Top 10 Tuesday – Books I’ve Read That I’d Like In My Personal Library

Hey booknerds! I’m taking part in another week of Top Ten Tuesday!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. You can find more information here

I use my library a lot, it has been so helpful in fuelling my reading obsession when I can’t always buy the book. My local library has a really great selection of books both physical and ebooks and audiobooks. I love using the library but it does leave me wanting to own books I’ve borrowed that I’ve loved. I’ve also been lucky enough to get a couple of these as ARCs but I haven’t been able to actually buy a finished copy.

So here is the books I would love to own:

1 Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates
2 No Big Deal by Bethany Rutter
3 Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly
4 Nine From the Nine Worlds by Rick Riordan
5 Ayesha Dean The Seville Secret by Melati Lum
6 The Disasters by M.K. England
7 Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eldo-Lodge
8 Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
9 The Diminshed by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson
10 Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed

If you haven’t read these I highly recommend them all! And hopefully I can buy them soon toad to my library!

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly – ARC Review

Thank you to Hot Key Books and Netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved this book! I’m not a fan of Cinderella but the synopsis intrigued me and I’m glad that I read this because it was so great!

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Isabelle should be blissfully happy – she’s about to win the handsome prince. Except Isabelle isn’t the beautiful girl who lost the glass slipper and captured the prince’s heart. She’s the ugly stepsister who’s cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella’s shoe … which is now filling with blood.

When the prince discovers Isabelle’s deception, she is turned away in shame. It’s no more than she deserves: she is a plain girl in a world that values beauty; a feisty girl in a world that wants her to be pliant.

Isabelle has tried to fit in. To live up to her mother’s expectations. To be like her stepsister. To be sweet. To be pretty. One by one, she has cut away pieces of herself in order to survive a world that doesn’t appreciate a girl like her. And that has made her mean, jealous, and hollow.

Until she gets a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl.

I really enjoy retellings even when I’m not a fan of the original fairytale and this was no exception. This story made me root for the “ugly” sister, it made me feel for her and hope for a happy ending for her. I think that shows how much I enjoyed it, especially as she is a villain in the original story, tormenting Cinderella.

This book deals with female empowerment and how women should empower other women and not tear them down. How women can be more than what society tells us. They put us in boxes and expect us to stay there. You can only be that one thing that they designate to you and we have to cut away parts of ourselves to fit societies expectations. But this story is about breaking out of these boxes and tearing them down. It’s about being true to yourself and being more than what society tells us to be. And that is what makes us so powerful.

I really liked how fate and chance were personified and how each of them tempted Isabelle to make a choice that could lead her in a completely different direction. Fate told her to play it safe, that change isn’t possible, she made her doubt her own ability. Chance told her to take a stand, to be brave and take that step to take hold of her life and lead it in a different direction, to be who she knows she can be. It made her story feel very real, we all deal with these in our own ways, all the time.

I also loved how the fairy queen came to her just like she did for Ella but Isabelle has to find herself before she can actually realise what her hearts true desire is. At the beginning she thinks it is to be pretty, because everyone tells her she is ugly and therefore won’t amount to anything in life. But her journey of self discovery leads her to who she truly wants to be. It was a hard journey full of self doubt and her having to really look beyond what she was told to be and to truly be who she wanted to be.

Tavi was the other sister and I loved her as much as Isabelle, she’s really smart and doesn’t understand why she has to give up her dream of studying to become a suitable wife. I related to her so much! Why girls have to be the ones to sacrifice an education, that they can’t be too smart, because it will hurt the male ego. It’s something we see throughout the book, Tavi is told that she won’t be able to work out the answers by men, that when she corrects the men they feel insulted.

Even Ella, when we meet her, becomes more than just a pretty girl. And I really loved how the author showed the depth and complexity of each of the girls and how they might not be what we all assume them to be.

Honestly this book is filled with themes that I am so passionate about so it left me with a whirlwind of emotions. I felt angry and sad and hopeful and everything else in between. I highly recommend everyone read this book!

April 2019 Monthly Wrap Up

Hey booknerds! April has been a month, I have been so busy over the Easter holidays with my family coming over and then I went to my parents for the week so I actually didn’t read as much as I had planned. I’ve also been feeling a little slumpy although I’m not sure if that is because I ended up reading several books this month that I didn’t enjoy.

I had planned on taking part in #ARCApril and #MagicalReadathon and I actually managed to get through several arcs but I didn’t finish all the prompts for the magical readathon unfortunately. Hopefully will finish them this month!

Anyways here are the books I read this month:

1 Obsidio by Jay Kristoff – I have been putting off reading this book for so long but I finally read it and it did not disappoint!

2 The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty – why yes I did reread this book and yes it did in fact destroy me, again. You can read my review here

3 Emiliy Eternal by M.G. Wheaton – my first disappointing read this month. I really wanted to like it but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me

4 The Rise of Winter by Alex Lyttle – a middle grade book which I really enjoyed reading! You can read my review here

5 The Extinction Trials Rebel by S.M. Wilson – I absolutely adore this trilogy! The last book was so good and I really hope we get to see more in this world

6 The Kingdom by Jess Rothernberg – ahh I really wanted to love this book but I just didn’t. I’m so disappointed.

7 My So Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma – a Bollywood style romance and I am so here for it! I loved this book!

8 Nocturna by Maya Motayne – I really enjoyed this book and the whole magic system and I love Finn! Can’t wait to continue the series

9 The Gentlemen’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Lee Mackenzi – another book I was disappointed with. I had heard such amazing things and it just didn’t live up to expectations for me.

So these are the books I read this month. I haven’t had the greatest reading month but I’m hoping May will be much better! I didn’t quite manage to finish Nevernight or my reread of Six of Crows either.

I also reviewed these books on my blog in April:

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer – a favourite childhood book that I reread and I still completely love!

Ayesha Dean – The Seville Secret by Melati Lum – I love this series and it’s so amazing to see the main character be unapologetically Muslim!

I also wrote about attending an evening class by Yasmin Mogahed. You can read about it here

What books did you read in April? What do you plan on reading in May?