Graphic Novels

I've been wanting to get into graphic novels more for a while now and I finally feel like I managed it a little last year.  Here are some of the books I read, I can't say my mission was entirely successful but I'm not giving up just yet and I'm very excited to read The Girl from the Other Side by Nagabe as soon as possible. I bought it as a Jolabokaflod present to myself 😊 It looks so cute!

I've made a Green Ghost cocktail as that goes with the first of my reviews. 1 1/2 shot gin, 1/2 shot each of Green Chartreuse and lime juice, dash of sugar syrup. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.

 The Sad Ghost Club - Lize Meddings

Such cute illustrations. I really sympathise with the main character, so shy and overthinking everything. But they are so brave to go to the party! When they make a friend they are both so sweet, comforting each other and constantly apologising to each other. It's heart warming.

Lucifer, Volume 1: Cold Heaven - Holly Black, Lee Garbett, Stephanie Hans

Apparently God has been murdered, and it's up to Gabriel and Lucifer to find the culprit. But things are not as clear as they first seem. The mystery takes them through many places including Hell and they clues just don't seem to add up.

I didn't completely love the style as I got a little confused at times but there's a clever twist and I would like to read more of Lucifer.

Asterix and Cleopatra - René Goscinny

I read this in Greek in an attempt to improve my language skills. I enjoyed the book but was sorely disappointed in myself! I had to look up most of it with a dictionary and filled pages with my unknown words. However I was occasionally proud when I got the jokes, there were some very funny parts.

Glass Town - Isabel Greenberg

I loved the idea of siblings creating their own world and it getting a life of it's own. I'm not very used to reading graphic novels so it was great that this is a bigger volume so there's time to get properly into it. It was a bit difficult to follow, as I couldn't always remember who was who. The character's styles were all quite similar and I had to keep checking back to the chart at the beginning and reminding myself of hair colour or glasses.  Really liked the floaty style of the illustrations though. 

I haven't actually read much (or any?) of the Bronte books though of course I am very familiar with lots of them. After reading this I would like to read some of the actual ones.

Do you read Graphic Novels? Let me know what you think and I would love more recommendations 💕

New Year's Book Resolutions and Last Year's Stats

Ok, I've already started the year late. I should have had this post up at least last week but anyway, here we go. This year I am more determined than EVER to clear my TBR. My shelves are full of books which I can't wait to read and yet... I never seem to get to them. There is always a deadline for a blog tour, or a library book due back, or a shiny new arc that appears in the post or some other commitment...

It's like there's this fear that if I don't get the book now I will forget it and never get to read it. So my main resolution this year is to read more of the books I already have, rather than requesting tons on NetGalley or buying every book that catches my eye. 

Another thing I'm going to do is reduce my challenge goal, last year has been the year of short books and the longer ones just put me off. Maybe if I'm not trying to get over 200 books read, I can attempt some of those amazing longer ones that keep popping up in my timeline. I'm definitely thinking Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. Are you setting a reading goal this year?

I also really want to read more non-fiction. I have quite a few waiting to be read. I'm so curious to find out more about Kant, I desperately need to restart A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and I've had Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Pérez sitting on my 'read soon' pile for ages! I'm going to try and read at least one of these a month.

Overall last year I managed 216 books for a target of 215 which I changed about a million times through the year. Once lockdown started and I was working from home I found it really hard to find time to read. At some point I found my reading groove again, as well as a bunch of shorter books so my challenge ended up yoyo-ing up and down all year! My average book length was only 231 pages. 

My average rating was just 3.5 stars but hopefully if I'm not as concerned about reaching a goal, I'll read more books that I can rate higher. I did read plenty of great books too, these are some of my favourite 5 star reads from last year:

I had an excellent year of lots of fun readathons and challenges, including Believathon, A-Z, Pixarathon and Clear Your Shit Readathon. I love how the prompts often make me pick up something I had been neglecting for ages and they definitely give me more incentive to read. This year I've already signed up to Beat the Backlist 2021 and Buzzwordathon and I'm always on the lookout for new ones to try.  PLEASE let me know if you find any good ones!

*Charts from Storygraph, covers and links from GoodReads