ren
Happy 2021!
My goals this year are to read more consistently, so i don't have to read so frantically and worry so much about ‘catching up'
enjoy the journey, think deeply and seek out meaning to what i'm reading
log in a journal again but in ways that are more useful
read the books i own: i am a cat, the hobbit, lotr 1-3, magician, a nest for celeste
... more to come!
i did start using notion to log my reading, which meant i didn't use this 2021 page so much. i wish it had more options for graphs and stats but i love it for what it can do.i didn't read ANY books i owned, and i purchased another 32 (all second-hand!) another one to push to next year haha. i did enjoy my reading more this year, i tried to force it less. i am struggling with reading only things i know i will like and trying to branch out a bit, meaning i'm getting a lot of 2.5 star books as they're just okay. i do enjoy venturing outside of my comfort zone with reading and have really enjoyed reading more memoirs.when i was overwhelmed and drained with the state of the world i really wanted to escape with books but struggled with concentration and enjoyment. re-reading twilight really helped me when i was in those dips. i think i'll need to find more low-key books that i can just listen to casually. while plotting all the events, characters and theories i had for the locked tomb was a wonderful experience and really enhanced my reading, i definitely couldn't do that for every book and it was quite mentally challenging.
Series completed: 4 {The Raven Cycle, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Brooklyn Brujas}
Series to finish: 1 {The Gilded Wolves}
Series ongoing: 3 {The Dreamer Trilogy, Thursday Murder Club, The Locked Tomb}
January
1.
the art, and use of colour was breathtaking. but the lack of story wasn't my cup of tea. usually I'm a fan of slice of life type stuff but the story/engagement fell a little flat for me.
the little englishisms really made me smile.
give it a go, a very quick read.
a little slow to start but a very intriguing urban fantasy with really cool lore. very enjoyable :) excited for the sequel!
i loved this until Shiraha was re-introduced. i wish he had less ‘screen time' as i found it painstaking to read through his dialogue. obviously he's supposed to be an irritating character but to have so much of the book taken up by him felt like a slog, personally. i wish Keiko had shovel'd him the first night he stayed over. i was expecting her to have killed him by the end and to be honest i was hoping she would.
i dislike the timid autistic character be taken advantage of trope so I'm glad she prevailed in the end even if there was no comeuppance for Shiraha.
4 stars with 1 star for everything involving Shiraha's monologues rounds this out to a 3.
i think i might enjoy this more on a re-read knowing what to expect but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
i first read this as a set book for English class. it brought up some really good discussion and made a lot of my 99.9% white class ‘get' some concepts of racism that they hadn't before.
visiting home this year, some 13 years later i found the copy of the book i had ‘borrowed' from school all those years ago in my dusty bookshelf - whoops :-)
i think this book was better on my first read. i enjoyed it less than i was expecting and was less invested in the characters than i thought i would be. the age difference between sephy and callum now bothers me during the first section and the fact that a hostage is sleeping with a captor (despite their history) gave me shivers on my spine (not the good kind). when i was a little younger than sephy i could really understand the drama of being a teenager and the entire love story was epic and incredible instead of a bit weird. i can remember our entire class screaming in frustration of sephy's choice which i can now understand.
i did stay up till 5am reading this for the second time and finish it in one sitting so it was obviously gripping and despite my lack of connection with the characters the second time around i still cried at the end.
i wish i read this book when i was a kid. growing up with the English curriculum, the only thing i remember learning about Australia was that the British sent their prisoners there to live because there was no room. nothing about the atrocities committed by the English against the aboriginal people whatsoever.
i never thought I'd be living in Australia 20 years later but here i am.
The illustrations are so evocative and detailed.
i think a really important book. neither author nor illustrator is aboriginal. I'll have to seek out aboriginal stories