This month was a difficult month for picking our my favourites and disappointments. I read plenty of books, but a lot of them were in the same vein—I read a lot from Christie and Julia Quinn, and a good handful of rereads too. For that reason, this might look a little repetitive this month but I managed to select a few for both sections here. You can see my full wrap-up here, and let’s get into it.
Favourites
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
So of course, I had to put one from both Christie and Quinn on this section of the post this month. Out of the 10 Christie’s I read this month, Death on the Nile stands out as a favourite. I had a feeling it would be as I got started with this lot. I mean, in my mind, there had to be a reason why this was picked as the next movie above any of the others. Having read it now, I can see why this was the obvious choice—not only will it be a visually stunning film, it’s very much got that Hollywood drama to it. It’s still very Agatha Christie in that she is never flashy or extravagant, but there are definitely moments they can play up. Besides all that, I really enjoyed this one for its closed circle aspect. I don’t know why, but I absolutely love that trope, I suppose it makes since when I consider And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express to be my other two favourites from Christie. I’m very excited to see the film now.
Tilly and the Map of Stories by Anna James
This is one of my absolute favourite middle-grade series, and I finally managed to squeeze this one in this month. This is truly just a really fun series to read—I mean you just need to read the blurb that says it’s a ‘series that celebrates all that is best in life: books, adventure, friendship – and cake’. If that doesn’t get you interested, then what will? I’ve loved every moment of this series, like I said it’s fun but it’s also incredibly heartwarming, witty and of course, very bookish. Obviously, this is too late for Christmas but this series would make a wonderful gift for a birthday for both adults and children alike.
Disappointments
The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White
You don’t even know how sad it makes me to put this one in this section of the post. This was, by far, my most anticipated read of 2020. I absolutely adored The Guinevere Deception last year and again when I reread it this year—it’s genuinely one of my favourite books of the last few years. But this one just didn’t live up to my expectations. It wasn’t bad, but it was just missing that special something that made the first book so good. I don’t even know what that thing was, I just know it wasn’t in this one. I’m not giving up on the series by any means—I will definitely be picking up book three and I’ll probably give this one a reread then to see whether my thoughts have changed. I have a feeling this might have been a case of me not being in the right mood for it but I guess we’ll see if I enjoy it more next time. All this being said, I still highly recommend this series—the first one deserves way more love than what it gets.
My Fake Rake by Eva Leigh
I got this one for myself for my birthday back in October and was so excited about it. I love a good fake dating story, and there’s also a friends to lovers thing in here. Sounds amazing right? I was so incredibly bored by this. I don’t know what it was but Eva Leigh’s writing in here just did not hold my attention at all. It only took me a few hours to read but it felt like a slog. I was reading it to watch a liveshow that Crystal’s Bookish Life was doing and if it hadn’t been for that, I absolutely would have DNF’ed this at around the 80-page mark. I just didn’t like either of the characters—there was something about the way they acted that drove me up the wall and their romance just didn’t interest me at all. Usually having those tropes I talked about before would make me enjoy the story enough to give it like a 3-star rating, but I had to give this one just a 2.5.
Red Rosa by Kate Evans
This one had been on my radar for years before I finally decided to get it this year. I kind of wish I hadn’t now because this was disappointing. I found the art style so distracting that I missed the point of the rest of the book. It’s all in black and white and it’s just very stylised? The people also have really large heads compared to the rest of their bodies, it’s kind of off-putting. On top of that, this is very theory-heavy. Rosa was, of course, a philosopher, economist and member of the German communist party (and a badass disabled woman) which means there’s a lot of her political writings included in here. I found all of that a lot harder to follow than I was anticipating, and it certainly played a move prevalent role than what the back suggested. So overall, this definitely gave me a new understanding and respect for Rosa Luxemburg, but I wasn’t overly impressed by this actual book.
What were your favourites and disappointments this month? And on that note, I hope you all have a wonderful and safe New Year and I’ll see you in a few days.
Earl Grey Books 