What better way to start this new feature than with my all-time favourite beginning which coincidentally happens to belong to my favourite YA-fantasy novel written by my favourite German author? Yeah. None …

May started out great: I read four books in the first week! That blew me away since I hadn’t read much in April. Suddenly, everything seemed possible – even finishing off my whole utopian tbr-list. And then … then I spend two long weekends at home and everything went downhill. It’s the strangest of things, but when I’m surrounded by almost all of my beautiful ~1,300 books, I just don’t get to read at all. There’s a fast Internet connection and four horses that keep me busy. At least I somehow managed to read the book(s) for my fantasy literature seminar but instead of getting back to my list, I spontaneously decided to re-read A Game of Thrones, because we were also discussing it in class and I thought that my memory could use some refreshing. In an act of extreme desperation, I tried to read The Nightmare Affair on the very last day of the month, but I was too slow to finish it in time …

Je länger ich darüber nachdenke, desto mehr fällt mir dazu ein, weshalb ich damit jetzt wohl besser aufhöre und mich auf die Top 5 der Dinge, die mich auf die Palme bringen, konzentriere. Interessanterweise haben alleine drei davon mit den ach so tollen Romanzen zu tun …

Thank God, it’s over. Finishing this was a nightmare; I made it through eventually but not without heavily exercising my eye rolling abilities. Either I fail to recognise the literary value or this book is completely mental. There are so many aspects that drove me crazy that I don’t even know where to begin. It was almost unbearable to read, especially since I knew from the very first page on that I would have issues with this novel . . .

Dear God, why is it July again?! A moment ago, it was still January. How fast time always flies … But that it has to be July of all things. July means endless work for me because it’s the month of exams. This year, I have three (if I’m lucky only two) written and one oral exam – if everything works out fine. At university, there’s some chaos regarding that exam and furthermore I keep struggling with a few bureaucratic problems. One is spared nothing! Therefore, July is technically equivalent to reading recession. At least that’s what it’s supposed to be but usually, I get a craze for reading when I don’t have the time. How it will turn out this time remains to be seen …

First, I didn’t come up with enough books and in the end, I had too many – anyway, here are my top ten books that are intimidating either because of their size, because I didn’t even want them to exist or because I’m a little frightened I will dislike them.

Im Moment dreht es sich verständlicherweise überall um die besten Bücher des ersten Halbjahrs 2013. Hier könnt ihr meine Top Ten finden, die Krone aber bekommt Jellicoe Road von Melina Marchetta …