[Christmas music playing]
Hey guys ! iI's Trina and this is my
December reading wrap up. Before I move
into the books that I read this month I
want to give a couple of quick shoutouts
to some of my fellow booktubers that
have really made 2016 a great year for
me. This year I have really gotten to
know Jenna from jennclarek, Meagan
from Meagan Precourt, and Monica from
tomesproject. All three of them live
somewhat near me and we've been able to
meet up several times this year at a
local bookstore and go to like author
signings. I'm just so thankful for them and
their friendship and for putting up with
me and I really highly recommend
following them because not only do I
love them but I love their channels and platforms.
[ jingle bell sound effect ]
For my TBR check-in this month,
I had wanted to read seven books and I
ended up reading four of those. I got a
really late start on reading because I
was traveling at the very beginning of
December and then right before Christmas
like the only thing I was in the mood
for were christmas-themed books so I
read a couple of those and then when I
was done I was like that's it I'm done
for the year, I don't want to read
anything else! So, you know, I didn't hit
all seven of these but that's okay I
still want to read them at some point.
[ jingle bell sound effect ]
Moving into the book reviews, I did read
a total of seven things this month and
as always I'm going to start at the
bottom and work my way up to my favorite
read of the month. So first up I read
Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty. This is
the fifth and final book in the Jessica
Darling series. This is a book series
that follows one main character, Jessica
Darling, as we read her journal entries
as she is going through her high school,
college, and her adult life.
Book number five here has followed her
into her adult life and it's set about
two or three years after the previous
book and in my opinion I just didn't
really need this book. It definitely felt
like something that was added on as an
afterthought. This book only covered a 24
hour time period so I did feel like
it was quite stretched out. Some parts
really dragged for me. This book also
switched in narration. The previous four
books were all her diary entries and
this one is now just a third-person
narrative. Because of this we got to
follow our other main character in the
series, Marcus, and just his thoughts as
he's alone but I unfortunately felt like
Marcus was acting very out of character.
He seemed like he was acting a lot like
Jessica and now maybe her personality
has rubbed off on him throughout the
years but really I just felt like the
author did not really distinguish these
characters. I ended up rating it only two
stars. I really didn't enjoy it although
I will say I am glad now to be done with
this series. It connected with me in
terms of being nostalgic to my high
school and college experiences but with
me and Jessica both being adults now I
just grew tired of how snarky and
judgmental she was. Now that I have
finished this entire series and having
read another of Megan McCafferty's books -
she has a series called Bumped or
Thumped or something like that.
I never continued in that series because
I felt like it was very judgmental and
that the author was really pushing her
tone and her thoughts on you and now
they have finished this series I feel
like it's the same way so I think it's
safe to say I probably won't read
anything else by this author in the future.
Next up I read The Twelve Days of Dash
and Lily by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.
This one is the sequel to Dash and Lily's Book
of Dares. That first book is another book
that was told in journal format where
these two characters had never met
before but one of them finds the other's
journal and they start writing back and
forth to each other and leaving it in
places where the other will find it. Both
of these books are set during
Christmastime so this one takes place a
year after the first one and the
one character who is like super super
super into Christmas has now lost her
christmas spirit in this one, so it's
kind of the journey about her getting her
Christmas spirit back. Again, I didn't
think this book was necessary. I didn't
really need a continuation of it. tTe first
book is definitely better and I would
honestly recommend treating it as a
standalone. I would say it's a good book
to read around the holidays but honestly
I would just recommend the first book
over this one. The next book I read was
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. This is
the second and final book in the Six of
Crows duology. This series is about a
group of six characters from very
different backgrounds that find
themselves having to work together in
order to stop this drug from spreading
throughout their land that is
threatening to wreak havoc on their
magic system. I love the fantasy world in
this book, how diverse it is, how
diverse the characters are. This book
does have a good representation of race,
sexuality, and disability. The main
character Kaz has a disability that is
very similar to the author's so it is own
voices for disability.
However, I found myself pretty
disappointed in parts with kind of some
jabs that I felt were made at the
expense of mental illness. I felt like
parts of this book in terms of the plot
were dragging for me and so whenever a
book does drag a little bit I will start
to nitpick the smaller things and so
that's the only reason why I think I
noticed this. Although I do enjoy this story
and the characters, I felt like I wasn't
getting to know the characters on a
level that I wanted to.
Furthermore, there were a couple of
things that happened in terms of plot in
this book that came out of absolutely
nowhere and felt very random. It was
so unsatisfying to see random things
being thrown in here because I felt like...
like what-what even was the point?! I do
have a spoiler-free duology review up
and I also have an in-depth spoilery
talk about Crooked Kingdom if you want
to know more of my thoughts on some of
these things that I mentioned if you've
already read it.
Next I read The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale.
This is a retelling of a classic
fairytale also called The Goose Girl.
This is a story about a young princess who
has been betrothed to the prince of a
neighboring kingdom and as she's on her
way traveling to the prince's kingdom to meet him
she's attacked by her lady-in-waiting
who steals her clothes and takes her
place and goes to the other kingdom and
tries to pass herself off as the real princess.
Meanwhile, our main character, the princess,
goes into hiding and she becomes a
keeper of geese. I did listen to this one
on audiobook and that I think is why I
liked this one so much. I did end up
giving this one a four-star rating. It
had a very large cast of characters (voice actors),
it had sound effects and music.
The voice acting was phenomenal. It was a
great experience to listen to because I've
said this before, I really feel like
listening to audiobooks of fairytales
just works perfectly because I grew up
with fairy tales being read to me like at
bedtime so just kind of makes me feel
comforted and entertained so I enjoy
listening to fairy tales. It definitely
worked for me in that format. In terms of
the stor,y what I found as something that
I disliked is that I thought like the
beginning really dragged getting into it
and introducing us to the princess. A lot
of time was spent on building up things
that never really had much meaning in
the end, but the ending of this book
packed a big impact for me. It was extremely
fulfilling. I really liked it.
This is a story where it's like you
really want her to get her revenge on
this awful thing that has happened but
you also really enjoy as a character
that she doesn't like whine and complain
the whole time. She doesn't like lose
sight of things because she just wants
revenge. She actually takes comfort and
finds solace in where she finds herself
and I did really like that about her
character. And the ending was so
fulfilling to me and I was like, 'YES GIRL!'
So I really did enjoy it, that's why it
got a higher rating: the ending and the
fun audiobook. Next I read Leave Me by
Gayle Forman. This is Gayle's first
adult novel. I've read I think all of her
YA novels before so I definitely
wanted to check this one out.
This one is about a woman who is a
mother and she has a full-time job that
she's trying to juggle with her family
life. One day she has a heart attack and
she's supposed to start taking it easy,
be on bed rest to better recuperate, and
she's just finding it hard to recover
from it because of how hectic her
home life is and so one day she just up
and leaves. She's getting to be alone
for one of the first times in many years
and just getting to know herself a
little bit better and starts also
searching for her biological mother. I ended
up actually really enjoying this book. I
found it very easy to get into. I was
almost immediately invested. Like, I don't
have kids, I'm not in the same situation
that Maribeth is but the way that Gayle
portrayed it made me SO angry and
frustrated with her husband, with her
mother. Like the way that they weren't
helping her out, I was like, "girl you
better pack your bags and LEAVE. You need
some rest!" So like, I was kind of rooting for it
and then that made me stop and think,
but she's a mom and you can't just leave
your husband and kids. There was a
section of this book that talks about
characters who like leave their families
and how we can see them as being
redeemed or not usually depends on whose
side of the story that you're following.
So I really feel like this is more of an
exploration of just like how would you
feel if you're following the one that
left? Because usually that's the person
seen as the irresponsible, the bad one
who's hurt their family and stuff, and
it's like well let's follow that
character and see like what they do and
would they be understood? I did not
always agree with the things the
character was doing but it gave me a lot
to think about so I had an enjoyable
time reading it and I think that Gayle
writes adult fiction really well. I think
I actually enjoyed this one better than
I have some of her YA books. Then I
read What Light by Jay Asher. This book was
sent to me by Penguin for review
consideration but that did not influence my
thoughts on this book at all.
This is a book set during Christmastime
and we're following our main character
Sierra who lives in Oregon with her
family who owns a Christmas tree farm
and every winter they move to
California to operate a Christmas tree
lot. This particular year they think
it might be their last year operating
the tree lot because the business isn't
doing that well so when Sierra goes to
California she's got a whole different
set of friends in California and she's
struggling with the idea of maybe having to
say goodbye to them and not seeing them
again next year.
It is a romance, so of course she meets a
boy and this boy is a trope I don't like
but let me tell you about him. He has a
secret in his past that he is still
dealing with the consequences of today.
The guy with the mysterious past is a
trope that I usually do not like but I
actually really liked how it was handled
in this book. Like, as soon as this character is
introduced and you find out what the
rumors about him are I was like oh my
gosh this is gonna be terrible.
I was like on edge. Like, this is not
going to be a good thing. I don't
want this particular thing about him to
be redeemed in the end. And as far as my
feelings on this guy and
his character arc and stuff, I did enjoy
that this book dealt with forgiveness
and character growth and how you can
move past mistakes. Although I do think
that probably more emphasis should have
been placed on mental health and maybe
counseling but counseling was mentioned
in passing in this one and so that ended up
being good enough for me because I know
that this is just fiction and not real
life but I think that if you read this
discerningly that you would be fine with
it. I was pretty irritated for a while
at how these characters did not
confront what this secret was. Like, he
just did not tell her for a while and I
was screaming at these characters to USE
YOUR WORDS! One of the things I hate the
most in romance novels is when the
characters refuse to communicate, but
once these characters did sit down and
talk about it I felt they communicated
very well thereafter. There's actually a
scene where they get into a fight and
they do use their words and they do
actually talk about the issue at hand
and I realized as I read that scene,
wow I needed to read that, because I feel
like in most YA romances when a fight ever
is portrayed usually the characters just
make assumptions about each other, storm
off, and then refuse to talk. I did enjoy
how this one had the characters actually
communicating and also enjoyed how
Sierra communicated with her parents.
The parents were very active in her life
and overall I just really enjoyed this
book. It definitely has a lot of
Christmastime vibes, so I know it's too
late for Christmas this year but if
you're looking for a great Christmas
atmosphere type book to read next year,
definitely I would recommend this one.
The final book I read this month, my
favorite one, was actually a reread and it
was my favorite book last month also [laughs]. It is
Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay
Kristoff. I read this one last month
so you can see my original review of it
in my November wrap up but in December I
actually listened to the audiobook of
this one because the audio books are
just a totally different experience. They
have a large cast of characters (voice actors), a ton of
music, and sound effects. It's a really
great immersive experience. I would
highly recommend both versions of this
book, the print copy and the audiobook,
but if you want to know which one I
recommend over the other I would just
recommend the book. The one thing that
the audiobook really cannot capture are
Hanna's drawings in the actual book so if
you do have a chance to choose between
one or the other, I would definitely
recommend that the print version but
also the audio book is really amazing.
So these are the seven books that
I finished up my year with. I ended up
reading a total of 111 things, although
I think nine of those were novellas. Let me
know what your favorite book of December
was and if you haven't seen it yet I do
have a video up on my favorite books of
the year overall, as well as a video on
my least favorite books of the year.
Thank you guys so much for watching and
I will see you in 2017. Bye!
Uh!
That was a bad one.
[music: jazzy version of We Wish You A Merry Christmas]
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