February Wrap-Up (2019)

In February I was happy to see that me letting this blog down for a while wasn’t for nothing because I passed on all my exams and got a good enough grade for the whole semester. I’m a bit less anxious about this next semester thanks to that but I’m not letting my guard down and will continue on putting uni first until the end! Which explains how I read so few books this month, but am still happy with what I managed to get to.

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First I read Thornhill, part graphic novel part novel, at night while home alone and I don’t know if this was a mistake or the best way to read it… I was super scared AND super sad, and ended up crying in my pillow. *thumbs up*
(trigger warning for bullying, death, fire, hanging imagery)

I buddy-read Shaman’s Crossing with a friend and fellow Hobb-fan but we discovered that we really only like her novels on the Realm of the Elderlings series because this one was a bit of a train wreck. The whole book was way too long and a pain to read, I know that with this book (and ultimately with the trilogy, I’m sure) Hobb tries to denounce a lot of stuff but the way it was done didn’t work for me at all.
(trigger warning for bullying, fatphobia, racism)

My sister bought Bloom, a beautiful graphic novel about a love story between a baker’s son who wants to be a musician and a young man who loves to cook. This was super cute most of the time despite the main character screwing things up often and being a bit messy but it added to his humanity. I loved the soft blue atmostphere of the book and all the pages about cooking were gorgeous.

After the book bingo meme on twitter and instagram where everyone put their favourite books, I realised most of my friends had peter Darling in theirs and I needed to get to it asap, since I had it on my kindle and it’s such a short read… I was not disappointed at all. This retelling is amazing and makes perfect sense. I was a bit anxious about the love story because of the age difference and while the relationship evolved well, this is the only thing that still feels weird to me, but the ending managed to win me over anyway.
(trigger warning for deadnaming, transphobia)

Fear Itself is the third tie-in novel for Star Trek Discovery, focusing on Saru. I have an obvious soft spot for non-humans characters and Saru is a favourite, especially after episode 4 of the second season. It was nice being in his head and seeing him gaining self-confidence. He is not the only point of view unfortunately, and as always with tie-in novels it’s hard to care about the stakes when you can guess everything turned out okay because of it being in the past. I might still read the one on Tilly next!

The Loneliest Girl on the Universe is a young adult novel about a teen girl being the only person left alive on a ship set to discover a new planet. She’s lonely, she’s writing fanfiction for her favourite show and is dreaming of Earth. Up until the point where this started to feel like a horror novel and I just couldn’t sleep and HAD TO keep reading to know what would happen and what was going on. I was really surprised in a good way there and while I skipped the fanfiction parts, I’m very impressed with this novel and the way it kept me engaged.

A Tyranny of Queens was another buddy-read with a friend and unfortunately I didn’t love it as much as I did the first. I was constantly waiting for the story to *start for real*, for the characters to finally be together again and for the boring political stuff to stop. Despite all that, I still loved the way it continues to be a diverse, caring and inclusive world. I loved seeing Saffron change and I liked the worldbuilding of this portal fantasy a lot, even though it sometimes felt like the whole book’s point was to explain this worldbuilding.
(trigger warning for suicide)

I got an eARC of Miranda in Milan from the publisher a while back and only remembered to read it two days before it expired… *oops*. So my plan on reading Shakespeare’s The Tempest before had to be changed and I’ll try to read it in March instead to better appreciate the way this novella used the characters and the backstory! It was a nice f/f story and the setting of the castle was really cool.

Finally some Captain Marvel comics being published in France! I loved Captain Marvel: Et Nous Serons des Etoiles, from time travel, to the origins of Carol’s powers and to lots of great supporting characters, I can see myself re-reading this one lots of times in the future. Even with some of the art styles being a bit weird to me, her character shines so well that this was fast forgotten. La Vie de Captain Marvel revisits the way she got her powers and had a lot of flashbacks of her and her mother’s past (I love the art of Marguerite Sauvage!), it was more of an intimate story with few action scenes.

Last month I read a lot on the Marvel Unlimited application, but this month I got the Shonen Jump one so I started to read My Hero Academia! I had the first volume already but had to re-read anyway so I could compare the quality of the scans, and to get used to the english vocabulary. I’m excited to catch up with everything! Deku is the cutest ❤

AND I read Notre-Dame de Paris for my french lit class. I’ve always wanted to read it so it was great to finally be obligated to do so. It was a long, long book, and way sadder than I expected. I’m glad I’m studying it because I would never have understood all the nuances of this book and its context had I read it on my own!
(trigger warning for sexual assault, torture, and even though my professor keep telling us Quasimodo isn’t really a disabled person, I’d still like to warn any disable person that reading this book might hurt them)

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Thornhill, by Pam Smy

Shaman’s Crossing (Soldier Son #1), by Robin Hobb

Bloom, by Kevin Panetta, Savanna Ganucheau

Peter Darling, by Austin Chant

Fear Itself (Star Trek: Discovery #3), by James Swallow

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe, by Lauren James

A Tyranny of Queens (Manifold Worlds #2), by Foz Meadows

Miranda in Milan, by Katharine Duckett

Captain Marvel T01 : Et nous serons des étoiles (Captain Marvel (2012) (Collected Editions) #1-2, issues #1-12), by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Dexter Soy, Emma Ríos

La vie de Captain Marvel (The Life of Captain Marvel #1-5), by Margaret Stohl, Carlos Pacheco, Marguerite Sauvage

My Hero Academia, Vol. 1 (My Hero Academia chapter #1-7), by Kohei Horikoshi

Notre-Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo