I'm way behind on posting this. I read a LOT of books last month, but I didn't do a very good job of writing them down because I was sick. I think I found them all, but I might have missed one or two. These are the ones I remember anyway. Oops! To make up for it I haven't read anything in March yet LOL!
Some of you may remember when I was asked to review the third book Share & Share Alike in the Aspen Valley series by Hannah Hooton (my review here). I love horse books, so I was surprised that it wasn't one of my favorite, but I still liked it. Well the author asked me to review the fifth and final book in the series, but it would be about the characters from the first book which I had never read... so I decided to read it first! I LOVED it!!!!!! It was a million times better than Share & Share Alike. I loved the characters and the story and was sad when it ended. Great book!
Chasing the Wind is the fifth and final book in the Aspen Valley Series by Hannah Hooton. This is the one I was asked to review. This book was a total surprise and really intense. It was darker than I was expecting going off of the other two books I'd read. I was really surprised by it. I loved the book and how it ended, but I was so sad for the characters while reading it. If the ending had been bad I would have been annoyed and depressed by the book, but it ended well so it was worth it. The first book in the series is still by far my favorite. I'm not saying this isn't a great book, but maybe it's just a bit too dark for me right now. I'm enjoying the lighthearted stuff lately.
Tea with Milk and Murder is the second book in the Oxford Tearoom Mystery series by H.Y. Hanna. I loved it just as much as the first one. It brought back all of my favorite characters and was so much fun to read. The ending was more of a surprise to me than the first book which was fun. I like surprise plot twists! I'm so looking forward to the next book in the series!
This was actually four books, one of those cases where someone recommended the first book and after reading it I just had to finish the series because I can't stand not knowing what happens lol. Series always catch me hook, line and sinker! The author was recommended to me by someone, but I chose the book Unraveling You because it was free on Amazon Kindle (I'm cheap lol). It was... weird! Different. I actually really liked it though. It's fun reading about different things I've never read before. Some of it was a little creepy, but I really liked the characters. They were well developed and interesting (and odd lol). I enjoyed the first book enough to read the other three Raveling You, Awakening You and Inspiring you. I will warn you it uses evil cliffhangers to make you want to read the whole series!!
And then we have The Story of Awkward by R.K. Ryals. Let me just say this book took me completely by surprise and I absolutely loved it. I don't know why I connected with it the way I did, but this will go on the permanent list of my favorites for life. It's a story about an awkward girl who is an artist and she fills her sketchbook full of things from her imaginary world which she named Awkward. The people in her sketchbook all have at least one thing that makes them awkward (like a fairy with uneven wings that flies into things). Then she ends up inside of the awkward world she created. I don't want to give away too much. The book is pretty lighthearted, but there is a much deeper meaning in it that I think is important. It's basically telling you to embrace yourself for who you are and to love the way you are. Who doesn't benefit from that message? The whole thing reminds me of when I was a kid and created entire imaginary worlds and characters, but instead of drawing them my sister and I told each other stories about them. It was different from the stories I wrote down. It was purely storytelling, like how people used to keep history and legends alive through storytelling before writing was a thing. So yeah, I'm probably sounding really weird, but it reminded me of a part of my childhood that I cherish, so it's probably purely sentimental reasons that I felt so connected to this story. I still think almost anyone would love this book though, even if they aren't into story telling and imaginary worlds. I highly recommend it!
That's all I can remember reading in February. As you can see, I'm having trouble reading only one book for each letter of the alphabet (mom is too) because once I read a book in a series I really want to read the other. I was also asked to review a few again. So I had a great idea! We should do Book Scrabble!!! We could have points for each letter, just like in Scrabble and tally up our points at the end of the year. So we can still read one book for each letter of the alphabet, but if we read two or more we get more points. Mom and I LOVE Scrabble so this just makes it even more fun! :D
For anyone not familiar with the Scrabble point system or who have forgotten, here it is.
(1 point) - A, E, I, O, U, L, N, S, T, R
(2 points) - D, G
(3 points) - B, C, M, P
(4 points) - F, H, V, W, Y
(5 points) - K
(8 points) - J, X
(10 points) - Q, Z
So for January I earned 5 points and for February I earned 14 points! :D I can't wait to see my score at the end of the year even though I know mom will beat me. She read so many more books than I did last year lol. This is so much fun!
