O.W.L.S Magical Read-a-thon Recap!

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Hello and welcome back! 

Now that April is over it's time to see how we did on our O.W.L.s for the year! To recap, this was my committed list below:

Defense Against The Dark Arts: Nevernight

Ancient Ruins: City of Bones

Care of Magical Creatures: Percy Jackson & The Sea of Monsters

Charms: Six of Crows

Astronomy: Illuminae

I got all five of mine done and a few extra to boot!



To give a little recap on each book:

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

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   This book was so good! I love books that get creative with the way the content was delivered and Illuminae does an excellent job of it. Kady and Ezra were great characters, I'm happy that they both survived and got to be together. Aiden was also a great character, I really loved his growth as an AI. I did read the Q & A at the back and I loved that both Amie and Jay would have their book reviewed by specialists in certain aspects of the books, such as doctors and engineers. My only advice is, do NOT read it on your phone in the kindle version. That is of course how I read it and the format wouldn't zoom in for some of the cooler orientation parts.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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  I listened to this book for this challenge, and it made me really wish I had a physical copy at the same time. I'm new to Bardugo's writting but I'm fairly sure I'm going to finish this duo-logy and pick up the Grisha trilogy mainly because I'm so interested by the grisha-verse. Six of Crows is a great introduction to the world created. I love the group of charactrers for this story, I think Inej and Kaz are my favorite. I'm totally into their love story. The only thing I didn't really care for was the way the group of six was romantically paired up. There were also a few times that I got lost in what I was listening to, specifically between the group leaving Ketterdam and penetrating the Ice Court. I will most likely pick up a physical copy of this book and the sequel.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
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  Reviewing this book on it's own, not for the entire series... it's an interesting first novel. I've heard that City of Bones is a hard start to the 6 books following it. I enjoy Clary as a main character and her relationship with the family she has, both her mother and Luke. I do not like Jace that much, however. I wouldn't say it's because the bad-boy love interest is over played, considering I tend to like those characters; but I think it's more the way Jace is portrayed along with his willingness to believe Valentine's lies about his family. Which leads me into the most irritating part of the entire book; Valentine stepping into Jace's life and claiming he was his long lost father and having him believe it all without a question. The idea of Jace and Clary being siblings isn't very believable, neither is Valentine being Clary's father. I definitely see the set up for the next story, but the last 60 pages were rushed and I wasn't very into it.

  I am still holding out that the series gets better.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
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  This book was probably my favorite read of all of the stories I picked for this Read-a-thon. Between Illuminae and Nevernight, I'm pretty sure Jay Kristoff is just an auto-buy author now.

  The story starts off slow for me. The first chapter is certainly a punch, but then the pace seems super slow for the first 100 pages, and that's just Kristoff's writing throughout the book. It's slow, but in a slow burn way and not just for romance but the entire story. There are so many unexpected turns in the book that you can't guess what the ending will be until you actually make it to the end. Totally worth the read.

  I'll be picking up Godsgrave for sure and Dark Dawn when that comes out aswell.

  

Percey Jackson and The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
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  I recently picked up this first series by Riordan and I've instantly loved Percy and the adventures he's gone on through these books. In this book, Percy has to save his best friend Grover and Camp Half Blood with his best friend Annabeth and half-brother Tyson. I absolutely loved the way that Tyson and Percy's relationship was added into this book, I think it shed light onto some good life lessons. I will most definitely be continuing the series.

Extra Credit books:

Transfiguration: Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block. 
The main character does some transfiguration from one character to another. I will go in more depth in a future post.
Herbology: The Rose & The Beast by Francesca Lia Block. 
This is a collection of super short fairy tale re-telling. Some are modern, some are traditional, some are dark, and some are light-hearted.
Arithmacy: Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff.
This is the sequel to Illuminae, I love that it continued the story but from a very different point of view, and man that was a cliff hanger at the end. Such a feel good series that is super fun to read.

How did you guys do on your O.W.L.s? Let me know in the comments below!