Books I want to read before 2019 // Can we panic now?

Hello fellow bookworms 📖 It’s time for another Top Five Wednesday, which is a weekly meme which was created by Lainey and is now hosted by Sam! Make sure to check out the Goodreads Group as well 🌺 This week’s topic is Books You Want to Read Before 2019. This was actually last week’s topic, but as I did my Tome Topple TBR then, I decided to do the topic this week! Here is what this is all about:

Our Goodreads goals are quickly closing in. What are you prioritizing for the end of the year?

This is actually a harder question than I anticipated, because while I have some books left over from my yearly TBR … I’m kind of not in the mood for all the books on there. Towards the end of  summer I have become a bit more of a mood reader in the way that I still organize and plan my reading, but I’m becoming more flexible. There’s also the fact that I have 2 sequels on there that I’m a bit scared to read, because I’m always terrified of being disappointed when I loved the first book.

Then I’ve got a lot of festive books planned for December and I’m likely going to do a post about the Christmas Readathons I will be joining, so I won’t share my TBR for them right now. So picking 5 books is actually very tricky and a bit scary because the year is closing in so fast now I didn’t read as much as I wanted to because of University stuff and NaNoWriMo. I also have to admit that there are a few books I HAVE to read because they are either leftover Arcs or library books, so I’m feeling a bit of pressure to tick certain books of my TBR. So I’m lowkey freaking out about all the books that I would love to read that I cannot read, because there’s. no. time 😭 Watch me go into reading mode on New Year’s Eve! (I did that the last two years, would highly recommend, if you don’t have to be social 😂)

To All the Books I have yet to read

1. The Cruel Prince (Holly Black) 🌺 Library Book 🌺 I actually mentioned this book when I did a Tag about Books I will never read … somehow that never works out for me 😂 I also had Illuminae on this list and it turned out to be a yearly favorite, so yeah, sometimes giving books a chance can really pay off! I have already been confronted with ALL the hype about this book, so I’m a bit nervous, as by now everyone has read and talked about this book, but that also gave me the chance to adjust my expectations. As far as I see it, this will either be a hit or miss for me, so stay tuned to find out. I do love murdery fairies and a lot of intrigue, but what worried me most about the book is the romance. I’ve heard both good and bad things about it, so we’ll see what I think about it when I read the book, but I’ll hope for the best. Also shout out to my library for buying this book! (They recently bought a few English books – they do this once a year, which is AMAZING, given that I live in Germany and there are a lot of libraries – like the one I grew up with – that have barely any English books. I can basically never move away, because I LOVE my library and I’m so grateful to have it 💗)

2. The Hazel Wood (Melissa Albert) 🌺 Library Book 🌺 This too falls under the category of – I actually didn’t intend to read this, but look my library has a copy, oh no now I have checked it out – because I was staying a bit away from The Hazel Wood due to the hype a while back. However, as that now has faded I’m willing to give this book a chance, especially as it’s Alice in Wonderland inspired and I’ve got to stay on brand somehow 😜 This was actually a book I wanted to read around Halloween, because it is quite dark and mysterious, but then I didn’t get around to reading it and I want to read it now instead of returning it to the library unread. I actually have zero expectations for this book, so that should maybe be a good thing, as I can go into this pretty much not knowing too much. Maybe this will end up being another 3-star read or maybe surprise me? Who knows.

3. Empress of All Seasons (Emiko Jean)  🍀 Digital Arc 🍀 I actually just got this Arc! I don’t know why Netgalley sometimes approves you like a few days before release date – this was released November 6th – but I’m grateful that I was able to get this at all! I haven’t really talked about this here, but – as an international Reviewer – I get approved for very little nowadays so getting this was very nice, especially as it was on my most anticipated releases list! However, there are two things. 1) There is a lot of pressure to read this soon as my eArc expires in a month and 2) I have heard a lot of mixed things from fellow bloggers, who were very torn about this book. That usually gets me nervous, but we’ll see how this goes! I definitely want to try and keep my expectations low and my mind open to this one, as it could maybe work for me. You never know and I definitely want to give this book a chance!

4. The Darkest Star (Jennifer L. Armentrout)  🍀 Digital Arc 🍀 This was another surprise Netgalley approval – I admit at sometimes just requesting away, even if I have few hopes of getting approved, because sometimes it works! – and I love the author too! (I actually meet her briefly during book fair last year and it was great, even though it was all very rushed because there were so many people in line) I actually didn’t realize that this was a spin-off from the Lux Series (I only read Obsidian) when I requested it, so I hope me not having finished it, doesn’t confuse me in any way. I have to admit that I’m a bit nervous (I say this about a lot of books nowadays wow, but I’m just a very nervous person in general 😂), as I recently reread Obisidan and while I still loved it, the romance was bordering at problematic at times. Usually JLA writes this more alpha male-ish love interests that however manage to be decent, but we’ll see how this goes.

5. Fireblood (Elly Blake) OR Wayfarer (Alexandra Bracken)  🌼 2018 TBR 🌼 This is actually a tie between these two books as they are both on my 2018 TBR and I still haven’t read them, because I’m terrified of not liking the sequels to books I loved 😅 However, I really want to read at least one of those books, as I will already not get to another 2018 TBR Book (The Broken Eye … that book is adult and 700+ pages … this will not be happening this year, as this will take me 1-2 weeks to read 😂). I haven’t yet decided if I will read Fireblood or Wayfarer, but I’ll choose based on my mood, as this has worked best for ,me lately! I can say that I will be reading one of the books during the Magical Feast (the festive Magical Readathon edition) for the prompt ‘a book you had to prepare yourself for’ because this is true for both of them. I have been preparing myself to read them … all year. I love the first books in the Series (Passenger was even in my Best Of List), but a) like I said, I’m afraid they’ll disappoint me and b) Wayfarer is the conclusion and that’s scary! Anyways, reading through positive Reviews for both of them has really helped me get in the mood and excited for them, so I would highly recommend doing that!

What books do you want to get to before the end of the year? Plese tell me someone else is panicking too 📖