2017 READING GOALS

Hi everyone!

A couple of months ago I posted about my midyear reading goals. I talked about some thing I wanted to reach by the end of this year. Unfortunately on most point I didn't succeed as much as I would have liked to. Setting the reading goals dit however inspire me, and really kept me wanting to make progress. That's why I decided that for 2017, I wanted to make some more reading goals. Here they are:

5 RE-READS:

I want to re-read at least 5 books. 

6 HISTORICAL FICTION:

Historical fiction is slowly becoming my favourite genre and I want to discover more of it.

 5 DUTCH FICTION:

I want to read at least 5 Dutch books!

8 TRANSLATED FICTION:

I would really like to read more diverse and I want to read at least 8 translated books.

3 MAGICAL REALISM:

I only ever read one or two books of magical realism, but I really enjoyed those. In 2017 I would really like to discover more of this genre.

3 NON-FICTION:
I also want to start to read a little non-fiction every now and then. At least three in 2017 would be great.

5 POETRY:
I would love, love to read more poetry!

4 CLASSICS:
I would like to read a few classics next year!

12 MY WISHLIST - RANDOMLY SELECTED:

I want to select a book from my wishlist through a random name picker each month. 

12 - MY WISHLIST - IN ORDER (FROM TOP OR BOTTOM):

I also want to pick one book from my wishlist in the correct order each month. Can be chosen from the top or bottom.

This year I had set my goal to read 65 books which I succeeded. In 2017 I would like to bump up this goal by a bit and set it to 70!  Blog-wise I would like to upload at least 4 reviews a month and post more consequent. 

Lastly for myself, I want to make an Excel file and write down some statistics of all the books I read in 2017. For example: where is the author from, where is the book set, is the author male or female, etcetera. 

What are your reading goals for 2017?

2016 CONCLUSION | BOOK DISCUSSION

With just a few days away from 2017 I would like to talk about my 2016 - reading wise.

First of all my mid-year reading goals. The only reading goal I (sur)passed was reading 2 Dutch fictions (I read 3). I only read one translated fiction, one classic and one poetry. I read 3 historical fictions where my goal was to read 5. Although I didn't reach all of these goals I am really happy with the books I did read. Click here for the specific post on my mid-year reading goals.

This year I read - books. I read - pages. The shortest book I read had 37 pages and is called: 'Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth'. The longest book I read had 600 pages and is called: 'Illuminae'. The average length of the books I read was 314. My average rating this year was 3.6 stars. The most popular book (on Goodreads) I read this year was: 'The Lovely Bones'. The least popular book (on Goodreads) I read this year was: 'Indiase Sprookjes'. For my exact Goodreads statistics click here!

I am really happy with this reading year and I cannot wait to read even more next year! Talk to you soon, lots of love!

BOOK REVIEW | A CLOCKWORK ORANGE BY ANTHONY BURGESS

Title: A Clockwork Orange
Author: Anthony Burgess
Published: 1962
Language: English
Pages: 141
Rating: 3/5

""What we were after was lashings of ultraviolence." In this nightmare vision of youth in revolt, fifteen-year-old Alex and his friends set out on a diabolical orgy of robbery, rape, torture and murder. Alex is jailed for his teenage delinquency and the State tries to reform him - but at what cost?"

I was really excited to read this because the title of this book always drawn to me. When I entered it as bookclub choice and it got picked I couldn't wait to pick it up. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy (or understand?) it as much as I had hoped.

We follow Alex in this story, and his friend and the first thing I notice when starting this story is the words that are used. Alex and his friends have their own slang which even after reading almost halve the book, I still didn't understand. I felt like an adult nowadays, trying to understand what their children are talking about but not understanding a crap.

This really, really made the book very unpleasant for me to read. I actually finished the book understanding maybe 60 percent of it. I went and looked for a summary on the internet to fully understand this. From the summary I really liked the story of it, but for me it was not executed the right way so I can't give this more than 3 stars. 

I would recommend this to lovers of classics, who like to puzzle with language. 

Get your copy of 'A Clockwork Orange' here!

BOOK REVIEW | NAAMLOOS BY PEPIJN LANEN

Title: Naamloos
Author: Pepijn Lanen
Published: 2016
Language: Dutch
Pages: 254
Rating: 4/5

In 'Naamloos' we follow a month in the life of a man who can not remember who he is. We read about his confusing time, in a battle against addictions and fear, and a fight against himself. 


Pepijn Lanen is in the Netherlands very famous for his work as artist in the band 'De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig'. When I saw he had a book coming out I was very curious about it. I was excited to see what he had to offer - Dutch literature wise. 

This book surprised me very pleasantly. Pepijn is just as inventive, witty and original in this book as in the songs he writes. The writing style is easy to follow, and the short chapters keep it fast paced, even though the writing sometimes got a little monotone. 

I would really like to see this book gets translated, so that non-Dutch reading countries can see what a Dutch writer like Pepijn has to offer to our modern literature. 

This book is available to listen for free on Spotify (in Dutch). 

BOOK REVIEW | A THOUSAND PIECES OF YOU BY CLAUDIA GRAY

Title: A Thousand Pieces of You
Author: Claudia Gray
Published: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 358
Rating: 4/5

"Marguerite Caine's physicist parents are known for their groundbreaking achievements. Their most astonishing invention, called the Firebird, allows users to jump into multiple universes—and promises to revolutionize science forever. But then Marguerite's father is murdered, and the killer—her parent's handsome, enigmatic assistant Paul— escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him. Marguerite refuses to let the man who destroyed her family go free. So she races after Paul through different universes, always leaping into another version of herself. But she also meets alternate versions of the people she knows—including Paul, whose life entangles with hers in increasingly familiar ways. Before long she begins to question Paul's guilt—as well as her own heart. And soon she discovers the truth behind her father's death is far more sinister than she expected."

This was a bookclub pick and I was very excited to pick this up. Mostly because the cover was so appealing, and when I read the back I saw it was recommended to 'Orphan Black' fans. I was super enthousiast to start this book. 

In this book we meet a handful of different characters but we deal the most with Marguerite, Paul and Theo. All three of who were awesome characters! The character building was great and I can't wait to see how they evolve in the next two books.

What I loved as well was the world building. We travel through different dimensions within the live of Marguerite and see the different versions of her living in different places/time. This was super awesome to read about and very well executed. 

I would recommend this book if you are a fan of dystopian's with a girly twist to it!

Get your copy of 'A Thousand Pieces of You' here!

BOOK REVIEW | CESAR BY MATTHIJS KLEYN

Title: Cesar
Author: Matthijs Kleyn
Published: 2016
Language: Dutch
Pages: 221
Genre: Non-Fiction
Rating: 5/5

"Matthijs Kleyn writes in a loving and honest way about his son Cesar. Cesar was born 5 weeks to early, and turned out to have one blind eye. Matthijs writes about the hard moments of the pregnancy, and the beautiful moments as well."

This was such a moving book. The writing style of Matthijs Kleyn is vivacious and made me finish the book in one sitting. The love for Cesar radiates from every page I read. 

I can't really say much more than this. I loved every page of this book. The pictures within the book makes it even better, such an adorable little kid is Cesar. What I also really loved, was that there were also bits of poetry in this book. I never read Dutch poetry before, but reading it in here, makes me want to give Dutch poetry a chance. 

This is the first book I read by Matthijs Kleyn, and I'm really curious about his other work. I hope that this will be published in English in the (near)future!

I would definitely recommend this book for all fathers and mothers (to be)!

NEW ON MY WISHLIST | III

Get the books here:

Tribe by Sebastian Junger

The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson

Nine Island by Jane Alison

All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

Maybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee

No Virgin by Anne Cassidy

The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

BOOK REVIEW | ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE BY ANTHONY DOERR

Title: All The Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
Published: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 531
Rating: 5/5

"Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge."

I loved this book. All The Light We Cannot See really intrigued me from the moment I had heard of it. I was really curious to read from the perspective of a girl who is blind. Besides that, the fact that the other main character, views the war from a totally different point also got me very interested.

This book was so well written. I love short chapters, which this book definitely had (most chapters were 3 to 5 pages). I loved the characters, not only Marie-Laure and Werner but also the side characters like Jutte and Etienne. 

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. It's touching, devastating and wonderful.

Buy your copy of All The Light We Cannot See on Book Depository here!

NOVEMBER 2016

November was a good reading month, luckily, since I didn't read anything in October. I was in quite the reading slump for a while but I finally got out of it in November. I am very satisfied with what I have read and I'm really excited to continue this in December. What also excites me is the fact that I can almost set 2017 reading goals and share them with you! 2017 is going to be such a good reading year! But for now; here is what I read in November 2016.