Books Are Jazzy: 2019

As a little over a month of the new year has passed and all of us have gotten started with our reading goals for 2020, I wanted to take a moment to look back and highlight some of my favorite books that I read in 2019, while everyone is still setting up their TBRs for the new year. As always, these books are presented in no particular order. I hope you all enjoy!

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

This new trilogy by powerhouses Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff is perfect for fans of their previous science fiction trilogy, The Illuminae Cycle. Personally, I was so moved by this new story that I felt the need to chase the familiarity of their first series written together. One of my favorite aspects about this book was that one of the main characters, Finian, gave us readers both bisexual and disability representation. I am extremely excited to get my hands on the second book of the trilogy, Aurora Burning, which will be released in May.

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim

This novel reignited my passion for food and inspired me to find the magical in the every day. I truly do believe that food and cooking for the people we care about is a form of everyday magic and throughout this novel, the main character Natalie learns that as well. Lim's sophomore novel, Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop, coming out in August, should explore similar themes.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

This contemporary romance novel was one of the most feel good-esque of the books I read in 2019, as well as a genuinely lovely balm against the vitriol of the current political climate. I already talked about this book during my post for Pride Month. I absolutely loved how Red, White & Royal Blue took all the worst parts of American and British politics currently and changed them into hopeful situations. There is an adaptation in the works that I'm extremely excited for.

Crier's War by Nina Varela

Crier's War was one of my most anticipated books of 2019, which I had also talked about in my Pride Month post, and I am so glad that I enjoyed it enough to have it make its way to my favorite books of the year. The novel is about two girls, two enemies from different castes, who are thrust together and begin to wonder if their place in their world is as clear-cut as they had previously believed. The second and final book in this duology, Iron Heart, is coming out in September and it has once again made its way to the top of my most anticipated books of the year.

The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh

The Beautiful marks the re-emergence of vampires in young adult, and I for one could not be any more excited to see it happen! This is a glorious historical romance set in New Orleans in 1872, in which the city is ruled by La Cour des Lions and it seems as if a new supernatural creature can be found on every street corner. The second book in the duology, The Damned, is set to come out in June.

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin

I was debating for the longest time whether to actually include Foul is Fair in my list of favorite books of 2019, as I read it as an advance copy and it only came out in February of this year. However, as you can all see, I finally decided to include it because it was one of the most influential books I read in 2019. Foul is Fair is an extremely timely Macbeth retelling set in a post #MeToo era, told from the point-of-view of the Lady Macbeth character. I don't want to say too much to spoil the book, but I highly, highly recommend everyone picks this up now that it's on sale.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Oryx and Crake was one of the books I read for my courses this fall, and was my first book by Margaret Atwood. This novel was extremely disgusting in its unflinching portrayal of the dystopian future, but at the same it was incredibly thought-provoking. Oryx and Crake shows a look at a possible future awaiting us if we continue becoming more and more and dependent on the corporations that are already omni-present in our lives. Despite being conflicted about this novel, I want an adaptation of Oryx and Crake as soon as possible.

The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White

The Guinevere Deception was also one of my most anticipated books of 2019, and like Crier's War made my end of the year favorites as well. The Guinevere Deception is another retelling, this time of the Arthurian legends. I was initially drawn to the stunning cover, but as I heard more about the plot, I became more excited for the novel. So far there seems to be a potential for Guinevere to be queer, which I hope will be explored in the subsequent books of the trilogy.

Educated by Tara Westover

Educated is the only non-fiction book I've included on this list, and it is a memoir of a young girl being brought up by an extremely religious father, who believes Armageddon is coming. Thematically, Educated fit well as a counterpoint for all the fictional dystopias I was reading for my course. I was recommended Educated by a member of my extended family, and I am so glad I moved it up on my tbr list.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches was one of the last books I read in 2019, and I became immediately obsessed with it. The novel is the first in a trilogy of dark academia books set at Oxford University as the supernatural world rocks on its foundations as a long-lost manuscript reappears. It also features more vampires, which you should know by now that I love.

What were your favorite books from 2019? Do you have any of these books already in your tbr? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura

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Ophiuchus by Alexis Leriger de la Plante and Natasha Tara Petrovic was one of the books I read for ARC August. It's a graphic novel that is released today, August 27th, and I know I'll have to pick up a physical copy of this sooner rather than later!

The eponymous main character, Ophiuchus's life gets thrown off track when someone breaks through the gate that she has been guarding for ages, followed almost immediately by two robots who rope her into joining their quest to defeat an evil virus.

While the stakes of Ophiuchus are life and death, I really liked that the story was mainly focused on the emotional connections between the three main characters. My favorite aspect of Ophiuchus was the art style and how color was used to tell the story!

I can't wait to see more from these authors in the future, hopefully in a similar art style!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

What are your favorite graphic novels? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura

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If you don't follow us on our instagram account, you probably missed that I went to New York City for BookCon for the first weekend of June! It was my first time attending a book convention in the U.S. but was by no means my first bookish convention ever, and I have to say... I was not at all prepared for it. If you've been following us for a while, you'll remember that me and Anna used to attend the Helsinki Book Fair, and I went to Worldcon in Helsinki. Those were my previous experiences at conventions and what I expected to find in New York as well.

Instead of being able to walk from panel to panel, or signing to signing, or even booth to booth, at BookCon I needed to line up at least an hour in advance for everything. I quickly realized that the packed schedule I had made for myself - sometimes even hoping to go to multiple signings during an hour-long time slot - had to be cut down by a lot.

I had also hoped to be able to go to ARC drops, but those were also behind long lines that my schedule just didn't accommodate for. Even when surprise drops were announced on Twitter, the books or items were gone within minutes. I did manage to grab one ARC during the convention, but I received it as a gift after buying another book from the booth. I received an advance copy of The Magicians: Alice's Story by Lilah Sturges, a graphic novel showing the events of the first Magicians book from the point-of-view of Alice. This was one of my most anticipated books of 2019 and I honestly started crying and had to walk away from the booth when I was given a copy!

Despite my lack of preparedness, I still had a super fun time at BookCon, plus now I know how to prioritize my schedule better if I go next year as well! Next time, I think I'll skip ticketed signings and try to focus more on in-booth events (and maybe try to get a ticket to BookExpo, which has less of a crowd and more ARC drops from what I've heard).

Even though it was only my first year at BookCon, I was lucky enough to score tickets to some exclusive events happening during the convention. Firstly, I won a raffle to attend "Snacks and Superheroes with Marissa Meyer". This was an event hosted by Macmillan on the show floor, but it was ticketed and the only way to get a ticket was through the raffle. Snacks and Superheroes with Marissa Meyer was held on the second day of BookCon and focused on her new-ish book series Renegades (hence the Superheroes) with the last book, Supernova, being released in November! We received a ton of swag and I was able to purchase a few of her books that I was still missing. We also got to chat with Marissa for longer than in a regular signing, and got to take pictures with her, as well as some group pictures!

The second exclusive event that I was invited to was an ice cream social hosted by Penguin Random House! This was on the first day of the convention and was hosted off the show floor but still inside the Javits Center. The ice cream social was hosted for bookstagrammers and was by invitation only. We got to meet marketing teams from Penguin Random House's various imprints and chatted about upcoming summer 2019 releases! I really liked this event since it allowed us to form connections with other people who love blogging about books, as well as some working in the publishing industry as well!

Overall, I loved having the chance to step off the show floor on both days of the convention, to calm down and collect myself in a semi-private area, as well as getting the chance to eat something. If you have the chance to attend anything similar during BookCon I highly recommend it!

This year I grabbed signing line tickets to as many authors as I could, and like I already said, I don't think I'll do that again in future years. While I did love getting my books signed, most of the signings had a purchase requirement and didn't give me as much time with the authors as I would have liked. However, I was super excited to meet the authors that I did even if I didn't get much time with them. On Saturday, I had tickets to the signings for Evangeline Lilly, the author of The Squickerwonkers novels as well as an actor known for her roles as The Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Tauriel in The Hobbit movies, and Cassandra Clare, the author of The Shadowhunters novels. On Sunday, I had signing tickets for N.K. Jemisin, the Hugo-award winning author of The Broken Earth trilogy, and Victoria Aveyard, the author of the Red Queen series.

Quite possibly the highlight of my BookCon experience was meeting V.E. Schwab in an in-booth signing line where she was signing posters promoting her upcoming novel Tunnel of Bones. She was also kind enough to sign books for anyone who had any with them, and even signed a sticker for me that I could place in one of my books at home! Schwab is one of my current favorite authors and I cannot wait for Tunnel of Bones to come out!

All in all, I really enjoyed the opportunity to go to BookCon and getting to see what it was like with my own eyes! I know have a much clearer understanding of what conventions (both bookish and not) are going to be like in the U.S. so I won't go in with too high expectations again.

Have you been to any bookish convention or to BookCon itself? What were your experiences?

-Laura

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Back in late March, I found out about the Magical Readathon hosted by Book Roast on Youtube! As a lifelong Harry Potter fan, I jumped at the opportunity to pretend to be a Hogwarts student for a month. This is the second year of the readathon and my first year taking part in it!

The Magical Readathon is based around the exams students take at Hogwarts and is hosted in two parts: the first part, which are the O.W.LS, takes place in April and the second part, the N.E.W.Ts, takes place in August. And just like Hogwarts students taking their exams, you're meant to do the O.W.Ls readathon before you take the N.E.W.Ts.

There is a list of careers to choose from and your readathon experience and challenges come from your chosen career. My chosen career for 2019 is Seer - maybe next year I'll have enough time to attempt the daunting Alchemist career, which would have been my first choice. In order to become a Seer, I needed to take three O.W.L. exams (read three books), which were for the subjects Ancient Runes, Astronomy, and Divination and each subject corresponded to a different prompt. For Ancient Runes the prompt was to read a retelling, for Astronomy it was to read a book with "star" in the title, and for Divination it was a book set in the future. The books I read for these prompts were Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer, Ctaching Stars by Cayla Keenan, and The Towering Sky by Katharine McGee, respectively.

Isn't this description of the career stunning?

While for the O.W.Ls, I only needed to read one book per subject, for the N.E.W.Ts the number of books you need to read per subject is determined by the grade you need to achieve in that subject for your career. So, for the career of Seer, I need to achieve an Outstanding so I'll need to read all three books for that subject.

If all of this sounds confusing, you can find all the information for the O.W.Ls readathon here and the info for N.E.W.Ts readathon here!

After all of that, here are the prompts for my subject followed by the book I have planned to read for that prompt for the N.E.W.Ts readathon:

Acceptable in Divination: Read a white book

Runousopin perusteet by Mervi Kantokorpi, Pirjo Lyytikäinen, and Auli Viikari

Exceeds Expectations in Divination: Read a short story or a collection of short stories

Toil and Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe

Outstanding in Divination: Read the last book you bought / took from the library

At the time of making my TBR this was The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen, and I'll try to keep to that unless I grab something I absolutely have to read as soon as I get it.

Finally, if I have time I'll try to read the group book Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell!

Are you taking part in the Magical Readathon? If you were a student at Hogwarts, what magical career would you want? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura

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Thank you Edelweiss+ and White Lion Publishing for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed herein are my own and not influenced by the company or its affiliates in any way.

Urban Aviary: A Modern Guide to City Birds by Stephen Moss was one of the first non-fiction books that I read for fun in a good while. I received a free ARC of the book through Edelweiss+ and it was the first book I read for ARC August! Urban Aviary was published by White Lion Publishing on August 6th.

As it's name suggests, Urban Aviary describes various birds that live in urban settings. Combined with the description of the bird species at hand, including information regarding their size and wingspan as well as how local human residents have reacted to sharing their space with these birds, was a beautiful water color illustration of the bird. The illustrations were done by Marc Martin and were my favorite part of the book in the sense that having the birds shown in water color illustrations rather than through photography was a fun surprise for me, and thus sets Urban Aviary apart from other books about birds that I've read in the past.

Stephen Moss is one of Britain's most well-known nature writers and has previously published a variety of books about birds and birding. Marc Martin is an Australian illustrator whose work has been featured in GQ and Wired, among other publications.

Overall, Urban Aviary was a fun palette cleanser while still teaching me a boatload of interesting facts, for example that the name for Alcatraz island came from the Old Spanish word meaning "pelican"! It also opened up my eyes to a different way of looking at my environment when I'm in an urban setting.

Rating:⭐⭐⭐

Have you ever read any books about birds? Do you pay attention to the birds that live alongside us in our cities? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura

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ARC August is an annual readathon hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat., with the aim of helping book reviewers get through their piles and piles of unread ARC's (Advance Reader's Copies) during the month of August. This is the 6th year of the readathon, but the first time I'm taking part in it! You can read Read.Sleep.Repeat.'s original announcement for it here!

This year they have created a host of challenges to take part in during the readathon, including a word search, a crossword puzzle, and a bingo! Personally, I'm most looking forward to hopefully filling out the Bingo card as I read through some ARC's. Check out the empty card below!

I'll be posting pictures of the card on our instagram stories as I fill it out, and you can follow along here!

When I started making my TBR, I knew it would end up being way longer than what I'll actually have time to read, but I wanted to really challenge myself and see how many of these books I could read through during my last two weeks of vacation before I head back to college. And now, without further ado, my TBR list for #ARCAugust!

Are any of you taking part in #ARCAugust or any other readathons this month? Let me know in the comments below!

-Laura

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