Books Via Ashley

Wow, 2017 was a GREAT year for books! I read a total of 104 out of my goal of 100 for the year. The Reader - Traci Chee Wayfarer - Alexandra Bracken Windwitch - Susan Dennard The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead Behind the Throne - K. B. Wagers Queen of Shadows - Sarah J. Maas Empire of Storms - Sarah J. Maas The Assassin's Blade - Sarah J. Maas Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon Carve The Mark - Veronica Roth Caraval - Stephanie Garber When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi After the Crown - K. B. Wagers A Gathering of Shadows - V. E. Schwab [reread] A Conjuring of Light - V. E. Schwab Daring Greatly - Brené Brown Beyond the Savanna - Maryann Martinsen Empress of a Thousand Skies - Rhoda Belleza Norse Gods - Neil Gaiman Traitor to the Throne - Alwyn Hamilton Starflight - Melissa Landers The Magicians - Levi Grossman Snapshot - Brandon Sanderson Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters [...

What a year! I read SO many good books in 2017! There were many series that I started or continued or finished, plus some wonderful stand-alones. Honestly, I could probably list a top 20 or 30, but there were some that really stood out to me this year which made it slightly easier to narrow it down to the top 10. Again, these are my favorite books that I read this year. I think almost all of them were also published in 2017, but many were not! I also did not include any rereads of books. So, without further ado, here they are, in order! Top 10 Books I Read in 2017 A Conjuring of Light - V. E. Schwab Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson Strange the Dreamer - Laini Taylor No Good Deed - Kara Connolly When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue - Mackenzie Lee Moxie - Jennifer Mathieu Daughter of the Pirate King  - Tricia Levenseller Illuminae  - Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufman Honorable...

I hit my goal of reading 100 books this year! And of course read a few more beyond that ;) My month was mostly taken up by work and then travel for the holidays, but I still got a good number in! They were all great books too! A Perilous Undertaking - Deanna Raybourn (4 stars) The City of Brass - S. A. Chakraborty (4.5 stars) Tropic of Serpents - Marie Brennen (4 stars) The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan (4 stars) The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan (4 stars) Vengeance Road - Erin Bowman (4.5stars) I finally renewed my library card and I was able to check out the last three books from there. I'm loving the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan! I've got the rest on hold at the library! Vengeance Road was the last book of this year, and it was a fun and exciting Western adventure! The City of Brass was a wonderful historical fantasy set in a world inspired by Eastern cultures, filled with djinni's and magic. What were your favorite books of Dece...

What the... November went by WAY too quickly! I swear it was just the beginning of October, and now Christmas is approaching! Well, let's just jump right into it! In November I read eight books! And considering that two of them were over a thousand pages each, which is equivalent to three normal books, that's a pretty good number! The New Dark - Lorraine Thomson (2 stars) The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan (4 stars) Milk and Honey - Rupi Kaur (4.5 stars) Words of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson (5 stars) [reread] Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson (5 stars) Gone Viking - Helen Russell (3 stars) A Curious Beginning - Deanna Raybourn (3.5 stars) A Treacherous Curse - Deanna Raybourn (4 stars) So, obviously the highlight of the month was OATHBRINGER . Oh. My. Goodness. This book blew my mind in so many ways... It definitely fulfilled and exceeded expectations. And rereading Words of Radiance beforehand was also great. This series is just incredible. If you h...

October! What a busy month for me! My sister visited and then I had a couple very busy work weeks, but I still got a LOT of reading done! Though I guess this is actually becoming fairly average for me. All in all, I read 10 books this month! I've now read 90 out of my goal for 100 for the year! Let's take a look: Invictus - Ryan Graudin (4.5 stars) The Tiger's Daughter - K. Rivera Arsenault (2 stars) The Last Namsara - Kristen Ciccarelli (4 stars) Even the Darkest Stars - Heather Fawcett (3.5 stars) House of Shadows - Nicola Cornick (4 stars) Artemis - Andy Weir (4.5 stars) Angelfall - Susan Ee (4 stars) World After - Susan Ee (3 stars) End of Days - Susan Ee (3 stars) Forest of a Thousand Lanterns - Julie C. Dao (3.5 stars) I read a lot of ARCs from NetGalley this month (most of which were October releases), including The Tiger's Daughter , The Last Namsara , House of Shadows , and Artemis .  Angelfall and the subsequent two books were a ...

September was a busy month for me! We took a trip at the beginning of the month to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary (yay!) and then we had TWO weddings to attend! A month full of love! All these trips meant I was able to get a fair amount of reading in though! In total I read nine books! Burning Glass - Kathryn Purdie (3 stars) Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng (4.5 stars) Tower of Dawn - Sarah J. Maas (4 stars) Moxie - Jenniefer Mathieu (4.5 stars) Godsgrave - Jay Kristoff (4 stars) 4:50 from Paddington - Agatha Christie (4 stars) Hanna Who Fell From The Sky - Christopher Meades (3.5 stars) Wicked Like A Wildfire - Lana Popovic (4 stars) Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein (4.5 stars) A few books really stood out this month. Moxie was incredible and awesome! I finally ready Wicked Like a Wilkdfire , which I received in the August FairyLoot box, and I really really liked it! I got an ARC of Little Fires Everywhere and it was just as beautiful as Celeste ...

August started off slow. I was kind of in a book slump--nothing really caught my interest and I went through a lot of first chapters. Plus, we were moving for the first week and then unpacking the rest of the month, so I was tired from that. But towards the end of the month things picked up again! It helped that I got some good ARCs via NetGalley! In total, I read eight books this month! And one that I mostly read but could not bring myself to finish... The Tiger's Watch  - Julia Ember (2 stars) The Jane Austen Project  - Kathleen A. Flynn (4 stars) The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue  - Mackenzie Lee (5 stars) Howl's Moving Castle  - Diana Wynne Jones (5 stars) [reread] Book of a Thousand Days  - Shannon Hale (5 stars) Nyxia  - Scott Reintger (4 stars) The Fire Queen - Emily R. King (4 stars) Into The Dim - Janet B. Taylor (3.5 stars) A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars - Yaba Badoe (0 stars - DNF) Quite a few 5 stars! In truth,  Ho...

Wow. I felt like July was reaaaallllyyy   long this year. Anyone else feel like way? It's probably because for once I wasn't  traveling! We had a lot of big changes though, including getting a new apartment and packing everything! But I still found the time to read TWELVE books! Roar - Cora Carmack (4 stars) Always and Forever, Lara Jean - Jenny Han (3.5 stars) Hunted - Meagan Spooner (4 stars) A Natural History of Dragons - Marie Brennan (5 stars) The Summer of Impossible Things - Rowan Coleman (4.5 stars) No Good Deed - Kara Connolly (5 stars) The Crowns of Croswald - D. E. Night (4 stars) The Fifth Doll - Charlie N. Holmberg (3.5 stars) Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins (4.5 stars) Skullsworn - Brian Staveley (4 stars) Daughter of the Burning City - Amanda Foody (3.5 stars) Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (4 stars) [ reread ] It was a really good month for books! As you can see, I have a few 5 stars from this month! Five st...

Back in January I wrote about which books I was most excited about this year. I only went up through June because there just wasn't much information about books that were being released after that. But now it's July (wait, whaaat?!) and the last half of 2017 has some pretty amazing books releases! July Because You Love To Hate Me  - Various Authors Release: 18 July Anthology of short stories about everyone's favorite villains. The Last Magician - Lisa Maxwell Release: 18 July A girl with magic must go back in time to save the future. No Good Deed - Kara Connolly Release: 18 July A retelling of Robin Hood where an Olympic archer goes back in time. Read my review here . August Shimmer and Burn - Mary Taranta Release: 9 August In order to save her sister, a girl must smuggle magic into a plague-ridden kingdom. Wonder Woman: Warbringer - Leigh Bardugo Release: 29 August A story of Diana, Princess of the Amazons, before she becomes Wonder Woman....

I read a total of 7 books this month! Fairly good, since I was traveling for the main part of June, doing photography and service work in Tanzania! Nevertheless, I still managed to read five books on my trip, in addition to a couple others! 1) Nevernight - Jay Kristoff (4.5 stars) 2) A Penny Lost - Aspen Bassett (2.5 stars) 3) Gemina - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (5 stars) 4) Dark Matter - Blake Crouch (4 stars) 5) Grave Mercy - Robin LeFevers (4 stars) 6) Dark Triumph - Robin LeFevers (4 stars) 7) Mortal Heart - Robin LeFevers (4 stars) As you can see, I read the entire His Fair Assassin trilogy  by Robin LeFevers during my trip. It was such a good series! I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. I finally read Nevernight  and it was amazing. I'm looking forward to the sequel! And Gemina was the sequel to Illuminae , which I read last month, and was just as amazing as the first. Can't wait for the third and final installment, Obsidio ! I'm c...

Notice something different? I changed the layout of the blog! What do you think? There are a few kinks I'm still trying to work out, like now the sidebar is only visible from the menu button at the top left side of the page, but I'll figure it out ;) This month I read seven books! I'm now actually four books ahead of my goal for the year. I thought that with working, etc., I wouldn't have as much time to read, but I've also learned that you have to make time to read, which I do every night. It wasn't a *great* month for books, in terms of quality. There were a few books I had high expectations for and they didn't quite meet them, though I still enjoyed them! If you need a refresher for what the various star ratings mean, then you can check out the "Ratings Guide" at the top of the blog. Reviews are coming soon! Beyond the Savanna - Maryann Martinsen (2.5 stars) Empress of a Thousand Skies - Rhoda Belleza (3 stars) Norse Gods - Neil ...

Well, this month I read a lot  of books. I thought working again would slow down my reading, but it doesn't seem that way! I read some incredible books this month. When Breath Becomes Air was heartbreaking and fantastic and I highly  recommend it to everyone (it's not very long). Daring Greatly  was this month's Book Club pick and it was amazing in so many ways. And A Conjuring of Light , the third and final installment to the Shades of Magic series, was everything I had hoped for and more. SO MANY FEELS! I finished it a few days ago and I'm still thinking about it. It was perfect. 1) Empire of Storms - Sarah J. Maas (4.5 stars) 2) The Assassin's Blade - Sarah J. Maas (4 stars) 3) Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon (3.5 stars) 4) Carve The Mark - Veronica Roth (4 stars) 5) Caraval - Stephanie Garber (3 stars) 6) When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi (5 stars) 7) After the Crown - K. B. Wagers (4.5 stars) 8) A Gathering of Shadows - V. E. Schw...

I just got two new books in the mail that I'm SUPER excited about. And look how pretty they are! I like that their color schemes complement each other with the hints of pink and purple. Traitor to the Throne is the sequel to Rebel of the Sands, which I read last year and was one of my Top Books of 2016. Empress of a Thousand Skies is a highly anticipated new YA sci-fi book, AND it's the Books Via Ashley Book Club pick for March 2017! Because I moved around so much the last few years, and especially once I got a Kindle, I haven't really bought hard copies of books. Now that we're settled in to our apartment, I will slowly be adding to my collection again. As much as I love my Kindle, there's something about holding a book in your hand, the smell of paper and ink, that is so magical. I'm very excited to read these books! Save Save

In January I read 6 books, which is keeping with the pace I need in order to read 80 books this year. 1) The Reader - Traci Chee (3 stars) 2) Wayfarer - Alexandra Bracken (3.5 stars) 3) Windwitch - Susan Dennard (3.5 stars) 4) The Underground Railroad  - Colson Whitehead (3 stars) 5) Behind the Throne  - K. B. Wagers (5 stars) 6) Queen of Shadows  - Sarah J. Maas (4 stars) I say that's a pretty good start to 2017! I recently started a new job, so posts have slowed while I rediscover the work/life balance, but overall I really enjoyed the books I read this month and would recommend them all (especially Behind the Throne !!! Gahh!!! Review coming soon!). My TBR pile for February is a mile long, but I'm especially excited for A Conjuring of Light,  the conclusion to the Shades of Magic  series by V. E. Schwab. I've also got the February Book Club pick, Daring Greatly  by Brené Brown, and I'll finally finish up Empire of Storms , the latest b...