June Book Haul & Wrap-Up!

Another month has been and gone, and now we're past halfway through the year...that's scary! But, on a lighter note, I read (and bought) some great books in June that I can't wait to show you!

The Haul:

So, technically I wasn't meant to buy any books in June, but I finished my exams and went to a place with bookshops and lost all willpower. However, all of these books were on my big 'Books After Exams' list, so that kind of justifies them (it does not, but saying this makes me feel better
!).

• PS I Still Love You by Jenny Han - How could I not buy this? I need more Lara Jean and Peter feels! PS is the sequel to To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which I read last year (I think) and loved.
• Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas. I read Dangerous Girls at the beginning of the year, and it was AMAZING. I absolutely loved it, and I've been meaning to pick up Dangerous Boys for ages. When I saw it in not one but two bookshops, that was obviously a sign for me to buy it.
• The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith. I haven't read a book by Jennifer E. Smith before, but this sounds so wonderful and sweet and a perfect summery contemporary.
• The Dream Thieves and Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater. That's right! I finally own the other two books in the Raven Boys series (that are published). I really liked The Raven Boys and gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how the series continues.
• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. This was not on the 'Books After Exams' list, and I wasn't intending on buying it, but I was at a car boot sale, and amid all the pottery and plants, I found a decent copy of Shiver in a box which was being sold for 20p. 20p! That's like...(*attempts maths to work out a percentage* *fails at maths and worries about exam results*) really cheap!

The Wrap-Up:

I read some fantastic books this month!

• (The Rest of) Night School by C. J. Daugherty. This only just makes it onto the June Wrap-Up as I finished it very close to the beginning of the month. I liked Night School, although it wasn't one of my favourites. My full review is here. 3 stars.
• A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab. This was a favourite! I adored this book; the world was so unique, as was the magic. I can't wait to read more about Kell's world and more books by V. E. Schwab! My full review is here. 4.75 stars.
• City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. This was a reread, as I read City of Bones last summer, and I have to say that it was more enjoyable once I'd read the other books in the series. I cared about the characters more knowing all the things I knew after City of Heavenly Fire, and I was more interested in the story because I knew where it would go, whereas before I had no idea. 4 stars.
• The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough. This, like ADSOM is now one of my favourites! I loved almost everything about it. My full review is here. 4.75 stars.
• Rook by Sharon Cameron. I had very high expectations for this book. First of all, it has one of the prettiest covers ever. Second, one of the first lines of the blurb begins with 'In the Sunken City that was once Paris'. I love books set in France, and I love books set in the French Revolution especially, so I really thought I would love Rook. Which I did...kind of. The concept was so interesting; a future that had returned to the ways of the past. And I did love the way that Diet Coca Cola bottles were treated as valuable antiques, and that the A5 was a deserted road. I thought the plot was strong, although at the end it did feel a little messy. I now want a pet fox like Sophia, our protagonist, has, and I admired Sophia for being very strong, independent, and smart. But Sophia and Rene's relationship felt odd, the viewpoints changed too often towards the end (although I liked how Cameron linked them together), and Spear was Gale. HE WAS ACTUALLY GALE (if Gale lived in the future in Europe). Overall, I am glad I read it, as I want to now read more of Sharon Cameron's books, but there were issues. 4 stars.

I would say that my favourite book of June was A Darker Shade of Magic, but it was a hard choice to make! That concludes my June Book Haul and Wrap-Up! June was a great reading month for me; how was it for you? Have you read any of the books mentioned? What did you think? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading(:

Night School - Review

Title: Night School
Author: C. J. Daugherty
Part of a Series? The first book in the Night School series.
Synopsis (from Goodreads) : Allie Sheridan’s world is falling apart. Her brother’s run away from home. Her parents ignore her. And she’s just been arrested.
Again.
This time her parents have had enough. They cut her off from her friends and send her away to boarding school, far from her London friends.
But at Cimmeria Academy, Allie is soon caught up in the strange activities of a secret group of elite students.
When she’s attacked late one night the incident sets off a chain of increasingly violent events. As the school begins to seem like a very dangerous place, she finds out that nothing at Cimmeria is what it seems to be.
And that she is not who she thought she was.
Rating: 3 stars.

For some reason I thought this would be about the supernatural. Heads up: it isn't! Night School is definitely a book that got better as I read on. To start with, I wasn’t overly impressed; it had quite a few features that are found in lots of other books – a boarding school, a mean girl, a love triangle. However, some of these changed or were resolved later on in the novel, which improved it.  

Night School also felt like such a set up for the next book! There wasn’t as much action as I had hoped, although more happens towards the end of the book, but the building of the world of Cimmeria Academy was good. I especially liked the settings, like the chapel and the library.

Allie was a really likeable main character. She was strong, but not all the time, made mistakes, and was funny. This made me root for her throughout the book, as she was so realistic. In fact, most of the characters felt realistic, and it was interesting how the relationships between different characters were never 100% clear, which added to the whole mystery around Night School. Carter as a love interest was good too, but it did feel like he told Allie off far too much! More than that, he told her what to do a lot, which kind of annoyed me, but these moments weren’t too common. And Slyvain kind of felt unnecessary until the last few chapters of the book, but not in a way that completely made me want to stop reading.

Overall, I gave this book three out of five stars. It was quite entertaining, with fun, fast-paced dialogue, but there were parts that I didn’t enjoy. I would recommend Night School to people who like books set in boarding schools, as Cimmeria Academy seems like a great boarding school and you’re really immersed in the little Cimmeria world. I also think that Night School would be a good book for people who are trying to get into YA or who want to get back into reading.