#12 WWW Wednesday -5/20/20

It’s been a little bit, but we are finally back with the weekly meme, WWW Wednesday!

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam from Taking on a World of Words.

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WWW Wednesday invites you to ask just three simple questions:

1. What are you reading?
2. What did you just finish reading?
3. What will you be reading next?

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What are you reading?

I am finally picking up Prodigy after reading Legend back in December. I am taking advantage of the free time and picking this one up. So far it’s been pretty good, but the beginning has been a bit slow.

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What did you just finish reading? 

So I took a Shakespeare class this semester and I have been wanting to read more of the bard’s works. I decided, on a whim, to pick up A Midsummer’s Night Dream. When I read Henry IV, Part I for class, I honestly can say that I could not remember a single thing that happened in that play even after finishing a scene, let alone an act. For me, when reading A Midsummer’s Night Dream, I had the exact same experience.

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What will you read next? 

So I ordered Champion today, and I do not think that it will be here by the time that I finish Prodigy. In continuing with my trend of finishing series, if by the time I finish Prodigy, Champion has not arrived, I’ll most likely be picking up Evermore to finish the Everless duology.

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There you have it, another WWW Wednesday! Hope you enjoyed it! What are you reading? What have you just finished and what are you planning on reading next? Let me know down in the comments below!

As always, happy reading! 🙂

Review: I Am Not Okay With This

Title: I Am Not Okay With This

Author: Charles Forsman

Illustrator: Charles Forsman

Date Read: 5/14/2020

Pages: 160

Publication Date: December 5th, 2017

Publisher: Fantagraphics

Format: e-book, through hoopla

Rating: 1 star – ⭐️

Synopsis (taken from GoodReads):  Sydney seems like a normal 15-year-old freshman. She hangs out underneath the bleachers, listens to music in her friend’s car, and gets into arguments with her annoying little brother — but she also has a few secrets she’s only shared in her diary. Like how she’s in love with her best friend Dina, the bizarreness of her father’s death, and those painful telekinetic powers that keep popping up at the most inopportune times. In this collection of the self-published minicomic series, Forsman expertly channels the teenage ethos in a style that evokes classic comic strips while telling a powerful story about the intense, and sometimes violent, tug of war between trauma and control.

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What I Disliked About this Book: 

Writing: Half of what makes a graphic novel great is the writing. Sadly, this one fell short for me. The writing was very basic. It was clear that it was a 30 something year old man trying to write from the perspective of a teen girl and it did not work at all.

Art Style: While I understand that Forsman’s style is simple, this kind of simple did not work for me. The art is the other half that makes a graphic novel work, and sadly, neither of these two important aspects worked for me.

Story Line: While the concept, in essence, was decent, the execution just did not work. It was all over the place, none of the points were fleshed out, it was a nightmare to read at times. I was tempted to DNF.

Content: The amount of triggering content in such a short graphic novel absolutely boggles my mind. In less than 200 pages, this graphic novel covers sexual assault, murder, self harm, an underage relationship, and suicidal ideation/glorification. None of these are made right at the end of the novel, in fact, arguably, some of these are made out in an even worse light than originally perceived.

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Overall, I am not okay with this book at all. (Ha, see what I did there. I like to think I’m funny.) The fact that this is the source material for a new Netflix show is beyond me. I wanted to read this in order to be prepared to watch the show, but the book just completely turned me off from wanting to watch it. I’ve heard that the show does a good job of cleaning the issues up, but I just have no urge to watch it anymore, after reading this mess of a graphic novel. There are so many problematic points in this graphic novel, I sort of wish I had just DNF’ed it. I hope that if you read this, you had a much better experience than me. This was just not the book for me.

May Anticipated Releases!

May has some absolutely amazing books coming out. There are so many, my bank account is seriously going to be hurting after this month. Here are all the books that I absolutely cannot wait to come out this month.

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May Fifth 

May Twelfth 

May Nineteenth

May Twenty-Sixth

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Those are my anticipated releases of the month! What are your most anticipated releases for May? Let me know down in the comments!

As always, happy reading! 🙂

April Wrap-Up and May TBR!

I know I am posting this a bit late, but finals are finally over so this blog and reading can finally be my primary focus again! Despite this, I did manage to get a good chunk of reading done last month and am already knocking this month out of the park. Without further ado, here are the books that I managed to read in April!

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April Wrap-Up

(Any books in italics were are books that I had to read for school

Five Stars – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sadie by Courtney Summers

Four Stars – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle

Three Stars – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare 

The Dilemma of a Ghost by Ama Ata Aidoo

Locke and Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds

The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Two Stars – ⭐️⭐️

The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello 

Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare 

Gently Between the Words by Andrew-Taylor Troutman

One Star – ⭐️

Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

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Despite all of the craziness with schoolwork, I still managed to read eighteen books last month! While a good chunk of them were for school, I still managed to read a bunch for pleasure as well.

May TBR

My TBR for this month is a little unconventional, as I do not have one. My goal is to read at least one book a day this month. So far I have been keeping up with this, even surpassing it. Today is the 13th and so far I have managed to read 20 books so far. I’m hoping to keep this high streak going, so I don’t have a real TBR planned, since there are too many books that I am going to try to read this month.

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And there you have it, my April Wrap-Up and May TBR! What did you think of the wrap-up and my May reading plans? What books are you planning on reading this month? Let me know down in the comments! Tomorrow we are going to get back into posting reviews with the two books I managed to read today and I am excited! Hope you are as happy for my regular return as I am!

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As always, happy reading! 🙂

Reading Rush Wrap Up

So the reading rush was this weekend, and I did not accomplish nearly as much as I had initially hoped to.

Here is a link to my initial post, to see the challenges and the TBR that I had planned for this weekend.

The general TBR was…

I managed to only complete Locke and Key. I read 109 pages of Red, White, and Royal Blue and 63 pages of Cracked Up to Be. I was also able to finish Henry IV, Part I, but that was because I had to due to class.

Overall, I finished two books and got about a quarter into two other ones. While it’s not the greatest, it is absolutely better than nothing.

Did you partake in the reading rush? What was it that you read this weekend? Let me know down in the comments!

As always, happy reading! 🙂

#11 WWW Wednesday -4/8/20

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam from Taking on a World of Words.

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WWW Wednesday invites you to ask just three simple questions:

1. What are you reading?
2. What did you just finish reading?
3. What will you be reading next?

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What are you reading?

I am about half way through this! It’s pretty good, but there are some really heavy political elements within the book. Based off of the current political climate, I find myself unable to stay focused at times and I’m not sure this is the right book for me. I might have to put it down for a bit and pick up something else, just due to the intensity of it at moments.

I am also currently reading The Late Mattia Pascal for my European Tradition course. I am not really enjoying this and mostly skimming through it, to be completely honest. It’s also just hard to focus, doing school work from home.

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What did you just finish reading?

Another book for class that I just skimmed. I did not enjoy this at all. It was for my world literature course, and if it weren’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have picked this up.

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What will you be reading next?

I truly want to pick up All the Light We Cannot See, but again, I’m unsure if this is going to be too heavy. I would also like to pick up Every Other Weekend again, after starting it on the train coming home for spring break, and then just never picking it up again.

I also need to start reading this for my Shakespeare class, for tomorrow actually, so this will be the first thing I pick up before anything else.

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So here’s my WWW Wednesday! Let me know if you have read any of my above picks and what you thought of them!

As always, happy reading! 🙂

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Bought Because of the Cover

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

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There’s the saying, you can’t judge a book by its cover. However, us readers do on a constant basis, even if we tell ourselves we don’t. I constantly say that I don’t but I definitely do. Here are the ten books that I have purchased due to being attracted to the cover.

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There you have my top ten cover lust buys! While, granted, some of these were purchased after reading the descriptions as well, I truly am attached to these covers.

What books did you purchase after looking at the cover? What were your impulse buys? Let me know down in the comments below!

As always, happy reading! 🙂

March Wrap-Up and April TBR!

Well this month is finally over. It did not seem like it was ever going to end! Thankfully we are on to the start of a new month and hopefully it does not feel as long as March did. With all the craziness of moving back home and doing online school, I still managed to get an immense amount of reading done. Here are all the books that I managed to read this month!

(Any books that are italicized are books that I had read for school)

(Any books that are underlined are NetGalley ARCS)

March Wrap-Up

Five Stars – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Oracle Code by Marieke Nijkamp and Manuel Prietano (Read my review HERE.)

Other Words For Home by Jasmine Warga

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

Four Stars – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Jezebel by Irene Nemirovsky

Three Stars- ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Harley in the Sky by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano

I Love You So Mochi by Sarah Kuhn (Read my review HERE.)

The Test by Sylveian Neuvel

Citizen by Claudia Rankine

A Compendium of Collective Nouns by Jason Sacher

Two Stars – ⭐️⭐️

Tristana by Benito Perez Galdos

Therese Desqueyroux by Francois Mauriac

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With all of the insanity of the world right now, I somehow managed to read a grand total of sixteen novels! I am honestly amazed and shocked by the sheer amount of books that I managed to read.

Since I am home most of the time now, as basically everyone has to be, I have a lot planned for this month as well. I still have a bunch more to read for school, but I want to take this time and start tackling my ever growing TBR as well. As always, I am not confining myself to this list, but here are the books that I anticipate reading this month!

(Any books that are italicized are books for class)

(Any books that are underlined are NetGalley ARCS that I acquired)

April TBR

• The Lucky Ones by Liz Lawson
• Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare 
• Henry IV, Part One by William Shakespeare
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murikami
• The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
• The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello 
• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino 
• Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed
• On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
• American Royals by Katherine McGee
• Been Here All Along by Sandy Hall
• Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• Every Other Weekend by Abigail Johnson
• Don’t Read the Comments by Eric Smith
• Locke and Key vol. 1-6 by Joe Hill

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I know it seems like I am taking on a lot here, and in all honestly, I am. However, under the intense circumstances that everyone is under right now, I truly want to get a large chunk of my TBR knocked out so that I can start making way for series and the books that are coming out in the coming months. There are so many books on my TBR that are either a part of a series or still have yet to come out, so I want to take the opportunity to knock out the ones I have access to reading while I have the chance. As stated, my TBR is subject to change since I am such a mood reader, which is also why I have a wide variety of books on the list.

Let me know down in the comments what you read in March and what you plan to read on April! Have you read any of the ones that I have read/plan to read and have your own thoughts on them? Comment your opinions on them!

As always, happy reading! 🙂

February Anticipated Releases!

It’s the second month of the new year and already there are so many beautiful and wonderful releases coming out! 2020 might have had a rough start, but the book releases are absolutely wonderful. Here are my anticipated releases for February!

February 4th 

February 11th 

February 18th 

February 25th 

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These are my most anticipated releases of the month! Let me know in the comments what’s on your most anticipated list!

As always, happy reading! 🙂

Overview of 2019!

2019 was a roller coaster to say the least. It was a hectic year and while the ending of 2019 wasn’t the greatest, I am happy to get a fresh start with a brand new year, and a brand new decade.

However, while 2019 wasn’t the best, in terms of reading, I read the most amount of books I had ever read in a single year. Without further ado, here is everything that I read in 2019!

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January

• 1/3/19 – Finding Yvonne by Brandy Colbert – 4 stars
• 1/5/19 – The Steel Prince Volume #2 by V.E. Schwab – 4 stars
• 1/5/19 – The Steel Prince Volume #3 by V.E. Schwab – 4 stars
• 1/8/19 – Poems That Will Change Your Life by Various – 2 stars
• 1/16/19 – The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker – 3 stars
• 1/26/19 – Fat Pig by Neil LaBute – 2 stars
• 1/28/19 – The Steel Prince Volume #4 by V.E. Schwab – 5 stars

February 

• 2/4/19 – Super Chill: A Year of Living Anxiously by Adam Ellis – 4 stars
• 2/6/19 – The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi – 5 stars
• 2/7/19 – Sheets by Brenna Thummler – 2 stars
• 2/8/19 – Wit by Margaret Edson – 3 stars
• 2/11/19 – The Study of American Folklore by Han Harold Brunvand – 4 stars
• 2/20/19 – Favorite Folktales from Around the World by Jane Yolen – 4 stars
• 2/21/19 – August: Osage County by Tracy Letts – 5 stars

March 

• 3/4/19 – Barbecue / Bootycandy by Robert O’Hara – 4 stars
• 3/6/19 – Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi – 2 stars
• 3/8/19 – Oil Culture by Ross Barrett – 1 star
• 3/15/19 – What I Leave Behind by Alison McGhee – 3 stars
• 3/18/19 – Sundiata by Mamadou Kouyate – 3 stars
• 3/21/19 – The Four Branches of the Mabinogi by Sinoed Davies – 4 stars
• 3/27/19 – Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo by Ntozake Shange – 2 stars
• 3/29/19 – The Red Letter Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks – 4 stars
• 3/31/19 – The Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tartar – 4 stars

April 

• 4/3/19 – Here by Richard McGuire – 4 stars
• 4/8/19 – Arab Folktales by Inea Bushnaq – 3 stars
• 4/11/19 – Planting Gardens in Graves by R.H. Sin – 3 stars
• 4/14/19 – Folktales from India by A.K. Ramanujan – 4 stars
• 4/21/19 – Japanese Tales by Tyler Royall – 3 stars
• 4/22/19 – Angels in America by Tony Kushner – 4 stars
• 4/26/19 – The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. LeGuin – 2 stars
• 4/27/19 – Planting Gardens in Graves II by R.H. Sin – 4 stars

May 

• 5/1/19 – A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam – 3 stars
• 5/4/19 – The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson – 3 stars
• 5/15/19 – A Fire Story by Brian Fies – 4 stars
• 5/17/19 – Planting Gardens in Graves III by R.H. Sin – 3 stars
• 5/20/19 – A Psalm for Us by Reyna Biddy – 2 stars
• 5/21/19 – Make Yourself Cozy by Katie Vaz – 3 stars
• 5/22/19 – Soft Thorns by Bridgett Devoue – 2 stars
• 5/23/19 – Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman – 4 stars
• 5/27/19 – Tomboy by Liz Prince – 3 stars
• 5/29/19 – Masquerade by Cyrus Parker – 2 stars

June

• 6/3/19 Technically, You Started It by Lana Wood Johnson – 2 stars
• 6/5/19 – The Prom by Saundra Mitchell – 2 stars
• 6/7/19 – Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli – 4 stars
• 6/8/19 – Waves by Ingrid Chabbert – 5 stars
• 6/10/19 – Oh No by Alex Norris – 3 stars
• 6/10/19 – You’ve Guac to be Joking by Cat Faulkner – 2 stars
• 6/11/19 – Vengeful by V.E. Schwab – 5 stars
• 6/13/19 – Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe – 4 stars
• 6/17/19 – If You’re Out There by Katy Loutzenhiser – 4 stars
• 6/20/19 – Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi – 2 stars
• 6/03/19 – Brave Face by Shaun David Hutchinson – 5 stars

July 

• 7/22/19 – Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds – 3 stars
• 7/25/19 – The Lady Rogue by Jean Bennett – 2 stars
• 7/27/19 – In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang – 3 stars
• 7/27/19 – Cast No Shadow by Nick Tapalansky and Anissa Espinosa – 2 stars
• 7/30/19 – Book Love by Debbie Tung – 5 stars

August 

• 8/1/19 – Quiet Girl in a Noisy World by Debbie Tung – 5 stars
• 8/2/19 – The Umbrella Academy Vol. 1: The Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba – 2 stars
• 8/5/19 – Puddin’ by Julie Murphy – 4 stars
• 8/16/19 – Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige – 3 stars
• 8/21/19 – Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid – 5 stars
• 8/23/19 – Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale by Lauren Myracle – 2 stars

September

• 9/5/19 – The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros – 4 stars
• 9/9/19 – Dear Haiti, Love Alaine by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite – 3 stars
• 9/10/19 – Stitches by David Small – 3 stars
• 9/18/19 – Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel – 2 stars
• 9/20/19 – Have You Seen Marie? by Sandra Cisneros – 4 stars
• 9/20/19 – Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell – 4 stars
• 9/21/19 – Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahurin – 5 stars
• 9/22/19 – The Iliad by Homer – 3 stars
• 9/24/19 – House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig – 1 star
• 9/25/19 – Antigone by Sophocles – 5 stars
• 9/27/19 – Paper Girls Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughn – 4 stars
• 9/27/19 – Paper Girls Vol. 2 by Brian K. Vaughn – 5 stars
• 9/29/19 – Paper Girls Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughn – 4 stars
• 9/29/19 – Poetics by Aristotle – 2 stars
• 9/30/19 – Dear Martin by Nic Stone – 4 stars

October

• 10/4/19 – The Revolution of Birdie Randolph by Brandy Colbert – 4 stars
• 10/7/19 – Paper Girls Vol. 4 by Brian K. Vaughn – 4 stars
• 10/8/19 – Paper Girls Vol. 5 by Brian K. Vaughn – 4 stars
• 10/8/19 – Paper Girls Vol. 6 by Brian K. Vaughn – 4 stars
• 10/10/19 – With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevado – 4 stars
• 10/11/19 – Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia – 3 stars
• 10/12/19 – Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker – 2 stars
• 10/14/19 – Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell – 4 stars
• 10/17/19 – If I Should Die Before I Wake by Han Nolan – 3 stars
• 10/17/19 – Oedipus the King by Sophocles – 3 stars
• 10/19/19 – Far From the Tree by Robin Benway – 4 stars
• 10/20/19 – Medea by Euripides – 3 stars
• 10/20/19 – Baby: A Soppy Story by Philippa Rice – 4 stars
• 10/23/19 – These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling – 2 stars
• 10/25/19 – The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne – 4 stars
• 10/26/19 – Bird Brain by Chuck Mullin – 4 stars
• 10/27/19 – The Spinner of Dreams by K.A. Reynolds – 2 stars
• 10/30/19 – The Babysitter’s Coven by Kate Williams – 2 stars
• 10/31/19 – The Opposite of Falling Apart by Micah Good – 4 stars

November 

• 11/7/19  The Giver by Lois Lowry – 4 stars
• 11/10/19 – When the Stars Lead to You by Ronni Davis – 5 stars
• 11/17/19 – The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys – 5 stars
• 11/17/19 – The Divine Comedy Vol. 1: Inferno by Dante Alighieri – 3 stars
• 11/20/19 – Black Canary: Ignite by Meg Cabot – 3 stars
• 11/22/19 – Legend by Marie Lu – 5 stars
• 11/24/19 – Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Alien Too by Jonny Sun – 5 stars
• 11/24/19 – Empty Bottles Full of Stories by R.H. Sin and R.M. Drake – 3 stars

December

• 12/2/19 – Fights by Joel Christian Gill – 4 stars
• 12/2/19 – Reverie by Ryan La Sala – 4 stars
• 12/4/19 – At the End of Your Tether by Adam Smith – 3 stars
• 12/8/19 – Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart – 3 stars
• 12/12/19 – The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio – 3 stars
• 12/17/19 – 10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston – 2 stars
• 12/25/19 – Louder Than Hell by Jon Wiederhorn – 5 stars
• 12/26/19 – The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand – 2 stars
• 12/27/19 – Aphrodite Made Me Do It by Trista Mateer – 5 stars
• 12/28/19 – Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles – 3 stars

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So there you have it, all 115 books I managed to read in the year 2019! Hopefully I can make it to the 100 mark again this year and maybe even surpass 115!

While this post is over a month late, I am really going to try to get back into blogging. I am finalizing a posting schedule that I will attempt to stick to, provided that school does not kill me slowly. Overall, I am happy to be back in my little bookish corner on the internet and I hope you are happy that I am back as well.

As always, happy reading! 🙂