January Wrap-Up (2018)

Hey everyone, Victoria here! I hope you've all had a great start to the year! This month, I read a total of 4 books! Here are my thoughts and ratings on each of them. Enjoy!



1.) Bad Girl Gone by Temple Mathews
Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ / ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️  (4/5)



This was my first read of 2018, and I really enjoyed it! You can see my review for more of my thoughts on this book HERE.



2.) Warcross by Marie Lu
Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ / ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️  (4/5)



I really enjoyed this novel as well! It took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I was locked in! I read 250 pages of this book all in one day, so I was really eager to see how it unfolded. I really enjoyed all the character diversity and the world building was so extensive! Although I kind of saw the ending/ plot twist coming, I still thought it set up perfectly for a second book and I can't wait until we get one later this year (hopefully)! If you haven't picked this one up yet, TRUST THE HYPE and give it a try.



3.) Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️  ⭐️ .5 / ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️  (3.5/5)



Meh. That sums up the majority of my thoughts on this book. All the reviews on Goodreads are mostly 5 stars, but I just didn't feel the same way about this book. Long Way Down is written in verse, which I usually really enjoy, but to me, this book didn't really work well in verse. I was very confused for the majority of this story. I just didn't think the plot was that interesting, but I thought the ending was pretty good. The entirety of this book takes course over 60 seconds (I think), which I thought was a cool idea, but the few things it had going for it weren't executed as well as they could've been. However, I liked that I was able to read this book in basically a day, so that was nice to be able to knock it out so fast.



4. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys



Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ / ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️  (5/5!)

AAAAA! I LOVE THIS BOOK! This is by far the best book I read this month! I was really in the mood for a WWII historical fiction novel, so I checked Goodreads and saw that this one had fairly good reviews. I picked it up and just could not stop reading it. I loved Lina and the fact that she was such a strong and independent main character. Lina and her family are Lithuanian, so it gives a different perspective on the war, one which I had never read about before. It was interesting reading about a perspective other than someone going to more well-known concentration camps such as Auschwitz. This book was a hard read, as it was so informative and descriptive about the pain and suffering people of this time went through. The ending, while very sad, had me smiling at the epilogue. Overall, would highly highly recommend if you're looking for good WWII historical fiction!



That concludes my wrap-up for all the books that I read this month! Let me know in the comments below if you read any of these books this month or if you plan on picking them up soon! February TBR is coming soon! :)

-xoxo Victoria