Time Travel Thursday | May 2

It’s Time Travel Thursday! Hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog, this is where you get to take a look back at what you were reading this time last year (or the year before or the year before that…) and get to relive those bookish memories!

This time in 2023 I was reading:

Happy Place by Emily Henry

My thoughts:

This book gave me all the feels. I love that it’s a different take on fake dating, from the other side of the relationship, which changed a lot of the dynamics. And I love the whole found family aspect of it as well. It made me laugh, it made me cry – both happy and sad tears – because it was also really bittersweet. People change and grow, sometimes they grow apart, sometimes they find a way to grow together. I love that.

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

This time in 2022 I was reading:

Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb

My thoughts:

This is the 3rd book in The Farseer Trilogy. I loved the author’s Liveship Traders series, and I wanted to like this series too, but there were some things that happened in this book that I couldn’t get over at the time and I DNF’d the book. I also didn’t like the protagonist very much because he’s so whiny and seems more like an anti-hero, but unlikeable protagonists don’t really bother me in general as long as they are interesting. I may possibly try this again eventually.

My rating: ⭐⭐/5

This time in 2021 I was reading:

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

My thoughts:

There was a chapter that mentioned simplifying and dumbing down the philosophies/concepts being discussed, I think it was titled Life and Death and Quantum something something, and that kind of summarizes the whole book for me.

I like the ideas behind this story, the theme of the book. It’s a story meant to comfort, motivate, inspire, and I think it would have worked very well as a fable. But as a full-length book it was boring, repetitive, preachy… and I felt like I was being talked down to. There were a lot of “wise-sounding quotes” that felt pretentious; the kinds that sound profound but say nothing.

I really wanted to like this book, and I even started out wanting to give it a 3-star rating, but the more I think about it, the less I think I like it, so I’m going with a 2-star rating.

My rating: ⭐⭐/5

This time in 2020 I was reading:

The Institute by Stephen King

My thoughts:

I listened to this one on audiobook. I love most of Stephen King’s works and I especially enjoy the really long books. This one was 19 hours on audio and apparently approx. 800 pages.

I wrote a long spoilery review on this one on Goodreads, but the gist is that there is a lot to like about it, and it’s definitely worth reading.

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Overall Comparisons

It looks like I had some hits and misses at this time in the last few years. They are all also very different books with very different vibes. To be fair, the books with the good ratings were written by two of my go-to authors – Emily Henry, and Stephen King. I’ve only read one other Matt Haig book that I was lukewarm about, and while I loved Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders, I’ve only read two of her series. I am open to reading more of Robin Hobb though, and trying this one again too.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? What were you reading at this time in the past?