December wrap-up/January TBR

Hi everyone!
I hope you have all had an amazing NYE and are ready for the new year! In this wrap-up I'm going to tell you a little bit about the books I read in december, as well as tell you about the books I want to read in january, it's a lot, so let's get going!


I managed to read about 4 books in december, and one short story. In this month I read:


Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge. I love Beauty and the Beast, I love fairytale retellings and I love high-fantasy, so Cruel Beauty sounded like it would be right up my alley! The story follows Nyx, a young woman who, due to a deal her father made, has to get married to a demon. This demon is Ignifex, who rules the kingdom and is known as the king of bargains. He is the most powerful man in the land and Nyx has to kill him. I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. The book itself is written decently, never blowing me away, but also never really bad, but the story is a great and interesting twist on the classic tale. Sometimes the story did get a bit to complicated for me to follow, due to concepts I don't really think the author understood either, but all things considered I did enjoy it!

The Turing test by Beth Revis. The Turing test was the short story I spoke of earlier. I can't tell much about it without giving anything away, but it's definitely worth the read! The story is about robots, androids and what it means to be human. That's basically all you need to know about it. You can find the entire story right here! I gave it a 4/5 star review.

Clockwork prince and Clockwork princess by Cassandra Clare. I decided to put these two together. Clockwork prince and Clockwork princess are the second and third book in the Infernal Devices-trilogy. I rated both of them 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. The story takes place in the shadowhunter-universe, right where the first book ended, and still follows our main character Tessa Gray. I have never been a big fan of the Mortal instruments-series by Cassandra Clare, mainly due to the story and main characters. The world and the side characters were really interesting. That's why I decided to give the Infernal devices-trilogy a chance. While I again wasn't keen on the main love-interest Tessa married, I won't spoil who, I did like Tessa and the other man in her life. The storyline, even with its sometimes ridiculous sidetracks, was actually very intriguing.


De stem van de zee by Mara Li. I went into this book not knowing what it exactly was about, and I'm glad I did. This book wasn't a really great one, but for a debut novel it was actually quite good. You could really notice the author loved writing this story and cared very much for the characters. I wrote a full (in Dutch) review right here! 

In January I want to read these books:

Winter by Marissa Meyer
The rest of us just live here by Patrick Ness
Blue lily, lily blue by Maggie Stiefvater

I'm not planning on reading too many books this year, considering I have a lot of school exams this month! This means I'll be spending a lot of time studying and unfortunately not a lot of time reading!

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