#2019 read

LONGEST BOOK - 912 pages: Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare.

MOST POPULAR - 2,916,210 people also read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

HIGHEST RATED ON GOODREADS - Princeless Volume 9: Love Yourself by Jeremy Whitley (4.60 average).

MY AVERAGE RATING FOR 2019 - 3.6.

See my Top Reads of 2019 HERE.

2019 Goals

Goodreads Challenge (250 books) - Completed! Just about.

Read 3 Classics - Not Completed (2/3). ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Through the Looking-Glass’. Was planning to read ‘Wuthering Heights’ but never got round to it.

Read 3 Ace Books - Completed! ‘The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy’ by Mackenzi Lee, ‘Before I Let Go’ by Marieke Nijkamp, and ‘To Be Taught, If Fortunate’ by Becky Chambers.

Finish some Rick Riordan Books - Completed. Finished the Kane Chronicles and the Magnus Chase series. I just have the Trials of Apollo series to complete next year.

Read a total of 40,000 pages - Completed! I wanted to try to read 5000 pages each month but at the very least beat my record of 37,859 pages. I managed to read: 56,253!

Take Book Photos Again - Not completed. It’s been a few of years since I got my camera out, I was hoping I would find time this year to do so but never did. Next year I’m going to make sure I do.

2020 Goals

Goodreads Challenge - I’m keeping this at 250 books again for 2020.

Read 3 Classics.

Read 3 Ace Books.

Finish the last of Rick Riordan Books.

Read a total of 60,000 pages - I’m hoping to keep up my 5000 page monthly readathons and I would like to beat my new record of 56,253.

Take Book Photos, Start posting again.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Genre: Fantasy

Long before Alice fell down the rabbit hole...

And before the roses were painted red...

The Queen of Hearts was just a girl, in love for the first time.

Review

Let’s start with a dumb anecdote: This book, or rather its purchase, is a prime example of how attached I can be to beautiful covers XD I found this book on Tumblr, saw a picture of the cover above, and after reading the description, I decided I wanted to read it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a way to get the version above on the internet, only one where I didn’t like the cover, so I actually didn’t buy it and threw it off my wishlist. Shalloooow. I know. I deserve the judgement, lol. Anyway, when I was in Sweden, I saw this book in the bookstore and almost freaked out and bought it right away.

Now, let’s move on to the more important stuff: the book.

I absolutely loved the way Wonderland/the Kingdom of Hearts was written, staying very loyal to the original Alice in Wonderland story, also regarding the characters. Everything felt very real, making it easy to dive into the story.

Also I felt like there was much thought put into the main character, Cath, her reasoning and her actions are easy to understand, though I felt like her idea of becoming a baker was a bit… odd in the beginning. It just seemed slightly out of place, and the idea of opening a bakery was naive, but that’s the point - Cath is of such high birth that such a normal life is impossible for her. Though the baking part did seem a bit too much here and there. Still, Cath is a good character and I kept wishing for her to get the opportunity to be happy and do what she wants to do. Every time she had to interact with the king or was pushed to accept being his bride I cringed because I knew she would never become happy with that. Also she seemed to be one of the few sane people in Hearts, which kind of reminded me of the Tangled moment where Eugene is one of the first characters to question why the fuck everyone starts singing lol.

The chemistry between Cath and Jest was nicely done, I could really see them being good together, and I kept rooting for them, even though we kind of know from the start that Cath will definitely become the Queen of Hearts, just what she doesn’t want.

I think the story flows a bit too slow in the first part of the book, it only gains momentum towards the end, and then the twists are fired at us one after the other. However, even though the end is kind of clear from the beginning, you keep hoping that there’ll be a good end for Cath, that there’s some kind of way out for her.

The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker