Christmas Book Haul!!

I was treated by my friends to so many books this Christmas! I’m so so grateful for them! For those who have a bookish social media I’ll leave a link so you can find them online and give them some love! Now, onto the books!

First up is the amazing Kari, who went overboard as always and bought me three books!! Check out her channel here!!! Thank you so much Kari, I can’t wait to delve into more steampunk books and you know how excited I am for the Nevernight series!! (she gifted me the first book in the series too, see! Overboard!!)

Caitlyn knows my weakness for pretty covers, and she knew that was exactly why I added this book to my wishlist, so she bought me That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston! (also it came as a floppy US paperback which was unexpected, we don’t get those here in the UK!) Here’s her channel for you to check out!

The marvellous Abi (who spells her name so beautifully lol, same as me!) gifted me Warcross by Marie Lu! I’m so excited about this beautiful book and I’m so grateful too! Here’s Abi’s instagram for you to check out!

The lovely Dom, her channel is here for your perusal, gifted me An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I read The Deep by them earlier this year and fell in love (which reminds me, I need to grab a copy of that) which is why this was on my wishlist and I’m so excited to read more from them and I’m so grateful Dom!

The amazing Sam from Griff Reads, who’s BookTube is honestly what I wish mine was! She gifted me Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid which is one I am so grateful to have it on my shelves, thank you so much Sam!

And last but by no means least is my non-bookish friend Anny, who doesn’t have a social media presence but who saw English editions of Swedish classics (she’s Swedish) and knew not only that I would love them but that she’d be able to post them from Sweden! I’m so excited to delve into these mini books!!! Thanks Anny!!!

Thank you so much to everybody on this list! I’m so excited to get around to all these books and I hope that I love them all, and I hope for those who I sent gifts to that you guys enjoy them as well!! How was your Christmas? Did you get any bookish gifts? My family doesn’t buy me bookish gifts on strict orders of my mum, she’s not happy with how many books I own hahaha, so getting these was really lovely!!!

My favourite book of 2020?

This was a shitshow of a year, let’s be honest. But I read some absolutely amazing books! In total I had 21 five star reads (out of a total of 78 books) which isn’t too shabby! I spent some time trying to pick my favourite of the year but I really just couldn’t. These four all stood out above the rest but I couldn’t pick between them all. So instead, you get all of them, along with why I loved them and a link to my full review of them if you wanna delve more into my thoughts. Also, these are in no particular order. Well they are, but it’s just date order from which one I read first in the year to last. But I honestly cannot pick between them. So let’s get into the list!

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon book cover

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

This book took me so long to get through, and given that it comes in at over 800 pages I don’t think anyone blames me. But oh. My. God. Did I LOVE this book!!! I have a blog review of it here, but I also ended up making a standalone video for this book (which you can watch here). That’s how much I loved it!

We follow multiple pov from different countries across this world as they discover more about dragons and about the other nations in their world. My favourite pov has to be Ead who is located in a royal court as a spy for a religious group as also as a protectorate of the Queen, but I loved reading from everyone’s perspective.

With dragons, Sapphic love, fighting and feminism (and Shannon’s gorgeous writing), well what more could you be looking for?!

The Deep by Rivers Solomon book cover

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

This book is one I kept seeing recommended through the end of 2019/beginning of 2020 and it sounded so utterly fascinating that eventually I just had to pick it up .

We follow Yetu, who holds all of the long term memories for her race of mermaids who live in Atlantic Ocean, descendants of enslaved Africans who had been tossed overboard on their passage to the United States. These traumatic memories would be too much for the populace to bare, so instead they allocate a historian to remember. This is Yetu. But these memories are traumatic for her too, and in trying to escape the pain they cause her, she flees to the surface.

This is an incredible book that I flew through and never wanted to put down. Check out my full review here.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi book cover

Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and translated by Geoffrey Trousselot

The second book in the renowned series, we all knew I would be picking this one up in 2020 after having loved the first book in 2019 (my review of book 1). And unsurprisingly I adored this book.

The main setting of this book is a coffee shop where there’s rumours you can travel back in time. But you have to drink the coffee before it gets cold, or you’ll never come back. Following on from the first book, we follow some new characters, but also some familiar faces from the coffee shop as we learn more about the café and it’s history. (full review)

Trousselot does a beautiful job as this book is absolutely gorgeous in its prose and I’m so excited for them to translate book 3!

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff book cover

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

The wonderful Kari from Kari-ng for Books sent me this as a gift and I am so so grateful, she’s gifted me the entire series and I’m so excited to get to the rest of the trilogy!

Following Mia as she enters the Red Church, an unusual school for an unusual student. Already skilled in various disciplines from her time with a tutor, she is now up against the best. Only some of them will survive, and she’s determined one of them will be her. She must avenge her family.

This is an incredibly dark book filled with so much intrigue and magic that you’re gripped the whole way through. Every page is saturated with knowledge and I adored the footnotes from our narrator! Full review here.

And these were my four favourites of 2020, I really couldn’t pick between them in the slightest but I adored them all. One thing I did notice was that they are all fantasy books, I’m really delving back into my fantasy roots at the moment after having a few years of reading more widely round the genres and to be honest? I’m loving it! I’m hoping there are some absolutely amazing 5* fantasy reads waiting for me in 2021!

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff – a review

The wonderful Kari from Kari-ng for Books gifted me a copy of Nevernight and it sat on my shelves a while. But after putting it on my (failed) A-Z tbr for August, I felt motivated to pick it up. And damn am I glad I did!! This book packs a damn punch and I’m so excited to get to the rest of the books in the series!!

There are two things I want to say from the start. One is: this is an adult book, and it has swearing in it. This review will do too. Two is: Jay Kristoff has done some problematic things, it’s something that I’m aware of but that I need to research more as I currently don’t know enough about it. But I felt you should know.

Now. Onto the book.

FUCK this book is amazing!!! What I find most interesting about my experience reading this book is that it was a really slow one, a maximum of around 50 pages a day and that was taking me at least an hour to read (I usually read 100 pages an hour). Often when a book is that slow it really de-motivates me. But in this case? Shit I was so into this story! I couldn’t get enough! I wasn’t even mad that it was slow going because I was just enjoying the story so much!!

I adore every aspect of this book, the worldbuilding, the characters, the twists and the turns. The way that punches aren’t pulled and the magic of the world is revealed, the way that Kristoff makes you care so deeply for so many of these characters despite them being hugely flawed individuals? Fucking hell it’s amazing. Mia Corvere and Mr Kindly are some of my favourite characters now, and I can’t wait to read more from them!

This is a school/training environment within this book, and I found myself really enjoying that. It’s not something I’ve read in a while so I’m really glad that I know I can still enjoy it! There is a large influx of characters who aren’t really introduced in any depth, but there are also a lot of deaths so it doesn’t feel like it matters too much. You get to know them as much as Mia did before they disappeared out of her life.

The narrator is another beautiful aspect to this book. It’s done so well that in some parts you forget that they’re there at all and in others they’re key to your understanding. I also adored all of the footnotes present. I know some people skimmed over them in order to stay within the story but for me they added so much background and depth! It is quite a deep world, and I feel like the choice to read those footnotes or not could help those who don’t like high fantasy with intense worldbuilding as much to still enjoy the book. They’re extra bits you can read if you like, and can skip if you don’t care about the background of the world.

There are some sexy scenes in this book, and I expected to just be… fine? with them. But I really liked them! I liked that they walked the line very carefully and that it isn’t the main focus of the book but more of an extra look into the background of the characters lives. They also intertwine into the story in a realistic way, which I really liked. They weren’t completely separate from the plot but they also weren’t integral to it.

Towards the end of the book there is a little bit of interesting formatting. Nothing on the level of Illuminae (which Kristoff was a co-author of) but just a wee sprinkling, and it fit so perfectly with the plot. It was a beautiful artistic choice and I loved it!

If you like high fantasy books and are up for a bit of fucking, a bit of murder, and a damn good time, then this is 100% a book to pick up. I need to get my hands on the rest of the trilogy and I can’t wait to read them and fall in love!!! This is a world that has definitely went on my favourites and that I need to re-read in the future!!