Best Books of 2019

2019 was an interesting year for me in terms of books and reading. I completely smashed my Goodreads Challenge goal in 2018, reading 31 books over my goal and 55 books more than I did in 2017. Although on the surface that looks fantastic (which it was!) it was also a little misleading as 2018 was the only year where I wasn’t in education, with the exception of the last few months of the year when I started my Masters in September, which meant I had a lot more time for reading! At the beginning of 2019, I naively set my Goodreads Challenge goal at 75 books and managed to read 51 books due to a combination of academia, depression and reading slumps. Not too bad overall but I’ve definitely learned my lesson about setting unrealistic goals haha.

Although I didn’t read as many books as I had wanted to, I did read a lot of great books – books that I thoroughly enjoyed and books that I fell in love with. Ultimately that is more important to me than how many books I ended up reading – I would rather enjoy my books than reading loads of books I end up not liking. Whilst I enjoyed almost all of the books I read in 2019, I’ve picked out 10 books that really stand out to me as the ones I loved the most which have made my best books of 2019 list.

Continue reading “Best Books of 2019”

State of the ARC | #11

State-of-the-ARC

State of the ARC is a monthly meme at Avalinah’s Books meant to motivate you to finish up all your long overdue ARCs (Advanced or Early Reader Copies).

line break

Screenshot (399).png

Continue reading “State of the ARC | #11”

Wrap Up | May 2019 + the unintended hiatus

Hey friends!

Some of you may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve been absent for pretty much the entirety of May. I had planned to take a little step back from blogging anyway as this summer is going to be really busy for me on my Master’s degree, but then I managed to catch/develop gastroenteritis – a nasty contagious stomach bug – which completely knocked me out for almost 2 weeks. Then I had to return to work, start planning my long summer of uni work, and celebrate my partner’s birthday on Sunday. Before I knew it, I found myself at the end of May? I feel like I blinked and missed it.

A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted about my concerns around being able to manage book blogging alongside starting my PhD in September (not to mention squeezing it in amongst all my Master’s work this summer) and I’m still not sure what the outcome of my ponderings will be. It’s definitely something I’m planning on writing a discussion post about so that I can talk about it more in-depth and speak to other book bloggers who manage their blog alongside busy lives. What I do know though, from having my unintended break this month, is that I feel a lot less happy when I’m not blogging and I felt so isolated from my book blog friends. Writing this post is already beginning to lift my low mood but I’m also anxious about how much work I have to do. Anyway, that’s not a decision to be made right now – instead, I want to share with you all what I did manage to get up to during Moody May ❤

Screenshot (357)

Continue reading “Wrap Up | May 2019 + the unintended hiatus”

ARC Review: Aurora Rising | It’s Time for a New Space-Adventure

TITLE: Aurora Rising
AUTHOR: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
SERIES: The Aurora Cycle
RELEASED: May 2019; Oneworld Publications
GENRE: YA Science Fiction
FORMAT: Paperback

KEY INFO: space-adventure, military science fiction, squad goals, multiple POVs
REPRESENTATION: 
bisexual male (Finian) , women of color (Auri is half-Chinese and Zila is black), physically disabled (Finian) and neurodivergent (Zila)

Content Notices

death, war, body horror, being knocked unconscious multiple times, unresolved guilt/tension around a one-night stand, ableism

amazon // book depository // goodreads

imageedit_5_3847060594

Continue reading “ARC Review: Aurora Rising | It’s Time for a New Space-Adventure”

ARC Review: The Luminous Dead | A Sci-Fi Thriller That Never Quite Reaches Its Potential

TITLE: The Luminous Dead
AUTHOR: Caitlin Starling
SERIES: N/A
RELEASED: April 2019; Harper Voyager
GENRE: Sci-Fi/Horror
FORMAT: eBook

KEY INFO: cave expedition, psychological thriller, romance, unreliable narrator
REPRESENTATION: 
f/f (main/side)

Content Notices

claustrophobia, caves, absence of light, hallucinations, dead bodies, drugs & forced drug use, descriptions of bodily functions & fluids

amazon // book depository // goodreads

imageedit_2_4857561707

Continue reading “ARC Review: The Luminous Dead | A Sci-Fi Thriller That Never Quite Reaches Its Potential”