After my month or so of not doing wrap ups last year I feel like I’m starting to get in to it again! Uni work and actual work is starting to get in the way massively of reading but I still feel like I managed to achieve some reading this month and hopefully that’s a good sign for the new year!
The first book that I finished in 2016 was Fire Colour One by Jenny Valentine. I was sent this for review towards the end of last year after requesting a copy. It has been nominated for some incredible awards and I heard so much about how great it was. However I really didn’t like it. I have a full review on it HERE if you want to check it out! Fire Colour One is based around a girl who is told her estranged father is dying. She then goes to visit him in his final few weeks and there a quite a few plot twists about money. This book is based around art which is something I’m interested in but haven’t read a lot of. The most annoying thing for me about this book is that the protagonist sets fire to things, starts fires for generally no reason at all. It might have been my lack of focus on the book but there were a lot of loose ends and generally unimportant bits! I actually finished this on New Years day after having read about 80% of it for two months, and it was a pretty disappointing start to the new year I won’t lie.
Something that improved my new year of reading greatly was my next read – The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Obviously this book was huge last year and having picked it up in summer I couldn’t wait to get in to it. I also have a full review of this linked HERE if you want to know my full thoughts. The Girl on the Train follows unreliable narrator Rachel as she rides the train past her ex’s house every day. The story unravels and links characters as it goes on after she sees something she probably shouldn’t have done. I absolutely adored this book, I was wary to begin with but overall I really really enjoyed it and it’s made me want to read plenty more crime!
Alice and the Fly was my next read of the month. Alice and the Fly was an impulse buy because after researching it stood in the shop I found out it was heavily based on mental health. There will be a book review coming up shortly of this novel so keep an eye out for that! I found that the premise was interesting and the narrative voice of a teenager in an adult novel intrigued me. I actually enjoyed this novel so much more than I thought I would and it’s definitely a re-read kind of book. It keeps you interested all the way through!
I finally read my first Gillian Flynn book this month! Okay I might just have been a novella but The Grownup made me want to read everything else she’s ever written! Once again there’s a full review going up very soon of this novella so keep your eyes open if you’re interested in that. It was exciting and kept you wondering and I just generally enjoyed it as a very fast read! While in work and uni it took me about a day to read but generally speaking you could probably read it in half an hour if you tried. It wasn’t something I expected to like or expected Gillian Flynn to write but overall I really enjoyed it!
The last book that i managed to finish just before midnight on the 31st of January was Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan. There will be a full review up of this some time in the near future! Apple and Rain is based around a teenager called Apple who lives with her grandmother after her mother ran off to American when she was a baby. She dreamed of the day she came back in to her life, until it actually happened anyway. After reading One by Sarah Crossan towards the end of last year i was itching to get hold of another of her books. Luckily my friend bought me one for Christmas and i finally got around to reading it! Overall i really enjoyed it. It was nowhere near the kind of incredible story One was, but it was a nice light read to end the month with!
Considering i’ve had a busy month back at uni i’m not completely disheartened by the amount i’ve read! I want to read a lot more next month but again it’s a very very busy month for me. I’m definitely looking forward to uni being over so i can read!
The Little Contemporary Corner 