Starting sometime in November work really slowed down. I went from working forty sometimes 48 hours a week, to sometimes only working four to 24 hours a week. So naturally I spent a lot of my new free time reading.
In November I read The Comfort Book by Matt Haig. Well, technically I started reading it in August so a lot of the reading happened throughout Aug, Sept, Oct, and then I finally finished it in November.
And oh my god, The Comfort Book was definitely a book that I thought I was going to love and just breeze through, but honestly it just got very old very fast.
The first couple of pieces, were amazing, I loved them. Some of them even brought me to tears. It wasn’t until I read on that the book just started to seem very repetitive and I started not enjoying it.
Would I read it again, probably. Despite it’s repetitiveness, the writing is still very beautiful. I also felt like, maybe the repetitiveness was the point. Sometimes as human beings we need to hear things multiple times in order for them to sink in.
I also finished “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover in November.
Now this book was a total surprise. I’ve probably said this multiple times but I am not the biggest Romance reader but I kept hearing about this book so I decided to give it a try.
Thinking it was a “Romance” book was my first mistake honestly. It was recommended as a romance book, so I went in thinking it was exactly that. The first chapters back this up, so there was a lot of eye rolling and complaints from me and I eventually ended up abandoning the book altogether. More because it seemed like the typical romcom setting for movies, and I don’t like that and not because it was a “romance.”
It wasn’t until I saw a tweet that was kind of a spoiler, that really got me wondering what happened in the rest of the book. Once I got to the real heart of the book, it did not disappoint. I think it is an important story to tell.
If “It Ends With Us” is on your TBR (To be Read) I definitely recommend reading Colleen Hoover’s note to the reader at the end. It really adds to the story and the message she is trying to send with the book.
December was a stressful reading month for me (stressful for a hobby anyways). Around Aug. when I had not read very much of anything, I realized that I would most likely not complete my reading challenge for the year.
I hadn’t read in months and normally I’m lucky if I finish a book a month. My goodreads challenge was to read twelve books and with already not reading like four or five months in a row, finishing 12 books seemed highly unlikely.
But when I finished my reads in November, I ended up like three books away from my goal. It felt like I was just quitting on myself if I didn’t even try.
In a dire attempt to reach my goal, I started reading two books. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Both of which were great.
Definitely needed a little help from audiobook to finish The Handmaid’s Tale, but overall I enjoyed the story. It was an interesting take on dystopian future (is it considered that? I’m not entirely sure). It came as a big surprise to me that this book is as old as it is. I guess I thought it was more recent because of the Hulu original show adaptation.
Sometimes the writing was kind of dull, which is why I lost momentum reading the book and needed some help at the end. Having watched the show and now read the book, I realize that the showrunners took some creative liberties, so I’m really curious as to how both the show and the second book will end.
Crooked Kingdom was one of the books I was looking forward to getting to the most, more so than The Handmaid’s Tale which I kind of just started reading on a whim.
For me Crooked Kingdom was a relatively easy read. In part, I was able to get through it fast enough because I was enjoying it so much. The Six of Crows duology has truly become one of my favorite series. I liked the ending (with the exception of a few things) so of course I immediately bought the follow up series. I know that it is not necessarily a continuation to the duology but it does follow Nina after the events in Crooked Kingdom and that was enough for me.
Now that I’ve finished the books, I’m all the more excited for season 2 of Shadow and Bone on Netflix.
The last book I read in 2021 was Lupita Mañana by Patricia Beatty. I’ve been re-reading a lot of books from when I was younger. It’s kind of been a project to see if the books I liked growing up hold up. This one definitely holds up story wise, the story is what I remember and I think it covers how scary being an immigrant was back in the 80s’ and early 90s.’
It was very easy to get through, it is a children’s book after all. My only complaint is that the writing was very dull and boring. I would have liked to see more “showing” rather than “telling.” Despite that, it was a good book to end 2021 on.
Between Thoughts & Words 