A Final Year Ranking- Ava

   

  As this school year is coming to a close, I'm going to be doing something that I don't normally do. Besides my first blog post, all of my posts have been book reviews. To finish the year off properly, I am going to rate all of the books that I have reviewed during the school year:

    In sixth and last place is The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood. Out of all the books I read, this was the most disinteresting and the most predictable. I vividly remember while beginning to read the book expecting a deep and pensive mystery to take hand. But I was thoroughly disappointed with the amount of plot holes and random "correlations" that were the keys to the mystery. As I was reading this book I believe all I could think of was "blueh bleb esdjafjsaf" as it was also pretty boring!

    In fifth place is How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox. When I read this book, I didn't hate it but I didn't love it. To be honest it was a little hard to write my original blog post about it because I didn't have too much to say. Although I could relate to the main character being Australian, I personally didn't relate very much to the stuff happening in the book, although they could still be considered a "normal" life. Although I don't relate to most of the books I read, for this one specifically it was just harder than normal to really get into it. 

   Fourth place is Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger. This book is from one of my earlier posts, and I rated it quite high for it to land in fourth place. Since it has been quite a while since I read the book, I don't remember as much about it as the other, but I do remember that although I liked the aesthetic of the book, I couldn't actually keep myself quite hooked on it. But I didn't mention this in my blog because I wanted it to seem like I didn't just choose a book and like... hate it. I don't know why I lied to be honest, maybe because I wanted to like it or something along those lines, but the book was pretty bleh. The idea of the book seemed cool, but compared to the other books I've read this year well, it's below par.

    The next place, third, is taken by I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest. I gave this book a pretty low rating, 5/10 stars, which to be honest I think deserved to be higher. As I was writing my review, I should have given the book more credit because even if I didn't like it then, I remember liking the storyline quite a lot when I was younger. That just goes to show that my tastes have probably changed since then, and if I were going to recommend the book to someone I would first think about what their taste is like. Sure the book had impractical areas, but it was quirky and fun with comic pages spaced out throughout the rest of the book. Overall I think I was too harsh with this one's rating, as it definitely isn't the best, but it isn't the worst either. 

    In second place is Anne of Green Gables by E. M Montogomery. Although this book review was a little different from the others, as it compared the book to the TV series I think it's still applicable to this list. The first book of the series has a certain farm aesthetic to it that I love. As it's set in a small farm village in the 1800s, there is a small schoolhouse with teenage drama that is followed through Anne's perspective. As I was reading the books I remember loving Anne's point of view because she was so dramatic in the best way possible. She also loved romanticizing her life as much as she could, which I found entertaining. What made me like the book even more was its comparison to the TV show remake. Although I hold the TV show near and dear to my heart, it gets unbearably cringy at some points. The books don't really do this, but are still very entertaining. The only setback to this book series is the sad moments. I cannot handle deaths in books, movies, or TV shows. It's always too sad for me, and as Anne of Green Gables was made before most modern medicine in the 1800s, many people died in their early life. 

    In the first place, I am putting Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon. It was hard to choose between this book and Anne with An E because of the amount of time I've known of that series in general. But after careful consideration, I decided on Today Tonight Tomorrow because it made me happier. Anne With an E is happy, but has many very depressing moments with death that make me too sad! Anyway, matching the high rating I gave the book in my original blog, I think this was my favorite book I read during the school year. It was a cute and quick enemies to lovers that did what it needed to. I remember loving the balance between lightheartedness between the two main characters, and more deeper talks between them too. I mentioned in my original blog that I found it a little annoying how shortly spanned the book was, and I still stand by that. Although I like imagining what the future of characters holds, in the scenario where we only get to see 24 hours of these kids' lives, I would have liked to see a little more of what happened after the fact. Still, I really enjoyed reading this book because it was able to keep my attention for long periods and I feel like this is something that I could read over and over again every couple of months (Something I do with books, movies, or TV shows that are my absolute favorite lol).

    As I was re-reading what I had written for my rankings, I noticed a pattern within how much I write depending on the book's rating. It's quite obvious that the more I liked a book the more I reflected on it. I think for the most part it was my disinterest in the books that caused me to really not like them, resulting in my writing less about them. I just wanted to point that out because it wasn't intentional at all and I found it kind of funny. I also think I had less to write about the ones I didn't like because I had blocked them out of my mind to make room for more important things that I liked. Although I'm not the biggest book geek, I think I've read and reread some pretty good books this year (some not included in list) and it was fun to end my blog posts off on a solid note. Byebyee!!

                                                                                                                                -Ava Roberts