March Wrap Up

Hello everybody!

So I haven't been very consistent with keeping up with this blog, so I'm playing catch up right now. So, I won't waste time with any introductions, and I'll just get into the stats for the month of March, as well as what I read.

Books Read: 8

Pages Read: 2,901

Average Pages/Day: 93

Average Rating: 3.7

Series Started: 2

      Continued: 2

         Finished: 1

1. Ella Enchanted: Gail Carson Levine

Ella Enchanted is a retelling of Cinderella following Ella, a young girl who was cursed with obedience by the fairy Lucinda. The story begins after Ella's mother dies, and she is left with her absentee father and vindictive step family, who use her obedience to make her their servant. But Ella is smart and interesting and resourceful, and through her intelligence, she befriends the Crown Prince, Char. But when her stepfamily uses Ella's obedience to exploit her friendship with Char, Ella tries to figure out how to end her curse, before her family wins. 

Ella Enchanted has been one of my favorite books for as long as I can remember. I remember reading this so often throughout my elementary and middle school years, my copy completely fell apart. Ella was everything I wanted to be when I was a kid, and as an adult, she is someone I still admire so much. 

This is a Forever Five Star for me, and I was lucky enough to listen to the audiobook this time around, which I greatly enjoyed. Get everyone you know to read this book, regardless of age. 

2. The Kiss of Deception- Mary E. Pearson

Princess Lia is a troublemaker, but no one ever expected that she would flee on her wedding day. Lia cannot stomach the idea of being sold into a marriage without love, so she and her best friend, Pauline, flee their kingdom and settle in a small fishing town. Posing as tavern maids, Lia relishes in the freedom in being a nameless, status-less girl, but doesn't know that the two men she met in the tavern know exactly who she is. What makes it worse? One man is the prince that she left at the alter, the other is an assassin sent to kill her. 

I read this book for the first time in the spring of 2018, and I absolutely adored it. This time, it was no different. Lia is an amazing character, relatable and likable all at once, but also listens to the advice of others before making decisions. Also, when I say that I love grumpy, dark, brooding characters, what I really mean is, "I love Rafe." (Mostly because I married a Rafe: Grumpy at first, but smart and resourceful and cute.)

This was another 5 star read for me, and I'm so excited to continue on with my reread of this series.

3. The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. I- Kieron Gillen

A graphic novel that follows a variety of different Gods, who integrate into human bodies every 90 years. The humans that the Gods present themselves as, are famous: pop stars are the ultimate Gods, after all. But the catch is, these Gods are only allowed on Earth for 12 years, before they wait another 90 years for a chance to make it big. 

This was my first ever Graphic Novel, and I thought that the plot was so compelling. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of the follow through. I ended up not rating this, because I wasn't the right audience for this and I didn't think it would be fair if I rated it low. In the end, I'm not sure if graphic novels just aren't for me, or if it was just this graphic novel.

4. Fallen- Lauren Kate

Fallen follows Luce, a 17 year old girl who is spending her senior year at a reform school after she is suspected of causing the death of a former class mate. Luce quickly draws the attention of Cam, her cute, charismatic classmate, but she can't get Daniel out of her head, even if he avoids her like the plague. But after some strange happenings at Sword & Cross, Luce is convinced that her classmates aren't what they seem, and that she and Daniel have a history that she can't remember, but that he wants to forget. 

I read this as part of the Trashback Book Club, and was hella excited because I never read this as a teen. Luce is our stereotypical 2000s era MC, who is boring and doesn't have much of a personality, but who is the object of TWO cute boys' affections. And, of course, why would she be interested in the sweet guy who has shown interest in her from the beginning, when she could pine after the moody dude who's rude to her? I loved the concept of the romance, where 2 people are destined to "find" each other time and time again, only to be doomed to lose each other every time. 

I gave this book 3 stars, because I hoped that this would be a subpar beginning to a decent series. So ultimately, did I enjoy this? Yes. Would I have enjoyed this as much if it wasn't my first time reading it? Probably not. Am I excited to continue? Absolutely, but I also feel so embarrassed about it. 

5. My Fairly Dangerous Godmother- Janette Rallison

This is the 3rd book in a series, where each book follows a different character, but each character is transported into a fairytale world by the Fairy-Godmother-in-Training, Chrysanthemum Everstar. In this particular book, Sadie Ramirez makes a huge fool of herself on national TV, and earns 3 wishes as a way for Chrissy to get her training hours. Unfortunately, Chrissy isn't the best "Fair" Godmother, and Sadie is made one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, and the only way to get back home involves stealing a goblet from a fairy queen.

So I really loved the first 2 books in the series (the 2nd being my favorite), and while I enjoyed this book, it was definitely the weakest of the bunch. It took awhile to get into, and the romance was a little too insta-lovey for my taste. I gave this 4 stars, because while I was disappointed, I also still had a lot of fun. 

6. Frostbite- Richelle Mead

This is the second book in the Vampire Academy series. I read book 1 in February, so check out my February Wrap Up Part I to see my thoughts!

I don't want to give away too much, but I love seeing how much Rose grows, and how much she learns from others and her mistakes. Also, Dimitri is a total babe, and I'm all about it. 4 stars.

7. Falling Kingdoms- Morgan Rhodes

Falling Kingdoms follows Cleo, Jonas, Lucia, and Magnus. Princess Cleo finds herself in the middle of a murder that sparks a war between her kingdom and the poor kingdom of Paelsia, but travels into enemy territory to save her sister. Jonas is the younger brother of the boy who was murdered as a result of Princess Cleo's visit, and he plans an attack on the kingdom of Auranos. Lucia is a peasant who was adopted into the royal family at birth, unaware of her actual parentage, who is struggling to hide the supernatural powers that are illegal in her kingdom. And Magnus, Lucia's adoptive brother, who struggles to keep his evil father happy, and to hide his feelings for his sister.

I heard that this series was basically Game of Thrones for dummys, and that's 100% true in the best possible way. This story isn't anything original, but Morgan Rhodes has created something that is SO GOOD. Also, this audiobook was absolutely phenomenal, and I highly recommend (especially if you're a GoT fan, because the narrator has an uncanny ability to make each of these characters sound like GoT characters).

I gave his book 4.5/5 stars. As I said before, this premise is nothing brand new, but it was so great nonetheless.

8. Torment- Lauren Kate

This is the second book in the Fallen series, so in the interest of not giving away spoilers, scroll up to see a summary of book 1.

So remember how I said that I was hoping that book 1 would be a subpar build up to a decent series? Yeah, well, this was bad. I forgot how often authors in the 2000s would have their characters just, NOT communicate, and that was the entire conflict of the book. It was incredibly frustrating because in book 1, Luce was incredibly boring, but she finally had a little bit of a personality in this book. But Daniel refused to tell Luce anything, and even when she was like, "I will stop acting like such a headcase if you just tell me what's going on!" he refuses. I gave this book 1 star, because I hated it so much, and I will not be continuing the series.

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Well, those are the 8 books I read in the month of March. Let me know if any of you have read any of these books/series and what you thought of them! And stay tuned for a March favorites post, where I talk about some of the movies, tv shows, and albums that I enjoyed during the month!