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!