Things have slowed down a little bit on the reading front. Commuting by train leaves you with a lot of time to read. I don't miss commuting, but I do miss having time each day to read. I think in 2018 I will try and set aside more time to get through my TBR, because it's getting quite out of hand!
Asterix and the Missing Scroll by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad ★★★
As a child, I loved reading Asterix. This is one of the most recent publications, and I picked it impulsively to see if the change in writer had amounted to a change in style. It's still a good old Asterix story, but I did not end up as engrossed as I did when reading the earlier comics. Maybe I'm just getting old...
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent ★★★★★
This book featured in my May Favourites. As I wrote in my previous post, I love the eerie feel of this book. If you're a Brontë fan then this will be right up your street. The story twists and turns through Icelandic landscapes and keeps you hooked. It's not the kind of book that has you on edge all the way through, but the suspense is kind of creepy...
The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher ★★★★
I actually listened to this on audiobook, picking it up with an Audible credit. I love Carrie, but didn't feel like reading this in book format. I struggle to get into memoirs and often lose interest, so having Carrie tell her tale made this a much more enjoyable read.
Wilde Like Me - Louise Pentland ★★★★
I've been watching Louise on Youtube for a very long time. In fact, as my my interest in Youtube has waned, she is one of the few that I still tune in to watch. So I bought her book. It's quite rare that I'll read a "chick lit" book, but I did enjoy this one. I love the humour in it, and will probably pick up the sequel when it comes out next year!
A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas ★★★★★
And thus continues my turbulent relationship with this book series. I always have a lot of feelings when it comes to Maas' books. You can read my review of the previous book here, and you'll be able to see that its predecessor was not without problems. However, when reading Wings and Ruin, I just felt myself thinking "YEEEESSSSS". It's like Maas had listened to my problems with the previous book. The series has evolved to be less romance and more plot. Hooray! The book still had pacing issues and a couple of terrible sex scenes (more on that here) but I finished this book quite satisfied with how the saga is progressing.
Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler ★★
I really really wanted to like this book! I'd had my eye on it for so long, and finally got around to reading it. For me it was just "meh". I couldn't connect with the story or the characters and it took me a long time to read it considering it's such a short book. I think I only really liked it because it was a Shakespeare re-telling.
Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body by Sara Pascoe ★★★★
Another book that I purchased through Audible. This book gave me a whole new love for Sara Pascoe. It's an autobiography and a lesson at the same time. From anthropology to feminism, this book teaches you so much whilst still being entertaining. If you're an owner of a vagina, this book is definitely for you (and if you don't, you'll probably still find it interesting).
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld ★★★★★
And here is how you write a re-telling! Funnily enough, I didn't have high hopes for this like I did with Vinegar Girl. Pride and Prejudice has been done to death, but I thought I'd give Eligible a whirl. And I loved it. It shifts Austen's story to modern day Ohio, with Lizzie and Jane travelling back from New York to see their family. It maintained much of Pride and Prejudice's essence without having to shoe-horn everything in. It's not perfect (I'm not sure about the reality tv aspect of it, and feel like Sittenfeld was trying to cram too many "issues" into the characters), but I found it a very interesting book.
Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard ★★★★
Eddie Izzard is one of my favourite comedians. Again, as it is a memoir I chose the audiobook. It certainly taught me a lot about Izzard that I didn't know. I had to focus a lot whilst listening to this, because the meandering style of the narrative can be difficult to follow. However, this kind of mirrors Eddie's style of stand up anyway!
What was your favourite read of 2017?
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