2016 Bookish Resolutions Mid-Year Update & Changes

So, the first half of 2016 has gone by without me hardly even noticing. But none the less, I need to look at my resolutions I made in the beginning of the year and see how I’ve done.

The Reading Goals for 2016

  • Read a total of 60 books – I’ve read 32 books at this point, which is really good since I’ve been in the longest reading slumps this year of my life the first half of 2016. I’ve basically forced myself to read during the time I had the slump.
  • Finish 6 series/trilogy’s
    – Delirium (2 books left + novellas)
    – The Darkest Minds (1 book left – I don’t count novellas to this challenge since the paperback doesn’t come out until late this year and I might not be able to get to it before the year is over)
    – House of Night series (3 books left) – I’ve decided that I’m not going to finish this series
    – The Grisha Trilogy (2 books left) – not going to finish this trilogy either (as of now at least)
    – Penryn & the End of Days (1 book left)
    – Red Rising (2 books left)
    Because I deleted two series I’ve decided to include these two instead:
    – Article 5 by Kristen Simmons
    – Under the never sky by Veronica Rossi
  • Read at least 1 book written in verse
  • Finish my 16 books in 2016 – see below this list.
  • Finish a 2016 reading challenge – 52 books. I’m going to post a separate blog post about this later this week as well. – decided not to stress myself too much so I’m skipping this entirely this year.
  • Start 4 new series/trilogy’s
    – Snow like Ashes by Sara Raash
    – Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer ✔︎
    – Falling Kingdom by Morgan Rhodes ✔︎
    – The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher ✔︎
  • Read a book, buy a book – I can’t buy one book until I’ve read one book! – I’ve done surprisingly well with this. I’ve read 32 books and I’ve bought 35, so I need to read four more books before I can buy more babies (unfortunately I’m waiting on a package right now with four more books, lol.
  • Read at least 5 books in Swedish ✔︎

Since I deleted the 2016 reading challenge I decided to add one more resolution:

  • Read 5 classics

2016 in 2016 books

  1. A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin – I have started this, but I think I’m going to listen to it as an audiobook instead, It’s just too hard for me to focus on it fully because I always end up being confused and not really enjoying myself, unfortunately.
  2. Forbidden by Tamara Suzuma
  3. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  4. The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas ✔︎
  5. Stolen: A letter to my Captor by Lucy Christopher More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
  6. The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien You by Caroline Kepnes ✔︎
  7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  8. The Martian by Andy Wier
  9. The Cellar by Natasha Preston ✔︎
  10. Fight Club by Chuck Palaniuk
  11. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
  12. Pensionatet vid världens ände by Camilla Davidsson
  13. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes ✔︎
  14. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling
  15. Peter Pan by J M Barrie Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raash
  16. Storm Front by Jim Butcher ✔︎

Out of these I’ve only read 5/16 books and started one but haven’t finished it, I really need to pick up the pace if I’m going to be able to finish this list. Unfortunately I’ve needed to change this list up a bit since I lost interest (at least temporarily) in a few of them, so they are no longer priorities as of now, and because I can’t buy too many new books so I’m reading as many books I already own. So the books that are crossed out are the books I decided on at the beginning of the year, and the books after those are the books I’ve changed to.

Basically, looking at the lists, I need to get going on the resolutions so that I have at least more of them (if not all) done before the year is over. I mean I own all but two of the books in the 16 in 2016 list so that shouldn’t be so hard. Well, we’ll see how it goes.

Annonser

The Summer I Turned Pretty Series | Review

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The Summer I Turned Pretty Collection by Jenny Han
Published by Penguin Books Ltd.
Genre: YA Contemporary
Pages: 894
Average Rating: 4.48
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Isabel has always lived for the summertime because it means all her favorite things: swimming, the beach and the Fischer boys, Conrad and Jeremiah. She has spent every summer with them at Cousins Beach for as long as she can remember. She has always been in love with Conrad and finally, one summer, it seems like he might have feelings for her too. But it turns out, so does Jeremiah.
As the summers go on, Isabel has to choose between two brothers who love her as she comes to the realization that she will have to break one of their hearts.


This post is kind of a continuation of what I wrote in my June Wrap-up (that will be posted in a couple of pages. This review will contain spoilers. All in all, the entire trilogy was a good one, there were some things in specific books I didn’t like or made me confused, or even angry; not so much the first two books but the third and last one specifically.

I was quite annoyed with Belly throughout the series, I mean sure, when she was a child she was supposed to be, but during the series she never matured, not really, she was acting like a child throughout the entire series to be honest. She was always a bit childish, if not plenty, especially when it came to the boys. She never developed enough in this series. So, to the review of each book.

The Summer I Turned Pretty
This was the perfect summery contemporary, for me at least. I liked it a lot and couldn’t put it down (which went for all three books). The only two things I didn’t really like was the immaturity of Belly (her present day person). It was like she hadn’t changed much since she was eight, which is just really weird. The other thing was the cancer, I hate reading books where cancer is involved, it always tortures my heart to a point where I can’t handle it, and it’s even more pronounced in the second book even though the mother is dead before the story even begins. But the hint of romance throughout the book I liked a lot and couldn’t help but gush over.

It’s Not Summer Without You
I liked this book a lot to, not as much as the first book because of the cancer and everything, but in some other ways I liked it even more than the first book, like seeing more sides of Conrad and what’s behind that mask of his. I loved it.

We’ll Always Have Summer
To be totally honest, this whole book was a huge WTF for me really. Boring collage stuff, Jere CHEATING on Belly,he PROPOSING to her as to MAKE UP for him cheating on her, and her ACCEPTING his proposal, and after that it was all boring collage stuff, boring wedding stuff and super boring apartment searching. I mean, why all of this boring stuff and things that didn’t make any sense at all??

So, for a few things that really fucked with my logic of thinking. Who in their right mind agrees on marriage when the guy asks right after he confesses that he cheated on her!?? That I don’t understand one bit, it confused me and made me more than a little bit angry, especially when she accepted his proposal.

The story really wasn’t a story until about two thirds into the book or something. And when things finally started to happen, I got cheated of the ending I knew was coming and actually needed more than anything more than anything. Again, WTF!? After reading the whole book I got ONE page of what I was expecting to be an awesome ending of at least a few chapters. Not OK!

*****

All in all I loved this series, and I miss it (event though the last book was a bust) and I would maybe consider reading it again someday. Total rating for the entire series is a 3,5 stars because of the last book.

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June WTR/TBR | 2016

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The first half of June is already gone but since I was in London the first week I couldn’t post anything during that time and then I’ve just been busy and haven’t been able to post. I’m going straight to the TBR for this month.

  • I brought one book with me to London, which I started to read on the first evening there, it was A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas, and I’m at this moment on page 370 and I’m loving it so far. Definitely going to finish it this week, maybe even by tomorrow if I’m lucky.

There’s only one more book I know for sure I want to read this month, and it’s:

  • Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I’ve been wanting to read this since this year began, but now that the movie is out and all, I really need to read it so that I can go watch it the movie too. It just seems like something I would simply love, and I am craving some cry-worthy contemporary at the moment.

I don’t really have any other reading plans for this month since I’m going to be busy with a lot of things, and since I read really slowly right now I don’t think I’ll be able to read more books than this during the rest of the month, and If I do, you’ll see it in my June Wrap-Up.

Take care! 🙂

May Wrap-Up | 2016

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May was not a very good reading month for me. I read the total of two books, yes two. I never thought this would happen. The second book I read this month was about 660 pages long and took me around three weeks to read. I hope next month will be a better reading month for me.

The first book I read in May was Unforgiven by Lauren Kate, I won’t go into details on this one since I’ve written a review on it. I gave this book 4,5 stars.

The second and last book I read during this month was Odinsbarn by Siri Pettersen (no english title available). The first book in a  Norwegian fantasy trilogy. I liked this book a lot, don’t get me wrong, but at times the story really dragged on and I would have wished that some of the descriptions would have been shorter and not as thorough as they were. I even jumped a few paragraphs here and there when the descriptions dragged on more than necessary and I didn’t miss anything by jumping. Simply put, the story could have been a little shorter than the 661 pages that it was. 3,5 stars.

Sadly, these are the only books I read in May, I never thought it would take me more than 3 weeks to read one books, even if it’s a huge one. Let’s hope for a better reading month in June, and I’ll post my June TBR next.

See ya! Take care 🙂
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