Cova Reviews | P.S. I Still Love You, by Jenny Han

Hi there! So here we are again. Hope you all had a great start of the year wherever you are in the world :) Back at reviewing you will see me, as should be. And for the first review of 2017, I shall write about the second novel to the YA, contemporary To All the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy by Jenny Han, P.S. I Still Love You. This review will be spoiler-free for both the second and first novels of the series, so don't worry if you haven't read To All the Boys I've Loved Before yet, although I'd advise you to go read the review for that one first? 😛 

I was literally dying to read this novel right after I finished the first part to the trilogy, but I had finals (why?! 😓), and I had to be good - so I left it to read at the end of the month. And, oh boy, was it worth the wait! 

Famous Books I HAVE NOT read

Hello there! I thought this week's post will be about books that everyone is constantly talking about but that I -forever behind-, have not yet read. For some reason or another, I always find myself years behind in the book community! Just so you can have an idea, I just read All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr last month - and it was super hyped in 2015! I keep hoping I will catch up someday, but until that moment comes, here's a short recollection of those books :)

Beware - there are some shocking ones!

1. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)

Why have I not read this book? Honestly, no idea. I guess it is because I never actually owned it and I am waiting to get my hands on a pretty copy. I really do want to read it, though I have to admit I have the faintest idea of what it is about. I didn't go see the movie because I wanted to read it first, but I guess I never got the chance... :/ I will definitely read it as soon as I get myself a copy :D

Cova Reviews | All The Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

All right, so I am here, utterly confused, with my heart ripped in pieces, sitting at my desk, trying to figure out what I am going to say about this book. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr was the bomb of 2015. Absolutely EVERYONE was talking about it - or at least listening to what other people had to say about it (yup, that was me!). So obviously, I had to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I had heard so many YouTubers, so many Book Bloggers talk so highly of this novel. It wan the Pulitzer Award for Fiction, so it had to be FANTASTIC. As I said, I have mixed feelings about this book, and I will try and put them all in words here. Beware, however, this might be a long review!

All the Light We Cannot See is a stand-alone, historical fiction novel set in different parts of Europe (Germany and France, mainly) during the Second World War. It is told from the viewpoint of two different people: French, blind girl, Marie-Laure; and German, bright soldier, Werner. The book tells us the story of how they lived the war from the perspectives of the attacked France and the attacking Germany, respectively, in a setting in which none of them is the typical representative of their society. 

Cova Reviews | The Wrath and the Dawn, by Renée Ahdieh | Diverse Reads Challenge

Hello, people! So here is the first post of the series of posts I am planning to make for the 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge I signed up for this year :) January was the month for Folktale/Mythology, and I decided to go for the first option. 

The Wrath and The Dawn, by Renée Ahdieh is a YA, re-telling of the One Thousand and One Nights tale. In some part of Arabia, a whole kingdom is terrified and outraged by their young boy-king Khalid. No one knows why, he takes a girl from the city every so often, marries her and kills her the next morning. Families are destroyed, and no explanation is given to them. One day, Shahrzad volunteers to be the next girl, but she has no intention of dying.

Participating in the Winter 2017 Comment Challenge!

Hello there! I am writing this quick post to tell you guys that I am participating in the Winter 2017 Comment Challenge for the month of February, hosted by Alicia from A Kernel of Nonsense and Lonna from FLYLēF. 

So what they do is they pair you up with another participant, and you sign up to comment on either 5+ or 10+ blog posts from the blogger you've been paired. I thought it was a nice idea to try an make book bloggers from around the world connect! Let's grow our circles in this great community! :D 

My pair for this month's challenge is Cec, from Yellow Eccentricity. We've chosen to comment on 5+ blog posts from the other. I haven't participated before, but I'm sure this will be fun! :D

Happy reading!

Most exciting releases of 2017!

Hello, hello! Even though it's not the start of the year anymore, I thought I'd still write a post about the books I'm most excited for which will come out this year. I don't usually search for books that are not yet published -I'm used to waiting for other people to read them and see what the bookish community thinks. But for some reason, this year I've found myself searching for books that I could read for my reading challenges, and some of the ones I found had not been published yet but still I really wanted to read them! Also, as most people do, I always wait for book sequels to come out, and there are two I am very excited about this year!

So summing up, here are the 2017 releases I am most excited for! If you click on the images, it should take you to the Goodreads page for the book :)

Cova Reviews | The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #3) - Michelle Hodkin

Hey there! Today I am going to review for you book number three in the Mara Dyer trilogy by Michelle Hodkin - The Retribution of Mara Dyer. If you haven't read the first two books, I recommend you read their reviews first, even though this will be a non-spoiler review regarding all three books in the series. You can find the review of the first book here, and the second here.

This book I listened to on audiobook, therefore it added up to the list of books I listened to for my 2016 Audiobook Challenge, in which I ended up doing pretty good! :D I think once again Christy Romano did a very good job narrating this book -her interpretation of Mara is pretty good. However, once more, I didn't at all like the accent with which she tries to sound like British Noah - as I said in the review for The Evolution of Mara Dyer, that makes him sound really fake and not at all like I imagined when I read the first book of the series (which I didn't listen to on audiobook). Other than that, her way of reading is perfect for the different scenes and I really enjoyed listening to the book over all :D

2017 Diverse Reads Book Challenge

As I wrote a couple of posts back, this year I've decided to join an extra challenge which I found really interesting - the 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge. In a previous post, I announced I was participating in it, and today I get to share with you my TBR for each step of the challenge.

Without further ado, here's my list! :D

My surprising 2016 Challenges

Hello, hello! It's 2017 now, and it's time to have a look back at the past year and see how I did with the challenges I signed up for, which were mainly two -  2016 Finishing the Series Challenge (hosted by Bea's Nook Book) and 2016 Audiobook Challenge (hosted by Hot Listens). I'd never done challenges before, so I thought these ones were a nice opportunity to test the waters and see how I'd do!

I was really impressed to see I'd actually met my goals for both challenges! 

Challenges I will smash in 2017

Hello again! First post of the year! :D Isn't it so exciting? 

I've decided to write a blog post this random day of the week to share with you the challenges I am joining this year. Last year I joined the 2016 Audiobook Challenge, and the 2016 Finishing the Series Challenge. This year, there will be some changes :) 

Favourite Books of 2016!

Wow guys! Hasn't this year gone so fast? A lot has happened in the past year... But well, it is almost 2017 already (doesn't it sound so odd?!), and it is time to do a recap of all the great books I have read throughout the year 2016! In this post I am also including those I have read throughout the last part of 2015 as I didn't write a post like this last year, and there are a couple that should definitely be mentioned :) 

This year I managed to read a total of 28 books - which, let's face it, is not that good :/ But hey, I am a dedicated Med student, who inconveniently was a in a reading slump during part of the summer :( Anyhow, I plan to top this count in 2017!

The following books aren't necessarily 5 star reads, but they have stayed with me long after I finished them. Also, they are books that I have read throughout the year -they weren't necessarily published in 2016, and they are sorted in chronological order.

Let's dive right into it!

Cova Reviews | To All The Boys I've Loved Before - Jenny Hann

Hey, guys! First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! I have been away for some time due to my finals, but I am back to say goodbye to 2016 :D Today I bring to you a YA, contemporary novel by Jenny Han - To All The Boys I've Loved Before (the first of the to-be trilogy To All the Boys I've Loved Before). I hadn't heard a lot about this novel, but what I'd  heard was great, so I (wrongly) decided to pick it up just before my exams period. I started listening to the audiobook, but then I just really wanted to know what was going to happen next quicker than the audiobook would let me and I picked up the e-book. I absolutely loved this novel! But let's just get right into the details :) 

To All the Boys I've Loved Before is about a girl named Lara Jean who has the habit of writing a love letter to every boy she likes when she stops liking them. She keeps them in a box, and never sends them -it's just so she can move on, like a good-bye letter. The thing is that one day, the letters are somehow sent to the boys, and her secrets exposed.

Cova Reviews | A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness

Well, well, well. Now, what do we have here? A Monster Calls has been all over the media for quite a while now -especially now that the film has come out. I have been wanting to pick it up since before I even knew there was going to be a movie based on it, and around one week after I bought the book, a friend of mine came to me and said "You know what, Cova? I went to the cinema yesterday and watched A Monster Calls, and you want to know something? The monster is ****************". I almost died right there and then... I could kill him!! He'd spoiled a story that I had been wanting to get to for so long!! Luckily, he was just being an asshole and that had absolutely nothing to do with the story :D I did not have a good time, though!

We could say A Monster Calls is a fantasy book about loss, hope and growing up. I honestly did not know what it was about when I read it, and that went extremely well for me, so I'm just going to leave you here the synopsis from Goodreads:

"The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.

But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming…

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth." (Goodreads)

Cova Reviews | p53. The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code (Sue Armstrong)

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know I was assigned to read p53 The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code (by Sue Armstrong) at the start of the semester for a voluntary assignment. I actually thought it was a very nice assignment -extra marks for reading a book, what's not to like?! :D 

Essentially, it is the story about the discovery of p53 -a gene that was found to be the key to knowing what cancer is, and how it makes your cells go crazy (it's non-fiction, of course). Shockingly enough, we've only discovered this recently, and so much work has been put into it. p53 also gives you a tour around what the scientific method is (how experiments occur -how they are planned, carried out and eventually understood), which I think is a great topic -too many times we take science for granted when really so many people are working for the world to understand! (hey, med student right here :P).

Cova Reviews | The Evolution of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin (Mara Dyer Trilogy #2)

The Evolution of Mara Dyer is the second book to the Mara Dyer trilogy by Michelle Hodkin. The series is a young adult, mystery, paranormal novel about a girl named Mara Dyer who goes through an ultra-traumatic event in her life -her best friend and her boyfriend died when the old building they were in at night collapsed. Only she survived, and now she sees things she should not be seeing. She suffers from PTSD, and her family thinks it's a good idea for them to move to Florida, where she can start a new life away from everything that reminded her of her now-dead friends. There she meets hot Noah -the hot, popular guy who strangely seems to be interested in her. 

Whatever my previous description made you think, this is no regular, cheeky love story. I loved the first book (the review of which you can find here), and I was dying to read the second one. If you haven't read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (the 1st book in the series), I suggest you go read the post about it first. It's not like I am going to spoil anything, but I think there's no point in reading about the second book if you haven't even read what the first is about! hehe

Anyway. Let's start :)