WWW Wednesday | 18th of January 2023

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Hello Hello! How are you today?

I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday. I feel like this week has both been so busy and that I’ve also been useless! It’s my Wednesday off work this week, so I’m tying to concentrate on my thesis and make progress as time is going very fast and I don’t have long until my final deadline. 

On a positive note though, I’ve been reading some really great books so far this year, so keep on reading to find out what those books are! 

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam over at Taking On A World of Words.

WWW Wednesday is based on 3 questions:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (#1) by Holly Jackson 

I’m rereading this first book in the series in order to remember everything that happened so I can jump into the rest of the series and finish it in the next month. I absolutely loved this book the first time I read it and flew through it. I might not fly through it this time because I have a lot on my plate, but I’m enjoying it just as much and it’ll be interesting to see if I can remember all the little details and who the real murderer was and why. I think’ve already picked up one of the clues I missed last time, so I’m looking forward to my reread. 

Spellslinger (#1) by Sebastian de Castell 

I’m still buddy reading this with Candyce from The Book Dutchesses! I think I’ve got just over 150 pages to go and I am really enjoying it. It’s well written and I like the magic style, but I especially like the characters. I think they make the book really work and I’m pretty sure we will jump into the rest of the series straight away because I think it’s just going to get better with every book. I don’t think it’ll be a 5 star read, but I do think a strong 4 stars at this point. I’ll hopefully be done before the next weekly catch-up.

The Hatmakers (#1) by Tamzin Merchant 

I’m a little late with the scheduled reading sections for this book but catching up tonight hopefully. I’ve read just over 1/4th of this book and I am absolutely enthralled. I love the world, the writing, the characters, the magic of making and what’s at stake. I already predict this one will be a 5 star-read, it’s just so wholesome and lovely. I really love reading middle-grade stories and it’s books like this one that remind me why I love this genre/age group so much! 

Professeur Goupil (#1) by Loïc Clément — 4 stars 

This was one of the small children’s novels in the wider Le Temps des Mitaines world that I started reading about at the end of 2022 and this was the final book I had left. Although the first in the actual 4-book series… I don’t really know how I managed to read it all out of order, but I don’t think it really matters. It was cute and nice to see how these stories started out. I gave it 4 stars and I’m glad to have read all the books in this universe. I just hope there will be more! 

Le Grand méchant renard by Benjamin Renner — 5 stars 

This is a children’s humorous graphic novel and it just made me smile throughout. It’s a bit like the “Big Bad Wolf” story, but here the “Big Bad Fox”. Fox and Wolf decide that they’ll steal some eggs from a nearby farm because they are starving out in the forest, wait for the chicks to hatch, fatten them up and then eat them. The only problem is that when they hatch, they see Fox and think he is their mother, and Fox kind of falls in love with them and takes on his mother role really seriously. This was honestly so funny and also cute and I think it has good messages for children because in the end Fox lives in the farm with the chicks and shares mother duties with their real hen mother. I mean in the wild it just wouldn’t happen, but using animals as kind of metaphors and carriers of messages is a good way to go with children. Anyway, I loved it and gave it 5 stars.

Âme rouge and L’enfer, le Silence (#3-4Blacksad) by Juan Dias Canales and Juanjo Guarnido — 5 stars

I’m so glad I just managed to read the next two volumes in this comic series and I still love it just as much as I did when I started it last month. I don’t know why it took me so long to get to these comics, but I’m thrilled I’m finally reading it and I only have 2 left in the series, that are currently published that is (I think there will be more). Both of these were complex, the characters are intricate and I love learning more about John Blacksad, the main character. It’s also a really great mystery comic series and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Hopefully by next week, I’ll have read the final two and will have a mini-review of the series up on my blog, fingers crossed. 

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney — 5 stars 

WHAT AN AMAZING BOOK! I buddy read this with some buddies and I’m so glad it lived up to my expectations. I was hooked throughout and thought it was beautifully dark. I usually don’t like family secrets and lies in thrillers, but it was done so well here and the added sort of similarity to And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie was really nicely done. I wrote a very gushing and rambling review, which you can read here and find out why I rated it 5 stars! 

Peau d’Homme by Hubert — 4 stars 

And the final book I finished recently was another French graphic novel, and it was interesting. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I read, not in a bad way though. I like the art style and the story about decimating the patriarchy and for women to have their say in who they marry or what they do if they aren’t happy with their matronal match was really good. I particularly like books like these, and even though it wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be, I still enjoyed it! I gave it 4 stars and I’ll be looking out for more graphic novels like this one, or at least with similar themes! 

Amarillo and Alors, tout tombe, première partie (#5-6 Blacksad) by Juan Dias Canales and Juanjo Guarnido

As I mentioned in the previous section, I’ve nearly completed this mystery comic series and I hope to get the final two volumes read in the following week. They are patiently waiting for me on my shelf at work, so I’ll pick them up on Thursday when I’m next on shift. I really enjoyed the first 4 volumes and I think these final tow will be just as good. It’ll be so hard waiting for the second part of the final volume, but I’ll just have to be patient and wait, lol. 

Sauvagines by Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba 

I had this on the list last time I did a catch-up and still haven’t gotten to it yet, but it’s the first thing on the agenda for tonight when I pack up my laptop. I have a good feeling about this book, and I think it will be different and interesting. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, so that makes me want to hurry up and read it! I generally read French books a lot quicker, I have no idea why, so I hope I’ll have this finished before the next check-in post. 

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin 

I also meant to read this book ages ago because it was a NetGalley book for a tour, but a very free one and we could post when we wanted. But that means that I still haven’t read it yet! I actually had to buy myself a physical copy because I felt sure that I had dowloaded it onto my Kindle, but can neither find it on my phone on the app, nor my actual Kindle. I’m hoping to start this tonight or tomorrow night, and I have a really, really good feeling about it. I just hope it lives up to my expectations, lol. 

Love & Other Words by Christina Lauren

And the final book on the list this week is a romance that I’m reading with some buddies, and that we are going to chat about at the end of the month. That is soon though, so I need to get reading it. I’ve put it off so far because knowing me and knowing how I read romances, it’ll be done in one sitting, so let’s hope it it an enjoyable read, because I’ve heard some very different thoughts about it!

 

Challenges Update

And these are the challenges I’ve managed to complete recently. I was able to complete another 2 prompts for my Popsugar Reading Challenge, and one on the Disney Reading Challenge. Here they are:

• Popsugar Reading Challenge, prompt 9: A book with a colour in the title — Âme Rouge (#3 Blacksad) by Juan Dias Canales and Juanjo Guarnido
• Popsugar Reading Challenge, prompt 31: A book about a family — Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
• Disney Reading Challenge, ENCANTO: A book about family  — Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney 
• I also completed and ticked off another book on my Physical TBR, bringing the total number down to 612. I’m hoping to do a big unhaul of some books I no longer want to read soon, so let’s hope I get this monster down to 550 before the end of February! 

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That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed reading this post.

See you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx