June Reading Round-off - the lazily late edition

Well howdy there folks. As you might have guessed I had a bad blogger moment and disappeared from the interwebs for something like a week. My excuse? Pokemon... I had a little week-long binge on Soul Silver and it kind of distracted me from the readathon and everything else. So obviously I didn't finish anything during the YALC Readathon which continues my track record of being shit at readathons.

But anyways here is a brief-ish round-up of what I did finish during June. It was surprisingly quite a good month (if you ignore the Pokemon week)

June Reading
50. Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan (3/6/2014 PM)
51. Angelfall by Susan Ee (4/6/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
52. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare (10/6/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
53. Captain Jack's Woman by Stephanie Laurens (10/6/2014 PM)
54. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare (12/6/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
55. Open Road Summer by Emery Lord (14/6/2014 PM)
56. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare (15/6/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
57. Reasons for Marriage by Stephanie Laurens (17/6/2014 PM)
58. Louder than Words by Laura Jarratt (18/6/2014 PM)
59. The Name on your Wrist by Helen Hiorns (19/6/2014 PM)
60. Sense & Sensibility by Joanna Trollope (20/6/2014 AM)
61. Ark Angel by Anthony Horowitz (21/6/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
62. Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz (21/6/2014 PM)
63. Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz (22/6/2014 AM)
64. Revived by Cat Patrick (30/6/2014 PM)

It was quite an eclectic month with a mix of Fantasy and Contemporary fiction plus a bit of Alex Rider re-reading. I have had the last two books in the series sitting unread for a year or two so I thought I'd finally finish them and then I could cull the books. I have now donated almost all of my Anthony Horowitz books (including 4 of the Power of Five series) to my school's library since they're likely to get far more well read by the students than they are by me.

Book of the Month
My favourite book in June was a bit of a surprise. I saw it on a table display in Waterstones last month and since I was buying some books to read during the readathon *or not as was the case* I thought I'd give it a go since the blurb sounded fascinating and the cover was beautifully intense. Louder than Words by Laura Jarratt is a story told from the point of view of a girl who hasn't uttered a word to anyone since she was six. Rafi is a really intriguing character as it's not clear why she stopped talking and over the course of the story the mystery begins to unravel and we get to learn more about her relationship with her brother Silas and her artistically distant Mother. I really liked the development of Rafi's friendship with Josie and the inclusion of quotes that the two of them like scattered through the book was lovely. The whole book had lots of thought-provoking moments and I got really invested in the characters - so much so that there was a point near the end when I got vair concerned and was almost shouting "Don't you fucking dare!" at the book. But yea excellent UKYA Contemp novel and y'all should give it a look.

Honourable mention goes to Joanna Trollope's modern rewrite of Sense & Sensibility. I have read the Austen original at least once so I thought I'd give this new take on the classic story a go. It was written for the rather awesome Austen Project which is getting bestselling authors to rewrite Jane Austen's novels in a modern setting. So far there has been Sense & Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey has been re-done by Val McDermid. Pride & Prejudice and Emma are due to be announced soon.

So that's what I read last month. I've had a pretty good reading month so far in July (actually finished some of the YALC titles I meant to read in June) and since this Friday me and Jess are heading down to London for YALC!!! *flails* Lawd knows I'm insanely excited and struggling to process the fact that it's finally here and I'm mere days away from meeting a whole fuckton of really awesome authors that I'm going to have to try and speak to reasonably normally. O_o

So speak to y'all again soon.
Ray

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June Round-Off

Aft'noon Folks!
June has been a very quiet month for the Library so this post will be pretty quick. We're now half way through the year and I'm kinda curious to know what the next 6 months will bring, but considering what has already happened in 2011 I seriously doubt that it can get any worse. What will be in store for the blog I don't yet know.

Here's what happened in June.

Books Read
June
75. Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson (2/6/2011 AM)
76. Words by Ginny L. Yttrup (7/6/2011 PM)
77. The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell (11/6/2011 AM)
78. What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen (12/6/2011 AM)
79. A Map of the Known World by Lisa Ann Sandell (13/6/2011 AM)
80. Last Chance by Sarah Dessen (14/6/2011 AM) Re-Read
81. Raised by Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (15/6/2011 AM)
82. The Scorch Trials by James Dashner (19/6/2011 AM)
83. The Truth about Forever by Sarah Dessen (19/6/2011 PM) Re-Read
84. Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway (25/6/2011 PM) Re-Read


Book Reviewed
As I am woefully behind on my reviews June boasts the lowest count of reviews ever! And this one was a month later than I'd planned to boot so Fail-Rachel all round methinks!
Random Magic by Sasha Soren 
Must.Do.Better :S


Favourite Book of the Month
If I discount re-reads I'm only left with 7 options for favourite book of the month but thankfully it's not too difficult a decision to make.

Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson was a completely unexpected gem, I had no inkling of what the story really was about after reading only the blurb but as the book unfolded so did the fascinating layers of plot and character and boy what a fab read! 


The other favourite of June (I'm changing the rules slightly cos these were both awesome in different genres) was What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen. I love Sarah Dessen's books and this latest one was simply fantastic. It's definitely gonna be tough to decide which Dessen is my all-time fav when it comes down to it.


What to Expect in July
It's very hard to say what might happen as the best laid plans often go awry. I may say that I'll post more reviews and it never happens so to avoid disappointment I won't promise anything and it'll be a pleasant surprise when you get something ;-)
But what I do want to happen is something involving Harry Potter. With the end of the films looming everyone has been feeling rather nostalgic and lamenting it as the end of an era, which is perfectly true in some respects. The end of the films is almost like the end of our childhood, so many fans of the books and/or the films (I'm more a book fan for reasons we won't go into now) grew up with this series that when it's all over we'll have the horrible feeling that we have to move on from Harry Potter and everyone at Hogwarts just like we have to do with High School and the other pillars of childhood and teenagehood.


So there may be some wittering, lengthy posts about Harry Potter coming in the near future, let's just say that I'm gonna have a hard time letting go of that hope that my letter is still coming ten years later :P


Nostalgicially Yours
LadyV

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