My 2018 Reading Wrap-Up

Over the past couple of years, I have documented every film that I have watched and reviewed them all using Letterboxd. As a way to motivate myself to read more, I thought I would do the same for what books I have been reading, using Goodreads as a way to set myself a reading challenge every year.

After reading only 6 books last year, I kept my target low this year and set myself the goal of 10 books. However, I somehow managed to read 20 books this year, mostly due to reading a book a day on my honeymoon.

Here’s how my 2018 challenge went, with a short review and rating for each of the books that I read:

Book Review: A Simple Favor

“Some men lash out and leave marks, the black eyes and broken noses that send women to the emergency rooms and from there to the kindly social worker and the battered women’s shelter. But the real devils are the ones who hide the traces, who practice constant psychological abuse until the woman is all but destroyed.”

Written by Darcey Bell and published in 2017, A Simple Favor follows widow and stay-at-home Mommy blogger Stephanie, who is asked a seemingly simple favour by her best friend, Emily. Emily asks her to pick up her son after school one day, but when Emily never shows up to collect her son from Stephanie’s house, Stephanie knows that something is terribly wrong – Emily would never leave Nicky, no matter what the police say. Terrified, Emily reaches out to Emily’s husband, Sean, offering emotional support. It’s the least she can do for her best friend. But then, she and Sean receive shocking news: Emily is dead. As Stephanie seeks to uncover the truth, she must dig deeper into Emily’s secret past. Things aren’t as simple as she once thought.

Book v Film: A Simple Favor

“Some men lash out and leave marks, the black eyes and broken noses that send women to the emergency rooms and from there to the kindly social worker and the battered women’s shelter. But the real devils are the ones who hide the traces, who practice constant psychological abuse until the woman is all but destroyed.”

Directed by Paul Feig and based on Darcey Bell‘s 2017 book of the same name, A Simple Favor follows widow and stay-at-home Mommy blogger Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), who is asked a seemingly simple favour by her best friend, Emily (Blake Lively). Emily asks her to pick up her son after school one day, but when Emily never shows up to collect her son from Stephanie’s house, Stephanie knows that something is terribly wrong – Emily would never leave Nicky, no matter what the police say. Terrified, Emily reaches out to Emily’s husband, Sean (Henry Golding), offering emotional support. It’s the least she can do for her best friend. But then, she and Sean receive shocking news: Emily is dead. As Stephanie seeks to uncover the truth, she must dig deeper into Emily’s secret past. Things aren’t as simple as she once thought.