Reader Rayna

Month: September 2015

  • September 2015 Wrap-Up

    Another month come and gone. I seriously can’t believe September is already over with! It’s flown by!

    In the month of September I read a total of three books, which is a little better than last month, but not by much. And the books are:

    • “Queen of Shadows” by Sarah J. Maas – I loved this book so much! It was definitely the best book of the series thus far, in my opinion. And of course it had some problems, but I still loved it so much. I cried, I laughed, I was angry, I was full of joy… it made me have all the feels. 5/5 stars.
    • “Everything, Everything” by Nicola Yoon – This was a cute YA contemporary with a twist at the end. I thought that it was highly enjoyable, fast paced, and a great read. 4/5 stars.
    • “Magic Burns” by Ilona Andrews – This is the second book in the Kate Daniels series and I enjoyed it more than the first. It was much easier to understand what was happening, plus there was more action, more hints of romance, more of the culture of the world, and just more awesomeness. 4/5 stars.

    Now as for discussions, I did have a few:

    • The Pressures of Reading – I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like there’s a lot of pressure on them to read a lot of books because they blog about it. It’s tough! I know it shouldn’t get to me, but it does, and I talk about that here.
    • Readers Wanting to Be Authors – You know you know someone out there who loves to read who wants to be an author themselves one day – heck, it might even be you! But you also know the people who love to read that don’t want to be, and that’s cool, too.
    • Introducing Writing to Reading Blog – I wanted to talk more about writing on this blog because it’s the one I use most often and I don’t want to keep similar passions (writing and reading) on two separate blogs; it’s too much of a hassle and this is just so much easier.
    • An Overwhelming TBR – I have so many books on my TBR that I don’t know if I’ll ever get to them. I hope to one day, but I don’t know when that’ll be. Anyone else have this problem?
    • Booktube Bible-a-thon – I’m going to be participating in this read-a-thon that’ll go through the entire Bible in a year. It’s going to be a long journey, but I’m sure it’s going to be extremely rewarding and fun.

    I also participated in several Top Ten Tuesdays this month! It was a very fruitful time:

    I also did one fun tag this month, which was the Extraordinary Means Tag! It was fun, thought provoking, and it drove me a little crazy.

    So, all in all, this month wasn’t too bad. For some reason I thought I stopped posting on here back in the second week of the month, but I guess not! Haha!

    How did your month of reading go? Did you surpass your own goals or were you stuck in a rut? What was your favorite topic that you discussed on your blog this month? Let me know!

  • Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books to Read If You Like These Popular Books/Authors

    Welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday, as hosted by the lovely people over at The Broke and the Bookish. Today’s topic is all about those popular books and authors that we all know and love (or don’t love) and some book recommendations to go along with those books/authors. So, here are books you might like if you like these popular books/authors:

    1. “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green – Everyone and their mother has probably heard of this book by now. It was hugely popular for years, especially last year when the movie came out, so here’s my recs for something that’s similar, heart-wrenching, romantic, and awesome:
      1. “The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight” by Jennifer E. Smith – This title is forever long, but it was a cute contemporary with star-crossed lovers who, against many odds, ended up meeting and coming together.
    2. “Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli – This book went wildly popular when ti was released earlier this year and I think that it was rightly so. And sticking on the theme of diversity, you might like these books if you like Simon:
      1. “None of the Above” by I.W. Gregorio – This book is all about a girl who is intersex and doesn’t know it until after a painful first sexual encounter with her boyfriend. It opens your eyes to a world of people who have this condition and how many handle it.
      2. “My Heart and Other Black Holes” by Jasmine Warga – A trigger warning of suicide, this book deals with mental illness and how two teens make an agreement to commit suicide together on the same day, but can they go through with it?
    3. The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare – Everyone and their mother knows about this series, too, right? Well, it’s an urban fantasy story with Shadowhunters, demons, warlocks, and a fight between good and evil.
      1. The Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews – This is an adult urban fantasy series, and it’s similar in that there is magic in the world that we know, but the circumstances and location are entirely different.
      2. “Stardust” by Neil Gaiman – Though this is more on the magical side than the others, there are still elements of real world understanding and happenstance that take place in this book and I think it’d be a great read for someone who enjoys subtleties and more plot.
    4. “Shatter Me” by Tahereh Mafi – This is a trilogy that gets better with each book, and definite character growth takes place in it. What I recommend is:
      1. “The House of the Scorpion” by Nancy Farmer – This is one of my favorite all time books because not only did it introduce more mature themes at a younger age for me, but the story was different and rich, the characters were empowering and strong as time went on, and the world building was great.

    Now those are really all the ones I can think of at the moment that I can recommend and all that.

    Have you read any of these books? What were your thoughts? Let me know!

  • Booktube Bible-a-thon

    Hey peeps, I wanted to talk about the year long readathon I plan on participating in. It’s one that I’ve been wanting to do on my own for a while, but now I’ll have people to do it with so… Incentive!

    That is the Booktube Bible-a-thon hosted my Maureen Keavey on YouTube! It’s going to be hosted as a year long readathon because, well, the bible is a long book to read and doing it in a year following a plan seems to be the best way to go about doing it.

    Now, I am a Christian, and I’ve read a handful of the bible, so this is the perfect opportunity for my own personal growth in my relationship with God as well as a way to actually read through the whole bible.

    The reading schedule is posted on the video’s description box, but if you have the Bible App by Lifechurch.tv just choose the Chronological reading plan with the Blue Letter Bible and that’ll be the plan that’s going to be used.

    It’s running from October 4th to next October in 2016. A full year!

    There’s also a Goodreads group up for discussion if you want to join in there.

    If you want to join in, please do! I’ll make occasional updates or just post a wrap up at the end of the year. Just because it says Booktube doesn’t mean it’s only happening there – it’s just where the main host posts about it.

  • An Overwhelming TBR

    Do you ever stare at your shelves and wonder just how you accumulated so many books? And how many of those books have you actually read? Do you plan on getting to all of them eventually? Or are you going to let them sit there and gather dust over the years?

    I have an overwhelming TBR, I admit that. I have well over 150 books on my shelves and e-reader that I have yet to read. It’s a lot! But I’m interested in all or most of the books that I have, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But then it begs the question:

    Am I actually going to read all of the books on my shelves?

    I hope to one day. I have different tastes for different seasons and different times in my life, so I’m sure I’ll be able to find something, even if I do end up buying more than I read.

    I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to have all of these books on your TBR – in fact, it gives you more options to read than if you only have a handful of books on it. But it sometimes feels like too many choices. Or I don’t have the right choice.

    But I think one important thing to remember with an overwhelming TBR is that you got all of these books for a reason, so give them a chance!

    Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of unread books on your shelf? Do you think you need to downsize before continuing or are you just going to keep what you have and do your best? Let me know!

  • Introducing Writing on Reading Blog

    I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, and since I shut down my other blog that I used for writing for over a year a year or two ago, I figured that I’d reintroduce some writing back into my blogging world and just talk about it from time to time.

    So, let me just give a little background into why I want to introduce writing to my book blog, why writing is important to me, and just my overall experiences and plans moving forward and stuff.

    If you read my last post on readers wanting to be authors, I talked very briefly about how I would like to be an author one day. And it’s true – I’d love to be able to put my own stories out there for the world to read. Of course, that’s going to take time (and obviously a written story, first), but there’s also the journey to writing, through writing, and ending in writing.

    So why do I want to introduce writing to my reading blog? Because without writing, how would we have these glorious books that we read? Also, because I don’t want to have two separate blogs for my passions, especially when they’re so similar to one another. And because it was the major I graduated with in college and I really want to put it to good use. I think that just talking about my own experiences with writing from time can time may also inspire others; who knows?

    Yes, I may be “Reader Rayna,” but I’m also a writer. I’ve been writing since I was a kid, and long story writing since I was eleven, so incorporating my writing life here just seems, well, natural to me. To have an outlet to express oneself is such an important thing, and one for me is definitely writing. So I want to share not only my experiences and progress with you all, but I want to give advice while also receiving it.

    So from here on expect some sporadic writing posts just talking about my progress – if any – with my writing, posts of encouragement, writing prompts, discussions, etc. I don’t know how often it’ll be, but here’s the first of many to come!

    Are you a writer? What do you think about incorporating writing with reading in blogs? Any advice? Any thoughts/opinions/concerns? Let me know!