My favourite Books of 2020~
Since I had some positive reactions about my post including books I thought I’d do a full-on book related post. I love talking about books, and actually started a booktube channel years ago, but struggled too much with video editing to continue, lol. I really enjoyed filming and thinking of videos, so it’s a pity that video editing and me don’t work well together. (and the video editing program crashing all the time didn’t help either).
Anyway, I decided to talk about my favourite books of 2020. And with that I mean the books I read in 2020, not books that were released in 2020. Despite everything, according to Goodreads I read 198 books. This includes a lot of comics, as I kinda got into Batgirl for a short period of time. Comics barely have any pages, so they don’t really count as books imo xD (I was super surprised that a comic issue has so few pages as well, I expected them to be like volumes of a manga, not like chapters.) I read 28.959 pages (also according to goodreads, so it’s a low estimate since not all books I read had their page number on their goodreads page). The longest book was Anna Karenina, as my version had 1.759 pages, and my shortest was a free novella called Grandpa goes missing, with 21 pages. On average my books had 149 pages, which is mainly because I read so many comics.
Anyway, on to my favourite books. They’re not going to be in any particular order, other than that I will put my re-reads last. And I’ll just give a disclaimer, I’m really bad at talking about things I really like, as my explanations tend to get worse when I get carried away.
Into the Drowning Deep - Mira Grant.
Into the drowning deep is a book about a group of mostly scientists, who go out to sea on a mission to find mermaids. This mission is funded by a tv-station and is mostly set up to be a mockumentary. They tried the same thing years earlier, but the ship and crew vanished. This time the crew is better prepared, as they have expert hunters on board as well.
The main characters are very diverse. Victoria lost her sister on the first message and is determined to find out what happened. She’s also bisexual and her ex boyfriend happens to be on the mission as well. We have an estranged husband and wife who kinda love each other and kinda don’t, but know each other very well and thus work well together. The husband is also disabled. We have an autistic lesbian reporter, Olivia, who was really cute and super relatable to me. We have hunters that are super obsessed with killing things, but they also really love each other. There are deaf twins, and their sister who can interpret/sign, as well as is a brilliant scientist of her own. The cast is very interesting and has a lot of morally grey characters (and some annoying ones as well). Not everyone is super developed, since the cast is pretty large, but they are all interesting in their own way. And then we have the mermaids. Half of the cast believes in them, and about half doesn’t, but since most are scientists everyone wants to be the one to find them. Well, the mermaids aren’t like in the fairy tales.
It’s a slow building thriller with a lot of environmental science woven into it. I wouldn’t recommend it if you really hated science, but if you are even a little interested in it, it’s certainly worth the read.
Blooming Black + Deadly Morsel - Juliann Whicker
The Rosewood Academy of Witches and Mages is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, and in 2020 I finally read the 4th and 5th (final) book. I love this series so much. I’ll be the first to admit that this series is kind of confusing. There’s a clearly thought-out world, but as a reader you dive in head first, and over the course of five books slowly learn more about everything. I really loved that. I liked how not everything was spelled out, and how the more I read the more my questions got answered. I liked how I sometimes got confused, but then figured it out as I read on. And I liked how unpredictable this book and its characters were. The series follows Penny Lane, a witch without powers. Because of her grandmother’s will she has to marry before she turns 18, or she will lose the house she and her mother live in. So she sets out to Rosewood Academy in order to find a husband. Preferably someone harmless. Which in this world is harder than it sounds. Witches and Mages are pretty horrible in general in this world. They treat humans horribly and don’t really like each other, because they can become dependent on each other. Penny of course falls in love with Drake Huntsman, the popular guy who is secretly really sweet (yeah, I know, it’s pretty cliche). This world is filled with toxic people and toxic relationships and their normal is very different from our normal (thankfully). It’s like how the monsters in Monster Prom are really monsters and their normal is very different and thus the game is fun. I feel like if you treat the characters as human they are awful, and very toxic, but in the world they are in they are some of the least toxic people around. Plus, them being so different from what we’re used to made it extra fun for me.
It’s a romance/fantasy with exceptional worldbuilding, but very confusing at times. It’s a self-published book series, and when I noticed a print mistake with my fifth book, I messaged the author on Facebook just to let her know, and she actually sent me a signed new copy.
The Kinder Poison - Natalie Mae
I thought I was over young adult fantasy. I really believed I grew out of it, but this book proved me wrong. In this world all people are born with powers. The stronger the power, the shorter they live. The weaker the power the less prestige they get. Our main character Zahru has a low-level power. She can talk to animals, which although super cool to me is deemed barely useful in their world.
The king has to choose an heir out of his three children and they decide on an age old trial, the three children have to race through the desert, face trials and the first person to bring the sacrifice to the finish, and sacrifice them is the next heir. All three children get to choose two teammates, and so all the strong youths are called to the capital.
Zahru’s best friend is invited to watch the ceremony. She isn’t. They devise a plan to use her mothers name, who had stronger magic, to at least be able to go to the capital and see everything.
Problem, her mother was really strong, and she gets chosen to be part of the group who will meet the heirs, and could become a part of their team. Well, things go downhill for her from there. She doesn’t talk to the heirs much, as she has no interest in becoming part of their team, and is more interested in the food. Of course she gets intertwined with the princes, and chaos ensues. First, she is chosen to be part of the eldest prince team, then once he finds out she has no power, he gives her the mark of the sacrifice.
Turns out that it’s not so much the gods choosing the sacrifice after all. We follow Zahru as she gets passed around the teams, and learn about all three heirs through her. They’re all very different and would all rule very differently from each other. They all want to win. The book doesn’t really show much favouritism to one or the other. And all the while Zahru knows that in the end, no matter how kind they are to her now, they will have to kill her. It was super interesting to follow all characters for about an equal amount of time, and the world building was great as well.
Nicholas St North and the battle of the Nightmare king + Sandman and the War of Nightmares - William Joyce
I don’t often read middle grade books, but I absolutely loved the Legend of the Guardians film, so I ended up buying the boxset of the original books. These are the first and fourth book, as those were my favourite (I’m still reading the fifth and last book, so I can’t say much about that).
Nicholas St. North’s book focuses of course on the titular character before he became Santa Claus. He is a bandit that comes across the village of Santof Claussen, created by a wise wizard. The village sounds incredible and is all about learning and being interested in things. On the Night Nicholas tries to raid the village, it is attacked by the nightmare king and instead of attacking the village, he turns to help the villagers. He ends up staying there, and together with the wizard and a little girl called Katherine they start looking for relics of the Golden Age, as instructed by the Man on the Moon. It’s a super fun adventure novel and it was filled with little tidbits of information I would have loved as a little girl. The second and third book (focussed on the Easter Bunny and the Toothfairy respectively) were really good as well, but the fourth, focussed on my favourite Sandman is probably my favourite so far. The story continues throughout these books, and the characters grow a lot, as they meet more people and their team of guardians gets bigger and bigger. If you liked the film, I’d definitely recommend it, although I feel like the Easter Bunny is very different from the film. The Toothfairy felt very different as well, she’s a lot more badass in the books. The art is also very distinctive and cool, so that’s a nice plus.
Batgirl Vol 5: Art of Crime - Mairghread Scott
So, 2020 was the year I got into comics, because I came across a youtube video about a newly introduced character Punchline, started reading some batman and from there realised I preferred the Batgirl and Nightwing comics. I read a lot of Batgirl last year, but this arc was by far my favourite. Barbara Gordon is such a strong character, but this arc in particular really spoke to me. Barbara has a chip in her spine so she can walk, and it gets destroyed by the joker in the beginning of this arc. It focuses on how she deals with her disability, how she pushes through pain, as well as how her father deals with it. It was super relatable, because of both the pain I was in last year, as well as have been in since High School. Barbara was so so relatable to me, and I either almost cried or actually cried reading it, it was very very good. With comics being weird and not completely continuous and having different artists and writers every few issues I think you’d be able to read this arc as a standalone, though some prior knowledge about the batman universe would certainly help.
These witches don’t burn - Isabel Sterling
I love books about witches. Hannah comes from a family of witches, and of course has to keep her magic secret from non-witches. Which gets harder when all kinds of dark magic starts appearing around her/ in her town. So of course she goes out to investigate. This was a very easy and fun read, and I really liked the relationships/ friendships in this book. It had a diverse cast that interacts well together, and was just a breeze to read. I also read the sequel, but that was very disappointing as it was predictable and suddenly all characters seemed to have gotten stupid, so there’s that.
The Tea Rose - Jennifer Donnely
This book is pretty long and super, super fun. Set in 1888 it follows Fiona, who lives in the bad part of London. Her family is poor, but her dream is to set up a tea shop with her boyfriend/fiance. They both save up diligently, but Joe, the boyfriend, gets promoted at work and gets more and more distracted. To make matters worse, Fiona’s father, who’s trying to arrange a union for the workers at his job dies in a work related “accident.”
When Fiona wants to hear why they didn’t get a payout, she overhears a talk with a mafia boss about how he was hired to get rid of her father, and when they find her, she has to flee. She flees to America, helped by kind stranger Nick Soames. This book read like a soap opera at times, and was a bit unbelievable in certain parts, but it has well-developed, interesting characters and a lot of history woven in (which is what I love about historical fiction). I love tea, so that might have helped as well. The friendship between Fiona and Nick was so incredible and super fun to read, it was waaay better than the romance in this book. The actual romance was strong at first as she was of course engaged, but they broke up before she even had to flee. The romance is very “destined to be together” and “they always loved each other despite everything” so that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really liked reading about Fiona setting up her tea business and overcoming the obstacles thrown her way. The villains were definitely a weak point of this story and their final actions as well as the reveal at the end made little sense, so that was a pity.
If I never met you - Mhairi McFarlane
I don’t often read contemporary romance, and I enjoy it even less, but this was like it was written for me. It had a lot of cliche tropes, but some of my favourites and they were done extremely well. It was a hate-to-love, pretending-to-be-a-couple kind of thing. The characters were interesting and well developed, the romance was slow-burn, and the characters actually got to know each other (through their fake dating) before getting into an actual relationship. The story starts when Laurie gets dumped by her fiance, who happens to work in the same lawfirm as she does. He’s incredibly douchey about it too, and Laurie has to find a way to get back at him/ show him she doesn’t care. In comes Jamie, resident playboy, who just so happens to need a steady girlfriend to show his boss he can be committed to something or whatever it is people think having a relationship/being married proves. They start fake dating, even though Laurie has only heard bad things about Jamie. He turns out to not be all that bad once she gets to know him, and as they learn more about each other they fall in love. It’s written really well and their banter was incredibly fun too. I instantly wanted to read more by this author which leads me to:
Don’t you forget about me Mhairi McFarlane
Very slow burn romance as well. Georgina gets fired from her crappy restaurant job and finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on the same night. Great. She takes the first job that comes her way, bartending in this new bar. Turns out one of the owners is her ex, who is really against her working there, even though it seems he doesn’t remember her. But by the time he finds out she works there, she’s already hired. She’s good at her job, and they stay away from each other as much as possible, but of course they get closer. This brings up some things from Georgina’s past and all in all it’s just another good romance, and reading these two books almost made me believe I actually liked contemporary romance. And then I read another one (by a different author) and absolutely hated it, so maybe not.
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
I did not expect to like this book. I had put this on my list after watching the ‘lost in adaptation’ episode about it on youtube, but by the time I got around to this, I couldn’t remember for the life of me why I decided I wanted to read this. I’m really glad I did, though, because this pleasantly surprised me. I have never seen the film, so I went into this almost completely blind.
This book describes the life of several members of an Italian mafia family in both America and partly in Italy. The male characters were well developed and interesting, though unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for the female characters (there were very few woman as well). There was quite a bit of misogyny and violence (as is expected in a book about the mafia, I guess). Most of the characters were unlikable, yet intriguing, and overall it was an action filled book that was super interesting and fun to read. It’s easy to see why so many of the things from this books are now seen as cliches, because they work.
Harleen - Stjepan Šejić
This comic is so good, I can’t get over it. Not only is the art superb, the story is incredible. Harleen is a psychological thriller that tells the origin story of Harley Quinn (a character I never imagined I would like). We meet Harleen Quinzel, a young psychologist determined to find out what makes people do bad things. She is sure there must be something, a trigger, that makes them snap, and if they could figure out how that worked, they could help these people heal. So she starts interviewing the patients in Arkham Asylum. Slowly the Joker manipulates her way into her heart, and as reader you kind of get it. At least I did. It’s weird to relate so much to a character completely losing her way. She starts out wanting to do good, she’s so sure she can change the world for the better, but the Joker gets into her head, and then into her heart. When there is a large outbreak from the Asylum she goes in to check on the Joker, and to protect him ends up shooting someone. Her breaking point. Her trigger. She snapped, and lost herself to the Joker. It such a well-thought out, insightful book, and it was so good I actually read it twice, first online, and then I got the hardcover version (which is huge, I didn’t expect that) for Christmas and I instantly re-read it. It was just as amazing on re-read and the art was even better in this big version. I definitely recommend the hard-cover version as it includes some extra art and insight in how Harleen came to life.
Call Down the Hawk - Maggie Stiefvater.
I was so afraid I wouldn’t like this book, even though it follows my favourite character from the Raven Cycle, Ronan. While I loved Ronan, with how complex his character is, the book focussing on him in the original cycle was my least favourite (and I was super disappointed in that). This book however did not disappoint at all. It is the start of a new trilogy and I honestly can’t wait for the other books. This book follows the Lynch brothers, several dreamers (I would explain but I don’t wanna spoil the Raven Cycle for anyone) and dreamer hunters. It’s a great continuation and tells us so much more about the world Maggie Stiefvater created. The beginning was a bit slow for me, but once things got started I was hooked. The next volume is released in May so maybe I’ll buy it for myself as birthday present :3
Punchline 2020 issue 1 - James Tynion
Punchline was the character that got me into DC comics in the first place, but she was mostly a side character in all the issues surrounding the joker war. I read all of those, and she was certainly one of my favourites (together with Batgirl, Nightwing and Harley Quinn). So when I heard about her getting a solo issue, I was really excited. And I loved it, for its delve into Punchline as a character as well as its incorporation of the dangers of media. There’s also a returning character, but as a comic newbie, I didn’t know her at all. The art was incredible and I really enjoyed redrawing some of the pictures because they were just that good. I like how cunning the character of Punchline is and I hope they’ll continue to develop her, because she could really turn out great.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Re-read
I’ve read Pride and Prejudice a few times already, but it never disappoints. It was a great comfort read when I was feeling bad. Jane Austen just writes the best romance books imo, and I absolutely love them all. When picking a favourite I’m torn between Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, so maybe I’ll be re-reading Northanger Abbey this year.
Crossroad (manga series) - Shioko Mizuki Re-read
Objectively speaking, this manga isn’t very good. It’s super soapy, with a lot of unethical relationships and yet, it always hits me so hard. The first time I read this, I ended up bawling my eyes out at the last volume. The second time as well. This time I managed to take breaks in between the volume and thus cried only a little. The character of Kajitsu is so very relatable to me, and this story just really really hits home for me. I don’t necessarily recommend it, but I love it and it has a special place in my heart.
Anyway, I decided to talk about my favourite books of 2020. And with that I mean the books I read in 2020, not books that were released in 2020. Despite everything, according to Goodreads I read 198 books. This includes a lot of comics, as I kinda got into Batgirl for a short period of time. Comics barely have any pages, so they don’t really count as books imo xD (I was super surprised that a comic issue has so few pages as well, I expected them to be like volumes of a manga, not like chapters.) I read 28.959 pages (also according to goodreads, so it’s a low estimate since not all books I read had their page number on their goodreads page). The longest book was Anna Karenina, as my version had 1.759 pages, and my shortest was a free novella called Grandpa goes missing, with 21 pages. On average my books had 149 pages, which is mainly because I read so many comics.
Anyway, on to my favourite books. They’re not going to be in any particular order, other than that I will put my re-reads last. And I’ll just give a disclaimer, I’m really bad at talking about things I really like, as my explanations tend to get worse when I get carried away.
Into the Drowning Deep - Mira Grant.
Into the drowning deep is a book about a group of mostly scientists, who go out to sea on a mission to find mermaids. This mission is funded by a tv-station and is mostly set up to be a mockumentary. They tried the same thing years earlier, but the ship and crew vanished. This time the crew is better prepared, as they have expert hunters on board as well.
The main characters are very diverse. Victoria lost her sister on the first message and is determined to find out what happened. She’s also bisexual and her ex boyfriend happens to be on the mission as well. We have an estranged husband and wife who kinda love each other and kinda don’t, but know each other very well and thus work well together. The husband is also disabled. We have an autistic lesbian reporter, Olivia, who was really cute and super relatable to me. We have hunters that are super obsessed with killing things, but they also really love each other. There are deaf twins, and their sister who can interpret/sign, as well as is a brilliant scientist of her own. The cast is very interesting and has a lot of morally grey characters (and some annoying ones as well). Not everyone is super developed, since the cast is pretty large, but they are all interesting in their own way. And then we have the mermaids. Half of the cast believes in them, and about half doesn’t, but since most are scientists everyone wants to be the one to find them. Well, the mermaids aren’t like in the fairy tales.
It’s a slow building thriller with a lot of environmental science woven into it. I wouldn’t recommend it if you really hated science, but if you are even a little interested in it, it’s certainly worth the read.
Blooming Black + Deadly Morsel - Juliann Whicker
The Rosewood Academy of Witches and Mages is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, and in 2020 I finally read the 4th and 5th (final) book. I love this series so much. I’ll be the first to admit that this series is kind of confusing. There’s a clearly thought-out world, but as a reader you dive in head first, and over the course of five books slowly learn more about everything. I really loved that. I liked how not everything was spelled out, and how the more I read the more my questions got answered. I liked how I sometimes got confused, but then figured it out as I read on. And I liked how unpredictable this book and its characters were. The series follows Penny Lane, a witch without powers. Because of her grandmother’s will she has to marry before she turns 18, or she will lose the house she and her mother live in. So she sets out to Rosewood Academy in order to find a husband. Preferably someone harmless. Which in this world is harder than it sounds. Witches and Mages are pretty horrible in general in this world. They treat humans horribly and don’t really like each other, because they can become dependent on each other. Penny of course falls in love with Drake Huntsman, the popular guy who is secretly really sweet (yeah, I know, it’s pretty cliche). This world is filled with toxic people and toxic relationships and their normal is very different from our normal (thankfully). It’s like how the monsters in Monster Prom are really monsters and their normal is very different and thus the game is fun. I feel like if you treat the characters as human they are awful, and very toxic, but in the world they are in they are some of the least toxic people around. Plus, them being so different from what we’re used to made it extra fun for me.
It’s a romance/fantasy with exceptional worldbuilding, but very confusing at times. It’s a self-published book series, and when I noticed a print mistake with my fifth book, I messaged the author on Facebook just to let her know, and she actually sent me a signed new copy.
The Kinder Poison - Natalie Mae
I thought I was over young adult fantasy. I really believed I grew out of it, but this book proved me wrong. In this world all people are born with powers. The stronger the power, the shorter they live. The weaker the power the less prestige they get. Our main character Zahru has a low-level power. She can talk to animals, which although super cool to me is deemed barely useful in their world.
The king has to choose an heir out of his three children and they decide on an age old trial, the three children have to race through the desert, face trials and the first person to bring the sacrifice to the finish, and sacrifice them is the next heir. All three children get to choose two teammates, and so all the strong youths are called to the capital.
Zahru’s best friend is invited to watch the ceremony. She isn’t. They devise a plan to use her mothers name, who had stronger magic, to at least be able to go to the capital and see everything.
Problem, her mother was really strong, and she gets chosen to be part of the group who will meet the heirs, and could become a part of their team. Well, things go downhill for her from there. She doesn’t talk to the heirs much, as she has no interest in becoming part of their team, and is more interested in the food. Of course she gets intertwined with the princes, and chaos ensues. First, she is chosen to be part of the eldest prince team, then once he finds out she has no power, he gives her the mark of the sacrifice.
Turns out that it’s not so much the gods choosing the sacrifice after all. We follow Zahru as she gets passed around the teams, and learn about all three heirs through her. They’re all very different and would all rule very differently from each other. They all want to win. The book doesn’t really show much favouritism to one or the other. And all the while Zahru knows that in the end, no matter how kind they are to her now, they will have to kill her. It was super interesting to follow all characters for about an equal amount of time, and the world building was great as well.
Nicholas St North and the battle of the Nightmare king + Sandman and the War of Nightmares - William Joyce
I don’t often read middle grade books, but I absolutely loved the Legend of the Guardians film, so I ended up buying the boxset of the original books. These are the first and fourth book, as those were my favourite (I’m still reading the fifth and last book, so I can’t say much about that).
Nicholas St. North’s book focuses of course on the titular character before he became Santa Claus. He is a bandit that comes across the village of Santof Claussen, created by a wise wizard. The village sounds incredible and is all about learning and being interested in things. On the Night Nicholas tries to raid the village, it is attacked by the nightmare king and instead of attacking the village, he turns to help the villagers. He ends up staying there, and together with the wizard and a little girl called Katherine they start looking for relics of the Golden Age, as instructed by the Man on the Moon. It’s a super fun adventure novel and it was filled with little tidbits of information I would have loved as a little girl. The second and third book (focussed on the Easter Bunny and the Toothfairy respectively) were really good as well, but the fourth, focussed on my favourite Sandman is probably my favourite so far. The story continues throughout these books, and the characters grow a lot, as they meet more people and their team of guardians gets bigger and bigger. If you liked the film, I’d definitely recommend it, although I feel like the Easter Bunny is very different from the film. The Toothfairy felt very different as well, she’s a lot more badass in the books. The art is also very distinctive and cool, so that’s a nice plus.
Batgirl Vol 5: Art of Crime - Mairghread Scott
So, 2020 was the year I got into comics, because I came across a youtube video about a newly introduced character Punchline, started reading some batman and from there realised I preferred the Batgirl and Nightwing comics. I read a lot of Batgirl last year, but this arc was by far my favourite. Barbara Gordon is such a strong character, but this arc in particular really spoke to me. Barbara has a chip in her spine so she can walk, and it gets destroyed by the joker in the beginning of this arc. It focuses on how she deals with her disability, how she pushes through pain, as well as how her father deals with it. It was super relatable, because of both the pain I was in last year, as well as have been in since High School. Barbara was so so relatable to me, and I either almost cried or actually cried reading it, it was very very good. With comics being weird and not completely continuous and having different artists and writers every few issues I think you’d be able to read this arc as a standalone, though some prior knowledge about the batman universe would certainly help.
These witches don’t burn - Isabel Sterling
I love books about witches. Hannah comes from a family of witches, and of course has to keep her magic secret from non-witches. Which gets harder when all kinds of dark magic starts appearing around her/ in her town. So of course she goes out to investigate. This was a very easy and fun read, and I really liked the relationships/ friendships in this book. It had a diverse cast that interacts well together, and was just a breeze to read. I also read the sequel, but that was very disappointing as it was predictable and suddenly all characters seemed to have gotten stupid, so there’s that.
The Tea Rose - Jennifer Donnely
This book is pretty long and super, super fun. Set in 1888 it follows Fiona, who lives in the bad part of London. Her family is poor, but her dream is to set up a tea shop with her boyfriend/fiance. They both save up diligently, but Joe, the boyfriend, gets promoted at work and gets more and more distracted. To make matters worse, Fiona’s father, who’s trying to arrange a union for the workers at his job dies in a work related “accident.”
When Fiona wants to hear why they didn’t get a payout, she overhears a talk with a mafia boss about how he was hired to get rid of her father, and when they find her, she has to flee. She flees to America, helped by kind stranger Nick Soames. This book read like a soap opera at times, and was a bit unbelievable in certain parts, but it has well-developed, interesting characters and a lot of history woven in (which is what I love about historical fiction). I love tea, so that might have helped as well. The friendship between Fiona and Nick was so incredible and super fun to read, it was waaay better than the romance in this book. The actual romance was strong at first as she was of course engaged, but they broke up before she even had to flee. The romance is very “destined to be together” and “they always loved each other despite everything” so that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really liked reading about Fiona setting up her tea business and overcoming the obstacles thrown her way. The villains were definitely a weak point of this story and their final actions as well as the reveal at the end made little sense, so that was a pity.
If I never met you - Mhairi McFarlane
I don’t often read contemporary romance, and I enjoy it even less, but this was like it was written for me. It had a lot of cliche tropes, but some of my favourites and they were done extremely well. It was a hate-to-love, pretending-to-be-a-couple kind of thing. The characters were interesting and well developed, the romance was slow-burn, and the characters actually got to know each other (through their fake dating) before getting into an actual relationship. The story starts when Laurie gets dumped by her fiance, who happens to work in the same lawfirm as she does. He’s incredibly douchey about it too, and Laurie has to find a way to get back at him/ show him she doesn’t care. In comes Jamie, resident playboy, who just so happens to need a steady girlfriend to show his boss he can be committed to something or whatever it is people think having a relationship/being married proves. They start fake dating, even though Laurie has only heard bad things about Jamie. He turns out to not be all that bad once she gets to know him, and as they learn more about each other they fall in love. It’s written really well and their banter was incredibly fun too. I instantly wanted to read more by this author which leads me to:
Don’t you forget about me Mhairi McFarlane
Very slow burn romance as well. Georgina gets fired from her crappy restaurant job and finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on the same night. Great. She takes the first job that comes her way, bartending in this new bar. Turns out one of the owners is her ex, who is really against her working there, even though it seems he doesn’t remember her. But by the time he finds out she works there, she’s already hired. She’s good at her job, and they stay away from each other as much as possible, but of course they get closer. This brings up some things from Georgina’s past and all in all it’s just another good romance, and reading these two books almost made me believe I actually liked contemporary romance. And then I read another one (by a different author) and absolutely hated it, so maybe not.
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
I did not expect to like this book. I had put this on my list after watching the ‘lost in adaptation’ episode about it on youtube, but by the time I got around to this, I couldn’t remember for the life of me why I decided I wanted to read this. I’m really glad I did, though, because this pleasantly surprised me. I have never seen the film, so I went into this almost completely blind.
This book describes the life of several members of an Italian mafia family in both America and partly in Italy. The male characters were well developed and interesting, though unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for the female characters (there were very few woman as well). There was quite a bit of misogyny and violence (as is expected in a book about the mafia, I guess). Most of the characters were unlikable, yet intriguing, and overall it was an action filled book that was super interesting and fun to read. It’s easy to see why so many of the things from this books are now seen as cliches, because they work.
Harleen - Stjepan Šejić
This comic is so good, I can’t get over it. Not only is the art superb, the story is incredible. Harleen is a psychological thriller that tells the origin story of Harley Quinn (a character I never imagined I would like). We meet Harleen Quinzel, a young psychologist determined to find out what makes people do bad things. She is sure there must be something, a trigger, that makes them snap, and if they could figure out how that worked, they could help these people heal. So she starts interviewing the patients in Arkham Asylum. Slowly the Joker manipulates her way into her heart, and as reader you kind of get it. At least I did. It’s weird to relate so much to a character completely losing her way. She starts out wanting to do good, she’s so sure she can change the world for the better, but the Joker gets into her head, and then into her heart. When there is a large outbreak from the Asylum she goes in to check on the Joker, and to protect him ends up shooting someone. Her breaking point. Her trigger. She snapped, and lost herself to the Joker. It such a well-thought out, insightful book, and it was so good I actually read it twice, first online, and then I got the hardcover version (which is huge, I didn’t expect that) for Christmas and I instantly re-read it. It was just as amazing on re-read and the art was even better in this big version. I definitely recommend the hard-cover version as it includes some extra art and insight in how Harleen came to life.
Call Down the Hawk - Maggie Stiefvater.
I was so afraid I wouldn’t like this book, even though it follows my favourite character from the Raven Cycle, Ronan. While I loved Ronan, with how complex his character is, the book focussing on him in the original cycle was my least favourite (and I was super disappointed in that). This book however did not disappoint at all. It is the start of a new trilogy and I honestly can’t wait for the other books. This book follows the Lynch brothers, several dreamers (I would explain but I don’t wanna spoil the Raven Cycle for anyone) and dreamer hunters. It’s a great continuation and tells us so much more about the world Maggie Stiefvater created. The beginning was a bit slow for me, but once things got started I was hooked. The next volume is released in May so maybe I’ll buy it for myself as birthday present :3
Punchline 2020 issue 1 - James Tynion
Punchline was the character that got me into DC comics in the first place, but she was mostly a side character in all the issues surrounding the joker war. I read all of those, and she was certainly one of my favourites (together with Batgirl, Nightwing and Harley Quinn). So when I heard about her getting a solo issue, I was really excited. And I loved it, for its delve into Punchline as a character as well as its incorporation of the dangers of media. There’s also a returning character, but as a comic newbie, I didn’t know her at all. The art was incredible and I really enjoyed redrawing some of the pictures because they were just that good. I like how cunning the character of Punchline is and I hope they’ll continue to develop her, because she could really turn out great.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Re-read
I’ve read Pride and Prejudice a few times already, but it never disappoints. It was a great comfort read when I was feeling bad. Jane Austen just writes the best romance books imo, and I absolutely love them all. When picking a favourite I’m torn between Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey, so maybe I’ll be re-reading Northanger Abbey this year.
Crossroad (manga series) - Shioko Mizuki Re-read
Objectively speaking, this manga isn’t very good. It’s super soapy, with a lot of unethical relationships and yet, it always hits me so hard. The first time I read this, I ended up bawling my eyes out at the last volume. The second time as well. This time I managed to take breaks in between the volume and thus cried only a little. The character of Kajitsu is so very relatable to me, and this story just really really hits home for me. I don’t necessarily recommend it, but I love it and it has a special place in my heart.