November Wrap Up // help I'm trapped in the Grishaverse and I never want to leave

This month I read not 1, not 2, but 4 Leigh Bardugo books and I have no regrets. Her writing is fantastic and gets better with every book she publishes. I was weird with my reading order and read the Six of Crows duology before The Grisha series. As a result The Grisha books have a much lower rating but they are still MINDBLOWINGLY GOOD - it's just that Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom are A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER and I couldn't justifiably give them a similar rating. I personally didn't plan to read The Grisha trilogy at all, but after the trauma that was Crooked Kingdom I knew I wasn't ready to leave the Grishaverse just yet. So here we are and I am now an insane Bardugo fangirl.

Holiday Gift Guide - Books to Buy People Who Aren't Big on Reading

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
We all have people in our lives that don't read much. Maybe they don't have the time, or simply don't enjoy it or have the patience for it. Whatever the reason, I believe you can always find a book to appeal to someone. Here are a few I'd recommend to those who aren't big readers.

Paper Girls, Vol. 2 // weird but kind of wonderful

Title: Paper Girls, Vol. 2
Story: Brian K. Vaughan
Genre: SciFi, Graphic Novel
Warnings: blood, gore, violence
Rating: 4 stars
Goodreads

You can find my review of Paper Girls, Vol. 1 here.

To like Paper Girls I think you need to be willing to accept the weird. And there is a heck of a lot of it.

Ms. Marvel, Vol 6 // some big questions - and my favourite so far!

Title: Ms. Marvel, Vol 6: Civil War II
Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Genre: Graphic Novel, Superheroes
Rating: 5 stars
Goodreads

This volume was so enjoyable to read, and definitely my favourite so far. And I had so many doubts! The whole concept behind universe resets really frustrates me (I'm not an big comic reader, sue me), so I've been expecting the 2016 issues to fall short for me. But what I love about this series is that I don't feel obliged to read the other series in order to understand what is going on.

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo // a fab conclusion to the series

Title: Ruin and Rising (The Grisha #3)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Fantasy
Warnings: abusive relationships
Rating: 3 stars
Add to Goodreads

I enjoyed this trilogy far more than I ever expected to.

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo // a fascinating character-driven story

Title: Siege and Storm (The Grisha #2)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Fantasy
Warnings: abusive relationships, violence, blood, war
Rating: 3 stars
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I'm regretting not reading this series before Six of Crows now. Even though it's amazing, I feel like it would do an injustice to the brilliance of the Six of Crows duology if I were to give The Grisha books a similar rating.

Authors I Am Thankful For

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
This week is a thanksgiving freebie, so I've decided to list a few authors I'm thankful for.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo // the start of something special

Title: Shadow and Bone (The Grisha #1)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Fantasy
Warnings: abusive relationships
Rating: 3 stars
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Let me start by saying that I don’t consider 3 stars to be a bad rating – especially not for this book. It’s largely because I have already read Bardugo’s Six of Crows duology, and so I know that her writing gets so much better. But that does not mean that Shadow and Bone isn’t a fantastic book.

Movies I need to Watch

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
I don't watch a lot of movies - they seem to require an amount of time and patience that I'm not willing to give. But there are a few I think I need to find the time to watch, so I'll try and gather them together for this post.

Who Has Your Vote for Best YA Fantasy & Sci-Fi?

It's finally that time of year where Goodreads collects together some of the finest books for their choice awards. Of course, I haven't read all of these books (as much as I wish I could), so I'm going to be focusing on the category I am most familiar with - Best Young Adult Fantasy and Sci-Fi.

Ten Books that are New to the Queue

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
You may be surprised to know that I like to keep my TBR relatively short. I only ever add a couple of books to it every few months - and that's only if they're by authors I already love, have been recommended to me repeatedly, or simply have a concept that is incredibly inticing and impossible to not pick up. With that in mind, here are 10 of the most recent books that managed to worm their way onto my TBR.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo // magnificent and unforgettable

Title: Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Warnings: blood, gore, torture, death, murder, rape
Rating: 5 stars
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"Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And the people who wrong them too. They don’t forget."

I wish I could remember every word of this book the way that crows remember faces. If I could I would never let those words go.

Books that are Perfect for Book Club Discussions

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
There are some books that are really good for opening up a conversation. I don't have a book club, but if I did I don't think I'd want to stick to a particular genre. I'd want to read books that have an element to them that can be discussed in a group of people. So here are 10 books I would recommend your book club to read.