Seeing as when I was at university I was lucky to read one book a year, one of my New Year's resolutions for this year was to read twelve books (aka one book a month). I decided to set up a Goodreads account to try and keep track of what I'm reading and hold myself accountable for keeping up with my resolution and I thought as well I would write a little blog update each month with my thoughts and reviews of what I've read. As you can see from a quick glance at this post, I've pretty much smashed my one book a month target and am already a third of the way through my goal for the year at only one month in! So, here are the books I read this month:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling (5/5)
Believe it or not, I haven't read or seen every Harry Potter book/film, a fact that can often be met with looks of disbelief or (playful) disgust. I hated reading when I was younger and even though my siblings were obsessed with the whole Harry Potter universe, I really struggled to find any interest in it. A few years ago I tried reading them again and, whilst I enjoyed them, I stopped after book 4. But after a trip to the Harry Potter Studio Tour I'm determined to have read them all by the end of the year. This is therefore a re-read but it was definitely just as enjoyable the second time around; the characters are all still just as compelling and the magical elements just as fascinating. Whilst there's a lot of character introduction and scene setting, it works so well for getting you immersed and invested into the wizarding world.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling (5/5)
After loving the first book, I couldn't resist starting the second and I ended up reading it in less than 24 hours. Again, this was another re-read, and again it hadn't lost any of its charm the second time around. Because it had been a while since I first read the book and also since I've seen the film, I could remember all the major things that happened but couldn't remember exactly how they happened, meaning I was hooked on every word as things were slowly revealed. I don't think I really need to write anything to convince anyone to read this book but I can definitely say I am far more invested than I was the first time around and doubt I will be stopping at book 4 again.
Hope Never Dies - Andrew Shaffer (3/5)
This is potentially the best, worst, and weirdest book I've ever read. Told from the point of view of former Vice President Joe Biden, it follows his adventures with President Obama as they team up to find the culprit of the murder of one of Joe's friends. You can obviously tell from this synopsis that this book is intended as just a bit of fun, but unfortunately the novelty factor wore off for me about half way through. Being English, I don't know much about Joe Biden, but as a character in this book he was annoying and whiny, acting like a teenager who'd just been broken up with. To be fair, the ending was good and unexpected, however overall I felt like I had to keep reading because I needed to find out 'whodunnit', rather than because I wanted to.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling (5/5)
Even though I haven't read all of the Harry Potter books I can say with complete certainty that this will always be my favourite of the seven. Sirius Black is without a doubt my favourite character, closely followed my Remus Lupin, so the introduction of these two characters alone makes this book great. But I also think there's something more to it that sets this book apart from the ones before. Whilst great, the first two books in the series are often setting the scene for something bigger, and I feel that this book begins to make clear some of the things they are hinting at, widening the story to become something more than just Harry and his friends. Basically I just love this book!
As you can probably tell, the next few updates are likely to contain a bit more Harry Potter as I make my way through the series but I would love to read as much as possible this year so let me know in the comments what your book recommendations are!
Thanks for reading!