The Book Hour

2020 has been... rough. In this post I'm going to be 'freaking out' about books, but I've pretty much been freaking out in general since January 1st. With a pandemic enveloping the world, A-Level exams one minute being fast approaching and the next suddenly cancelled, exploding movements for social justice and a more personal perpetual anxiety of going to university in a couple of months, I've sort of been all over the place for most of this year so far. But on a more positive note, lockdown has allowed me to get tons more reading done than I would ever have been able to achieve had my exams (and normal life generally) gone ahead. This year so far I have read 38 books. I would say that this isn't quite as high a number as I would ideally like, but recently I've been really making an effort to shrug off any internal pressure to read a large number of books each month, and instead read at my own pace and take my time with the books I read in order

I'm really pleased with how my reading went this month! Due to hitting a bit of a reading slump at the beginning of the month, I ended up getting around to two very overdue rereads of some all-time favourite books - We Are The Ants and The Fault In Our Stars  - as well as discovering a couple of new favourites too. I also read a book from the library for the first time in ages! (even though I kind of hated it whoops) I hope you enjoy my reviews! ♡ ✨ Number of books read: 9  ✨ Ratings: 1 x ★★ / 2 x ★★★ / 3 x ★★★★ / 3 x ★★★★★ (i ncluding 2 rereads) ✨ Genres: 3 YA contemporary, 1 adult contemporary, 1 NA romance, 2 historical fiction, 1 fantasy, 1 magical realism THE NOWHERE GIRLS by Amy Reed Rating: ★★★★.5 This book was SO GOOD. The Nowhere Girls is the perfect empowering YA feminist contemporary and it made my heart sing to see this intersectional group of women linking arms and ending the oppression of their gender. While at the heart

A Danger to Herself and Others released earlier this month, and I am so excited to have author Alyssa Shienmel on the blog today! After loving Alyssa's earlier work of psychological fiction Faceless, I had high hopes for this one and it did not at all disappoint. Since A Danger to Herself and Others tells the moving story of a young girl struggling to come to terms with her mental illness, I was curious as to what inspired Alyssa to write about the experience of being institutionalized, so I jumped at the opportunity to ask her about some of the research involved in writing the book and the things that inspired her.  ➸ I don’t always remember exactly when or how I come up with an idea for a new book, but I do remember exactly how A Danger to Herself and Others first made its way into my imagination—the spark for this book began on Twitter. An editor I know tweeted that she was looking for a YA novel where a character is confined to a single room for much of the st

Happy 2019! 🎆 I'm really pleased to say that my reading is off to a great start this year, with a couple of new all-time favourites found already. I've set a goal for myself to read a minimum of 8 books each month in 2019, which I managed to just surpass in January! Another goal is to re-read one of my favourite books every month, although I'm not going to count those in my wrap-ups because I've probably talked about them already elsewhere on my blog. This month I re-read Radio Silence by Alice Oseman, and am pleased to report that it made me cry just as hard second time around.  So without further ado, here are all the books I read in January! 🌟 ❇  No. of books read: 9 ❇ Genres: 2 contemporary, 2 romance, 1 literary fiction, 1 dystopian, 1 fantasy, 1 historical fiction, 1 classic The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo ★★ ★ ★ When I first started reading this book, I was initially so disappointed. The premise of an epic love story tha