Ranking the Books of my Bookish Garden

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Hello and Welcome

#bookishgarden

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The Books Read

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My Ranking

1. Beautiful Darkness

2. Garlic and the Witch (reread)

3. Dracula

4. The Merchant of Venice

5. Eternally Yours (reread)

6. Tales from the Perilous Realm

7. Far From the Madding Crowd

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My Thoughts

Beautiful Darkness - Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Rating: :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

I loved this book, its was a perfect continuation of Beautiful Creatures. It explored more of the Caster World, gave us new characters, brought back loved characters from the first book, and explored the grief that Lena felt about the events of the first book. I loved that this book contained flashbacks through visions like how the first back had them about Genevieve Duchannes, but in the second book we learn about Abraham Ravenwood and more backstory about Macon Ravenwood (one of my absolute favorite characters in the first book). Lena was a bit annoying in this book mostly just because in her grief she made terrible decisions and wasn't always very nice, but she went back to the Lena I liked by the end of the book. I know for a fact I'm gonna love the last two books of the series when I get to them.

Garlic and the Witch - Bree Paulsen (reread)

Rating: :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

This will always be one of my favorite graphic novels. It has such beautiful cottagecore type art and its also just such a cute little story about going through change. Its short, its sweet, and I reread multiple times every year since I got it.

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Rating: :star: :star: :star: :star:

This was my second book that I had read from Bram Stoker and it was really good. I know a lot of people say its boring or too long but I honestly had a fun time reading it. I liked learning about how Dracula originally was before he went through the various changes that adaptations usually do.

The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare

Rating: :star: :star: :star: :star:

This was actually my first time reading one of Shakespeare's comedies and I had a fun time. To me it felt like reading gossip, lots of interesting conversations were had and it was just a great time.

Eternally Yours - Multiple Authors, Edited by Patrice Caldwell (reread)

Rating: :star: :star: :star: :star:

This was a book full of paranormal romance stories, many of which had lgbtq+ themes, and contained many different authors who chose very fun mythological and folklore stories. This was my second time reading this book and it was as fun as it was when I read it the first time. It works well as a sweet little pallet cleanser book.

Tales from the Perilous Realm - J.R.R. Tolkien

Rating: :star: :star: :star: :star:

This was a book of stories, a couple of which went along with the Lord of the Rings series. I enjoyed most of the stories, however I had a hard time getting into the story Roverandom, I don't know it just wasn't for me, but I loved the other stories. My two favorite stories were Smith of Wootton Major and Leaf by Niggle. I look forward to getting to the rest of my Tolkien collection.

Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

Rating: :star: :star: :star:

This was definitely my least favorite book I read this month. It was ok but it wasn't great and definitely not a great introduction to Thomas Hardy's work. I mostly felt bored and disconnected from the story and was more reading it just for the sake of finishing it. I have 3 of his other works on my tbr that I hope are better than this one.

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Overall, I think I had a really good reading month, I read some really enjoyable books. Definitely my best reading month so far this year in of the number of books read. I also had a lot of fun doing the bookish garden challenge.

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