BOOKS I READ IN JANUARY | wrapup

you hey everyone it's Jenna need welcome back to my channel this story ain't over so today I'm coming to you with my wrap-up for January it was already a month into the year can't believe that this much time has already passed but I'm kind of ready for next month so I did a decent amount of reading I didn't get to all my TBR so I'm gonna go through that for you but I read a total of five books I'll tell you all my thoughts on them a couple of them were kind of unexpected reads so I think this will be a lot of fun so first I thought I would go over the books that I didn't get to on my TBR s1 s on my TBR was a thousand beginnings and endings it's a anthology of like Asian mythology retellings and edited by Ellen o and Elsie Chapman so I actually started reading this I've read like two stories in it but I did not get around to finishing it so I'm still currently reading this I'm also still currently reading my lady Jane this was not on my January TBR but I was reading it at the end of 2019 and I still haven't gotten around to like finishing is but I'm like really enjoying it's just like I keep picking up other books and so this one just keeps going unfinished but I have like about half of it left and I'm really loving this and then the other book if that was on my TBR that I haven't gotten around to nor finished is kingdom of souls by arena baron I am also about halfway through this it was really great recommended a in my epic book rex video so I'm hoping to finish this very soon as well but I think I kind of overloaded my TBR with fantasy books and so at some point I was just like oh my god I need a little breather and to read something a little shorter and less dense and then the last book on my TBR that I did not get to is Cersei by Madeline Miller I've been meaning to read this for the longest time but I put it on my TBR because I was hoping to read it but I feel like I just wasn't in the mood for it so I never ended up like actually picking it up so I don't know when I'll get to this but hopefully soon I don't really have much to say this like I know it's good I like have great high expectations for this I just can't seem to muster the energy to pick it up and then the other two books on my TBR that I did not get to our a Phoenix first must burn this is a collection of black girl magic stories I decided I was gonna move this to my February TBR if you haven't seen that go check it out but I decided that it would make more sense to read it during Black History Month as well and also I just didn't have the time to end up picking it up so I'm hoping to read it in I do think it's gonna be awesome and then the last week I didn't get to on my TBR is infinity Sun by Adam Silvera and I was really excited to read this and then a bunch of reviews started coming in as soon as it released I didn't seem like a lot of people were enjoying it and me personally I started reading it like a few chapters and I wasn't really feeling it so I just kind of stopped reading I'm not gonna officially call this a DNF but I just don't think I would feel like reading it right now maybe I'll pick it up later maybe when the second book comes out and people are really enjoying that I might decide to pick this up in general but yeah I'm just not really feeling it I'm trying not to read too many books that I don't think I will enjoy from the get-go so yeah and then the other book that I'm in the middle of reading this is not on my February TBR but I will probably finish it in February I'm like halfway through and I absolutely love it and that is in order to live by you enemy park so this is a memoir it is about a girl who was born in North Korea and she escapes to China and goes through some really crazy hardship and then eventually escapes to South Korea but with her mother but this is like one of the most harrowing stories to read she really gives you like a deep insight into North Korean life which was something that I like had taken history classes abouts but like it's different to get like a first-hand account of that so super interesting I am about I think yeah I'm about a hundred pages in it it's only like two or 50 pages really enjoying this as I read as in like it is very thought-provoking and interesting but obviously this is like a really sad story to read about so I like hesitate to say actually I'm like enjoying reading about her you know very terrible life but yeah oh wait so now I'm gonna actually tell you about the books I did read there are way less of these then the books that I didn't read but regardless first book that I read in January is helium of by Rudy Francisco this is a poetry collection I had heard a lot of people kind of recommend this to me and I love poetry so I was really excited about that and I do know that the author is california-based and he is also a spoken word artist so there was like that element to the poetry as well I really really love this gift for Christmas and so it was just really nice to just kind of sit down with a short little poetry book and read it as my first read for the year and I like kicked my Goodreads goal with this book but this it's kind of split into different sections and each section kind of covers different themes I would say or have a different vibe to them so the first section is more like uplifting motivational poems and then the later sections get more political and have more social critique but I just really really enjoyed the whole thing I thought he had some really interesting and wonderful things to say and I'm just gonna read you one of the poems because I just loved it so much so this is about writing poetry so it's called Museum no one ever asks a museum if it's doing okay so when you choose to spill like this bleed like this cry like this your pain becomes an exhibit you hang your trauma on the wall as patrons not to touch but only half of them respect the signs when you choose to be a poet you become a place that people walk through and then leave when they're ready I really really love that one and then this is another one that I really enjoyed so it's called to you he puts guilt in the air and waits for you to breathe tries to tailor to blame until it looks like it fits you turns the story into a gymnast and convinces it to flip he rewinds the movie excavates the plot digs out your patience makes himself the narrator and a hero he sketches you as the antagonist and suddenly his transgressions become deleted scenes he blames you for his sadness and this is how the wolf cries boy okay this is the last I'm gonna read but it's called page and it's very short it just sits there with a mouth full of entitlement staring at you and wondering why it's still not a masterpiece really love so many poems in this I definitely think it's a great one if you wanted a poetry book to read the next book that I finished in January is the tiger at midnight by Swati towards Allah I was so surprised by this book I had been meaning to read it for a really long time I had gotten it last year like mid last year I didn't interviewed the author at bookcon last year which was really fun and she was super nice and I was really excited about this because it was an indian-inspired fantasy and it involves like some Hindu mythology as well and so I was just really excited about that aspect but I never ended up actually like I'm reading past I think the first chapter I picked it up but never got passed back and so finally I decided to pick it up and put on my TBR and I was like I'm gonna read this and I actually started reading it on my e-reader because I got a $2.99 copy so I started reading on there and it actually could have really helped my reading flow and so it was just so I was reading about my commutes to work and it was just so much fun I absolutely loved it so if I was to different main characters Asia and Kunal and it's set in this world where there are these two neighboring kingdoms and the royal families were originally related but in one of the countries there is a coup and so a general kind of left took over that country and turned it very militarized and kind of more patriarchal as well and so that's the country that Kunal comes from and he's a soldier there that works at the blood fort and Asia's from the other neighbouring country called darka and she is a rebel assassin in the rebel group and she ends up traveling to Johnson to the blood fort to murder the general at the blood for it he's not like the ruler of the country but like one of the top officials and he also happens to be kunos uncle which is also interesting and so Kuno and you should kind of meet at the blood for it but he doesn't know that she's the assassin and so that kind of thing happens and then when the general dies now along with some other soldiers are sent on a mission to find this assassin called Levite for Asia as the Viper and bring them to justice and whoever can bring back the Viper will be named commander of the blood for to kind of gain all this power and so can all kind of feels like he owes it to his uncle to avenge his death and so he goes looking for this Viper and along the way he ends up running into Isha as she is also leaving Johnson and it becomes this kind of cat-and-mouse game were at first if they don't really know who the other person is even when they do they're kind of running from each other or running after each other and so there's a lot of like really interesting near misses in this book and I just really enjoyed it in general I feel like the dynamic between the two main characters was really great and I just loved them Cannell is kind of that character that soldier character that very loyal character who is questioning his beliefs and Aisha was just so interesting she was so badass and she was just a really fun and hilarious character as well like I think she was super funny and she was always kind of poking fun at Crennel as well and the romance that develops between them was just super great and I also just really loved the world that she creates as well in this book so yeah I'm look super excited for the second book that's coming out it's called the archer at dawn yeah I just can't wait for it and I just really want to know what happens because there's like some big events that are gonna happen in the second book that are kind of alluded to in the first book so I'm excited about that and I do leave it's a trilogy so I really really recommend this if you wanted a new fantasy to read because it was alright the next week that I finished in January was Criers or by Nina verella so this took me a while to read I did start this like quite a few months ago and I got about 50 pages in at one point and kind of stopped reading and then I got like 100 pages and it stopped reading so took me a while to read this I will say I enjoyed this I think by the end I did like enjoy it and feel like it was worth reading it definitely wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be basically a fantasy and it involves like artificial humans called automata and the otamatone were kind of created by alchemy and kind of magic and then after they were created they took over the human race I subjugated them and so now they are the ruling class and so one of the main characters is a human whose family was kind of murdered by all these automata and then the other main character is Cryer who is the daughter of like the leader of the country and she is anatomica and at the beginning of the book she finds out that she has a flaw in her design and that she is more passionate than regular automata and that she might be prone to being more like human and so she's very scared about this and then our main character isla who's a human is determined to get revenge for her family's deaths so she's trying to infiltrate the palace and kind of get to the top and get to Cryer and basically assassinate her or find a way to take down the automata thing I didn't really like about this was mostly the parts with Iowa and her kind of motivations I felt like the revenge plot wasn't that interesting nor exciting and I didn't feel like I was motivations were really that interesting but I absolutely loved the parts with Cryer and all of her concerns over her own humanity because she's trying not to be human but in that effort she ends up being more human than some of the human characters in this book and so I absolutely loved those parts there's also a bit of romance between Iowa and Cryer it is hate to love thing and it's very very slow porn but I do had a fall for each other but I think it definitely was more Cryer than Isla and so in that way I sympathize and emphasized way more with Cryer than with Isla so it was a really interesting wait I do think I would pick up the next book just to see what happens with Cryer because I just really enjoyed her as a character but I didn't feel like the world was super fleshed out either and I didn't really care about Isla or any of her friends either not to say that she's a bad character I just you know she wasn't my favorite but I loved Cryer so this is a queer fantasy it involves a female female relationship so I absolutely love that rep as well and it's also a fantasy world where queerness is very normal so that was really great and it wasn't like this queer suffering narrative so that was awesome all right that I read was kind of unexpected I ended up getting a review copy of this and then I just really want to pick it up because the cover in the concept and that is given by Andy Taylor so this is a book by a Toronto based author which I'm super excited about tentative age fantasy it's an afro-caribbean inspired fantasy and it involves a shape-shifting dragon which I was super here for and I also just really loved this cover basically folks our main character you and I who has lived on these like tribal lands all her life and it has kind of had this sheltered existence she's like warrior princess as well and she has this magic cauldron magic where she draws his ruins on her body and can use it to do magical things and when her father falls ill she decides to go on this year-long quest it's like this year-long journey that most the young people in her tribe do so for her journey she decides to go to this other island country called crush it's much different from the tribal land today I'm very different magic as well and so she goes there in the hopes of enrolling in their magical Academy to learn their magic and find a way to heal her father when she's back but in that process when she goes to enroll in this magical school it's kind of a very Harry Potter ish vibe she ends up meeting and this shape-shifting dragon and he does this thing where he sees her and he's like you're my given we must be together this is kind of concept I've given which is like soulmates like these people who are destined to be together and so you know has never encountered this concept of given in her tribal land the Dragons have been gone from the tribal lands for a very long time so when he tells her this she's it's like what the like no way I'm not you're given go away so it's very much a kind of hate to love romance she's telling him to just like leave for most of the beginning and then it kind of warms up and it's really cute so the school and the romance bits of the book were a huge part of the book but I also just really loved it because it had some really interested in commentary and I was kind of moving from these tribe lands where she's grown up around people who look exactly like her who know her who treat her really well and then she goes to crush and she starts to face a lot of prejudice and kind of antagonism because she looks different she's an outsider she's a foreigner and so she's facing a lot of kind of xenophobia as well and one of the things that I thought was super interesting in this book this might be a little bit of a spoiler but one of the side characters in the book starts trying to create you nice rune magic and so that was kind of a bit of conflict in the book and I thought it was just so interesting and so kind of timely for the age that we're in right now sorry I absolutely love this this is kind of a commentary on race relations like right now as well so I just really really love this a lot at some points I didn't feel like the dialogue was a little bit childish but otherwise the book overall was super great so definitely recommend if you wanted any fantasy to read alright and then the last book that I finished in January was one that I did not expect I would have a copy up this month but I was so excited and the second I got in the mail I was like I have to drop everything and read this that book is the kingdom of back by Marie Lu so this is her new book that is coming out in March at the beginning of March so I'm not gonna like say too much about this because I don't want to spoil anything before it comes out but guys I love this so much so if you don't know I absolutely love Marie Lu I think anyone who has been watching my channel for a while knows she's one of my favorite authors but the interesting thing about this book is that it is a book that she wrote way before all of her other books she was actually the person that she wrote and the one that she got her agent with and before she sold legend that's her like debut novel this is the one that they were trying to get published but it ended up not working out and so legend became her debut novel and her career went from there and so this book is kind of coming out like 10 years after she originally wrote it which I thought was so so interesting but basically it is kind of a historical fiction fantasy and it takes place in I think the 1800s and it follows the mozart kids so if you didn't know and I didn't know this until a bunch people on my videos were commenting that this was true but Mozart - the musician and composer had a sister and older sister who is also a performer musician and composer as well but because of history is kind of look under women she's just been kind of relegated to the sidelines and her story has never been really told and so Marie Lu kind of took this as like historical inspiration and makes it into this story and adds a bit of fantasy elements to it and the really interesting thing about this is that basically it is telling this girl's story her name is Marie Anna but in the book she's called Nana all that was like her a childhood name so this book is telling manero's story from when she's very young to when she's I think in her teens and then there's like an epilogue as well and while telling her life story it kind of describes the relationship between her and her brother and it's just really really sweet but one of the interesting things about this is that the two of them kind of discovered this magical world called the kingdom of back and they encounter a guardian from there and they end up kind of travelling into this world and having their music kind of inspired by this magical world where everything's kind of backwards but the really cool thing about this whole concept is that I was reading the author's note and mer Lulu said that she had been going through letters between Mozart and his sister like historical records and things and the two of them actually did think up and imagined this fictional world called the kingdom of back when they were children to kind of get them through the long journeys between performances and things and so I thought that was super interesting so it is really based on this like true story between these two siblings I just absolutely love this it was so well written it was so magical and lyrical Marie Lou's writing in this book is definitely a lot more literary a lot different from her other books it's written in first-person patents whereas her usual books are in present tense and overall I feel like this is a book that could like be a middle grade book but also an adult book that could had a lot of crossover potential and honestly it's just such a wonderful book and I honestly think it's become like my favorite Marie Lu book ever I think definitely gonna be on my top 10 favorite books of the year yeah I just kind of devoured it it is not very long it's about 300 pages but like if you see here I don't know if you can see it but I like fold the corners on pages with like quotes that I really loved and there were just so many parts in this book where there were lines that I absolutely absolutely loved and there's just some really interesting like family relationships as well in this book and I just loved so much about it so I will probably do a full review about this like a spoiler review once the book is out so if you would like to see that let me know so I can kind of gauge interest and everyone should just go pick it up when it comes out in March because it was just amazing and I loved it and I'm definitely gonna go get myself a finished copy because interest it was just so gorgeous yeah so those are all the books that I read this month I feel like I had a pretty good reading month even though I didn't get to like most of my TBR I'm totally fine with that I read like five books so that's alright but that's about all I have to say let me know in the comments if you have read any of the books that I mentioned or if you're planning to read them I would love to hear your thoughts and also let me know what you guys read in January I would love to hear what you guys have been up to but as always thank you so so much for watching and please remember that the story ain't over bye you

Channel: thisstoryaintover

Views: 6,921

Rating: 4.9753594 out of 5

Keywords: january wrap up, reading wrap up, wrap up, books i read, books i read in january, book review, book reviews, thisstoryaintover, monthly wrap up, books to read, january 2020, new year, recent reads, january reading wrap up, monthly reading wrap up

Id: 1DOO7KzNTog

Length: 18min 12sec (1092 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2020