January 2015 Wrap up

Hey everyone!

So yes, more than a little late but here is my January Wrap up, 2015.

I had a fairly good reading month, especially considering how much other stuff I had to do. I read four books* which puts me on target for my end of year goal of 50 books.
*technically I finished the last book on February 1st but I'm going to ignore that technicality and include it for this month.

So the first book I read this month was The Demi God Files by Rick Riordan, a companion novel to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series which includes a few smaller quests, some extra info about our beloved characters and some little snippets of the future. This book was a very quick read, I'm pretty sure I finished it in less than a day since a lot of it is fact files and stuff that doesn't take long to read. A cute fluffy read overall that was nice to put a little Percy back in my life and a great way to start 2015. 89%

My next read is a book that's been on my TBR pile for a LONG time and that's The Host by Stephenie Meyer. It's a Sci-Fi, young adult book . It's set on Earth that's been taken over by these alien-like creatures called Souls that inhabit the brain  and take over the body of the person. They have all the memories of that person but even though the person is still technically inside, they're almost in a comatose state and aren't aware of what's going on. The book follows Wanderer who's a Soul and has taken over Melanie's body but there's a problem- Melanie is still concious and fills Wanderer's mind with people who she loves and Wanderer begins to feel for them too.
I really liked this book and ended up giving it a 5 stars on Goodreads. It really bother's me that lots of people don't even give the book a chance just because it's written by the same author as the Twilight series as it is completely different; from the genre to the characters. Yes, there's a romance which is very enjoyable and slowly built but the main point of the book is to explore what it really means to be human and all that encompasses that. I will just point out that it does take a little getting used to in the beginning but it does hook you once you get used to the world.It's such a powerful story which is why I gave it a 95%.

My next read was Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods by Rick Riordan. This is basically our beloved Percy Jackson telling us about Greek mythology.Once again I enjoyed being back in Percy's head and I used to be really interested in Greek myths and legend so found it really interesting. I wouldn't say that it is a must read and that you enjoy the series more for reading it, but I enjoyed it for being factual and explaining the PJO and HOO mythology better. I will just warn you not to read it until after House of Hades though for slightly spoiler-y parts but it wouldn't be the end of the world if you did. An 88% from me.

And finally the book that I-started-but-didn't-quite-finish-in-January, Unwind by Neal Shusterman. In this this society, due to many wars over abortion, the 'Bill of Life' has been passed which means that, from conception to the age of 13, life is protected and no harm is to come to the child. But between the ages of 13 and 18, their parent/guardian can choose to have them 'unwound' where 99.4% all their body parts get taken and are able to be donated to other people. The child's life is seen to not end but as living in a "divided state" and is an accepted practice in society. The book follows three main teens- one's a 'troubled' teen and his parents decided to have him unwound, one is a ward of the state (an orphan) who's being unwound due to budget cuts and the last is a tithe who's parents donate 10% of everything to God and are now donating their 10th child.
I actually decided to read this after we finished our ethics topic on abortion at school and found this fascinating and gripping to read. Its scary how close this could be in our future and it was really interesting to hear all these different opinions about everything - from the law to ethics to human nature. Unwind is the first book in the Unwind quartet but works as  standalone if you didn't want to read the others. A 90% from me.

TBR List

As most of you know, the Insurgent movie (sequel to Divergent) is coming out in March so I do plan to read both Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth during the month of February. I've also reserved Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo from my library which I'll probably also read.

Other than the books mentions above, I don't really have any specific plans for other books and will probably just read whatever I feel like reading.

List of books I read this month:

The Demigod Files by Rick Riordan
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods by Rick Riordan
Unwind by Neal Shusterman*

Hope you enjoyed this month's wrap up. What did you read in January and what do you plan to read next? Leave your comments below.

Bye for now,
Amber xxx


Quick announcement: I've decided  to just start from January 2015 with booktalks because otherwise I will never catch up. I also want to say that I'm going to carry on with only doing booktalks for some books- mainly the ones I really enjoyed or just had enough to talk about- re-reads will not be included, except under some circumstances. I might go back and catch up with old booktalks if I can but I'm not making any promises.