March 2018 | Wrap-Up

Hello friends,

Ah, sorry this is getting to you all so late. As you guys probably know from my other posts, school has taken over my life and resulted in me in being behind in my posts. Sorry for that, but on the bright side, if all goes well this won’t be a problem after this semester!

I hope you all had a fantastic March! I had a relatively good month. Just trying to stay strong lol. In March, I managed to read 10 books and I really liked a majority of them. I participated in two readathons with some decent success.

If you rather hear me talk about this or possibly see my puppies, my BookTube video is below.

March Wrap-Up:

---

Stats:

ReadAThons:

Emojiathon:

For the emojiathon, I completed 15 challenges. I’ll have the emoji next to each book below! If you want to know what challenge each emoji corresponded with, you can check out my March TBR or Dylan’s incredibly helpful Google Doc.

Munches in March:

For the Munches in March readathon, I completed 12 challenges. I’ll specify which book correlated to what challenge below using an emoji. I wasn’t able to get a perfect match for all of them, but I think they’re close enough lol

Overall I am incredibly happy with the success of these three readathons. I’m hoping April’s readathons go equally as well!

Ratings:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 2

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ – 3

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 4

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ -1

Pages read: 3,834

---

The books:

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 4/5 Stars

Review: I reread this book in preparation for Love, Simon and was so happy to dive into this book again. I forgot how much humor was in these pages. It’s such a sweet, fluffy read. This is one of those books that I think many readers will enjoy, especially those looking for a coming of age story they can relate too.

Emojiathon:✌🏾, 🎧, 📽, 📚

Munches in March:🥤 (warm & fuzzy), ☕️

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 4.5/5 Stars

Review: Full review available here.

*Taking off half a star due to remembering less about this one as time passes. While I can definitely see myself rereading and revisiting this one, I have trouble justifying a 5-star rating if less than a month later I’m struggling to remember some of the details.*

Emojiathon: 🤷🏽‍♀️, 🎧, 📚, 🔞, 💩

Munches in March: 🍝, ☕️, 🥙

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 5/5 Stars

Review: Reread this book because Obsidio was coming out and I was getting impatient. The adventure in this story will take you by complete surprise. Some readers may be put off by the unique storytelling format, however, the audiobook is one of the best I’ve ever listened too.  I highly recommend listening to the audiobook while following along with the text. There are things that each format can add that the other cannot. This story is filled with twists and turns and will keep you hooked until the last page.

Emojiathon: 🎧, 📚, 👽

Munches in March: 🍝, ☕️

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ – 4.5/5 Stars

Review: Full review available here.

Emojiathon: 🚗, 🎧, 📚, 🧙🏼‍♂️,⏳

Munches in March: 🍝. 🍟, 🍕, 🥔, 🍎

 

Genesis by Brendan Reichs

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ – 4.5/5 Stars

Review: Full review available here.

Emojiathon: 🎧, 📚

Munches in March: 🍝, ☕️

 

Magnetic by Carissa Miller

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ – 3.5/5 Stars

Review: Full review available here.

Emojiathon: 📚,📱, 😎, 🕵🏻‍♀️

Munches in March: 🍿, ☕️

 

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ – 4/5 Stars

Review: I reread this book in preparation for the sequel. My thoughts really haven’t changed. I thought the story was a lot of fun, I loved how badass Alosa was, and I really enjoyed her relationship with Ridan. I think this is a fun, action, almost fluff fantasy book perfect for pirate lovers.

Emojiathon: 🚗, 🎧, 📚, 🧙🏼‍♂️

Munches in March: 🍟, 🥔, ☕️

Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 4/5 Stars

Review: Now, because of how much I enjoyed the first book, I had some high hopes for the sequel. I wasn’t totally wowed, but I wasn’t that disappointed either. I thought some things that happened with the character relationships were pretty good, but others resulted in emotions shifting a bit too quick for my liking. The other problem, and this was a me thing – not the book, was that reading To Kill a Kingdom just a week or two before this one resulted in me confusing the personalities of the sirens a couple times. This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if they acted similarly, but they didn’t so it was a bit confusing. Also, because this was a duology, some things felt incredibly rushed and the weight of the situations was not there. Overall, this was a fun series, but I did want a bit more from it.

Emojiathon: 🚗, 🎧, 📚, 🧙🏼‍♂️

Munches in March: 🍟, 🥔, ☕️

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 5/5 Stars

Review: I was beyond blown away with this book. From the cover to the premise, this is not a book I usually gravitate towards. It wasn’t until I heard Chelsea from chelseadolling reads RAVE about this book that I finally decided to pick it up. This is one of those books where I felt like I was a different person after reading it. I don’t know what it was, but I was so captivated by this story and just found myself wandering around lower Manhattan for like an hour. I didn’t want to stop listening to the story and I actually contemplated cutting class so I could finish it. By the end, I thought the entire story wrapped up nicely, though the big twist was one that you could’ve seen coming (though I didn’t), but it also didn’t totally shock me. I thought it added an interesting amount of weight to the story though and really make you think about Evelyn Hugo’s character. I loved how the ending really showed you how ruthless Evelyn could be. But yeah, the hype for this book is totally worth it!

Emojiathon: ⚠,✌🏾, 🎧, 📚, 🗣, 🔞

Munches in March: 🍝, ☕️

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Nuval 

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 4/5 Stars

Review: This was such an interesting book set on an alternate Earth. One thing that kind of lessened my enjoyment of this book was the comparison to Illuminae. As many of you know, I’m totally obsessed with the Illuminae files and by having that slight comparison I was tuned into a certain expectation. It’s like if I recommended Percy Jackson by comparing it to Harry Potter. The main similarity is an 11-year-old boy is thrust into a world alongside of, but completely different from the one he knows. As he learns more about this world, he meets two friends whom he forms close bonds with and ends up going on a quest with them. As the kids are questing, the adults are wrapped up in some other issue and it’s up to the kids to save the day. By the end, they find the villain was a powerful being lost to time that everyone thought, but actually was not. That comparison (as vague as it was) involved more similarities than Sleeping Giants had with Illuminae. The only reason I’m harping on this so much is that the only similarity I could find between Sleeping Giants and Illumine was the use of a dossier style of text to convey the story. That’s it.

Moving along, the actual story was really interesting. Once I separated the two, I found myself really enjoying Sleeping Giants. There were a few parts that were slow and a couple things were confusing as we were waiting for the actual plot to unfold, but overall I liked it. I’m mixed about the fact that we weren’t told what was going on and that by the end, there’s still this mystery surrounding the events that happened. That being said, I really liked that we discovered things with the characters. I can’t wait to see how the mystery unfolds as the story continues.

Emojiathon: 🤷🏽‍♀️, 🎧, 📚, 🗣, 👽, 🔞

Munches in March: 🍝, 🍰

---

What was your favorite March read?

Be sure to let me know below!