2017 : My year in books

It seems pretty wild to me that I'm already writing my second-ever yearly wrap up?! How have I had this blog for that long already, I still feel like a complete newbie but hey here we are.
2017 has been a wonderful bookish year! I went to YALC for the first time (which was so much fun) I doubled my reading challenge from last year - and met it!! Not to mention getting to know a lot more wonderful bloggers and booky people 😄
So a big thank you to everyone who has chatted to me throughout this year, I hope you the new year brings you many blessings and I appreciate you SO much.

Top Five of the Year:

Unconventional by Maggie Harcourt - I cannot put in to words how much I just really loved this book?!? Heck, it was just like the perfect fit? You know like, when a book just comes at the right time for the place that you're in in your life and provides you with a beautiful happy escape? That's what Unconventional did for me! It's not the kind of book I would usually give 5 stars to but I DID and it is so deserving of them!! (Going to stop raving know bc I've already reviewed this properly and I should chill out)

Girlhood by Cat Clarke - This book is deep as heck and I think it dealt with some difficult issues pretty well. It also has a bi main character and a gay supporting character (if I remember correctly) which y'know I am always a fan of 😍

A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard - I also read Beautiful Broken Things this year which I also loved by AQKOT wins out because it's just so good!! A well researched insight in to selective mutism and a little bit of deaf culture too I loved it; I'm on the committee for the sign language society at my uni and this book actually encouraged me to go for the position because deaf awareness is really under-represented but also so important so ye! Read it if you haven't already!

The Foxhole Court (and the whole All for the Game series😎) by Nora Sakavic - This was recommended to me by a friend who said it was honestly one of the best/most painful-in-a-good-way series and I was not disappointed! A beautifully broken and annoying yet precious set of characters and lots of diversity! It's a slow burn but I promise you it's worth a try!!

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu - This book was just really really good, it's such an encouraging feminist read!! I related so much to almost all of Viv's experiences in her school and I wish I was a bit more like her tbh! Honestly well worth reading - SO GOOD.

"Oh I'll finally get around to this in 2017!" - a book I meant to read but never did:

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh - Has been recommend to me so highly but loads and loads of people and I finally managed to get hold of a copy a month or so ago so I am determined that this year I actually will read it!

A book I didn't like as much as I anticipated:

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon - it's not that I didn't like this book, it's got some really nice diverse main characters and I loved that, I think maybe just because the genre wasn't what I would always go for and it had so much hype that maybe I expected to really love it even though it wasn't really purely my kind of book. I don't know but it's definitely still good (and that cover 😍).

So there you have it, a quick wrap up of the past year; I read 40 books which is twice as many as the year before and I'm super excited to see what reads 2018 will bring!

What was your top book of the year? Any particular books you're really looking forward to next year? Let me know in a comment below; I hope you have a wonderful New Year and thanks so much for reading ❤️

Mental Health Mondays #16 : Festive Special 🎄

Welcome to my extra-special festive Mental Health Monday! In this post I want to focus a little bit on Christmas and mental health and what it means to me. As always, this post is based upon my experience and I'm not trying to put forward any views other than my own so please take that into account as you read - Thanks!

'It's the most wonderful time of the year', it's a time for celebrating; spending time with loved ones and generally enjoying yourself. However, it's unfortunately not quite as simple as "It's Christmas lets put all our troubles away and just enjoy ourselves!" for those of us with mental health conditions. There's usually a lot going on, there are lots of responsibilities and expectations on you and as well as being expected to buy loads of presents and wrap things and cook for 99 people, or whatever your Christmas set up is, you're supposed to put on a big smile and be sociable and cheery regardless of anything else that's going on!

Mental Health Mondays #15 : Progress

So firstly I want to sincerely apologise for the severe lack of MHMs in the last few weeks. I don't have an excuse, they just haven't happened. I guess that I temporarily lost motivation and I couldn't for the life of me think of anything at all that I could say that anyone would find of interest. Anyway here we are and now I'm back so, hello!

If you've read the last MHM post What Now? you'll know I've been a pretty confused and conflicted about where I am and what to do but things appear to be looking in my favour at last 😌

BLOG TOUR: Dark Chapter by Winnie M Li

Rating:

Published: 1st November 2017
Publisher: Legend Press
Pages: 390
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Vivian is a cosmopolitan Taiwanese-American tourist who often escapes her busy life in London through adventure and travel. Johnny is a 15-year-old Irish teenager, living a neglected life on the margins of society.
On a bright spring afternoon in West Belfast, their paths collide during a horrifying act of violence.
In the aftermath, each is forced to confront the chain of events that led to the attack.
Inspired by true events, this is a story of the dark chapters and chance encounters that can irrevocably determine the shape of our lives


First things first I want to say a BIG thank you to Legend Press for asking me to take part in this blog tour and for providing me with a copy of Dark Chapter for review. I'm super grateful and this has no way effected the review that I'm giving!

Dark Chapter is intriguing from the outset and I immediately felt drawn in to the story, Li has a very interesting writing style which is somehow just painstakingly simple and yet perfect for this kind of plot. I'll admit that at some points the book was challenging to read because of the topic of the story but rape is something which needs to be spoken about and the blatant honesty of this book, based upon the author's own experience, found, what I think is, a really good way to talk about this issue.

One of the things which I loved most about this book is that it shows realistic representation of the consequences which rape can have upon someone's life and it demonstrates how slow and bumpy the road towards recovery can be whilst also showing that stuff can get easier over time. Further to this, Dark Chapter also focuses on the incredible strength of a vulnerable woman and her determination to see her case through to justice whilst battling so hard to try and recover is really empowering!

The psychology student in me loves the way that Li describes the process from Johnny's point of view in a way that doesn't justify the horrific acts which he committed but highlights how his upbringing and the influence of other males in his life, unsurprisingly resulted in views of women that are completely twisted and made an attack like this acceptable in his eyes. It's disgusting but it's also an interesting side of the story to read about and kept making me more and more frustrated throughout, because those ingrained thoughts are really damaging to everyone!

I don't think I've read a book, at least this year, where I was rooting for the main character so hard! I so passionately wanted justice for Vivian because she was going through so much turmoil and yet she kept on pushing forward - found myself regularly grumbling and yelling at the book when things weren't going in the way that I wanted them to! But most importantly, it was encouraging to read about such strength in such a difficult situation.

Dark Chapter is different to the books that would usually I go for but it was super enlightening and I think it's important for books like this to exist and discuss rape with such honesty. It's totally deserving of it's title as Not the Booker prize winner 2017 and I really hope that it is read by many and helps to educate lots of people.

It's dark, it's fast paced and most importantly it's unflinching in it's honesty so you should definitely get your hands on a copy of Dark Chapter and have a read.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Mental Health Book Bingo!

It gives me great pleasure to let you all know that in January 2018 myself and some bloggy pals are launching a shiny new readathon of Mental Health related books!

The idea was put forward by the wonderful Wendy @ whatthelog and was inspired by other bingo readathons like Asian Lit Bingo. I feel absolutely honoured to have been asked to take part in this and we've got some good things planned so I'd love it if y'all could take part!

Your Hosts:

Wendy @ whatthelog

Christine @ the story salve

Inge @ Of Wonderland

Laura @ Green Tea & Paperbacks

Ayah @ DystopianCitzn

Kav @ xreadingsolacex

Me!

Mental Health Mondays #14 : What now?

This post is going to be a personal one because I need to process my thoughts surrounding a problem that I'm facing. I'm not quite sure of any other way to do it than to write it here and hope that readers don't find it too boring!

As you may know if you've read any of my previous MHM posts, in May I started seeing a clinical psychologist. This was an appointment which I had been waiting for for seven months so when it finally came around and my psychologist said he would see me regularly I was grateful that all my patience had paid off and I'd finally get some help, after trying almost every other available option.

There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

Rating:

Published: 5th October 2017
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Pages: 320
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Scream meets YA in this hotly-anticipated new novel from the bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss.
One-by-one, the students of Osborne High are dying in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and the hunt intensifies for the killer, the dark secrets among them must finally be confronted.
International bestselling author Stephanie Perkins returns with a fresh take on the classic teen slasher story that’s fun, quick-witted, and completely impossible to put down. 

Disclaimer: Before I start this post I just want to say that although I will try my hardest to give a review which is spoiler-free, due to the nature of the story there may be some small spoilers in here! So if you want to go into the book with no preconceptions I suggest that you don't read any further than this point for your own peace of mind!


Horror YA romance was always going to be an interesting mixture, so when I picked up a proof of this at YALC I was certain that I'd need to keep an open mind throughout! I haven't ever read a book by Stephanie Perkins before so I can't make direct comparison but I know that this is very different, largely because I imagine most of the others don't have lots of murder in!
I'll admit that I am quite a wimp when it comes to horror/thriller books so I haven't read a huge number and I've seen several reviews saying that people didn't find this terrifying enough for them but personally I think it had enough scary bits and gruesomeness to keep me satisfied! It definitely isn't the scariest book that I've ever read and possibly a bit more suspense would have made it better but it is by no means PG either.

Makani was an interesting main character and learning about her past as well as her current friendship group was something that I really enjoyed and as a group they were quite diverse which is always something I welcome! I also loved Grandma Young as a character too she was good fun and I thought she was brilliant!

Unfortunately I didn't feel like the book gave me enough mystery and the 'reveal' came at kind of a weird point in the plot too which I kind of struggled to get my head around, I suppose this may come from the fact that it's Perkins' first book in this area, or maybe it's just me being too obsessed with Midsomer Murders and being too picky!

The romance between Makani and Ollie was quite fun to read about and it was equally interesting to learn more about Ollie's character but I'm not entirely convinced that it really fitted with all of the gore at the same time? It's the sort of thing that may have made more sense if it was on screen rather than in a book? But I'm really not sure because I can be very picky with my romance anyway!

Overall, There's Someone Inside Your House was a different book to anything which I've read before, it had interesting characters and enough horror-ness to keep me happy! The romance was a bit strange and I don't know if YA Horror Romance is something I would seek out again but it is definitely worth you giving it a try!

Have you read There's Someone Inside Your House? Or any other books by Stephanie Perkins that you think I may enjoy? Let me know any of your thoughts in the comments below!