2016 hasn’t been a very successful year of reading so far and I feel like March has been a new low since I’ve read awfully little last month with only 7 finished books 🙁 I’m not really in a reading slump but somehow I’ve been kept busy by other things – at least that’s what I’m telling myself because I have no idea why I don’t really get a lot of reading done this year… I really hope that spring is going to change that and I’m optimistic for April to be much better since it’s getting warmer outside and there will be more and more daylight every day now so that I will hopefully be less tired in the evenings and be able to keep my eyes open for more reading time 😀
Books & Audiobooks
As I’ve said above I didn’t read a lot last month and unfortunately more than half of the books haven’t even been really good. I was especially disappointed by Ryan Graudin’s „Wolf by Wolf“ which turned out to be pretty annoying and couldn’t live up to my expectations AT ALL. Another flop was „Quiet neighbors“ by Catriona McPherson which was a) boring and b) had a very weird writing style with lots of sentences that didn’t even make sense in my opinion… oO
My March highlight was definitely „Papierjunge“ („The Chosen“) by Kristina Ohlsson, the Fredrika Bergman & Alex Recht series keeps getting better and better with every book!
I also liked Robert Jackson Bennetts „City of Blades“ a lot and had a great time solving some gruesome murders in Kyrgyzstan with Inspector Borubaev in Tom Callaghan’s „Tödlicher Frühling“ („A Spring Betrayal“).
My reading month was completed by „Neuntöter“ by Ule Hansen and „Wer war Alice“ („What She Left“) by T.R. Richmond. I actually did enjoy the former but was often a bit annoyed by the main character while Richmond’s novel couldn’t live up to my expectations. The concept was pretty interesting but the story itself turned out to be rather boring.
Bookish Games
One highlight of last month was definitely the return of the Bookish Games, hosted by Asti and Kelley from Oh, the books (not forgetting to mention Maraia as first-time co-moderator!^^) and I definitely blame this game for not getting a lot of reading done in March since a lot of my reading time got killed by time-consuming analyses and writing loooong comments (as usual^^). Unfortunately I’m already dead now which on the one hand really sucks but on the other hand allows me to spend more time with my books 😀 I also really want to continue the Chaos Walking series soon now that I’ve been talking about Prentisstown, Spackles and all this stuff for the past weeks! 😀 Oh, and if you want to know what’s so amazing about the Bookish Games, you should check out Inge’s blogpost about why you should join them! 😉
Movies
While February was an amazing film month for me with lots of visits to the movie theatre and also quite a lot of Net(Smart)flixing I only got to watch four movies in March and went to the cinema only once – to watch SPOTLIGHT which was really good but not the „Oscar for Best Picture“ kind of good because actually I had expected it to be much more emotional due to the sensitive topic.
I watched STROMBERG together with my siblings after we stopped A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST after only 15 minutes (seriously, this was one of the worst comedy movies I’ve ever watched tried to watch) and it was hilarious. I thought I would have grown tired of this character after watching the TV show over and over again but I had quite a good laugh over this movie 😀
DEAD MAN WALKING was part of the „Make Maraia watch all the awesome movies that she missed while living under that massive rock“ challenge (I’ll never stop having fun writing this challenge name down :P) and even though it’s already 20 years old I still found it very interesting how it deals with the death penalty topic.
Talking about old movies: I’ve watched the 1973 film adaptation of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR for the first time in years AND IT WAS FUCKING AMAZING. I recommended this musical to Maraia a few weeks ago and we’ve become insanely obsessed with the songs (just like I did when I’ve watched the musical for the first time in school), so it was only natural that this would be the second movie for the challenge and it was a helluva fun. Funky Disco Judas is beyond question the best thing ever that has resulted from religion and I shall be DAMNED FOR. ALL TIME. if I ever stop loving his songs. Seriously guys, if you’re only going to watch one musical in your whole life, please make sure it’s this one. I don’t think I could be any less religious but I love JSC to pieces and whether you’ll join Team Jesus and enjoy a nice oil massage from MAAAARYYY OOOH THIS IS GOOOD or always hoped that you’d be an apostle or rather like to mock him like King „doing the ridiculous dancing while being half-naked“ Herod – it’s just the best musical EVER. So if you’re asking yourself now „WHAT’S THE BUZZ? TELL ME WHAT’S HAPPENING!“ then you’ll better watch it right now 😉
TV shows
I haven’t watched a lot of movies, but definitely can’t complain about not watching enough tv shows.
- MODERN FAMILY: I originally wanted to finish season 5 in March but then Netflix temporarily blocked Smartflix for me. Thankfully they managed to fix it and I’m back and almost done now and it’s still a hilarious show
- DER TATORTREINIGER: Watched the last two episodes of season 5 and they were among my favorites, I especially liked the one with the hot AI which was super weird 😀
- BONES: Watched only 2 episodes last month and am still stuck in season 9, but I’m a bit afraid that something sad is going to happen soon D:
- THE 100: I think the only reason I’m still watching it is because it’s just to much fun to mock this show. Really don’t like season 3 and now they’ve even killed one of the only two characters I didn’t hate -.-
- AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.: One of my favorite TV shows is back from it’s mid-season break and it’s just as good as ever – and also painful.
- GOTHAM is back too and this show keeps getting better and better with every episode. Season 1 was already great but I absolutely love all the new villains in season 2!
- THE X-FILES: Crini and I still haven’t given up on marathoning this show and surprisingly we already made some good progress with season 2 which is still anything but creepy 😀
- JESSICA JONES: I FINALLY finished the first season and have to admit I’m a little bit disappointed because I think the conclusion to the Killgrave storyline was rather weak.
- THE BIG BANG THEORY: I originally wanted to wait and binge-watch season 9 but then couldn’t restrain myself anymore. I’m still LMAO over Sheldon singing „We Will Rock You“ XD
- DAREDEVIL: Season 2 aired last month and I was super excited about it but I have to say that I liked the first season WAY better – I’m definitely missing a villain like Fisk this time and also don’t find the story very exciting. And I dislike Elektra.
- CRIMINAL MINDS: Somehow I was totally in the mood for continuing my CM re-watch last month and continued with season 2 and boy, this season had so many great episodes. I’m also surprised that I still remembered most of them 😀
- SHERLOCK: The Christmas special „The Abominable Bride“ aired in Germany on Easter Monday and even though I had watched the episode already on BBC on New Year’s Day it was definitely wise to watch it a second time to better understand the story which I really liked a lot. Definitely much better than season 3.
Reviews
Other blog posts in March:
- [Bookish Scene: Project 52] Twists & Turns
- [New books on the shelves] February 2016
- [Roundup] February 2016
- [Bookish Scene: Project 52] Shards
- [Top 10 Tuesday] Top Ten Books On My Spring TBR
- [Bookish Scene: Project 52] Spring
- [Das Jahr des Taschenbuchs] Mein Buch für den März
- [Bookish Scene: Project 52] Easter
- [Top 10 Tuesday] 10 Of My Most Recent 5 Star Reads
I think this is my favorite roundup yet, for obvious reasons.
I actually read a ton of books in March, but a lot of them were also pretty mediocre. Many of the ones I did like were either re-reads or audiobooks.
All those Mafia comments probably add up to a whole book, so you can go ahead and add it to your March total, haha. Thanks for remembering me. 😛
I don’t know when I’m going to be over JCS, but it’s not any time soon. I’m definitely DAMNED FOR. ALL TIME. It’s all your fault, and I’m not even sorry. I’m actually grateful that you found out about my supposedly massive rock. XD (But seriously, when are we watching it again?) I really hope your hilarious (but accurate!) description of it encourages people to watch it. 🙂
Gahh, I keep forgetting about „Der Tatortreiniger.“ I at least want to watch season 5 while it’s still on the station’s website. If it even still is… I should start „Gotham,“ too, except I still haven’t managed to watch more than a couple episodes of „Criminal Minds“ or start „Hannibal.“ TOO MANY SHOWS. I’m almost starting to miss my rock. xD
We really have to start pushing JCS on other people, I don’t want to stop freaking out about it any time soon XD And I’m so not sorry for making you obsessed with it 😛
Hahaha, I hope you get to catch up on a lot of shows before you go on your summer TV break ;D I would say CM and Gotham should be top priority since the last Hannibal season was pretty disappointing, but there are so many amazing CM episodes still ahead of you and Gotham is just insane in season 2, I would even say it’s my favorite show at the moment because it’s so full of psychopaths xD
I’m not stopping any time soon. I still listen to it almost every day. 😛 I don’t know who else to push it on! I already tried Maddy, but she just responded with „Hahaha, you guys“ as usual. xD
I’m hoping I’ll be more motivated to keep watching shows this summer. And obviously movies. I’ll definitely prioritize those two, though. You definitely sold me on Gotham. xD
2016 hasn’t been as much successful for me reading wise, either! I’m still really hoping to read a bunch in April and it’s April 10th already…
I was actually excited to read Wolf by Wolf along with the sequel this year but after seeing Maraia’s and your thoughts about it, I’m not sure I want to give the series as much priority. However, City of Blades is definitely on my TBR and I’m excited to get to it.
Haha moderating doesn’t seem to be easy at all. I’m still laughing over Crini and Tory’s failed attempts at the voting updates so props to Maraia for being so good at it.
I really want to start Modern Family soon! Just waiting for some of my shows to go on break to do that. Haha that episode of The Big Bang Theory really was hilarious. I’m so over The 100 because it’s not edgy and gritty as they keep claiming it to be and as they keep killing off more and more characters, my desire to ever catch up keeps lessening. I need to catch up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and I’m so excited (and nervous) to! The rest from The X-Files (LOL) to Criminal Minds have been feeling pretty neglected by me so far. =D
I’ve already read as many books in April now as in the whole of March, so I’m definitely making progress xD
You could still give „Wolf by Wolf“ a try, it has such a high GR rating and I think Crini loved it too, so maybe it just didn’t work for us (even though I’m still sure that it’s actually just not a good book^^). But even if you end up disliking it, I bet it would be fun to follow your reading updates XD
Hahaha, how many X-Files episodes have you watched so far? 2 or 3? XD
Damn, I hear just „okay“ voices about WER IST ALICE. The plot sounds so thrilling, but Anja is listening to the Audio book as well and has mixed feelings about it.
As for Jessica Jones. It was Kind of a lowdown, but I still liked it. Does not happen too often, that I am marathoning a series.
The problem with this book is that there actually isn’t a real plot and that’s why the middle part is really dragging. I’m really glad I listened to the audiobook because I think that the print copy would have been even more boring. There just should have been less philosophy and more story…
I’m actually a bit afraid that the Netflix Marvel series are slowly wearing off, I’ve watched Daredevil season 2 recently and enjoyed it even less than Jessica Jones…