First things first, I hope you all had a great Christmas filled with fun, laughter and a few food comas. Thanks for coming back to carry on this blogging adventure with me 🙂
Another year has passed and another Goodreads Reading Challenge completed! This was my 2nd challenge that I have participated in and by far my favourite. I ended up reading 45 books in total and also half read some self help books that I will finish this year. This post will be a tad different from last year as I have been doing a reviews through out the year, so instead of reviews of my favourite books I just want to have a good chat about certain books throughout the year, my favoruites and the ones to avoid. Here’s some links to my previous Goodreads Challenge and the reviews through out the year: Goodreads Reading Challenge 2017, Review 1, Review 2, Review 3. Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to writing a Review 4 for last year but I will include that in the first review for this year.
What a year! 10 more books than last year were read and around 2000 more pages. This year was the year for reading books I’ve put off for ages and for finding books that have changed my life. I finally got round to reading Anne Frank’s Diary, One and A Court of Thorns and Roses, they were all books I didn’t think I’d enjoy but ended up all being really high rated. Titles like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Warcross, The Hate U Give, Nina is Not Ok and the Court of Thorns and Roses series are all being added to my favourite books of all time.
A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury made me so annoyed at myself for not giving these titles a go beforehand. I thought this series would be another YA fantasy story where the girl falls in love with the handsome boy and they live happily ever after.. I was so wrong. Although the protagonist Fayre does fall in love with the fairy High Lord Tamlin, all was not as it seemed and I was hooked from the first page. I read Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl right below jetting off to Amsterdam and it honestly made the trip 100% better. Reading how profound Anne’s mind was, then stepping in to the exact location where she wrote all her thoughts down was mind blowing.. and made me a tad emotional, haha.
The first set of books read throughout the year didn’t really enthral me until I started to read Scythe by Neal Shusterman. Scythe was everything I was looking for in a dystopian future novel and the sequel Thunderhead was just as good, maybe even better. It was just a shame that the third book in the series isn’t out until some time this year and I have forgot some of the characters in the first two titles. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson was another book that I won’t be forgetting about for a long time.
This quarter for reading was a weird one, I either loved them or was very indifferent towards each title. I loved all the Ellen Hopkins titles and discovered a love for stories written in verses, This is Going to Hurt made me laugh so hard a cried and Misfit by Model and activist Charli Howard was a beautiful read. However Junk, See How They Lie and My Favourite Manson Girl really didn’t do it for me.
The first book I read in this quarter was I Am Thunder, which was a sensational read about Racism and Terrorism and the consequences of both. This book set such a high standard for the rest of the titles I read and I was not disappointed. Finally I caught up with the hype and read The Girl on the Train, I was hooked from the start and it gave me some confidence to start reading thrillers. Seed was a fantastic novel about life in an American cult and Nina is not Ok was utterly funny, heartbreaking and amazing all in one. I wasn’t 100% about Leah on the Offbeat and Beautiful Creatures, they were both great in their own way but I guess the fact I read some amazing titles before these didn’t help their case.
This section was probably my favourite of all the others, I absolutely loved 6 out of 9 of these titles. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine really shone the brightest of all the others, with it’s colourful characters and heartbreaking plot. The Hate U Give, Hate List and All the Beautiful Strangers were close runner-ups, each with complex themes, unforgettable characters and a plot that will suck you in. Although Little Fires Everywhere wasn’t one of my favourites it was still a great title, whereas Skinny and Uglies were the titles I wish I never bothered with. They could have had a great plot but the writing and world building really let them down.
I didn’t read as many titles in this last section as I was trying not to buy any books before Christmas so I was only reading what I already owned. One was a title I put off reading for a long time as I didn’t think the plot would be as gripping as it was a YA novel, although the ending bothered me as some plot points weren’t explained, it was a great title about sisterly love, independence and courage. Warcross had been on my ‘To Read List’ for a while and I’m so glad I ended up reading it, I will be reading the sequel Wildcard in the near future. Ending the year on a high was the first two books of A Court of Thorns and Roses series, which I put off reading for around 8 months, silly me. I was blown away by this series, the first in the series was amazing but the second, A Court of Mist and Fury was mind blowing and one I could not put down. ACOMAF isn’t shown in the picture above as I stupidly forgot to mark it as read when I finished it on Boxing Day, doh!
In other news, I finally got a Kindle, so it will be 10x easier for me to read everywhere now, so hopefully I can up my reading goal again this year.
Really can’t wait to see what stories are in store for this year, I’ll see you all at the next review instalment! In the mean time, what was the best and worst books you’ve read in 2018?
xox
As Told By Carly 
1 thought on “Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge”