May bookish round-up

Another month in Lockdown done and dusted, and you’ll know if you read one of my previous posts about a book I read, that lockdown has kicked me back into properly reading again.

May was an exceptionally bookish month for me, where I read 8 books – 3 re-reads and 5 new reads.

I’ve never done a blog post like this and don’t know how other people normally write their monthly book round-ups, but what I am going to do is list all the books and their details, my ratings and then discuss my favourite and least favourite reads from the month. I’ll talk more about the books I’d never read before over the ones I had re-read, but if you do want to read more about what I thought, I do post mini book reviews for every book I read.

So without further ado, let’s get cracking!

1. The Book of Tomorrow – Cecilia Ahern – 4 stars
2. Eligible – Curtis Sittenfield – 1 star
3. Lady Midnight – Cassandra Clare – 5 stars
4. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman – 4 stars
5. The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas – 5 stars
6. My not So Perfect Life – Sophie Kinsella – 3 stars
7. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak – 5 stars
8. P.S. I Still Love You – Jenny Hann – 3 stars

Out of these 8 books, my favourites were Lady Midnight, The Hate U Give and The Book Thief. Out of these 3, only one was a new read and that was The Hate U Give.

Lady Midnight is the first book in a spin-off series from the same author and fictional universe that brought us The Mortal Instruments. This is a fictional universe I love so fiercely. The world and all the characters have so much depth and have really been fleshed out, I feel I don’t need to imagine it existing because with all the details the books have, the world feels so incredibly real. This book focuses on entirely new characters we have never met in any of the previous books and feels a lot darker in the story content which is something I found I really enjoyed. The pacing is fantastic and I found myself staying awake late every night because I just wanted to carry on reading it! By the end of the book, I was ready to instantly leap into the next book in the series because I didn’t want to say goodbye to the characters I’d come to love so much. I highly recommend the book to any Mortal Instruments fans, or people who are fans of books centred around the fantasy genre; I can’t even think of a book or series to compare it to because it is (as far as I’m aware) a really unique world that Cassandra Clare has created.

The next book in my favourites this month and also given a 5 star rating was The Hate U Give. Now I cannot emphasise how important this book is to read, at any point, but especially right now. The book follows Starr Carter, a 16-year-old black girl who quickly becomes part of a national news story after she sees her childhood friend shot and killed by a white police officer. This book is very honest, it doesn’t shy away and really speaks volumes. I found it hard to read at times because of how real it is; you can read books as a way to escape reality, experience different times periods and worlds, but this book IS reality. I found it hard to read because it made me so angry that we are in the year 2020 and injustices like this still happen. The book is emotional, heart-wrenching, honest and eye-opening. I cannot urge people to read this enough.

The final book which is not only one of my favourites in May, but my favourite contemporary book ever, is The Book Thief. No matter how much I try, I will never be able to summon all the words together to explain just how much I love this book. It is narrated by death, and despite any initial thoughts you may have that this is a macabre choice, it is so effective and tells the story beautifully. Deliberately being vague, The Book Thief follows Liesel Meminger growing up in Nazi Germany. The way Marksus Zusak writes, every sentence feels impactful and reads with such beauty. The book has some added illustrations within, and the characters are so lovable that when I finish the book, even after reading it for the fourth time (I think),  I’m left as emotional and heartbroken as the first time, and already missing the characters. Another book I would say is an absolute must-read.

Now next up, is my least favourite book from this month. Now for this bit, you may want to make a cup of tea, because I have a lot to say…

This book, I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it. This book was Eligible. I was initially drawn to this book as it was advertised to me as a modern re-telling of Pride and Prejudice, which instantly intrigued me. What is really sad about this book is despite the high hopes I had prior to reading it, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever disliked a book this much. After forcing myself to read 360 pages, I gave up the ghost. After reading that much, I still didn’t have any more affection about the character than what I had on page 1. The book doesn’t develop them at all, we know nothing about them, there was no chemistry between the characters and the book just all felt very two-dimensional. I couldn’t even be convinced Liz and Darcy had feelings of hatred for each other at the start, so when they were supposedly in love…I think I’d have been more likely to believe Darcy has an extra arm he’d been hiding!

One thing I found the most grating in this book, however, was the open racism and homophobia. From reading other reviews apparently, there is transphobia too, but I didn’t read far enough to see this myself. There are comments that are unnecessary; there are two POC in the book, one character we meet and one that is just referred to, and all we know about them is their skin colour is black, like that is their only feature and personality trait. This is seemingly justified as the black characters are deemed untrustworthy by the mother, so one of the sisters can say “but of course I’m not like that”….this is woven throughout the book, with similar comments regarding the unknown sexuality of one of the mother’s daughters (whether she is gay or asexual, I never read far enough to find out). These comments never lead anywhere, seem to have no real purpose, do not add to the book whatsoever and really just didn’t sit right with me.

The only thing I found interesting about this book was the way the book has been written in a midway point between the language Jane Austen wrote in, and the modern-day writing style. It took a while to get used to and sometimes interrupted the flow of the book, but it was an interesting literary choice nonetheless.

I have read the original pride and prejudice and can see very brief shadows of that being echoed in this book, but quite frankly to compare the two feels like an insult to Jane Austen. The attempts to modernise it fell short and reading this feels like the biggest waste of my time I will never get back.

So that was a brief rundown of my May books, and a little insight to my favourite andleast favourite books. I’d be interested to hear if you have any thoughts on what I’ve written, or the books themselves if you’ve read or are planning to read them. Perhaps you agree with what I think, or have a completely different opinion! I’d be genuinley interested to have a discussion!

In the meantime, stay as happy and healthy as you possibly can.

All the love.