Hello readers! Happy New Year. I hope everyone has an amazing year in 2025. I read 6 books this month, which I think is pretty good. I usually read very little in December because I’m so busy.
I am happy with how this month turned out. I read some 2024 releases I didn’t get to this year and I FINALLY finished Battle Royale.
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This was such an amazing book. I thought it could be longer, for sure. But it will still go down as one of my favorite books of all time.
There are over 40 characters, but many of them are distinct enough to not confuse them, bar Yukie, Yuka, Yuko. Those three really threw me off, especially because they were together the whole time.
I liked that it was slower paced at the beginning and really picked up toward the 2nd half. It let us get to know the world before the action picked up.
Now, for the Hunger Games conversation. Is The Hunger Games similar to this? Yes. But, I don’t think it’s too similar. Both main characters have a bow and arrow as their weapon. BUT Shuya is given it at random and he has never used one before.
There is the plot of killing until only one is left. They are stuck on an island and have to move around because the zones they can be in change, which I guess is similar to Mockingjay. In Battle Royale, their collar would explode if they are in the wrong zone, there isn’t blood rain or anything like that.
It isn’t even known about by anyone until after the kids are taken, it isn’t televised or glorified, and all of the kids know each other. All these things are very different. But the reason for the games is the same in both worlds.
I also think a very big difference is the tone. Battle Royale is mostly very cold in tone. It’s much more violent as well. Someone will die and then we just move onto the next one. There were a few that were a bit more emotional, but most weren’t.
I think Battle Royale inspired The Hunger Games along with every other dystopian that came after it. I was reminded of so many dystopian books I had read before when I read Battle Royale. The Hunger Games isn’t similar enough to be a copy, but there are of course many crossovers.
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The Ministry of Time had so much promise. I was enjoying it a lot in the beginning and just slowly lost interest. It was just okay for me.
I think I just wanted more focus on the scifi elements and less on the characters being in our current timeline. It needed more for me to love it.
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This is another one that I was enjoying, but it lost me at the end. I don’t like where the ending was left. We needed an epilogue at the least to wrap some things up.
The MC is an 8 year old girl, but she read much, much younger than that. The narrator in the audiobook doesn’t help because she also sounds about 5 years old.
I really like the horror elements. They were very scary, but we needed more of them. The ‘other mommy’ was genuinely so creepy.
What really killed this book for me was the parents. They were so aggravating, especially the mom. Once we got an explanation on their past around the end of the book, the dad lost me, too. The mother in this book are the type of parents I DESPISE. I’ve known too many of them and I couldn’t stand her even a little bit.
I needed more horror, less of the awful parents, and a better ending to really bring it together for me. I actually dropped a star on my rating as I was writing this because I realized how much I really didn’t like this book.
On Christmas I got The Most Boring Book Ever by Brandon Sanderson and I just had to read it then and there. Really this book is about imagination.
I like the dynamic of the story you are reading and seeing being different, but I gave it four because I thought it could’ve been a bit longer. It was good, but it could’ve been great.
I mean, it is a picture book, but I do read those on occasion and I have read some really amazing ones over the years.
This is the third book in a cozy mystery series that I was enjoying. I don’t know. Something bothered me about this one involving the crime aspect of it. Like, I listen to a lot of true crime, so I know what is and isn’t realistic, and this one didn’t make any sense in the murder aspect and the timeline.
This series has been just okay for me so far, which I don’t mind when it comes to cozy mysteries, but I am going to try other series for now and maybe come back one day.
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A few hours before midnight, I finished my reread of The Lightning Thief. I really enjoyed this one! I think I liked it more than the first time I read it.
It was the perfect book to end my year on because I really enjoyed it and I finished my cat starry night diamond painting while I listened to the audiobook, so I managed to accomplish two things at once.
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