Weekly Wrap Up + What We Read 5/8/16

We’re back! This week, we had a higher number of reviews than normal (mostly because I actually helped Michaela out) and also a lot of other cool stuff! Also, I almost out-read Michaela, which is almost unheard of. Making a huge push as school comes to an end, I guess. Without further ado, here we go!

Monday: 

• Gretchen’s From the Notebook: Top 5 YA Trope Turnoffs
• Michaela’s April Wrap Up

Tuesday:

• 30 Seconds to Disagree: The Vanishing Throne by Elizabeth May
• 30 Seconds to Disagree: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King

Wednesday:

• Gretchen’s Worth It Wednesday on A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• Michaela’s April Comic Pull

Thursday:

• Gretchen’s Thesis Thursday: First Complete Draft is … Complete

Friday:

• Gretchen’s Review of The Rose and the Dagger by Renee Ahdieh
• Michaela’s Review of The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Saturday:

• Michaela’s Book and Movie Review of The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

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Review: “The Rose and The Dagger” by Renee Ahdieh

I guess I can’t put off this review any longer. The Rose and The Dagger by Renee Ahdieh is the sequel to The Wrath and The Dawn, which was easily one of my favorite books of 2015. Right now, though, The Rose and the Dagger is probably one of my disappointing books of 2016. Given how much I wanted to love this, I can’t believe I’m saying that. But. Here’s why:

April Wrap Up + PopSugar Challenge Update

If we’re being honest, this is the saddest wrap up I think I’ve ever written. Seriously. I know that April isn’t QUITE over yet, but I can promise you that I won’t be reading anything else over the weekend because I have a LOT to do.

I read four books in April. Four. Three, if we’re being truthful, all the way through. And none of them counted a thing for my PopSugar Challenge, so that is still standing at 10/40, as it was in my March wrap up. Here’s what I DID read in April!

If the Oceans Were Ink by Carla Power is a powerful spiritual memoir about her friendship with a Muslim Sheikh and her desire to understand the Quran for herself. This is for my Spiritual Journeys class, and by far is my favorite that we’ve read in the class. I wrote a longer review of it if you’d like to learn more!

Though I did not read the entirety of this work, I am counting Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground to this list. I gave it two stars on Goodreads, because what I did read was almost impossible to get through and really, really boring. It was useful for my senior seminar, yes, but as pure reading enjoyment … no. I also didn’t review this, and have no plans to. You’re welcome.

I FINALLY FINISHED GET IN TROUBLE BY KELLY LINK! If you didn’t catch Michaela’s last 30 Seconds to Disagree, then you might not understand why that’s all in CAPs but … trust me. I’ve had Taylor’s copy of this book in my apartment since last semester, and he was getting really angry with me about it. BUT. I finally finished it! A longer review of this will be coming in May.

My one enjoyable, read it in a day read–my only for a while, really–was Renee Ahdieh’s The Rose and The Dagger. This is the sequel to The Wrath and The Dawn, which was one of my favorite books of 2015 AND the very first book I showcased in my Worth It Wednesday series. A longer review of this will be coming later, but … well. I have thoughts. And not all of them good, sadly.

So … yeah. That’s it. There should have been more, but there wasn’t. School is crazy, guys. Hopefully May will bring better things! At the very least, school ends pretty soon, so I should have more opportunities to read then!

Worth It Wednesdays: “The Wrath and The Dawn” by Renee Ahdieh

Welcome to My Life is a Notebook’s new weekly feature, “Worth It Wednesdays”! I know that this sounds like something linky, but for the moment it’s not. This is just me, making a commitment to being a better blogger in the way that I like to blog.

See, I gave up on reviewing for a long time because I just got tired of reading books to review them. It’s draining. I just wanted to read and enjoy, you know? So I stopped and my reading habits got so much better.

But, lately, I’ve been screaming and shouting a lot about YA. I wrote this rant and absolutely blew up in a recent book club video. One of my co-hosts asked me if I could send her a list of YA books that I thought were good, and so I compiled one.

Then I realized that I should start sharing them.

Some of these books I’ll have already reviewed. Some are old, some are new. They are in no particular order. Just … as they strike me. So here we go!