September 2018 Wrap Up

I always think to myself at the end of the month that there is no way I read more than 5 books because I’m always starting books and then putting them down for another book, but when counting up my books read this month I was surprised to find that I finished 7 books this month!

I always enjoy seeing stats for wrap ups, so before we get into the actual books, I want to give you some of my stats this month:

Pages read: 1,924

Genres read: 7/7 Fantasy

Alright, so now on to the books! The first book I finished this month was The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you will have undoubtedly notice that I love LOTR and The Hobbit. This was my very first time reading the source material, and while I definitely still like the movies better, I still really enjoyed the book. I go into more detail in my review, which I still haven’t posted here because I am apparently a horrible book blogger. So if you are interested in a more in depth look at my thoughts, you can check out my review on Goodreads!

 

The next three books I listened to on Audiobook within 2 days. 2 DAYS. And those three books are the first three books in the Wayward Children series! For the longest time I wasn’t really that interested in this series until I read Into the Drowning Deep, which was written by Seanan Mcguire under the penname Mira Grant, and fell in love with her writing! And like most people, I adore this series now! Each of the books are so dark and creepy and are perfect fall reads. I am so surprised how much world building and character development is included in these novellas, and each book is even better than the one before it. Beneath the Sugar Sky was my favorite so far, and I’m expecting In An Absent Dream to be even better! If you haven’t started this series yet, I highly recommend them!

 

The next three books that I finished in September were also part of a series that I have absolutely fallen in love with. That series starts with Three Dark Crowns continues with One Dark Throne, and then I also read the novella bind up, Queens of Fennbirn. I am planning on doing a full review of all three of these books plus the third full book Two Dark Reigns once I finish it sometime this month, so keep an eye out for that! But just know that these three queens are each so interesting and the politics in this world are so brutal! I’ve been feeling lately that YA fantasy is all starting to feel the same, but these past two series really broke up that generic-ness. (is that even a word?)

 

And then the one book I DNFed was Fawkes by Nadine Brandes. I had such high hopes for this book and it was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I tried listening to the audiobook for this and I think that may have been part of my issue with it. The way the narrator spoke for Thomas made him sound so condescending, and his father sounded like the shark from Finding Nemo. It also started to get annoying when Thomas would comment every five minutes about how he’s not a boy anymore. I just wanted to take him by the throat and shake him, because what he wasn’t getting is that everyone calls him boy because 1. he’s younger than all of the characters calling him boy, so to them, yes YOU ARE A BOY and 2. HE WAS ACTING LIKE A CHILD. And then when a character called him a young man, he had to describe how happy he was that he wasn’t called a boy. I understand that he wanted to be all grown up, but that requires acting like an adult. That was the one thing that ruined this book for me, and unfortunately I had to stop listening around 60% through it. Oh, and in the amount I did listen to, NOTHING HAPPENED.

 

I hate ending on a bad note, so I’ll also mention the books that I started reading in September and will most likely finish in October:

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb: I’m loving this one a lot more than the first book in the series, and I can’t wait to see what shenanigans Fitz gets into!

Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames: Kings of the Wyld was probably one of my favorite reads of the year, and I have high hopes for book 2. So far, it’s living up to my expectations!

Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer: This is so dark and twisty which is right up my alley. I’ve got less than 100 pages left, so I should be finishing this one soon!

 

And those are all the books I finished and started in September! Have you read any of these books? Do any of them sound interesting to you? Lets talk in the comments!