Hello everyone! Welcome to my channel Books & Bobs, my name is Rob and today
I am bringing you my January wrap-up! So without further ado let's get started.
So disclaimer, I read a lot more than I can show in the thumbnail for this video
because I read two audio books this month and I was re looking over my
January TBR and I pretty much stuck to what I wanted to read. I added in a few
extra things because obviously, you know, in the month of January you'll find
things that you want to buy and I found one or two comics that I added in. But on
the whole I'm pretty proud of myself that I stuck to my goal of what I wanted
to read or what I set out in my January TBR. In total I read seven books in
January. Two of these were audiobooks, two were graphic novels, one was an
illustrated edition of a series and two were fantasy books or kind of YA, it, one
was YA fantasy, one was epic fantasy and I think without further ado I'm
going to go and show you the books that I read in the order that I read them and
give you my thoughts on them! So the first book that I read in January was a
graphic novel and that is A Link to the Past, which is basically a graphic novel
of the videogame that everyone knows if you've ever played Zelda. This is like one
of the most defining games in Zelda history and it kind of set up the whole
platform for up to something like 20 years of Zelda gaming where everything
was modelled off this one great iteration. I gave this about four stars and I
really really enjoyed it. It was an absolutely fantastic read. The artwork in
it is is fantastic. It's really really childish and it gives kind of childlike
humour to to Link and the whole story of a Link to the Past which is actually
quite dark, where basically Ganon is kind of coming back and the
sage Aghanim, is trying to capture these seven princesses or seven damsels that
he can use their souls to bring back Ganon who is the big bad guy in any
Zelda series so it's quite a dark story. But basically Link is the hero and he
goes around trying to get the pendants of the Sages and then he
to save all the damsels in the dark world and eventually save Zelda and
fight Ganon, obviously that's how it goes. But because it gets such a child-like
air to Link and the artwork was so child-like and entertaining and really
kind of fun and light-hearted, I really really enjoyed this retelling of the
great story from a Link to the Past so I'd recommend it if you're looking for a
good Zelda graphic novel. I think it's one of the OG ones as well, it's one of
the first ones that came out so I definitely recommend it, I really enjoyed
it, it was a very fun read! The next book that I read in January you will have
seen in my January TBR and that is the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and
the Chamber of Secrets and no surprises here I gave this 5 out of 5 stars. I
absolutely loved this book and something about reading Harry Potter always
transports me back to when I was reading it originally. But obviously reading this
in another kind of iteration or reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
in another form really brought me back again to that childhood which I suppose
is really really good when you're looking for something with nostalgia! The
artwork in this is superb, it is fantastic and I think I've said it
before in my channel but one thing that I really like is the fact that you get a
different artist's interpretation on it! So you have the first time that you've
read Harry Potter when you were a child and the images you met up of every one
in your head. Then you have the second time maybe when you watch the film and
got those images from the director or how he envisioned people or characters
from the universe. And then finally you're getting Jim Kay's edition of say
Dobby or Harry or what the Burrow looks like or what lawn gnomes look like so I
definitely love to get different people's interpretations of it and I
would recommend the illustrated editions if you're looking for a reread of Harry
Potter. The next book that I read was an audiobook and it was Stephen Fry's
Mythos and I loved this audiobook! It was fantastic and as I always say there's
something so special about reading an audiobook and getting it narrated by the
person who read the book or who wrote the book, because you're really getting
their own voice through their own writing and it literally just sounds
like you're sitting down with Stephen Fry and he's telling you the story. This
is basically kind of a long book but short, bite-sized, chunked series of the
history or the retellings of Greek mythology. And basically he
researched a lot for it, but he still wanted it to be a readable or flowing kind of
story of the Greek myths. I feel like Greek myths are kind of
standalone. That you can pick them up and you know about these heroes already or
you've heard a bit about them but the way Stephen Fry put it together was that,
like, he literally started at the beginning and then everything flowed
from that so a story always linked into the next one that was coming and it
always made sense and it really really made the whole experience of reading or
listening to this book cohesive and it felt like all those Greek myths flowed
and flowed well into each other. Now I definitely want to re-listen to
this because Greek myths are a bit of a fan favorite for me and I feel like
Stephen Fry did a really really good job of telling the stories in an easy and
understandable way. The only problem that I have with it is, Greek mythology is so
vast that you're never going to remember all the characters and what they did or
what happened to them so I definitely want to reread this at some point. I
might even get the physical copy because I loved the book so much and I
definitely want to look into more Greek mythology retellings or stories so if
you know of any good ones please leave a comment down below or any ones that
you've read and if you have any recommendations let me know because I
would love to dip into Greek mythology again. It's been one area that I really
really enjoy! The next book that I read was Everless by Sara Holland and I
have hauled this already in my January book haul but it wasn't that great
to be honest. I didn't really enjoy this book. It had a great premise where time
is linked to your blood and you can sell your blood and time to pay for things
like food or clothes or things that you need and it had a great premise, great
kind of mystical kind of aspect to it! And of course Everless, you're getting
the kind of Russian setting of a big house and it had very much like "Hunger
Games" vibes as well because our main character was trying to fight for her
life and her grandfather's by hunting, and very much Katniss Everdeen there, and
then you had some other tropes from like other mystical novels and even films I
saw as well on Goodreads when people were reviewing it. It was a great premise,
it started off quite well, I really like, binge read about two hundred
pages of this while I was flying over to France on holidays. But it really kind of
drew short, drew the short straw for me I really didn't enjoy it. I think I gave it
2 stars only for the fact that I actually finished it and stuck with it.
But it really, it was full of tropes, there's a love triangle, it's really
really predictable, there's not really very many twists and turns, the magic
system in it kind of goes out the window after the first like a hundred pages, you
don't really encounter it again that much and even then it doesn't have that
much of a bearing on it. As I said it's so predictable and you can really see
things coming like, a mile away and nothing really kind of like shocks you
and it's just, it's, it's an OK read. I wouldn't recommend it myself and I'll
definitely be donating this to either a library or charity shop just so someone
else might benefit from reading this. I definitely feel it's a YA fantasy and
a YA young girl's fantasy in a way. Just the tropes and the love triangles
and everything like that, it just it was set up that way for me and I just
really didn't enjoy it so, it's a shame because I was really invested in it and I
thought it would be really fantastic but at the end of the day it just kind of
fell at the last hurdle for me. The next book that I read is a series of comics
and you've heard me talk about this before and that is The Wicked and
the divine and this is volume 6 an imperial phase part 2 where we follow all our
gods that have come back from the Pantheon and some new ones are even
being met in it. And this was good it was not amazing but it is definitely another
good iteration into the series. I feel it was definitely a setup book. I feel like
the next volume could be the last or maybe there's at least another two in it
and it definitely felt kind of like a set up one so, we're kind of getting to
the end of the story now. There were big cliff hangers as usual so that is
definitely something to keep you coming back to the series and all our
characters are there and they all have the same voices so you're definitely
hooked. If you're getting to volume 6 and you like The Wicked and The Divine then you
know, you're already in it for the long haul and the characters don't change
that much which is great. You know who they are, you know what they're going to
do and you know how they're going to react. Of course there is sex, there's
killings, there's murder, there's drug use.... everything
in this that is like taboo to be talked about, so it makes it a really good, quick,
fast-paced read and it keeps your attention. The artwork is beautiful and
it's great to see that both Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie are back on
this and that like, you know there's no more guest authors after you know the
fiasco of volume 3. So yeah it's nice to see that this is kind of continuing on
the up and up. Bit of a letdown from volume 5, but it's a good kind of filler
good setup for volume 7 and hopefully 8. The next book I finished I'm not gonna say I
totally read in January is Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson and I gave this
five stars. I filmed a review for this so I'm gonna leave it up here in the I if
you're interested in hearing my thoughts but you know this is the third book in
the Stormlight Archives so if you haven't read the first two it's probably best to
stay away from everything about Oathbringer because there'll be massive
spoilers for book 1 & 2. Needless to say this was great. It wasn't as great as Way
of Kings or Words of Radiance so that was a tiny bit of a letdown for me
especially after all the hype. I was waiting for it in November. And as I said
before I did have to kind of stop this halfway through so I could kind of take
a break and come back into it. But needless to say, I love this book in
comparison to all of the fantasy books this is still a 5 star read but in
comparison to the other Stormlights this is about a 4.5,
whereas Words of Radiance was a 4.9 and Way of Kings was a full 5 stars for me!
So I really enjoyed it, it took a while to get through, it is a
big book! It's 1,200 pages and at the end of the day I still love the characters
and I'm definitely continuing on with the series there's no doubt about that!
Just in comparison to the other Stormlights it just wasn't as great. And the
last book that I read in the month of January was sleeping giants by Sylvia
Nouvel. This was an audiobook that I got on audible quite a long time ago but I
heard a lot about it on booktube mainly because the second book Waking Gods had
come out and some people were reading it that I really take stock in their
recommendations and I follow them and anything they recommend I tend to pick
up. And oh my god I'm so happy I did!! This was a fantastic read!! Now it wasn't a
whole five stars because I found the characters were a bit difficult to fully
engage with. There is one character in it who
is kind of the main backstory behind it and he's in every chapter and he's the
narrator mainly of this or he's one of the characters interviewing other
characters and he is really intriguing! He's fantastic! But the other characters
were kind of like could give or take you know like I don't really mind. A lot
happens to them and sometimes I was kind of just like meh, okay, move on! Like what's
next in the story! But basically this is a story about a scientist who, when she
was a child stumbled upon this massive hand that she didn't really know what it
was about and then flash-forward I think is it 20 years later or something like
that, maybe 10 or 15, she is a scientist kind of roped into this big project
where the hand is related to other parts of a big robot's body and they're trying
to find it and discovering about this, you know, massive robot and what it can
do and it's, it's fantastic! It's very very sci-fi, it's set up for kind of
space and space combat and fighting other planets and stuff like that so it
is very much sci-fi if you're interested in that sort of thing. I was totally here
for it and I thought the audio book was fantastic because the book is told in a
way that really lends itself to audiobook. It's told in many interviews
between the characters and you're kind of figuring out what happened through
interviews or live recordings of them when they're out in the field and stuff
like that. So it really aids to the audiobook format. As I said it wasn't a
full five stars because I didn't really care about the characters all
that much. I wasn't that much invested but I really enjoyed it definitely one
that I be listening to again, definitely one I'll be buying the physical copy of
and one that I'm eagerly awaiting the next month's credit in audible to be
credited to my account so I can buy Waking Gods and listen to it because
Only Human which is the third in the series is coming out in May and I'd love
to be able to catch up with the series and finish it when it comes out so I'm
kind of like up-to-date with it. I'd really recommend it as I said it's the
Themis files number one and it's definitely a new kind of find for me
that I'm all about and I really really liked it, so starting off the sci-fi
binge for February. Really really enjoyed it and
I'd recommend it if you're looking for something like that. So that is it guys
they are all the books that I read this month. I'm really happy with it. Some
books I didn't read so, I didn't finish the Uncanny X-men and I didn't kind of
branch into Marissa Meyer and her Renegades or Heartless and I didn't
finish All New X-men either which are the kind of ones that I wanted to touch
into but at the same time I added in a whole other host of books that I read
instead and I did stick to the big books that I wanted to finish in January so
very very proud of myself. Please give this video a big like if you liked it
and I leave all my social media links down below that is my Twitter, Goodreads
and Instagram so you can follow me there if you are interested in keeping the
conversation going. Please subscribe to my channel if this is the first time
that you've ever seen a video from me so I'll turn up in your newsfeed and you
can see what I'm reading or what I'm doing next and I will see you all again
soon in another video! One thing don't forget to comment down below because I
love when people comment and I try and reply to all of them whenever I get a
chance. I'm on nights at the moment so comments are going unreplied to but I
promise I will get to them once I kind of get back to the world of the living.
That's it guys, see you soon in another video, Goodbye
For more infomation >> Your January Round-Up - Duration: 7:30. 
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