Reading Update: Volume 2025 Episode 2

I read eight books this month. Two from my Reading Goals, two for my traveling book club, and one for a indie author. For my personal goals, I finished A Court of Mist and Fury and read an anthology - Zombies vs Unicorns. That last also chosen to meet the requirements of my alphabet challenge. This is my monthly spread:

Here are the books I read this month from least to most favorite.

8. The Things We Leave Unfinished
I got so bored reading this. The plot is simplistic. The dialogue is robotic. It made me cry, and I hate when books do that. It wasn't all that clever or interesting. I'm not hating on Rebecca Yarros. I've read her dragon fiction. It's WAY more interesting. I give this 2.70/5 stars. Should have DNF'd but it was for traveling book club, and I love my besties.

7. Daxton Tanner and the Eleagons
I was approached by A.R. Hoff and asked to read and review her debut novel. I'm used to being disappointed in these kinds of situations, so was pleasantly surprised by the book. It's fast paced and actually interesting and enjoyable to read. Is it the best book I've ever read? No. I do think it's a pretty decent first book, though. It needed a bit more concept development and editing, but overall, I enjoyed the experience and gave the book 3.5 stars.

6. Zombies vs Unicorns
One of my goals for 2025 is to actually complete an A-Z challenge, so I decided to get the ball rolling with a Z-book. This happens to be an anthology, which will neatly check off another book bingo box for me. I had a pretty fun time reading this. There were some stories I enjoyed, and others that were meh. I made a game of it, giving the books x's or hearts to indicate if I loved or hated them. Then I tallied the score to see if I'm more a Zombie or Unicorn fan. Unicorns won! There are some really cute stories in this book.

5. Kin of Kings
Fast paced and fun from start to finish. There's this lesser prince who is starving and living in exile until he decides to sign up for the local armed forces. He enlists at the academy as a mage. He has abilities, sketchy stuff starts happening at the school, he makes friends from the local palace, sketchy things go on there, and we slowly start to figure out what is going on as things fall apart, both in the school and in the kingdom. Who can be trusted? Loved this book. I'm reading the next one.

4. A Court of Mist and Fury
I read ACOTAR at the beginning of last year and was underwhelmed, so it took me forever to read this one. I put finish the ACOTAR series on my agenda for 2025, so we will see how good I am at checking things off. I did enjoy this one 100% more than the first book. It's so much better as far as world building and overall plot and character development. I still found Feyre to be a bit annoying, but hopefully the good will outweigh the mosquito moments in the end.

3. The Goldfinch
I have conflicting thoughts to express on this book. First, it's an absolute masterpiece of literary fiction. Second, I just wasn't all that into it. I wasn't bored. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the writing. The book is phenomenal. I just didn't really connect with the subject matter all that much. I feel like this is a book you read if you really LOVE Dark Academia, or just want to be able to say you read it for the clout.

2. The Grace Year
This was the second traveling book club read for the month. I gobbled it up in a day. It was so easy to read and fast paced. It's dark as f*. Basically a bunch of girls get to live in the wild for a year as a coming of age deal, but they aren't safe and things happen that are really messed up. This is a great book if you're looking to check off female rage or gothic horror. If you like arena fiction, you might enjoy it also. It's brilliant and horrible. Cult vibes. Ate it up.

1. Sorcery and Small Magics

This book was hands down my favorite read this month. I have not a single criticism. I gave it the elusive 5.0/5.0 stars. Loved the writing, loved the writer's sense of humor. It was fast paced and suspenseful. The plot was decent and the character development was on point. On top of all that, it really hit the sweet spot for me in terms of what I personally enjoy reading. It also has the world's slowest of queer slowburns. The characters have realistic and intense personality related tension between them, in a good way, and they grow and change with the story, as they also come to appreciate and like each other. I loved how the writer incorporated their sexual orientation in a way that felt natural, rather than throwing in an awkward announcement. I cannot wait to read the next book in this trilogy. Roman Empire for me!

At the conclusion of the month, I created this wrap up shelf:

That's it for now. What are you guys currently reading? Any recommendations? xx Sam xx