2021 Yearly Wrapup

2021 YEARLY WRAPUP
Note: All mini reviews are spoiler free! 

Is it bad that I always have more books that I absolutely detested each year than books that I absolutely loved?!
Oh whale 🐳  

Top 6 Least Favorite Books of the Year:

1. The Betrothed: (⅕ stars): Read detailed review here. What even was this book? No plot, the characters are all either brain dead or infuriating (or sometimes both), and the romance was insta love 🤠 . Literally hated every second of reading this. 
2. After (⅕ stars): Ok this was my fault for even attempting to read this 😂  I knew I would hate this book even before I started it, yet I still read it start to finish. 🤷🏻‍♀️  Anyways Hardin’s mood swings were hilarious 💀  he literally would tell Tessa to do something and then 0.2 seconds later he would get mad at her for doing it. And what did Tessa even see in this Hardin dude? 💀  
3. A Curse so Dark and Lonely (2/5 stars): Read detailed review here. I never did attempt any of the other books in this series ever since I finished the first one in the series. That should say enough about how much I liked it. My biggest problems with it was probably the bland characters. Rhen kidnapped girls yet the author expected readers to sympathize with him instead. Harper was “not like other girls”. She was special, because she was the first girl Rhen kidnapped who was not happy to be abducted. Yah apparently all the other kidnapped girls were happy to be kidnapped. I wonder why 😐 Being abducted is horrible but being abducted by dull Rhen, whose personality would bore you to death, is even worse.
4. Dragon Fury (⅖ stars): Read detailed review here. This was the final book in the spinoff to my favorite series. Overall, the spinoff series sucked. The writing was dumbed down as if the readers were five year olds, the characters acted like five year olds, and the villain was an idiot who kept falling for easy traps set by said five year old. It was just bad.
5. Aurora Rising (⅗ stars): Read detailed review here. My main problem was Kal. He was so pushy and forceful towards Aurora! He practically forced her to like him back just because he proclaimed them to be “mates”. I immediately went 🤢  Mating bond tropes just are NOT my thing. Then Aurora literally asks for some space from Kal but nooooo he keeps disrespecting her boundaries and calling her “beshmai” (which means soulmate). The second reason why this book was clearly not a favorite, is because I had no idea what was going on in certain parts of the book 😅  it was a pretty confusing read at times.
6. It Ends With Us (⅗ stars): (Separate detailed review coming up soon) Ok the second half of this book was good ngl. It had a really good message and the character emotions were written well. But the first half… it was wattpad writing at best. The two characters meet one night on a balcony and immediately start revealing their deepest darkest secrets as if they didn’t just meet for the first time 2 second ago. Plus the main ick I got is from the romanization of unconsented touching from the guy in the first half. I’ll explain more in detail and give examples when I write a separate review for this book! (I’ll probably release it sometime in February). 

Top 2 Favorite Reads:
There were only 2 series that I truly loved this year. I gave 5 star ratings to only 3 books in 2021 and all three of them are from these two trilogies:

1. Renegades trilogy by Marissa Meyer (5/5): 

• First book: 5 stars
• Second book: 5 stars (my favorite of the trilogy)
• Third book: 4.5/5 stars

PLEASE read this book. Everything about is just *chef’s kiss* 👌 . The two things I value most about a book is its intricate and addicting plots and how connected I feel to the characters. This series has both! The characters are so easy to connect with! Nova and Adrien immediately became one of my favorite book characters of all time right after I read Renegades. And the PLOT!!! This book is more middle grade than YA to me which is amazing, because in my opinion, middle grade book’s plots>>>>>> YA books plots. I feel like nowadays YA books have their plot overshadowed by unnecessary forced romance while middle grade books have the perfect balance between plot pacing and a hint of romance. I appreciated that a lot when I read Renegades! 
Plus, this book is basically Miraculous Ladybug (but better because MLB in recent seasons has went sooooo downhill. Which makes me sad since I’ve been a huge fan of the show since 2017 and now the show treats Chat as a sidekick most of the time, the romance is even more cringy than it used to be, I’ve somehow grown a huge dislike towards Marinette and Ladybug, etc. Ok whoa I just went on a huge miraculous ladybug tangent. Back to Renegades 👉 ). If you’re a fan of Miraculous, you’ll LOVE the Renegades trilogy because it also has a love square and superhero romance! Plus the main boy character’s name is Adrian (only difference is that its spelled differently but close enough), so what else are you waiting for?! GO READ IT.


2. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (5/5): 

• First book: 5 stars
• Second book: 4/5 stars
• Third book: 4.5/5 stars

(Detailed review on this series coming soon). Hands down the best mystery series I’ve ever read (hehe besides Boxcar Children but that’s because it was my childhood favorite and brings a lot of nostalgia 😁 ). Anyways the best part about AGGGTM is that it’s not predictable at ALL (except the last book 😒 ). There have been countless YA mysteries in which the culprit is SO obvious. And that’s boringgggg. It’s much more fun when you’re kept on your toes and have no idea who the villain is. Second reason why AGGGTM is superior to all other mystery books: it doesn’t have random high school drama mixed into it. For some reason, YA mystery authors just LOVE adding worthless highschool drama and forced romances into their books that ruins the pacing of the mystery and is so cringy that I want to throw the book at a wall (I’m looking at you Karen McManus 🤨 ). But this series does not convolute its plot by throwing in meaningless scenes. Every single chapter has something to offer. It ultimately makes the reader unable to put down the book. (Yes I stayed up until 12:00-which is very late for me- on a school night reading the first book 🤪  ). 
Also Pip is literally an icon. If she could donate some of her highly intelligent brain cells to me, that would be great 😩  🤲  . She’s SO smart and I love that. And RAVIIII!!! He’s AMAZING! 
Note: I'll be releasing a detailed review for this trilogy on Feb 27th so stayed tuned for that!


Favorite Characters of the Year:

1. Adrian Everhart
2. Nova Artino
3. Ravi Singh
4. Pippa Fitz Amobi 

Favorite Rereads:

1. The Hunger Games (obviously!): Read a detailed review here. This series will forever have a chokehold on me. Literally there are no words to describe how much I LOVE this series. 
2. The Selection: Read a detailed review here. YES I know this series is “cringy” but I DON’T CARE 😤 . It’s my comfort read hehe.
3. Legend series: Ngl I was disappointed by my reread of this. It had been about 4 years since I had last read it and the series just didn’t hit the same anymore 😕 . Would still give it ⅘ stars for nostalgic purposes.
   ​
   

Overall, 2021 was a pretty good reading year! While I only read 44 out of my yearly goal of 60 books, I’m still proud of myself for managing to read that much! :)

Read Spoiler Free Review for A Curse So Dark and Lonely

Read Spoiler Free Review for Aurora Rising