post that I hauled them in here!

Why We Broke Up ● Every You, Every Me ● Mosquitoland ● Looking For Alaska ● The Love That Split The World ● The Walls Around Us ● A Little Something Different ● Behind Her Eyes ● Firsts ● This Song Will Save Your Life ● The Smell of Other peoples Houses ● This is the Life ● The Gates ● Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock ● Behind Closed Doors ● This Savage Song ● Before I Fall ● Like A River Glorious ● Midnight At The Bright Ideas Bookstore ● Dumplin’ ● Crimson Bound ● Cruel Beauty

Some of these books were purchased on Book Outlet, while the others I purchased at Chapters Indigo!

An Anonymous Girl ● Leave Me ● The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo ● Falling Into Place ● Anatomy of a Misfit ● Made You Up ● The Female of the Species ● A Madness So Discreet ● The Last Time We Say Goodbye ● Bellevue Square

This is another one of my ARC shelves. All of these books were sent to me from Raincoast Canada, Penguin Canada, Simon and Schuster Canada, Harper Collins Canada, and Hachette Book Group! I will be posting a review of any and every book that has not yet been released on this shelf closer to their release dates!

Labyrinth Lost ● Worlds of Ink and Shadow ● You Before Anyone Else ● Jess, Chunk, and the Road Trip to Infinity ● Romeo & What’s Her Name ● Dare You To Lie ● I Do Not Trust You ● OtherEarth ● The Wren Hunt ● The Gauntlet ● Looker ● Dry ● The Field Guide To The North American Teenager ● The Black Coats ● The Meaning of Birds ● Love & Other Curses ● Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee ● You Must Not Miss ● Wilder Girls ● The Lost Property Office ● Eat Better, Live Better, Feel Better

This shelf is home to my all-time favourite “coffee table book”! Bibliophile by Jane Monet is a beautiful book all about… BOOKS! What more could you want?!

This shelf holds some of my all-time favourite books!

Cress ● Winter ● Fairest ● Insurgent ● Allegiant ● Four ● Dorothy Must Die ● The Wicked Will Rise ● Yellow Brick War ● The End of Oz ● The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell ● The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns ● The Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning ● The Land of Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms ● The Land of Stories: An Author’s Odessy

The next few shelves will all feature my hardcover books! I purchased most of these from Chapters Indigo or Book Outlet!

Caraval ● Girls Made of Snow and Glass ● Heartless ● If We Were Villains ● Because You Love to Hate Me ● Between The Lines ● Daughter of Smoke & Bone ● These Broken Stars ● This Shattered World ● Popular ● Red Queen ● The Fault In Our Stars ● Emergency Contact ● Two Can Keep A Secret ● Moxie ● The Chaos of Standing Still ● Isla and the Happily Ever After ● Warcross

First Life ● Forsake ● Soundless ● All The Bright Places ● Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend ● To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before ● Unbecoming ● Love and Other Perishable Items ● Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between ● Turtles All The Way Down ● Noggin ● Burn For Burn ● Stealing Snow ● The Afterlife of Holly Chase ● Two Roads From Here ● Althea & Oliver ● We Are Still Tornadoes ● Here We Are Now ● Tell Us Something True

Something Real ● Pennyroyal Academy ● The Iron Trial ● Curse Of The Thirteenth Fay ● Seraphina ● The School for Good & Evil ● I Will Always Write Back ● Stalker Girl ● The Truth Commission ● The Lost and the Found ● Pretty Little Liars ● The Body in the Woods ● The Screaming Staircase ● Entwined ● Love, Stargirl ● Stargirl ● Hellen Keller Biography ● Who Was Walt Disney? ● The Giver ● Glittering Court

This shelve holds all of full series/box sets!

The Maze Runner ● The Scorch Trials ● The Death Cure ● The Kill Order ● The Hunger Games ● Catching Fire ● Mockingjay ● Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone ● Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ● Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ● Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ● Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix ● Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince ● Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ● A Darker Shade of Magic ● A Gethering of Shadows ● A Conjuring of Light ● Lady Midnight

This shelf holds paperback dystopian, sci-fi, and a few thrillers.

More Than This ● City of Bones ● City of Ashes ● The Darkest Minds ● Otherworld ● The Diviners ● Across the Universe ● The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer ● Big Little Lies ● Gone Girl ● Twilight ● New Moon ● Snow Like Ashes ● Frost Like Night ● Divergent ● Cinder ● Scarlet

The shelf features some contemporary, middle grade, and non-fiction books.

Everyday ● Brain on Fire ● It’s Kind of a Funny Story ● What Happened to Goodbye ● Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour ● Anna and the French Kiss ● My Life Next Door ● Paper Towns ● Where Things Come Back ● Normal Girl ● This is What Happy Looks Like ● The Geography of You and Me ● The Mysterious Benedict Society ● The Fill-in Boyfriend ● Say What You Will ● Girl’s Best Friend ● 13 Gifts ● The Clique ● Best Friends For Never ● Revenge of the Wannabes ● Nancy Drew: Without a Trace ● Choose It and Lose It ● Show Me A Story! ● Falling up ● Make Up: Your Guide to Beauty, Style, and Success – Online and Off

This final shelf holds some horror/halloween-themed books, historical fiction novels, and some classics!

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children ● The Night Circus ● The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall ● Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer ● Dead Upon A Time, The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die ● The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall ● Doll Bones ● The Perfect Nanny ● Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl ● A Night Divided ● Red Scarf Girl ● Between Shades of Gray ● Prisoner B-3087 ● One Crazy Summer ● The Boy in the Striped Pajamas ● The Breadwinner Trilogy ● The Book Theif ● Stones on a Grave ● Small Bones ● Night ● The Wave ● The Great Gatsby ● The Hobbit ●The Two Towers ● The Fellowship of the Ring ● Lord of the Flies ● The Complete Adventures of Charlie and Mr. Willy Wonka ● Lord of the Flies ● King Lear ● The Catcher In The Rye ● Nineteen Eighty-Four

AND THAT IS MY 2019 BOOKSHELF TOUR! I hope you enjoyed seeing all of the books I own!

Good Night Book Owls!

book reviews

Alyssa’s Reviews – Roam by C.H. Armstrong (eARC)

February 3, 2019January 23, 2019 Alyssa Cohen4 Comments

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

One of my reading goals this year was to read more diverse books and books that I do not connect with personally. Quite a few months ago, I was approved for an eARC of Roam by C.H. Armstrong on NetGalley. Roam is a remarkable story about a homeless teenager, who struggles to find comfort in her surroundings with her suddenly homeless family, while still trying to live the life of a teenage girl in high school.

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

Seventeen year-old Abby Lunde and her family are living on the streets. They had a normal life back in Omaha, but thanks to her mother’s awful mistake, they had to leave what little they had behind for a new start in Rochester. Abby tries to be an average teenager—fitting into school, buoyed by dreams of a boyfriend, college, and a career in music. But Minnesota winters are unforgiving, and so are many teenagers.
Her stepdad promises to put a roof over their heads, but times are tough for everyone and Abby is doing everything she can to keep her shameful secret from her new friends. The divide between rich and poor in high school is painfully obvious, and the stress of never knowing where they’re sleeping or where they’ll find their next meal is taking its toll on the whole family.
As secrets are exposed and the hope for a home fades, Abby knows she must trust those around her to help. But will her friends let her down the same way they did back home, or will they rise to the challenge to help them find a normal life?

This book read very easily, but had many deep and important messages in it. Since I am a full-time high school students, I could not help but think about how hard her life must have been while trying to keep her secret safe. I could never imagine going through all of the hardships that Abby experienced.

I really enjoyed the high school setting, as well as all of Abby’s fantastic friends. Her friends always had her back, and were very willing to help her through all of her emotions, even though they didn’t really know where those emotions came from. The love story in this book is very sweet, but also felt real. You could feel the love and care that Zach showed for Abby at all times throughout the book, which I obviously loved reading.

At the beginning of this book, I was afraid that it would be a very predictable story. Within the first few chapters, she meets and falls for a boy and has a typical “high school mean girl” encounter, however the book shifted in a better direction after that. The book was not solely focused on her friends helping her get through rough incidents with her bully, but it focused more on her living situation and family, which I really enjoyed.

When reading reviews on this book, I noticed a top review on Goodreads that had an issue with one of the beginning scenes in this book. Abby and her family came from a small town in Omaha before moving to Rochester. In this scene, Josh (one of Abby’s first friends at her new school), confesses to Abby that he is gay. Abby had never met a gay person before, and makes some pretty naive comments to him about his sexuality. After this scene, Abby shares this news to her mother, who makes some more very naive comments. While many readers may find this scene slightly offensive, I believe that C.H. Armstrong wrote it in this book for a purpose. By Abby moving to a new school, she was exposed to new and different people than she was used to in Omaha. She had to accept Josh and his sexuality, and realized that it had nothing to do with her at all. She had her own secrets (homelessness), and if anything, this scene may encourage her to share her secret with others, eventually (no spoilers here!).

While I really enjoyed this book, nothing “blew me away”. It was a very sweet YA contemporary with a deep storyline, which was exactly what I was expecting.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and gave it 4/5 stars. Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC!

Good Night Book Owls!

My Monthly TBR (To Be Read)

February 2019 TBR

February 1, 2019February 1, 2019 Alyssa Cohen12 Comments

Hi everybody, welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Happy February! I hope everybody had a great first month of January, even though the cold weather really presented itself to us this month (at least to me, in Toronto)! I had an absolutely jam-packed January, which included a trip to Las Vegas (technically this was in the end of December… oops!), finishing final projects and completing final exams. I just finished my last exam on Jan. 30 and it was a great feeling of relief to know that a new semester is finally here, and starts on Monday! I hope to post a lot more frequently this month, as I will be much less busy this month with school, among other things. Therefore, I have prepared quite an ambitious TBR for myself this month. Even though February only consists of 28 days, I have ten books on this list, so I assume I won’t be able to get to all of them this month. However, I will try my best to do so since I am looking forward to each book I plan on reading so much!

The first book/ARC I plan on reading this month is “The Black Coats” by Colleen Oakes. I had this on my TBR last month, and it was the only book on my TBR list that I didn’t get to. I received an ARC of this book in December, and am SO excited to start it! Look out for my full review later next week. This book releases on February 12, 2019.

The second book I plan on reading in February is “Two Can Keep a Secret” by Karen M. McManus. This is the Booksplosion BOTM Pick for February that was picked by Christine, Kat and Jesse. One of my 2019 bookish goals is to join in on more readathons and book club picks, and that is why I chose to read this book this month. I pre-ordered this book in December 2018, and was so excited when it arrived in January! I have not read “One of Us is Lying“, which was Karen M. McManus’ previous book, but I hope to do so if I enjoy her new release!

The next book I plan on reading this month is “The Dreamers” by Karen Thompson Walker. I cannot even attempt to explain how thrilled I was when I received a finished copy of this book in the mail from Penguin Random House Canada!!!!!!!! I am SO excited to read this book, and I predict that it will be a 5-star read!

On January 21, Ashely at Falling Down The Book Hole announced that she along with a few other book bloggers (including myself!!) are running Fierce Female Reads February! Throughout the month of February, we encourage you to read books that include fierce female characters or were written by female authors! There will also be a readathon during Feb. 15 – 28, which is the perfect time to read some of your backlist fierce female books! We have chosen “Moxie” by Jennifer Mathieu as our group read for the readathon portion of Fierce Female Reads February! I plan on posting a review for this book during one of my scheduled posting days, so I have decided to read this book in advance in order to have the book review written and posted on time. I am very excited to read this one, and have heard some great things about it! For more information on Fierce Female Reads February, click here! Make sure you are following the Fierce Female Reads twitter, so you can stay up to date on all of the Fierce Female Reads updates! There are also a few Instagram challenges and reading challenges, which you can read in the graphics below! Plus, there are a TON of amazing giveaways that will be going on throughout this month, so make sure you read the Female Reads announcement post to find out about all of them! My Fierce Female Reads February Readathon TBR will be posted on Feb. 15, so keep your eye out for it!

I recently purchased “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid thanks to all of the PHENOMENAL reviews its been getting all over the book community! While books about celebrities are not really my ‘thing’, I am really looking forward to reading this book, and plan on reading it for the Fierce Female Reads February Readthon (and you will find out the rest of my picks for the readathon on Feb. 15)!

The next book I plan on reading is “Once Upon A River” by Diane Setterfield. I received a finished copy of this book from Penguin Random House Canada. This book sounds super interesting and not like anything I have read recently. I am really looking forward to reading it, and cannot wait to see where this story takes me!

The second ARC I plan on reading this month is “Rayne & Delilah’s Midnight Matinee” by Jeff Zentner. I requested an ARC of this book from Penguin Teen Canada after hearing the great things popular YA authors were saying about this novel. Plus, the cover is BEAUTIFUL! I am really looking forward to reading and reviewing this book! It comes out in stores on February 26, 2019.

The next book I plan on reading is “The Suspect” by Fiona Barton. I received an unsolicited finished copy of this book from Penguin Random House Canada last month. I have heard interesting things about this book on social media, so I am definitely interested in reading it. This book is actually the third book in a series (I believe), and I will not be reading the first two books in this series since I have heard that you can read this book as a standalone and you will not really be missing anything. If I end up getting around to this book, I will be posting a full review on it near the end of the month!

The last two books I plan on reading this month are the first and second books in the “Harry Potter” series. My biggest reading goal this year was to finally read and complete the Harry Potter series. I purchased the entire series with these beautiful covers, over four years ago, and I still have yet to read them! I plan on working my way through this series slowly, so if I don’t read both of these this month, I will definitely add them to my TBR for next month.

Those are all of the books I plan on reading this month (well… for the most part)! Are you planning on participating in Fierce Female Reads February and/or the Fierce Female Reads Readathon? Let me know in the comments, I would love to hear what you plan on reading!

Good Night Book Owls!

My Monthly Reads

January 2019 Wrap-Up

January 31, 2019January 31, 2019 Alyssa Cohen19 Comments

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

This month was a PACKED month for me! I started the month off with a week off, and then was rushed back into school mode by finishing several final projects and final exams. I had my last exam yesterday and I am SO happy to be finished with this semester and am extremely excited for next semester!

Among all of the chaos, I managed to read nine books, which I am beyond happy about! I read two January ARCs, two eARCS, three backlist books, and two classics!

The first book I read this month was “Bellevue Square” by Michael Redhill. I picked this up at Indigo, since over the past few months it has been in their front display with all of there top selling books. While the synopsis was very intriguing to me, I ended up really disliking the book. The story started off very strong, but ended up spiralling in several different directions and the ending made ZERO sense to me. I gave it 1.5/5 stars.

The second book I read this month was “The Field Guide to the North American Teenager” by Ben Philippe. I received an unsolicited ARC from Harper Collins Canada back in December and was really excited to read this book! I ended up really enjoying it, and posted my review for it earlier this month which you can read here.

The next book I read this month was “The Catcher In The Rye” by J.D. Salinger. I read this book in my English Lit class during December and I finished the last quarter of it in January. I did not love this book, but I still enjoyed it. I ended up giving it 3/5 stars.

The third book I read this month was “A Ladder to the Sky” by John Boyne. I received a finished copy of this book from Penguin Canada earlier this month and was highly anticipating it because I throughly enjoyed John’s earlier novel “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”. I absolutely loved this book, and you can read my full review here.

I then finally finished “1984” by George Orwell. If you have read my previous TBRs over the last three months, you will notice that this book was on every single one of them! I began reading this book in October with a book group/club in my English Lit class and we finished it two weeks ago. While I thought I would love this book, and ended up disliking the second half of the novel. I gave this book 2.5/5 stars, but I still encourage you to read it, as there are a lot of important messages enclosed within the novel.

While finishing “1984”, I began and finished “Behind Closed Doors” by B.A. Paris. I was recommended this book a countless number of times over the past two months, since I have been reading and loving domestic thrillers. I fully expected to rate this book 5/5 stars, but was very disappointed with the story. It started off very eery and suspenseful, but I did not find anything very special about this novel. I gave it 3/5 stars.

Over the past three months, I have barely read any dystopian novels. And after reading “1984”, I was very interested to see what I would think about “Golden State” by Ben H. Winters novel. When I first heard about it, it seemed very “1984”-esque. I received an ARC of it from Hachette Book Group Canada, and was even more excited to read it after finding out that it was one of the January Book Of The Month picks. I enjoyed this novel much better than 1984, but I found this plot line confusing as well. You can read my full review of this novel here.

I have several NetGalley eARCs that are due to come out within the first week of February, so I wanted to read some of those during the end of January if I wasn’t totally swamped with school work. Luckily, I read eBooks very quickly in general, and since I had a few days free from studying, I thought it would be beneficial to take those days to read some of my eARCs! The first eARC I read was “Roam” by C.H. Armstrong. I received an eARC from Central Avenue Publishing via a NetGalley wish! I really enjoyed this novel and think that this is one of the most important books I have read in a long time. My full review will be out in just a few days!

Those are all of the books I read this month! How many books did you read this January? What was your favourite one? Let me know in the comments!

Good Night Book Owls!