For the past few months I've been in a bit of a mini reading slump. Until now. June was a pretty good month for me but in July I suddenly found loads of books I was dying to read (that's not happened for a while) and I read masses (which also hasn't happened for a while).
Books Read:
1. 'Magonia'- Maria Dahvana Headley
I was desperate to read Magonia, the cover is beyond beautiful and the story sounded amazing. However, it definitely wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I expected something beautiful and poetic and, though I really enjoyed it, I felt slightly let down by it. Saying that, I thought it was a great read and I would highly recommend it, I think my view was slightly clouded by my initial expectations.
2. 'Animal Farm'- George Orwell
I started reading Animal Farm years ago but never finished it, which is ludicrous considering the fact that it's only slightly over 100 pages long. Despite the misleading name, Animal Farm is not a happy children's book about nice animals living on a nice farm. The story itself is really interesting in that it's about communism, with the different animals playing different important characters in the development of the communist movement. It's an interesting and informative read that I would recommend.
3. 'Red Queen'- Victoria Aveyard
Red Queen has been criticised by many for being too similar to a lot of other dystopian books merged into one. This didn't bother me though, as it's been called a mix of some books that I really loved, and in my eyes that was a great thing. Like Magonia, I was really excited to read this book and, like Magonia again, I was a bit disappointed. I'd heard mixed reviews but it just wasn't as good as I thought it would be. I liked the story and I liked the mystery, but it could've been so much more.
4. 'Paper Towns'- John Green
Paper Towns is a book that I've had at the bottom of my TBR pile for about three years now and one that I was 90% sure I was going to give away without ever having read. The story itself didn't appeal to me and I've fallen out of love and into annoyance with John Green, so I wasn't really going to bother. In the end, I only read this because it was made the Booksplosion book of the month and I thought I might as well since I already owned it. This book though, I'm such a hypocrite but I absolutely loved it. I've read all of John Green's books (minus Will Grayson, Will Grayson) and this one is definitely the best by far. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, I thought the first third of the book was the whole story, but that didn't bother me. I loved the road trip bit so much that it's really put me in the mood to read more road trip books. The film trailer looks good and I think Q and Margo are well cast. I loved this book. I can't believe I wasn't going to read it ever.
5. 'The Dream Thieves'- Maggie Stiefvater
This book. Ohmygod this book. I fell in love with the Raven Boys in May and I've been desperately trying to hold off reading the next two published books until my holidays. This book has thrown me right back in there and I am obsessed. The second book is most often the weakest one in a series, but I actually think I loved this one even more than the first one. This book focused a lot more on Ronan and I have basically fallen in love with him. This series is one of my most favourite series ever, the covers are beautiful and, after I read the third one, I don't know how I'm going to be able to wait till 2016 for the final one. Highly, highly, highly recommend. Also would recommend following Maggie Stiefvater on twitter, she's brilliant.
6. 'Second Chance Summer'- Morgan Matson
I'd never read a Morgan Matson book before this one, but I was in the mood for a summer contemporary set at the beach and this one seemed perfect. Overall I enjoyed this book, it's quite slow at first but it gets a lot better towards the end. It's very, very sad, and though you're prepared from the beginning for what's going to happen, it doesn't make the ending any less painful. I liked Morgan Matson's writing, and I'm looking forward to reading Amy and Roger's Epic Detour during the rest of the summer.
7. 'Heir of Fire'- Sarah J. Maas
This is the third book in the immensely popular Throne of Glass series, and I have now achieved my goal of reading all the currently published books before the fourth one, Queen of Shadows, comes out in September (I believe). I set myself a mini goal of reading this 560 page book before I went on holiday, aiming to start it on Sunday and finishing it on Thursday. I've always found the Throne of Glass books to be very enjoyable but very slow reads, partially due to the fairly small print, so I power read this book in order to achieve my goal, and managed to bash through the whole thing in my set goal time, mostly by reading around 100 pages a day, which is not how I normally read. I'd heard that Heir of Fire is the best book in the series so far and I completely agree. I really loved this one, a lot more than the others, and I'm really excited for the next book. I found this one to be not as slow paced as the others. It's worth reading the series just to read this one.
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