Book – Page 26 – World of Bai

2021 Book Superlatives

It is finally that time of year where we have read an impressive amount of books and now we need to rank them. I know I had a handful of books that drove me nuts and then I also had a decent sized stack that I really enjoyed. Now is the time to reveal all the good, bad and ugly from my 2021 reading pile.

Top Ten Books

In no particular order here are my top ten favorite reads of 2021

Awards

Book of the year

“Verity” by Colleen Hoover

Full Review

Least favorite book

“Get a Life Chloe Brown” by Talia Hibbert

I don’t have a link to this review but honestly this book was by far my least favorite thing I read this year by a long shot.

Best Dressed (Prettiest Cover)

“The Lost Apothecary” by Sarah Penner

Full Review

Most Likely to Make you Swoon

“The Love Hypothesis” by Ali Hazelwood

Full Review

Most Likely to be reread

“One Last Stop” by Casey Mcquiston

Full Review

Best Graphic Novel

“Black Lantern” by Chris Bodily

I don’t read a lot of graphic novels but I really love how this one came together! The cat was so cute too!

A book that walked the line of morality the best

“RazorBlade Tears” by S.A. Cosby

Full Review

A book that was over hyped

“Where The Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens

Full Review

A book that surprised me

“Crave” by Tracy Wolff

Full Review

Character Awards

Favorite character

Olive from “The Love Hypothesis” by Ali Hazelwood

I felt like I could really relate to Olive in a lot of different ways. I thought she was very stubborn, she knew what she likes and she is very smart and independent. I love an independent lead woman character.

Least favorite character

Jasmine from “Desperate Measures” by Katee Robert

This book was a steamy spin off tale of Jasmine and Jaffar from Aladdin and the whole book was pretty cringe worthy. However, Jasmine just drove me nuts the whole book. If you hate a main character there is something really wrong.

Favorite couple

Jane and August from “One Last Stop” by Casey Mcquiston

These two were just so adorable! I couldn’t get enough of their relationship. Casey McQuiston for Christmas released an update for the characters written from Janes perspective and it was everything that I didn’t know I needed.

Christmas Letter

Personal Achievements

This year I accomplished more things than I could have ever imagined! I am so proud of how far this blog has came since starting in June of 2021. I have also made so many amazing friends on Bookstagram. Let’s look at some of my greatest accomplishments from this year.

Started my blog in June 2021 and have over 60 followers six months later

Reached my reading goal for the year of 35/35 books

Reached over 2,000 followers on my bookstagram

Celebrated my one year bookstaversary in October

Made friends with authors

Made friends with people all across the world

Found several books that I literally fell in love with

Proved to myself that I can achieve my goals when I work hard and dream big

I am beyond proud of myself for accomplishing all that I did this past year and I really can’t wait to see what 2022 has to bring. I have changed my reading goal for next year to 40 books and I have even created my own reading challenge so I am very excited to start this coming year.

QOTD: What is your reading goal for next year?

December Wrap Up and Mini Review

December was a pretty good month for me reading wise. I finished four books and I actually enjoyed them all! I feel like each month I typically have an outlier with a low rating but this month I actually had all above 4 stars! I also finished my reading goal for this year which I really didn’t think I would do!

I will also be posting my mini review for Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban in this post.

December Reads

“Crave” by Tracy Wolff

When Grace’s parents unexpectedly pass away due to a car crash she must leave hot and sunny California and move to cold and snowy Alaska to attend her uncles Boarding school. But when she arrives she can tell something is off about this school. Every student belongs to a clique but she just can’t seem to fit in to any of them. She can’t even make it to her first class without her life being threatened. The worse part is that everyone seems to be keeping secrets from her. How could a boarding school be so mysterious and dangerous?

I didn’t have high hopes for this book but it definitely made my list for best fantasy book I have read, so far at least. Check out my full review with the link below.

Full review

“The Collective” by Alison Gaylin

Five years after her daughters death Camille is still struggling through her grief. The one thing that keeps her going is knowing that her daughters killer is still living a happy and normal life and that her daughter needs justice.

After a drunken misstep at a college awards ceremony for her daughters alleged killer a video surfaces on the internet and brings light back to her daughters case but bad publicity isn’t ideal.

When a strange lady hands her a card with one word “Niobe” listed on it, she goes down a rabbit hole that leads her in the end to the dark web. She finds a community full of grieving mothers looking for justice for their children but when fueled hatred meets a sisterhood, words become action.

Walking a thin line of justice and criminality, Camille’s forced to face the truth of how far is too far?

This book was so worth all the hype! Everyone needs to pick this one up! Check out my full review with the link below.

Full Review

“Verity” by Colleen Hoover

When famous author Verity Crawford gets in an unfortunate accident rendering her incapable of finishing her series book contract with her publishing company her husbands seeks out Lowen Ashleigh to finish the last three books in the series Verity started. Lowen had just lost her mother, money wasn’t coming in from her previous books and she was about to get evicted from her apartment, so even though she felt uneasy about finishing such a famous authors books she really had no other choice.

In order to get in the headspace of Varity, Lowen has to go through Varity’s home office and sort through piles upon piles of notes from her years of writing. But when she stumbles across a manuscript for an autobiography everything changes. In this manuscript lies everything from innocent sexual fun to the omission of murder. Does she show this to Verity’s husband or let him continue to love a possible psychopath?

All I can say about this book is “WOW”! This was such a good book but it was insane! Definitely pick this one up. Check out my full review with the link below.

Full Review

“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” by J.K. Rowling (Mini Review)

Like my other mini reviews for Harry Potter I am not going to write a synopsis because I feel like everyone who wants to read this book have probably already read it. I am just going to skip to my review.

I received this book as a gift from my brother for Christmas and I immediately had to dive into it! I knew it would be the best book to end my reading challenge for the year, and I was right!

I feel like I gave this four stars instead of five because I had already seen the movie and it just felt kind of long and drawn out. I did love the details of the book and thought it was well written, I just felt kind of bored in some places. I wish I hadn’t seen the movies before I read the books because it has ruined my thoughts of the books. I think I will continue to read the books but I am kind of sad that I have ruined it for myself.

QOTD: What was the best book you read this December?

My 2022 Monthly Reading Challenge

For 2021 I didn’t have a reading challenge that I followed along with, I only had a reading goal for 35 books. I have seen a lot of challenges out there that have so many prompts! With my reading style I know I can’t do a challenge that has a billion prompts so I decided to create my own reading challenge with a single monthly prompt.

This reading challenge is for anyone who gets overwhelmed with big challenges or are even mood readers. You will only have one prompt to fulfill a month and each prompt is fairly broad so you can really pick anything that suits your mood. I am a huge mood reader and I always find it so hard to stick with complicated or more detailed yearly reading challenges. If you fit into any of these categories I hope you will give these reading prompts a try.

World Of Bai’s 2022 Reading Challenge Prompts

January: A GoodReads 2021 Good Choice Award book.

February: A book about True Crime.

March: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

April: An Indie book.

May: A self-help or memoir book.

June: A book that intimidates you.

July: Book title that starts with the first letter of your name.

August: A book title that has the word “Game” in it.

September: A book written from the villains prospective.

October: A book about witches.

November: A book that includes a map.

December: A Holiday book with an LGBTQ lead character.

world-of-bais-2022-reading-challenge Download

Here’s to 2022

I am so excited for 2022, I think this is my year to really bring this blog to life and grow my reading portfolio. I have set my reading goal for next year to 45 books which is 5 more than this year. I know that isn’t a huge difference but I don’t want to over sell myself when I barely met my goal this year. I am a fairly slow reader and I am okay with that!

If you do end up using my reading challenge for next year use #WorldOfBai2022 .

QOTD: What reading challenge will you be using this year?

Book Review: “Verity” By Colleen Hoover

This book has been sitting in my Kindle library for over a year now and I have no clue why it took me so long to read this book. I mainly downloaded it because I had seen a lot of people talking about the book when I had first started reading so the idea of reading this book seemed really nice. I feel like I remember reading the first chapter and just not really feeling like it was worth my while, so I essentially just let it collect electronic dust in my kindle. But who does that? Who reads one chapter and then gives up on a book? I do, I have done it with countless books and now because of this single 300 paged book I think I need to reconsider my process.

“Some families are lucky enough to never experience a single tragedy. But then there are those families that seem to have tragedies waiting on the back burner. What can go wrong, goes wrong. And then gets worse.”
Direct quote from book.

About The Book

Author: Colleen Hoover

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Date Published: October 5th, 2021

Page Count: 336

Main Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Romance

GoodReads Rating: 4.37

Synopsis

“And that’s what love at first sight is. It isn’t really love at first sight until you’ve been with the person long enough for it to become love at first sight.”
Direct quote from book.

Rating

Review

What do I even say about this book? I am still trying to comprehend the ending. Maybe I should have waited a few days before I posted this review to give my mind some time to really think about my feelings for this book but I really wanted to get this out here while it is freshly engraved into my brain.

This book started off kind of slow for me but I gave a few chapters and I was hooked! I didn’t put this book down other than to do my job that I am actually getting paid for but I didn’t really even want to do that. This is the ultimate thriller in my eyes because it had a really good story but also made you question every thought in your brain.

This is the first book that I have read by Colleen Hoover and it definitely won’t be my last! I absolutely adored her writing, I might has well been the main character of the story because I felt everything this girl was feeling, every thought she had I was right there with her. If every book of hers is written like this I will be a life long reader of Collen Hoovers books. Well done!

Over all I highly recommend this book and I think everyone should read this in their lifetime. I know I am very glad I got around to it.

The biggest question I have for you, Are you team manuscript or diary? If you don’t know what I am talking about I need you to stop reading this post and pick up this book because I guarantee you will have a preference! (Maybe also don’t read the next few sentences) For me at first when I finished this book I didn’t know which team I was on and who I believed and maybe I still really don’t know for sure because this book messed with my head so much! But I like to think I am on team manuscript. Verity was just such an amazing writer that she could manipulate anyone who read something she wrote. She knew she could get away with whatever she wanted because of her writing and might I say acting skills. There is no way someone who can write such dark things like that manuscript (About her own children) could actually be ok in the head. I am not sure if this is really my final stance because like I said this book really messes with your head especially the last few chapters.

“No matter which way I look at it, it’s clear that Verity was a master at manipulating the truth. The only question that remains is: Which truth was she manipulating?”
Direct quote from book.

Book Review: “The Collective” By Alison Gaylin

This book was a November Book of the Month pick that I initially skipped over. This was a mistake! Once people received this book reviews were coming out so fast that I couldn’t keep up and each of them were raving about how amazing this book was. So naturally I added it to my December box and sure enough finished it within the week.

“They need to be punished to feel guilt, and then they’re never punished, so they never do.”
Direct quote from book, page 139.

About The Book

Author: Alison Gaylin

Publisher: William Morrow

Publish Date: November 2nd, 2021

Main Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery

Page count: 352 Pages

GoodReads Rating: 4.07

“Nothing’s guaranteed- Not future plans or justice or love or goodwill or the integrity of groups to whom you swear your allegiance. Not the good guys winning or the truth prevailing and certainty not life, the least guaranteed thing of all.
Direct quote from book, page 266.

Synopsis

After a drunken misstep at a college awards ceremony for her daughters alleged killer a video surfaces on the internet and brings light back to her daughters case but bad publicity isn’t ideal.

Walking a thin line of justice and criminality, Camille’s forced to face the truth of how far is too far?

Rating

Review

* Possible Spoilers *

I am a huge sucker for thrillers and mysteries, throw in a twist that I didn’t see coming and you have a fantastic read!

I had high hopes for this book and honestly the first half of the book I was a bit skeptical because this felt so morally wrong but you can understand where these woman are coming from. I found myself very upset with the tasks the main character was sent to do and I would end up screaming at her to stop because it is just wrong! But then you hear her talk about all the horrible things these people have done and then you think “Yeah, He should die.” Ugh, I was torn!

Towards the end of the book the main character becomes aware that what they are doing is probably not the best thing to be participating in which was probably my favorite moment in the book. However, (Major Spoiler, don’t read this if you don’t want to know…..) the ending of the book was so good! I love a depressing ending where the main character doesn’t get the fairytale ending they wanted. These endings are so rare but that is what makes them feel like a breath of fresh air. Does this make me a monster?

This book is in the running for the best book of the year? Can this beat out two romance novels? I guess you will have to wait and see my final rankings for the year.

QOTD: What book had the best twist?

Book Review: “Crave” By Tracy Wolff

Let me start off by saying I am typically not a huge fantasy reader, let alone a book about vampire’s. I really have no desire to read Twilight and honestly that could be because I have already seen the movies, I hate Robert Pattinson and I think it is way too popular (is popular the word I am looking for? Probably not.) I found this book all over Booktok for a fun YA Romance Vampire read and I was already not super stoked about it but like I said, I saw it everywhere! So I decided to purchase the first book with low hopes and jumped in.

About The Book

Author: Tracy Wolff

Published Date: April 7th, 2020

Publisher: Entangled: Teen

Main Genres: YA, Fantasy, Romance

Page Count: 592 Pages

GoodReads Rating: 3.77 Stars

Synopsis

Rating

Review

I have read so many mixed reviews about this book ranging from five stars to one star. I have seen comparisons to twilight (which I haven’t read yet) and I have seen people stating it was super cringy.

Did I think parts of this were cringy? Yes, the romance aspect of this book felt very strange but then again it is a fantasy novel based in a high school age group. Thinking back to my high school romances I guarantee we were this cringy and awkward. So I feel like for a YA romance read this was suitable. The main character and her love interest also started off hating each other and just a few short days later can’t keep their hands off of each other which seemed fast until you read the whole book and the author I felt tied it together nicely.

As for this book being a knock off of Twilight, I guess I can see where these people are coming from but then again it still had its own storyline. I can see a few similarities just from what I have seen of the Twilight movies but honestly, I found this book and plot more interesting. Maybe I should read the Twilight series before I make the assumption that this is better. However i have no desire to read that series.

I gave this four stars rather than five stars because I honestly found the main character grace annoying more often than not and towards the last fourth of the book I did get a little bored but the ending pulled me right back in. I also felt like this book did not need to be 600 pages long, but even so I read it in a week and that is very impressive on my end.

I am very excited to read the rest of the books in this series and I really hope they just continue to get better.

QOTD: Should I read the Twilight series or just call it good?