Series I’m Still in the Middle Of

The Diviners by Libba Bray

SOMETHING DARK AND EVIL HAS AWAKENED… Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. 

I absolutely loved reading the first book, The Diviners, in this series. It’s honestly one of my all time favorite books and favorite audiobooks. I started the second book but didn’t get very far into it. The audiobooks in this series are insanely long because well… the physical books themselves are insanely long. When I say they’re long audiobooks, I mean most of the books are 24+ hour long. The voice actor and the musical and thematic elements of this book are bone-chillingly creepy. The way narrator reads the story and changes their intonation for each character and scene builds such vivid imagery in your head, it feels like a 3d experience. Everything from the pacing and the tension is conveyed just beautifully. This year, I’d like to get through at least two more books in this series and am planning to continue it via audiobook.

I’m quite excited to read the second book, Lair of Dreams, because I actually got 15% in it to it before my library loan ended. This book features an illness or pandemic of sorts and everything from the actual presence of an illness to the conversations surrounding it are so politically apt to what we as a world are going through right now. I’m curious to see how this book holds up now that I have some of my own personal pandemic experience.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

I read the first book, Shadow and Bone, in this series after reading and falling in love with the Six of Crows. This book was super popular a few years ago when YA was at its fantasy peak when books like Twilight, The Hunger Games, and Uglies were peaking. So this book has some older themes that I’ve grown out of reading but I am going to make an exception for Queen Leigh and still read them. I also honestly want to get to the part with Nikolai. I haven’t met him yet as he’s not in the first book but I can tell that he’s going to be a fun character.

I also really love the show and now that they’re filming the second season, I need to get back to the Grishaverse and start educating myself on what’s potentially to come.

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. 

It’s embarrassing to look back at how long it’s been since I finished the first book, Strange the Dreamer, in this duology. I finished this book way back in 2019? 2018? One of the biggest reasons I’ve been putting the second book, Muse of Nightmares, off is because I don’t know whether I should reread the first book or not. I believe I remember the major plot points but I don’t know if I remember all of them. The first book in this duology, “Strange the Dreamer”, is somewhat of a slow moving, lengthy book. By no means is it bad, in fact the writing in this book is some of the best writing I’ve ever read. The way Laini Taylor talks about Lazlo’s pursuit to discover this secret world and his love for reading is just so precious and relatable. If you’re a lover of books, “Strange the Dreamer” has some really good quotes in it that’ll pull your heartstrings.

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

I absolutely love this series. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe that this series is meant to be a trilogy with The Heart Principle being the concluding novel. The Heart Principle was one of my most anticipated releases of 2021 and upcoming to its release, I took it upon myself to read the first book, The Kiss Quotient, and the second book, The Bride Test, in preparation. I even put up blog posts about this journey but I never actually ended this series because I never read the third book…

Part of this is because I wanted to let the hype cool down and unfortunately, my personal life got super busy after the release of The Heart Principle and I didn’t want to rush through the book. I wanted to take my time with it, especially since I heard that this book is packed with emotionally heavy discussions. I’m hoping to read this book in the month of February and dive into the world of Helen Hoang’s heart string pulling right writing.

A Discovery of Witches or the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness

A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

The amount of times I’ve start A Discovery of Witches is mind blowing. Especially given the fact that I always stop around the same page number. There’s a number of reasons why I want to read this book: witches, vampires, academia, Oxford setting, presence of history that’s been written by an author who spent a good time in academia for history, and mates. Oh also, there’s a tv show for this and I’m desperate for a good old paranormal tv show.

There’s also a good number of reasons why I haven’t read this book: It’s huge! The pages are so skinny and the words are so tiny and the margins shouldn’t even be called margins since they’re barely there.

This year, I’m going to put on my big girl pants and read at least one of these books.

Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend

A cursed girl escapes death and finds herself in a magical world – but is then tested beyond her wildest imagination.

The first book in this series, Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow is another book that I read and reviewed/talked about on my blog. I think that calling this book overhyped is an understatement. I’m pretty sure that the hype is what got to my reading experience when I sat down to read the first book. I thought the book was fun, cozy, and whimsical but it wasn’t amazing. The patron/adult figure in this middle grade fantasy book really irritated me. I felt like his actions were immature and sometimes the things he did caused the plot to feel a bit repetitive. I do want to give the second book a try because I want to read mroe cozy, soft books this year.