★☆☆☆☆ didn’t enjoy the novel, would not read again

★★☆☆☆ not my cup of tea, maybe someone else would enjoy it though

★★★☆☆ it was okay, probably wouldn’t read it again unless I had to

★★★★☆ liked it, might read again

★★★★★ loved it, definitely would read again

. . .

Books I Have Read this Month

When You Ask Me Where I’m Going by Jasmin Kaur (243/243 pages)★★★★★

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas (660/660 pages) ★★★★☆

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black (101/101pages) ★★★★☆

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (285/285 pages) ★★★★★

If I Tell You the Truth by Jasmin Kaur (442/442 pages) ★★★★☆

Cinder by Marissa Meyer (271/271 pages) ★★★★☆

Summary: This novel is written in both poetry and prose. It explores topics of mental health, self-love, feminism, and other topics that are present in today’s world. This novel follows Kiran, who after being sexually assaulted by her fiancé’s brother, finds out she is pregnant. She had plans to go to Canada for university, which she does. Kiran decides to keep her baby, against her mother’s wishes, and has her daughter Sahaara in Canada. This novel shares and explores Kiran and Sahaara’s experiences and hardships, while also showcasing a situation people in our world may be experiencing.

I really loved this novel. The way it was written with both poetry and prose was really interesting because I don’t think I’ve read another book that had both. Through the story being told, I found myself relating to some of the poems, even though my life is drastically different from the lives of Kiran and Sahaara. The poetry and messages in this novel were so powerful and so beautiful. I enjoyed how some pages would have drawings or be written in a different font; I think this added a beautiful visual aspect to the beautiful words that were being shared. I tend to go through periods of time where I don’t read poetry for a couple months and reading this novel just really reminded me why I love reading poetry.

Summary: Death-Cast knows the day a person is going to die and between midnight and three in the morning, they call people who are dying that day to alert them that death is upon them. Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio both receive such an alert and although they have never met each other, they connect through an app called the Last Friend. Together, they spend the day trying to live their last day to the fullest.

There’s so many things I loved about this novel but I thing one of my favourite things was the way that all the characters were connected in some way. The novel is written with Mateo and Rufus’s perspectives alternating, as well as some occasional chapters with other characters in order to show these connections. I think this aspect of the novel really does illustrate that in our lives we pass so many different people that we might not even realize we have connections with. Another thing I really appreciated about this novel is that while there is romance, it’s not too much. It’s sweet but not overly sweet to the point where it’s cringey. The romance that was there seemed realistic. This is a novel that I would definitely reread as I really enjoyed it and while it was a relatively easy read, I found that some lines or scenes were thought-provoking. They made me evaluate my own life and think about how I think I would act if I lived in a world where I knew whether I would die that day.

. . .

Reading Habits

2,002 pages/ 26 days = 77 pages/day

I’m happy to see that the average number of pages I’m reading in a day has improved compared to last month. Last month, I had said that I wanted to try to make my reading more consistent and I think that I did read more consistently this month. Still, I think there is room for improvement because I know there were still times where I would barely read one day and finish a whole novel in another day. I think for next month I want to continue trying to make my reading more consistent as well as try to vary the genres that I’m reading. I feel like a lot of the time I tend to read just one genre and I want to try to add some diversity into my reading.