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It's time for the January wrap-up! I know people have been posting in the original topic, but feel free to comment here and let us know how your reading went this month, if you had trouble completing this month's task, if you enjoyed the book you read and whether you'd recommend it.

So far, I finished The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. !!!!

I finished Annihilation and felt like the first half of the book was great, with a lot of atmosphere and build up, only to totally putter out and disappoint me in the end. The closer I got to the end, the more sure I was that he didn't know how to finish it.

I started reading A Wrinkle in Time but barely made it past the first few chapters because I hated the writing style so much. I've worked with a lot of four and five year olds with big vocabularies, and even ones that refused to speak around most people but had huge vocabularies, but that little brother annoyed me so much because it was just an adult's exposition coming out of the mouth of a child.

I'm having a super busy month, so I'm glad I had the option to read something light/fast like Where'd You Go, Bernadette. It'll probably be the only book I read for fun this month.

Unfortunately I didn't like it. It was fine until the ending, which I thought was a cop-out. Lots of people did some very bad things and there are no real consequences for the sake of a lukewarm happy ending. It's not really something I'd recommend. But Cate Blanchett is going to be perfect for the main role.

I read Sharp Objects and The Alienist. Honestly I wasn't that thrilled with either one. I felt like The Alienist was a slog to get through, though I think this is one of the cases where the miniseries will be better than the book, or at least I have hope. Sharp Objects the murder case interesting but other parts a little too unsettling. I don't think Amy Adams was the right choice to play Camille tbh

I read The City & the City for this month. Loved it and I can't wait to see how they do the visuals.

I read Sharp Objects, which I was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed. Dark Places had been too dark and disturbing, that I was wary about reading Sharp Objects, but I got really into it.

Crazy Rich Asians on Kindle is on sale for 99p on Amazon UK so I nabbed myself a copy this afternoon and might see if I can squeeze that in this month too!

I started with Where'd you go, Bernadette, but the book wasn't for me. It started off great and was an easy read, but the more I read the less invested I became. I do want to watch the movie because the movie should hold my interest for 90 minutes.

I switched to Sweetbitter, another easy. It held my interest much longer than the first book, even though I liked none of the characters. I think my dislike for this book shows my age. Why was a 22 year old obsessed with people in their 30s that had a very obvious creepy relationship? I can't say I'm surprised that it ended the way it did, but I did enjoy reading about New York.

Alright, after reading 4 books for January, I think it's time to officially complete this category and try to finish a couple other books that have been on the backburner :) Here's what I read this month:

A Wrinkle in Time - ugh. I really wish I'd read it as a child because I didn't like it as an adult. It was too fast-paced and not developed enough. I'm interested to see the movie because hopefully the visuals will improve the story. 2.5 stars.

The Alienist - A long episode of Criminal Minds, before they had terms such as "profile" and "unsub," with bonus!Teddy Roosevelt. Really good read that wasn't quite a page turner, but kept me interested. Looking forward to the mini-series! 4 stars.

The Haunting of Hill House - A classic that's been on my list for awhile to read. I didn't love it, though. There was far too much ~quirky dialogue and not enough action. I might like it better on a second reading, so I can look for hints/symbolism. The ending shook me, so I rounded up to 4 stars in my review. 3.5 stars.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post - This was good, but there wasn't as much plot as I would have liked. It was just Cameron drifting from one friendship/relationship to another, then getting sent off. I saw the ending coming a mile away, but I was still disappointed at the lack of resolution. However, I loved Cameron and there were some great parts of the book, so it was an enjoyable read for the most part. Not sure how I feel about the casting of the movie, but I'll watch it. 4 stars.

I read The Little Broomstick. The NA version does come out in 2018, but it was released in Japan in 2017. It's a cute, quick read and I can see how it would make a darling animated movie. Had a bored, young girl visiting relatives for the summer, befriending a cat, and being mistakenly sent to a school for magic.

Reread A Wrinkle in Time. Pretty much copying my ontd comment, but I didn't like it as a kid and I don't like it as an adult. Still, I think it has great potential to be a visually fascinating movie.

I read Annihilation which funnily enough despite the fact I enjoyed it made me think twice about seeing the movie, since horror isn't really my genre. I did like the mysterious vibe, very dreamlike and creepy. I also thought that surprisingly not naming any of the characters worked. 4 stars.

I read Crazy Rich Asians for this theme, picked because it's not every day a book set in my home country gains international attention. Unfortunately, that meant I know too much about the context in which the book was set to really enjoy it. For instance, I had severe misgivings about the Chinese-centric portrayal of Singapore. Also, to me, the use of Singlish was jarring in that 1) Kwan's insertion of them felt unnatural and incorrect, and 2) I'm certain that uber rich Singaporeans think themselves too good for Singlish (which is generally seen here as an indicator of lack of education and belonging to the working class).

Regardless, I'll give the book props as it was a fast read, a lot of fun and a good escape into the world of rich folks. I might check out the sequels if I feel like reading something light, and I'm still going to watch the movie when it comes out because it'll be pretty cool to see on the big screen local TV stars I grew up watching. Overall though, a so-so read. 2 stars.

Crazy Rich Asians - I reaallly enjoyed it and found myself constantly laughing! It was a very easy and light read and helped me out of my reading slump. I cannot wait for the movie to come out, giving them all my coins.

I read 3 books on the list, they were mostly good but not amazing. I'm glad I read them though.

A Wrinkle in Time
Ophelia
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

the only book i read for the challenge was Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. it was really disappointing.

I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; it was very twee with lots of “cute�� characters. I do like that it I was written as a series of letters and that it was set during WW2. I learned about the aisle of Guernsey which I had never heard of before. Overall a light hearted read.

To those who have read Ophelia....is it good? I don't want to bother if it's just your average young adult historical fiction but I'm intrigued.

A Wrinkle in Time: Like almost everyone else, I wasn't super fond of it. I read it as a kid and didn't really remember it. The novel simultaneously felt like nothing was happening and like everything happened too fast. The characters and writing were eh. It could have used more fleshing out.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post: Haven't finished it yet, about 60% through rn. I like the novel so far. I generally don't like first person pov in fiction, but I don't mind it here, probably because it's more memoir-like. The book feels a little slow in parts and I'm surprised I'm just now getting to the conversion therapy portion since that's the main plot point I've always heard about, but it's well written and interesting enough that I don't really mind. I'd be interested in seeing the original draft of the novel before they decided to turn it into YA.

I read a few of the books already (A Haunting at Hill House, Crazy Rich Asians, Good Omens) so for this one I read Ready Player One and I haaaated it. Omg.

But I am going to start Annihilation tonight, so hopefully I can finish before the month is over!

I finished The Hate U Give last night. it was good but honestly i think i liked it so much because it is so relevant, and not just because it is a great book. i am looking forward to the movie.

I finished A Wrinkle in Time tonight and was really thrown off. The first three or four chapters were annoying for entirely different reasons than the rest of the book. I am not sure what was weirdest, the fact that it turned into a Communism Is Bad plot, or the (view spoiler)[Jesus is in space with Shakespeare, Gandhi, Einstein, and Michelangelo fighting a bad atmosphere monster???? plot. (hide spoiler)] I'm not even sure if that counts as a spoiler. So much of trying to reconcile scientific advancement of the space race with religion without explaining any of it just didn't work for me. What a read.

I think I already posted about the first book I read for the challenge, Vanity Fair, but is a link to my blog post just in case anyone is interested!

I also listened to the audio version of Sharp Objects, which I felt was written largely to shock the audience with a lot of explicit sexual encounters intermingled with grotesque scenes featuring slaughterhouses, raw meat and caged livestock. It was quite unpleasant in that respect (as you might imagine!) and there was a lot about the plot (sexual abuse and exploitation of minors, drug use, mental health issues) which was similarly unsettling. (view spoiler)[ The portrayal of the mother's condition, 'munchausen by proxy', was particularly haunting but her characterisation was the only really redeeming feature of the book for me. (hide spoiler)]

On the whole I wouldn't recommend this one. I know it was Gillian Flynn's first novel, so maybe it's understandable that the writing wasn't perfect, but on top of this I found the plot fairly predictable and unexciting. Written to disturb, and successful in that aspect, the book is nonetheless, mediocre. I would recommend sticking to Gone Girl if you are a fan of psychological thrillers and want to try some of Flynn's work.

It will be interesting to see how Amy Adams manages in the TV series, I think the last film of hers I watched was 'Enchanted' (I have a certain soft spot for kids films...), which she was fine in, but if she manages to pull off the oh-so-slightly less singalong-with-bluebirds role, her acting skills will definitely go up in my estimation! I expect the series' creation was sparked off, at least in part due to the success of the television version of Big Little Lies (which, *shock, horror*, I actually enjoyed more than the book, and I do love a bit of Liane Moriarty). However, I can't imagine this series will be as good as that, particularly given the comparatively un-flashy lineup. If it gets positive reviews I'll certainly take a look, but I won't be counting down the days.

I read Crazy Rich Asians for this month, and I enjoyed it. I read it during my commute, and it helped me escape from my mind into the über wealth world of the book. I hate that it sort of ends on a cliffhanger but I didn't love it enough to devour the next book ASAP. I'm dying to see the movie, though!

I read Where'd You Go, Bernadette mostly because I love Richard Linklater films and I felt like it would probably be interesting since he was working on the adaptation. I liked the fact that the story was told mostly in documents, but I just found that I just couldn't relate to any of the characters. They all do awful things without a lot of consequences, they all have too much money and do the wrong things with it.

I will definitely check out the movie at some point, though -- I'm interested to see how it's adapted.

I read Crazy Rich Asians this month and I really enjoyed it! Like everyone else says it was a fun, fast read. Also as random / weird as it sounds I really love when books contain like... family trees in the front. I don't know why. :X Definitely looking forward to the movie.

My hold finally came in for The Hate U Give so I just started it. Not sure if I'm going to finish it by tomorrow though.

I read Sharp Objects and Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch and as a bonus I've just gotten One Day She'll Darken: The Mysterious Beginnings of Fauna Hodel which I'll read sometime in February probably as Patty Jenkins is adapting it into a miniseries to air this year. :)

This month I read The Terror and The Haunting of Hill House, though I didn't intentionally choose two supernatual novels. The Terror was okay. It dragged at some points, the few female characters aside from Lady Silence showed up in reference to sex, and Silence/Silna's tits still came up a lot, and (view spoiler)[there were gay villains. Of course. It's like an anti-Moby-Dick, because despite the white monster, darkness is the source of oppression and terror, and there's a preference for drunk Christians over gay cannibals. There were also a couple of good gay characters, but their habit of not having sex while at sea is mentioned as a mark in their favor, as opposed to the other two, which made me rme. Anyway, it was great to see Silna's swift competence after hundreds of pages of the expedition's slow death, especially since the Terror and Erebus were finally discovered because of Inuit stories about the wrecks after a century and a half of searching. (hide spoiler)] It'd be hard to make something about the Franklin Expedition that I'd hate, so I'll probably watch the show, but I'm apprehensive about fanboys.

The Haunting of Hill House was short and sweet. I'm glad the 1963 adaptation is good, because looking at the cast of the netflix one + the 10 episode order makes me think it's gonna be doing its own thing. I'm actually more looking forward to the adaptation of the book I liked least lol.

This month I read Disobedience, which I have mixed feelings about, and then I gave Red Sparrow a try but it was so boring and awful that I gave up. I also read Annihilation and I loved it. It was perfectly creepy and strange.

I finished Sharp Objects and I was disappointed. This is my first time reading a Gillian Flynn novel in full (I started Dark Places and liked the 50 odd pages I had read before another book distracted me). I liked the writing style but for a good majority of the book I felt like it was taking me through a lot of nothing... stalling with repetitive depictions of the people and culture of the town of Wind Gap. The most interesting part for me was Camille's relationship with Richard. Their chemistry was effortless and I honestly expected for them to work together on solving the case a lot more than they actually did. The pacing felt slow and drawn out and instead of having clues trickled throughout chapters before the big reveal, I felt like everything was rushed in the end. It was pretty obvious who had done it - only because they all but told us a few chapters in. But their motives as to why were exposed waaay too late into plot and that it didn't even feel satisfying when it finally came to a head. Also, it felt too much like the author was trying to shock you with disturbing, sexual, violent visuals and it mostly made Camille come across as desperate tbh. I know it's Gillian's first novel and maybe her others are better, I'll see for myself but otherwise this was a pretty mediocre read with too much filler for me. Although I'd read a novel about Camille and Richard in a heartbeat.

Kate wrote: "I read Sharp Objects and The Alienist. Honestly I wasn't that thrilled with either one. I felt like The Alienist was a slog to get through, though I think this is one o..."
I felt the same re: Amy Adams. The whole time I was reading I kept imagining Camille being played by Kate Mara