MAY 2018 WRAP UP

SOME FACTS/STATISTICS

How many books have I read in May 2018?

I read eight books in May 2018.

How many pages have I read in total in May 2018?

2991 pages

How many pages have I read on average on a day in May 2018?

96 pages a day

How many pages did the books that I read have on average?

373 pages 

How many stars have I awarded to the books on average in my ratings?

 4,18  stars out of 5 stars

What was my highest rating in May 2018?

5 out of 5 stars

What was my lowest rating in May 2018?

3,5 out of 5 stars

What books have I read in May 2018 in which order?

I started the month with a German review copy of a book set in France, namely "Die Wolkenfischerin" by Claudia Winter. I've read her last book "Glückssterne" last year and really enjoyed that (click here for my review on that) and so I was quite excited to read her new one. I liked "Die Wolkenfischerin" but also had some issues with it - mainly with some male characters in it.. read more in my detailed review of the book: click here.

After I've finished this I moved on to a book that I was extremely excited for: "Leah on the Offbeat" by Becky Albertalli. It's a brand new release of 2018 and I couldn't wait any longer to read it and started it right after it got delivered to me. I adore the cover and am such a sucker for all the many Harry Potter references in it and loved Leah as a main character since she was bisexual and a proud Slytherin among other things but I still had a problem with the book, which is why I didn't rate it as high as I thought I would. Read more about that in my review: click here.

Since I adored the character Simon in "Leah on the Offbeat" and because I wanted to reread "Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli anyway before the movie comes out in Germany, I decided to just stick with the characters I've already grown so comfortable with through "Leah on the Offbeat" and just reread "Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda" right afterwards.

This obviously meant that "Leah on the Offbeat" spoilered me a lot for "Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda" and that I basically read them the wrong way round because I just didn't know much about "Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda" anymore because I've last read that one in 2016.

I must say that I didn't adore the book as much as I did when I read it for the first time. I think that this is mainly due to the fact that I've gained a lot of reading experience since January 2016 and now the book has to live up to a lot more than it had to back when I last read it.

It was definitely still a highly enjoyable and entertaining read but it was also rather a light story and compared to CALL ME BY YOUR NAME not really a book that stuck with me or touched me deeply. Still, I definitely enjoyed it a lot and loved all the Harry Potter references in it - but I must admit that I thought that there would be more in it. After having read "Leah on the Offbeat" right beforehand I was a tiny bit disappointed because "Leah on the Offbeat" had a lot more. 

I haven't written a review for this book because it was a reread and I enjoyed it quite differently to the first time I read it. But I found a short review of my first time reading it on Goodreads, so if you're interested in that, click here. 

Then I continued the month with a book that has been on my TBR pile way too long and that I started to finally read now because there's now a movie adaption of it and I definitely wanted to read the book first. Unfortunately, I still haven't gotten around to watch the movie although it's been shown in my cinema for a few days/weeks already. My problem is that I want to watch it in English but my cinema doesn't show it in English... so I guess I'll wait for the BluRay..

But what book/movie am I even talking about?

"Every Day" by David Levithan. I have been on quite a journey with David Levithan's books - which you can read about in the review of his book "Two Boys Kissing": click here .

I knew about the basic plot of "Every Day" beforehand - which is more than I normally try to know of books before I read them. I really like getting into books without knowing anything about their story beforehand.

I read through this book in two days and I loved it a lot. You can read more about why I loved it and why I still don't want to read the sequel "Another Day" by David Levithan in my review: click here.

But I'm super excited now because this year an actual sequel called "Some Day" will come out *-* I didn't know about that when I wrote the review.

I read most of the books that I read in May on the weekends because I just couldn't read a lot during the weeks when I had university. So after I've finished "Every Day" I didn't read a book for a few days because I wanted to wait for the weekend to start another one. But I missed reading so much that I thought okay I'll just start another German review copy, namely "Das Meer so nah" by Fiona Blum. I've read her last book "Frühling in Paris" (click here for my review) last year and liked it but didn't love it, so I didn't expect a lot from "Das Meer so nah". Then I got quite pleasantly surprised by it. It is set in Ireland which I really liked and tells quite an interesting story that I enjoyed a lot more than I'd thought. Read about it in detail in my review of it: click here.

Another weekend came and I decided to finally start reading a book that I hadn't owned for a long while but wanted to read for quite a long time already: "Carry On" by Rainbow Rowell. 

I read "Fangirl" by her last year and really loved it but something bothered me in it: the fanfiction. (click here for me full review) And since "Carry On" IS basically that fanfiction I didn't know whether I'd like it for a long time which is also why I hesitated a lot with this book.. And there were even more reasons why I didn't know whether I should read it and I talk in detail about them in my review. But "Carry On" blew me completely away. "Carry On" has over 500 pages but I flew through them in two days. I soaked it all up. And I am now more than hyped for the sequel that got just announced by Rainbow Rowell *-*! And since the sequel will have a cover with similar artwork on it as the edition that I bought of "Carry On" I am also more than glad that I chose this edition. I couldn't decide between the two editions for a while and talked a bit more about that in my review. Click here to read the review.

Since "Carry On" is basically a Drarry fanfiction and since no Harry Potter book has more Harry-obsessing-over-Draco in it than The Half-Blood Prince and since I generally want to read at least one Harry Potter book a year and since The Half-Blood Prince was the next one on my list anyway, it felt only perfect to read "Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz" by JK Rowling next. It's been not too long that I've read the last Harry Potter book - The Order of the Phoenix, wherefore I wrote a comparative review between the book and the movie (click here for that).  I read the fifth book last November and didn't really plan to read the sixth one so soon this year but as I said, the timing just felt perfect and I was in such a good reading phase that I read through the nearly 700 pages in three days. Reading Harry Potter now as compared to when I was a child and read them for the first time is so different. When I read them for the first time it took me ages to get through the bigger ones. I think I read a few months on the fifth one with its 1021 pages. And now I read through 700 pages in three days. And I also didn't read as much as I read now when I was a child and so Harry Potter stuck out way more than it does now. It actually feels kind of weird that I managed to squeeze in the sixth Harry Potter in between seven other books last month. But I love it. I read it in German because I have these beautiful German editions that I wanted to read at least once and since I started reading them a few years ago it's become a sort of tradition to read one Harry Potter book of them each year. So the plan for next year is The Deathly Hallows, but maybe I'll also already read it this year, who knows.

I didn't enjoy "The Half-Blood Prince" as much as I enjoyed "The Order of the Phoenix" but I never really liked the sixth one. The sixth movie is also my least favourite one. But I definitely liked the sixth book more than the movie. And it's still a Harry Potter book so it's still just magically fantastic. And I love Horace Slughorn and I think it's immensely important to view Ginny Weasley as she's in the book and not as she's portrayed in the movie. But if I compared the book to the movie I must say that I really missed Francis the gold fish in the book. I think it's such a beautiful story that Slughorn tells Harry in the movie and I didn't remember that this isn't actually in the book. So, as in The Order of the Phoenix, I can't say that the books are better in every way than the movies and I just love that I can enjoy both so much.

There were only a few days left of May after I've finished "Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz" and so I decided to end the month with a short book. My choice was "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky which I wanted to read for a long while and which has been on my TBR pile since I've bought it in London in 2016, the last time I was there. 

I love the movie and talked a bit about my story with the movie in my review and am obsessed with the movie's soundtrack and just love the three main actors in it - Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. (well, and also Nina Dobrev) So I had definitely some high hopes about the book - although I knew that it is written in letters which I wasn't too sure about.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really enjoy the book and even had to force myself to read it at times because it was quite depressing. And this book also showed me that the page number definitely doesn't matter for the reading speed. I read through "Carry On" with over 500 pages in two days, through "Harry Potter and the Hald-Blood Prince" with nearly 700 pages in three days... but really struggled to read through the mere 231 pages of "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" in three days. I think it's definitely a book that can easily put you in a reading slump.

Read more about my struggles with this book in my review: click here. 

Which book was my favourite in May 2018?

I gave 5 out of 5 stars to two books this month: "Carry On" and "Every Day" and loved them both so much and also read through both of them in only two days. If I had to choose between those two I think I'd pick "Carry On" because I just adored Baz. Baz is such a fantastic character - basically a proud gay Slytherin who's hopelessly in love with his roommate but way too cool to show it. And I can recommend both books 100% but I'm just a sucker for queer stories and although "Every Day" had also queer aspects and such an amazing view on being queer, I still loved Baz a lot more than any character in "Every Day". 

Which book was my least favourite in May 2018?

I awarded 3,5 stars out of 5 stars to three books this month: "Die Wolkenfischerin", "Leah on the Offbeat" and "The Perks of Being A Wallflower".

Now that I think of it I don't really agree with me giving all of them the same rating because I feel completely differently to all of them. The one I would recommend the most out of those three is still "Leah on the Offbeat" because it had the least things in it that bothered me. 

I actually really enjoyed reading "Die Wolkenfischerin" and only had some problems with some male characters in it, so I'd also recommend that one.

But I really did have some problems with "The Perks of Being A Wallflower", which I'd never thought possible beforehand because I love the movie so much. But this book really dragged me down and I didn't even want to read it at times but read something else instead. So I'd say that "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" was my least favourite book in May.

How many books have I read in German in May 2018?

I try to only read German books if they are originally written in German and not just a translation and I did do that with the two German books that I read in May, "Die Wolkenfischerin" und "Das Meer so nah". Oh, and I just remembered that I also reread Harry Potter but did so in German.. oups. But as I explained, I own this beautiful German edition of the books and just want to read those at least once. So yeah, I've also read "Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz" in German.

How many books have I read in English in May 2018?

Well, the rest basically. Five books: "Carry On", "Every Day", "Leah on the Offbeat", "Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda" and "The Perks of Being A Wallflower".

Have I listened to an audio book in May 2018?

Well, yeah.. but I didn't finish one. I'm currently rather bored when it comes to audio books and much prefer to just listen to my Spotify music playlist whenever I could also listen to an audio book. I'm currently listening to the German audio book "It's teatime, my dear! Wieder reif für die Insel" but it just drags me down so I currently avoid it. :D

Have I read an ebook in May 2018?

No. And I also just bought the paperback edition of a book that I already own as an ebook, so that clearly shows how I feel about ebooks at the moment.

Have I reread a book in May 2018?

Yes, two! As I said, I planned on rereading "Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda" before watching the movie and did that and I also planned to reread "Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz" sometime this year and did that aswell. I must say though that it felt a bit weird to reread Simon just because I've just got spoilered by "Leah on the Offbeat" beforehand and therefore knew everything.. 

I obviously also knew what would happen in Harry Potter 6 but Harry Potter is always a different thing. It's just like coming home. Those books are a magical safe place.

All the ratings of all the books I read in May 2018:

"Leah on the Offbeat": 3,5 stars

"The Perks of Being A Wallflower": 3,5 stars

"Carry On": 5 stars

"Das Meer so nah": 4,5 stars

"Every Day": 5 stars

"Die Wolkenfischerin": 3,5 stars

"Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda": 4 stars

"Harry Potter und der Halfblutprinz": 4,5 stars

Read my reviews of the books that I read in May 2018:

"Die Wolkenfischerin" by Claudia Winter: click here for my review

"Leah on the Offbeat" by Becky Albertalli: click here for my review

"Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli

"Every Day" by David Levithan: click here for my review

"Das Meer so nah" by Fiona Blum: click here for my review

"Carry On" by Rainbow Rowell: click here for my review

"Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz" by JK Rowling

"The Perks of Being A Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky: click here for my review

Was May 2018 a successful reading month for me?

Yes, definitely! (Otherwise I wouldn't write a whole massive blog post about it, would I? :D) And btw, May was also a very successful reading month for me last year and I also did a MAY READING WRAP UP last year, which you can read if you click here.

What have you read last month?

What was your favourite and least favourite book?

Tell me in the comments or via my Instagram: @isleepnaked :)