Saturday, January 13, 2018

2017 Reading Summary

We are well into 2018 by now, but it's never too late for a 2017 reading wrap-up! I did not get to read as many books as I would have liked in 2017. My classes involved much more reading than they did in 2016, so my pleasure reading was way down. Most of this info is taken from my Goodreads page, so be sure to friend me!


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I read 22,130 pages across 62 books


Shortest book11 pages 
The Mirror and the Maze by Renee Ahdieh

Longest book: 870 pages 
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 

Average length: 357 pages 

My average rating: 3.7/5 

Favorite books of 2017
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
The Diabolic by S.K. Kincaid
Books 3-5 in the Heroes of Olympus Series by Rick Riordan
Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat
Caraval by Stephanie Garber
Unfiltered by Lily Collins
A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas
Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare
The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Most disappointing books of 2017:
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child 
The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer

Books I did not finish in 2017: 
The Hearts We Sold by Emily Lloyd-Jones
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst 
The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles

Friday, May 26, 2017

Eliza and Her Monsters Review

Eliza and Her Monsters
by Francesca Zappia

My rating: ★★★★★/★★★★★

I received Eliza and Her Monsters in the May OwlCrate box, and I was really happy with this book choice. I don't read much contemporary, so I love it when book subscription boxes include contemporary because it allows me to branch out from my usual fantasy reading habits. Normally when I receive a book from OwlCrate, it takes me a while, sometimes months, to get around to reading it. But for some reason, I just really wanted to read Eliza and Her Monsters, so I started it the very next day! I finished this book in two days, so clearly I loved it a lot! I was immediately drawn into the story and the characters, and I found this to be a refreshing and completely relatable contemporary novel. I'm sure most of us don't run a weekly webcomic like Eliza, but her emotions and feelings throughout the book are so relatable, and I'm sure that nearly all teenagers have felt like her at some point.
This novel also dealt with social media and the online world and how older generations don't fully understand it. I thought this was very interesting, because I think that the way Eliza keeps the extent of her webcomic a secret from her family is probably very similar to the circumstances of many kids/teens/even older people today. I feel like lots of bookstagram accounts, and even super popular twitter accounts, or just Instagram models etc. don't tell their families about how popular their accounts are, so I just found this theme to be a very real one.
Eliza and Her Monsters also contained drawings throughout which was so cool! They were drawings from Eliza's webcomic, Monstrous Sea. It also included snippets of Wallace's written transcription of Monstrous Sea, which I really loved. Another interesting thing about this book is that it mentions the novels The Children of Hypnos, which Eliza and Wallace both love. Fun fact, you can actually read The Children of Hypnos! Since I loved Francesca's writing so much, I can't wait to catch up on this!

Follow me on Instagram to see my unboxing of the May OwlCrate box! @maevereads

Check out Francesca Zappia's website and read The Children of Hypnos here or here!

Buy Eliza and Her Monsters using my Book Depository affiliate link and get free shipping!