Tag Archives: reviews

November 2016 Wrap Up

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Happy Thanksgiving!

What a fast month! Seriously, in the blink of an eye we’ve already passed Thanksgiving (for us Americans), gone through the Presidential election (let’s not talk about it, okay?), a second wedding anniversary (yay!), and now it’s practically the holiday season! This year has flown by. I think my mind’s still back in March or April, so pardon the dust. But this month was a month of writing (and failing, and I’m fine with that), of reading fun and fantastic books, and just overall enjoyment.

Books I’ve Read

Click on the cover to be taken to its respective review!

illuminae psilikeyou scarlet

  • Illuminae by Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufman – Was a fantastic, unique, brilliant book! I laughed, I cried, I felt emotions for characters I didn’t expect to feel for, and it was amazing. 5/5 stars!
  • P.S. I Like You by Kasie West – This was so cute and I felt that it was really realistic to how a relationship could start in high school. 5/5 stars!
  • Scarlet by Marissa Meyer – What a great sequel! I loved the sci-fi elements, the story, and the new characters introduced. 4.5/5 stars!

Books I’ve Gotten

Click on the cover to be taken to each respective Goodreads page!

thugkitchen thefifthseason ifiwasyourgirl thesunisalsoastar heartless winter thecrownsdog underdifferentstars theisland thechasm

Other Blog Posts

Writing Related

Fun Things

fof-button-2016

31/30. I surprisingly haven’t read any fantasy books this month, which is fine! I’ve still surpassed my goal, which I’m proud of. For those participating, tell me how you’ve been doing!

Instagram

So over on my Instagram I participated in four different challenges this month! It was crazy, but I did most of the days and combined two or more of the challenges in one pic, usually doing two a day. It was super fun and next month I’m participating in four again! Also: I love the bookstagram community. Like the rest of the book community, they’re all really sweet, talented people.

 Around the Internet

This is a feature I’ve seen in several other blogger’s wrap ups and I think it’s a fun way to show what else I’ve been reading/seeing around the internets!

  • Hazel of Stay Bookish talked about being a fat girl and how a book helped her stand up to body shaming.
  • Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything movie adaptation has a release date of August 18, 2017 (my birthday!).
  • #TheThanksUGive was a fun chat where a lot of the book community came together to talk about the thanks we give to others in the community, from bloggers to authors and more.
  • Maggie Stiefvater answered the important question: main character’s facial features of how they are in the books (The Raven Cycle).

Life Updates

  • My husband and mine’s second wedding anniversary happened and we spent the day in Boston, specifically Brookline because there’s an independent bookstore there that I love. We had a good time and enjoyed ourselves, which was great. We got series one Apple iWatches which are pretty cool. I keep forgetting to wear mine, though, because I’m still not used to wearing something on my wrist all the time. Whoops.
  • I saw Moana and it was glorious and I need to see it again. Like now. Right this second. The story was captivating and spoke to me so deeply to my core. The art was stunning and very well made. The representation of the Pacific Islander peoples was amazing to see! It was so fantastic and I highly recommend you check it out.
  • I also saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It was cute. Predictable, but cute. It was also kind of long and I couldn’t understand Newt a lot because his accent was so thick, but I loved the creatures and getting a little more backstory of the wizarding world.
  • I got Pokemon Sun and have been perpetually distracted by the game since getting it. My team consists of Primarina, Arcanine, Minikyu, Sylveon, Magneton, and Zygarde. I love my team to bits and struggle swapping any of them out for whatever reason. Are you playing one of the new Pokemon games? Tell me your team and which game you’re playing!

Let’s Chat! ≧◡≦

Did you participate in NaNoWriMo this month? How was your progress? What books did you read this month? Did you enjoy your reads? Tell me all the things!

October 2015 Wrap-Up

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Well, this month was kind of a dull one in terms of doing anything on the blog, really. I read all of one book and one novella this month, and I feel so sad that I accomplished so little in my eyes. Oh well, here’s what I read, discussed, and some other things about this month!

What I Read

  • “The Prince” by Kiera Cass – This is one of the Selection novellas, and this one follows Maxon and talks about his point of view from before the Selection began and the first day or two of when it started. It was cute, and it offered a little bit of a better look at Maxon, but I thought some of the situations he was thrown into were emotionally abusive and just kind of annoying. 3.5/5 stars.
  • “The Amazing Book is Not on Fire” by Dan Howell and Phil Lester – These two YouTubers wrote a book and I absolutely loved it. It gave the fans a bit more of an in depth look into the lives of Dan and Phil and I thought it was funny, witty, insightful, and entertaining. 5/5 stars.

What I Discussed

  • I did a cover reveal for the second novel in the Zaria Fierce trilogy by Kiera Gillett. Looks cute!
  • Being Impatient with Books – I need to know the ending RIGHT NOW. Does anyone else have this problem?
  • Libraries – They’re cool, calm, and you can get free books from them. What more could you ask for?
  • Let’s Talk: The Importance of Diversity in Children’s Literature – This was a hot topic that went around one week because of an author’s poor choice in words about a specific book. Diversity is important no matter what age group.
  • Preparing for NaNoWriMo – I’m planning on participating this year, and I think it’s going to be a challenge because I’m really not thrilled with my story idea and I have a full time job to work. Well, we’ll see how it goes! And in this discussion I talk about some of the essentials you’ll need if you want to participate, too.

Fun Things

  • Top 5 Wednesday: Favorite Diverse Characters – I thought this went hand in hand with my diversity chat, and so I talked about five of my favorite diverse characters and what makes them diverse to me.
  • #VillainSquad Tag – This was super fun, and super difficult believe it or not, to do and I love how my squad turned out. What about yours?

And that’s really all I did in October. I feel so ashamed because I want to give you guys more content! But alas, things just kind of happen.

themartianOh! I did see The Martian in theaters and thought it was incredible. I haven’t read the book by Andy Weir yet, but I might just do that one day! I highly recommend seeing this movie if you’re into science, space, or you’ve read the book. There were lots of laughs, serious parts, and it never left me feeling bored. 8/10 stars.

So, what did you read this month? What were your favorite books? Did you read anything spooky to fit the season? Let me know!

September 2015 Wrap-Up

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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!

The Pressures of Reading

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I am a reader. I always have been and always will be. The amount I read and the types of books I read will fluctuate from time to time, but I have always loved story and characters and worlds. I love to be able to jump from place to place and revisit a million times over because that’s what a reader does.

But when it comes to reading and blogging about reading, the pressure seems to intensify.

Now I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy what I do by any means – I love my book blog to pieces and the book community as a whole – but sometimes I feel overwhelmed or pressured because I’m not producing more reviews lately.

I know what you’re thinking: “Just do you! There’s no pressure! Life happens!” And yes, that’s true, but the thing is is that I feel like I need to get reviews out to you guys because, well, I want to.

There’s so many great books out there and there’s so many wonderful authors – and there’s bad ones, too. I want to share my opinions with everyone. That’s kind of why I joined this community in the first place.

And it’s not that I feel like if I don’t get in a certain amount of reviews in a month that you’ll all leave me or abandon me or whatever, but I feel I owe it to you awesome people to share with you my thoughts on books.

If you saw my August wrap-up you’ll know that I started a crap ton of books. Did I finish them? No, not quite. Am I working on it? Yeah, in time. Some books take precedence over others just purely based on my excitement level for said books. I just feel like I’m letting myself down by not getting more reviews out.

I know everyone runs their blogs in different ways and on a different schedule. Some do reviews multiple times a week (and I applaud you for that) while some do reviews once or twice a month (and again, I applaud you).

I think part of the problem was that I was doing so well the first half of the year, reading books left and right and producing content for you all, whereas this summer has been draining me and my enjoyment of reading.

It can be tough to feel like you’re under pressure from reading and all of that, to just give your audience something that they can hold onto. I’ve been feeling that lately and it kind of sucks.

Maybe I need to take a step back and just relax a little bit. But reading is just one of those things that I love and don’t want to stop. Yes, I do take breaks here and there, but I just want to keep going! There’s so many great stories to find out there, and even if I feel pressured or down, I want to be able to find those stories and share my thoughts with you all about them.

So here’s my question for you all, especially you book reviewers: do you ever feel the pressure to read and produce content at a high pace, or do you just go about it in your own way and not let the pressure get to you? And if you have any suggestions on scheduling, reading methods, or anything of that nature, please let me know.

June 2015 Wrap-Up

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Another month gone and we’re already half way through the year. Whoa.

This month was an okay month for reading. I only read four books, gave up (kinda) on two, and am still in the process of reading one.

Here are the books I read in June:

I had ups and downs this month in terms of reading. Some books I really enjoyed, others not so much. And there were two I started but am having a hard time getting into the story for one reason: the main character. I’ll come back to them at some point, but for now I’m putting them down.

And the one book I’m continuing to read in between all of these times is “A Game of Thrones” by George R.R. Martin. I am currently 40% of the way through it, so I’m slowly making progress!

Also during the month I held several discussions, including a blog tour:

  • Blog Tour Interview with a Narrator. This was an interesting interview featuring the narrator for Keira Gillet’s novel, “Zaria Fierce and the Secret of Gloomwood Forest.”
  • Rayna Recommends: Dystopian. My second installment in my recommends series where I discussed some books and movies that feature a dystopia of some sort.
  • Cataloging Your Books. When you have too many books and you need to write them all down and see your progress (or lack thereof).
  • Over-Hyped Books. We all know they exist, but what about when they live up to their hype? I talk about a few books that did and didn’t for me.
  • Booktubers vs Book Bloggers. This was a big topic floating around and I felt the need to address it. We’re all part of the same community, guys, so let’s act like it.
  • Reading While Away. I was on a weekend getaway and I just wanted to relax and read the whole time. Do you ever feel that when away?
  • The Reading Experience. Sometimes the experiences we have while reading affects the way we actually enjoy the book.

I also did a few read-a-thon related posts:

  • Springtime Readathons Wrap-Up. I participated in three readathons in May and this is my wrap-up of them.
  • Themeathon Announcement. I’m excited to let you know that I’ll be hosting a month long readathon throughout July where each week is a different theme.
  • Themeathon TBR. And here are the books I’m hoping to get to each week! This is also my TBR for next month.

Overall it was a pretty productive month, but there was a lot of down time because I just started a new job and I’m trying to acclimate myself to my new schedule as a full-time teller. So, yeah, I’ve been hella busy, but at least I’m still finding time to read.