My Quarantine Reads so Far...

Since quarantine started, I've read 9 books, ranging in length from poetry to full length fantasy novels. In this post, I'm breaking them down and giving you an overview of my thoughts for each one. I tried to keep them as spoiler free as possible, but you may want to skip the Shatter Me and the Siege and Storm reviews if you don't want to be lightly spoiled. Make sure to share your quarantine reading list in the comments! Let's get started!

Every Day by David Levithan

I started this book a few days before quarantine, oops... but I'm including it because I read the majority of it while in quarantine.

The main character in this book changes bodies every day. I thought this was a super unique plot, and it was the reason I picked the book up. Overall, I enjoyed this book. For me, the ending of the book was what took it from a 3 star rating to a 4 star because the ending was real. Books can sometimes sugar-coat things in order for there to be a happy ending, but this book definitely didn't do that. Props to Levithan for his ability to break my heart.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about Every Day because I already wrote a full book review on it. If you want to read the full review, click here.

Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

I decided to combined these books into one because they're the final two books in the Shadow and Bone Series. If you follow me on Instagram, you know my obsession with Bardugo's Six of Crows Duology, but this series left me a little underwhelmed.

These books were definitely better than the first one (Shadow and Bone). The endings of both of these were spectacular. The world-building was immaculate, as all of miss Leigh's worlds are, but I just felt like some things weren't believable or foreshadowed enough.

If you've read this series, you know what happens to Alina in the end. You know what happens with her powers and with her man, (not gonna lie, I totally ship her with the person she ends up with) but I don't think the ending of Ruin and Rising was realistic based on the direction Siege and Storm went.

Alina was portrayed as a saint and goddess and then everything changed way too quickly. I liked Sankta Alina. I didn't like peasant Alina because I never felt like I knew that side of her. That part of her backstory never went into enough depth for me to think of her as an orphan or pity her for the hard things she had gone through in her past. I liked how Alina and the Darkling were tied and how their fates intersected. I didn't like when Mal's secret was revealed. (You know what secret I'm talking about if you've read the books because it basically changed the entire course of Ruin and Rising.) It was my least favorite part of Ruin and Rising.

Alina was portrayed as a saint, and Mal was portrayed as a commoner. They should have been more consistent and should have stayed in their respective niche. To me, Alina's whole character was built around her power and then, in a flash, everything changed. I understand that Alina and her otkazat’sya would not have been able to end up together if she was still a sankta, but I think there needed to be more foreshadowing in order for the ending of the series to feel believable. I gave both of these books 4 stars.

The Toll (Arc of the Scythe Trilogy) by Neal Shusterman

Neal Shusterman is one of my favorite authors, so I couldn't have been more excited to finally read the long-awaited conclusion of the Arc of the Scythe Trilogy. It SHOOK ME! But, like the Shadow and Bone Series, left me feeling like I needed a little more. (Clearly, I'm becoming way too picky with my choice of literature.) In this final book, we got to see our favorites—Citra, Rowan, Scythe Faraday, and Greyson (my new fictional boyfriend). We also saw our least favorites—DIE, GODDARD, DIE! And Scythe Rand, who I really hate as well.

The world-building in this book was on point just like the other two books. The ending left some unanswered questions, and I felt like things escalated too quickly. I love the idea of the resolution the book goes after, I think it's an absolute perfect way to end the series, it just wasn't executed quite right for me.

P.s. I still gave this book 5 stars because it was the end of an era and deserved nothing less.

Felicity by Mary Oliver

Recently, I've been falling in love with poetry books, especially Mary Oliver's poetry. I read A Thousand Mornings earlier this year and could not find enough good things to say about the book.

While I did enjoy Felicity—I loved some of the themes, the prose, the way it read—I didn't like it as much as A Thousand Mornings. I like poetry that focuses a lot on nature and philosophy, life and death, strong emotions like joy and sadness, but I'm not really a fan of poetry the focuses on romance, and this book had a little too much romance for me.

Felicity, in case you didn't know, means intense happiness. (I had to look this up because I had no idea what it meant until I started reading. Way to go me!) What I took from Felicity was that the author was writing about some sort of romantic relationship (perhaps even one she experienced). There seemed to be some loss but also some happiness. I don't really know why I didn't like this book. It just didn't resonant with me as much as her other collection.

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

The Writing Life in a narrative that explains the reality of being an artist using beautiful metaphors, prose, and the authors own experiences. This is exactly what I expected from this book, so I was very happy. Some of the metaphors were a little unclear to me. I struggled to understand what the author was implying on a few pages and had to re-read them. Some of the language was also a little too flowy, but the author's personal stories, and the experiences she shared, were both relatable and heartwarming. I ended up giving it 4/5 stars.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

As much as I love Leigh, I'm beginning to feel like there is a pattern when it comes to me and her books—I'm not into the first one hundred pages of her books. With Six of Crows, Shadow and Bone, and Ninth House, I did not really start to like them until page 100-150, and I don't know why. I just could not get past the beginning of these books.

The beginning of Ninth House wasn't boring, I just couldn't get a feel for the story because it took me too long to piece together the world, the characters' backstories, and to really get a feel for the book. I spent the first one hundred pages playing catch-up with the book because there was so much information and so little explanation. Maybe I'm just slow, I don't know.

Once I did get into the book, I liked it. It was a dark fantasy novel, which is a genre I hadn't read before, and I really loved Alex Stern and Darlington. At first, I thought Darlington's name was so weird. His full name is Daniel Arlington, and when I first started reading, I thought his name was either Darlington Arlington or that Darlington was some nickname that smashed his first and last name together. (I'm pretty sure it's the second one lol.)

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

I finished this book literally in two days. Not because it was super amazing, but because I was doing a reading challenge with myself. I loved the first ten or so chapters of the book, but then things started to go down hill.

The beginning of the book was definitely my favorite part. If I was rating it based on the beginning alone, the book would be 10/10 perfect. It's the rest of the story that I had some problems with.

First of all, Juliette's character was inconsistent and kind of annoying. I thought she was going to be an insane or mentally unstable because she's in an asylum at the beginning, which I was totally ready for, but that didn't happen. I love crazy, ballistic character. The author set her up this way and then took it away. This occurred multiple times throughout the book—she would set something up and then not follow through on it, which made me disappointed and mad.

As for the other characters, Warner gave me the creeps. I could not with him. I just could not. I hated him so much that he made me physically uncomfortable. Kenji was okay, but also annoying, and I wanted to punch him in the face a few times. Adam was fine, but I felt like he was just a cardboard cut out of every YA love interest ever. Don't even get me started on the insta-love in this book. Cassandra Clare is quaking.

The writing in this book is a little strange. Some of the lines are golden, and I had to pause to gasp in their beauty. Yet, other lines were similar to this one on page 449 of the iTunes version—"I take a few bites of oxygen."

"Insert head smack here"

HOW DO YOU BITE OXYGEN? The author tries to spruce up some of the most basic cliches, lines, actions, etc., but ends up making them a thousand times worse.

The world this book is set in seems super interesting, but we didn’t really learn much about it, which was another thing the author didn’t follow through on.

I ended up giving this book 3/5 stars because I did like the idea of the story and, as much as I hate to admit it, liked the romance between Adam and Juliette. I will be reading the next book, but this reading excursion could very well turn into Throne of Glass part 2. (I tried to read Throne of Glass and liked the first two books, but couldn't get through Heir of Fire to save my life, so that's what that debacle was.) Let's hope that doesn't happen.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

My literature class ended up reading this, and I'm very happy that we did because the book was very good. This is a sci-fi novel that focuses on bio-ethics and brings up different questions about organ transplants, GMOs, and medical technology. I loved that this book talked about controversial subjects. It explored what it means to be human. It brought some of our most unconscious thoughts to mind and showed just how far we are willing to go to survive and to save the people we love. Even if we could never imagine doing the things that Jenna's parents do, we can't really say one way or another until we're in that situation. The themes and morals discussed in this story were a 10/10.

Jenna was an amazing character. The conflict in this book was on point. The questions it asked were real things that we should be thinking about, and I just loved it so much. Period! Read it if you love sci-fi books that apply to real life. This isn't just your standard guns-aliens-battles-insane world sci-fi novel. (As much as I love those things.) This is a different type of sci-fi book that the market needs more of and it’s getting 5/5 stars from me.

Thank you so much for reading this post! Make sure to leave your quarantine reads in the comments, and don't forget to check out some of my other blog posts!

It's been a pleasure writing for you and until next time—stay weird and stay writing. - Lexi