2015: A year of books

Hi guys!

2015 is coming to an end, and this means it is time to think about everything that happened this year and, more importantly, every book I read this year. Some were good, some were... less good, but all things considered this was a pretty nice reading year! According my Goodreads challenge I completed a grand total of 66 books, which means I completed my goal of 60 books! (And I'm still reading four books at the moment!)
Now, on to the interesting part, the (super official) Reading ever after-book awards 2015! 
The rules are simple; I picked my favourite books and characters, from books I've read this year, in 15 different categories, but; no book or character can win more than once (otherwise two books would probably make up the entire list).

These are this years winners, in the category...

1. Best book of the year... Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo! My-oh-my how I love this book! This book was just wonderful! Full of suprising plot twists, great characters and an amazing plot! (Also, great writing! Yeah!) This book might actually be not just my favourite book of the year, but maybe also my all time favourite book!

2. Best young adult fantasy...The Throne of glass -series by Sarah J. Maas! (I couldn't just pick one of them!) I read all four books this year, after hearing everyone hype about them, and I'm glad I did! The story starts of being a kind of fun lil' story, but becomes a great epic fantasy later on.
3. Best adult fantasy... The night circus by Erin Morgenstern! This book is lush and magical and absolutely beautiful! I just loved every single page of it! Everything when described in brilliant detail and the story was really captivating.
4. Best novella or short story... Fairest by Marissa Meyer. Normally I'm not really keen on novella's, because they generally don't actually add anything to the story, but Fairest wasn't like that at all. While this book isn't essential to read to understand the main storyline, I do recommend reading it! Usually villians become less strong, as characters, or less creepy when you find out more about them, but Levana is so beautifully wicked and terrifyingly twisted. Yes, I do understand her motives better now, but am I less scared? No. She became even creepier, and I love it!
5. Best young adult contemporary... To all the boys I've loved before by Jenny Han, such an amazing and cute novel! I usually don't read a lot of contemporary, but after reading Jenny's story in My true love gave to me, I was sure I'd to give this book a chance.
6. Best middle grade novel... The sword of summer (Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard, #1) by Rick Riordan! I just love Rick's books and this one was just amazing! Loved his take on the Norse mythology and definitely looking forward to the next Magnus Chase-book.
7. Best book read I had to read for school... Gone girl by Gillian Flynn! This book was just so fascinating. It was incredibly twisted and the characters were definitely complicated (the understatement of the century!)
8. Favourite LGBTQ+ novel... With all the amazing developments this year in the LGBTQ+-community I had to include this category! The winner is... Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
9.  Favourite retelling... Cress by Marissa Meyer! The Lunar Chronicles are beautifully crafted retelling, with both well-known as well as more obscure references to the original fairytales, and Cress really stood out to me.
10. Favourite female lead... Celeana Sardothien! I never expected to like this fierce assassin as much as I do now! Celeana is sassy, strong, brave, a little arrogant (or maybe a bit more than a little...) and absolutely fabulous. I've been getting sick of seeing female protagonists become more and more stereotypically masculine, especially the more kick-ass ones, but Celeana isn't like that. She loves dresses and glitter and all things shiny and expensive, while she also is ready to kill anyone who dares touching her or her loved ones!
11. Favourite male lead... Harry Potter! The last time I read the Harry Potter-books, I was nine and just rushing through them, not caring that much about anything but the accomplishment of reading such massive books. This year, eight years later, I finally re-read the series and I've come to realize just why everyone loves it.
12. Favourite couple... Anna and Etienne! These two idiots just stole my heart! They are absolutely adorable!
13. Favourite sidekick... She would hate being called a sidekick, but I just want to mention her somewhere; Samirah al-Abbas! You want a kick-ass muslim valkyrie? Who also is fierce as hell and fights for what she believes in, even when that means losing her powers? And who defends her religion and is not portrayed as a oppressed muslim-woman? Sign me up! Samirah has all of these things, and more! (a magical scarf, lots of sass and an adorable personality!)
14. Favourite non-human character... Grimalkin in the Iron Fey and The Call of the Forgotten-series! Grimalkin acts just like you'd expect a talking cat to act; sassy, snarky and sarcastic. Still he is very lovable and even though he wouldn't like it, I'd like to have him as a pet!
15. Favourite cover... The dream thieves by Maggie Stiefvater! I just love the design of this cover. It's elegant, enchanting and I just adore the colourscheme! (I'm a sucker for nice colourschemes!) The cover also matches the content of the story, which strangely enough seems to be really scarce.

You can see exactly which books I read this year, right here!


I'd like to wish all of you a happy, healthy and bookish 2016!

Lots of love,
Sabine

Uniqueness

"A bookshelf is a particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot." - Alan Bennett

This weekend I came across this beautiful quote by Alan Bennett and I've not been able to forget about it ever since. The quote truly got me thinking about how unique our homelibrary can be, whether it is big or small, organised or messy, only filled with books or with a dozen other trinkets as well. To me, my bookshelf used to simply be a place to store my books, but I've come to take a different look at it.
Everything about my bookshelf is unique. Someone can create a similair design and place the same books in the same place, but it still would be different. The way I organise my shelves might be extremely logical and aesthetically pleasing to me while someone else may think of it as an illogical mess. The uniqueness of my shelf, obviously, isn´t due to the fact that I collected different books than someone else, nor is it the placement of my books and all the objects around it, it´s due to smaller things.


I have collected a few small Marvel-heroes and placed these on my shelf. I've also got a bunch of stickers and postcards laying around. And I've got YA-buttons to decorate my shelfs. Even the small layer of dust that seems to immediately form after I've cleaned up, makes my shelf unique.

The other way in which my shelves differ from other peoples shelves, is the way my books look and lay. My books are all slightly scratched or dented. The books I've read sometimes have bend pages and broken spines, the books I haven't read have small scratches on the cover. No book is in perfect condition, but they are all still perfect. Take my copy of New moon (by
Stephenie Meyer) for example, the back is broken beyond repair, the cover is partially ripped of and I'm pretty sure a friend of mine used it to put her cup of coffee down on. Obviously I minded the damage done to it when it had just happened, but right now I feel like it gives the book a character. Most books are printed the same, but their journey afterwards is unique. In a way, our bookshelfs represent us. When we write in a book, our handwriting and notes differ the book from the rest, when we carry our book with us, the damage represents its journey. The state a book is  in tells as story sometimes far more interesting than the words printed inside it. The shelf it is placed on tells a story about who we are and who we want to be. The casual way in which we organise our books, is what makes it personal. No one is watched and you do what you want to do. And I think it's beautiful.

November wrap-up/December TBR

Hi everyone!
This is going to be my first wrap-up/TBR post and I hope you guys like it! I'm going to give a quick review on all the books I read in November and tell you about all the books I'm going to try to read in December! Let's get started!

In November I read 5 books and most of them were pretty enjoyable.

First, I read Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads and I have to say I absolutely adored this book. So far this book is my favourite book of 2015 and maybe even my favourite book of all time! I started this book on October 24th and finished it on November 1st. On the 30th of October I had the absolute pleasure of meeting the author Leigh Bardugo during her Magic and Mayhem tour-stop in Rotterdam! She was the absolute sweetest and I am so happy I now have a signed copy of this book. This book is set in the Grisha-universe, however you do not have to read the Grisha-trilogy before you read this novel. There are only a few small mentions of the original trilogy, so you don't get spoiled either. Also, this book has some of the best characters ever! If you have not yet read this book I highly recommend that you do as quickly as you can, because you won't regret it!

The second book I finished in November is The Isle of the lost by Melissa de la Cruz. I started this book on the 9th of November and finished it on the 12th of November. I gave it a 3.75/5 rating. This book is a prequel to the Disney movie Descendants. As some of you might know, I love Disney and I take this love very seriously. When I first saw the trailer of Descendants I cringed, a lot, but the movie turned out to actually be kind of fun! The characters were pretty great and the songs had a very nostalgic Disney-feel about them. (Although I still refuse to talk about the new edition of Be our guest, that was just a total trainwreck) This book follows our main characters, Mal, the daughter of Maleficent, Evie, daughter of the Evil queen, Carlos, son of Cruella de Vil and Jay, son of Jafar, before the beginning of the movie. The book was not a very big or complex novel but it gave some nice insight in the character's personalities. The story itself was a bit flat, but it was fun to read none the less. (Also, awesome Disney-references, count me in!)

Draussen vor der Tür was the third book I read this month. I read the book in my German classes and it was pretty interesting. I gave it a 3.5/5 stars rating. The book is actually a play and it was written by Wolfgang Borchert. The story is about a man who comes back from the war and finds out that his wife has found a new love and his son is dead. The story starts when he tries to commit suicide, but the river Elbe (yeah, it's a bit strange) rejects him and spits him out. Definitely one of the most enjoyable books I've ever had to discuss at school, with a lot of themes worth reading about.

The fourth book I read this month was Carry on by Rainbow Rowell. I gave it  4.5/5 stars. This book follows Simon Snow, the worst chosen-one ever, according to his roommate Baz. Simon is a mage, destined to safe the magical world, but he is caught up in things he doesn't understand. This book was a really fun read and the world was super creative and refreshing. (I also wrote a more in-dept review/discussion about this book, click here if you're interested in reading that) I enjoyed this book very much and I definetely recommend it to anyone interested in books about magic, boarding schools, magical boarding schools or really any type of fast-paced fun read.

The last book I finished this month, I just finished last night, and it is The night circus by Erin Morgenstern. I gave this book 5/5 stars. This book was like magic in words, everything was described in such lush detail. The sentences flowed beautifully and the world seemed so real. The story itself was truly complex and I never saw any of the plottwists coming. It was very interesting and I'd love to visit the circus! This book is one of my new favourites and immediately after finishing it I wanted to read it again!

In December I plan on reading these 4 books:

My true love gave to me by various authors (this is a re-read, but a perfect christmas read)

Queen of the tearling by Erika Johansson

Clockwork prince by Cassandra Clare (finally)

Cruel beauty by Rosamunde Hodge

I will update my progress on Goodreads and at the end of the month I will tell you guys all about the books I've read.

This was all I have for you guys today, happy December, happy reading, and I'll write to you later! :D

Lots of love,

Sabine