Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @Eternity Books & Dani @ Literary Lion, where we get to discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! You can check out these pages for more information on August 2021 prompts & a list of all prompts!
Now without further ado… The topic asks:
I know we’ve already gone well over the mid-year mark by now but as I’ve been away for the last few months I decided that it’d be a good way to catch up on some of the things I’ve read this year!
I started the year off pretty strong in terms of marking what I’ve read and crossing off prompts for one of the challenges for the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge, but as the months rolled on, the more I read, the less I reviewed and the less I updated my books and challenges. When that started happening is when I decided to take my break and while I’ve been trying to catch up on updating things, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve forgotten a lot of what I’ve read! Oops… I know that a lot of the books I sped through were romances but I read through them so quickly I honestly can’t remember what I thought of them anymore. So I’ve just decided to leave off marking those off for now and I might come back to them later on.
Clearly, we’re off to a good start, right? 😂 All that being said, I don’t have fancy stats, charts and graphs and what’s marked on my Goodreads Reading Challenge isn’t the most accurate record of what I’ve read cos plenty of books are missing but… We’re rolling with it! (I feel like I’ve said that a lot these last few posts, haha!)
I thought it’d be a lot harder to choose but I am tied between Jade City and The Ones We’re Meant to Find. They’re both SFF though one is adult and the other is YA, and their stories couldn’t be more different either. But aside from fantastic writing, the characters were just *chefs kiss* — I love them so much!
I haven’t read a lot of sequels this year but even so, I think Jade War would steal the show. THIS BOOK!!! 🥺😭
What haven’t I not read yet? 🤣 So much… So much… But one release I want to read very soon, as in this weekend soon, is She Who Became the Sun. I read these two amazing reviews by Lia and Jess and I’m sold!
There are so many I don’t even know where to start! I don’t think I have one especially anticipated release but these are some I’m super excited for…
The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney
Battle Royal by Lucy Parker
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson
I know my choice for this is quite an unpopular opinion because everyone seems to have loved the book but… I was really disappointed with A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire (please don’t come for me)! I was bored for the majority of it and the haphazard world building + info dumps combined with Poppy’s incessant questioning monologue just really got under my skin in the worst way 🙈 It didn’t stop me from reading the third book though and I’m glad I did cos we finally get the strong Poppy we’ve been waiting for and I really enjoyed it!
I’m gonna go with the Murderbot Diaries. So many people love this series and I was (often) told that I’d love it too and they weren’t wrong, but I was surprised by just how much I love this whole series! Murderbot is such a well-written character and they have quickly become one of my all-time favourites! I’ve read all six books as a buddy read with Leslie @ Books are the New Black and it was so much fun!
I think this cherry goes to Fonda Lee, author of The Green Bone Saga and two of my top favourite reads so far this year. I was so intimidated by the hype around these books but I’m so glad that I finally read them this year because they were mind blowing! I cannot put into words how much I loved them. I think this series is outside my comfort zone in many ways so I was not expecting to fall hard and fast. Fonda Lee’s world building, characters, and plot are just… The ultimate *chefs kiss*! 🤣
This is easy but I’m kind of cheating a bit because it’s a book that I just read last week and obviously, it’s well past the mid-year point! But I honestly can’t think of anyone else right now because I loved Axel Bergman, our hero from With You Forever by Chloe Liese. If you love inclusive, heartwarming, steamy romances with great H/H, and meddling, boisterous and loveable families, you won’t want to miss this series!
Bonus crush: I also have to give a special shoutout to Rafe, our favourite very buff, very tall, and very tattooed male nanny.
I can’t choose one! I’ve read so many amazing characters this year but some favourites that come to mind:
As an emotional reader, books make me cry fairly often! 😂 Though perhaps out of all the books that did make me cry, the one that made me cry the longest/hardest was The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi. This one crushed me!
Just as easily as I cry in books, it also doesn’t take much to make me laugh but I’ll go with Take A Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert. I adored Dani and Zafir—their banter was bang on and their chemistry was so fire! 😍 I had so much fun reading this book and it gave my heart all the happy feels 💜
So… I haven’t really watched many things this year? I still haven’t watched the popular adaptations like Shadow & Bone yet. I guess the only thing that comes to mind would be Fruits Basket—does that count? 😂 I think it was a manga first, right? I binged the first and second seasons on Netflix super fast!
I’m really bad at talking up any of my posts on this blog so this was a bit of a struggle to pick… I’m sharing my review for The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He. This was a blog tour review but it was also the first review where I made a journal spread and I had so much fun with it 😍
I was also quite happy with my reviews for Silence is a Sense, The Death of Vivek Oji, and Shards of Earth!
This has to be the Strange the Dreamer Box Set. Sadly though, the quality of the books aren’t half as good as I expected and considering what I paid to buy them, I was pretty disappointed. Still, the artwork is gorgeous and they’re a beautiful addition to my shelves!
I wouldn’t say I need to read any of these, except for the ARCs of course, but I do really want to read most of this smol sample of my TBR by the end of the year!
Well, that’s done! *phew* This post always takes me longer than I anticipate but I’m glad I did it! It’s made me realise that I haven’t read half as much as I thought I have, even with the “missing” books from my list! 🤣 Oh well… How are your reads going this year? What’ve been some of your favourites? Have you read any of the books I mentioned here?
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:
Since last week, I’ve managed to finish four books and all but one were ARCs—yay!
Tempt Thy Neighbor (Roommate Romps #4) by Teagan Hunter ★★★★☆
This was another fun, fast and super-steamy second-chance/enemies-to-lovers romance by Teagan Hunter! It was a little hard to buy into the romance at the very beginning with how vehemently Holland hated on Sutton and with how he came across as pretty douchey, but they did grow on me in the end. Hunter really built up the sexual tension in this book and it was explosive! RTC.
(ARC) Revenge of the Sluts by Natalie Walton ★★★★½
Revenge of the Sluts was an interesting YA contemporary that had a bit of a mystery to it. It’s not a fast-paced book but it was engaging enough and the writing simple enough for me to quickly work through the pages. While I didn’t think any of the characters stood out, and neither did I like the representation of the MC, I think it’s a book that can generate discussions about privacy, cyberbullying, revenge porn, slut-shaming, toxic masculinity and society’s double standards, especially amongst the targeted young readers! Check out my full review.
So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Secondary/Minor Characters Who Deserve More Love.
My first Top Ten Tuesday in ages and… I struggled? 😂 I didn’t expect this topic to be so difficult to answer because I love great supporting characters as they often help me connect to a main character or story even more. Thanks to my *cough* wonderful memory though, I was drawing blanks when it came down to thinking about what supporting characters deserve more love. Luckily, I looked at the prompt on Monday night so I had time to scour my shelves (and brain) for characters I wish had gotten more page time or who I think deserve their own stories, and I came up with a very random list from a mixed bag of genres!
Read More »I was inspired to do this post after watching one of my fave booktubers, Jack Edwards, post a video reading the highest and lowest rated books on his bookshelf. It looked like a lot of fun and I thought, why not give it a go cos it seems like a great way to continue slashing down the TBR!
I initially thought about cataloguing all the unread books on my bookshelf like he did, but I admittedly have a lot more and I was feeling a little lazy! 😬 So instead I decided to take a look at my Goodreads “to-read” shelf, which definitely changes up the dynamic because the list includes books that I don’t own and also books that aren’t published yet. I also realised that would affect the average rating more as I noticed many of the books have a lower number of ratings/reviews, which obviously skews the results that come up top and bottom. So, it was already a little more complicated but instead of abandoning the idea I thought I’d still go through with it and I’m glad I did!
I chose the books based on 1) whether it was out or not and 2) whether I had a copy (physical/digital/ARC)—it’s not a perfect solution but it did end up working for me! In the end, the two books I had to read were: With You Forever by Chloe Liese and The Perfect Date by Evelyn Lozada. Both were ARCs that I had on hand so that was a good start and again, I know it’s not the most perfect system, but I just rolled with it! Here are some stats for the books:
Lowest rating:
The Perfect Date
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: No
Publication: June 2019
GR Rating: 2.61 (1,232 ratings)
Highest rating:
With You Forever (Bergman Brothers #4)
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Yes
Publication: September 2021
GR Rating: 4.73 (203 ratings)
Although I’ve been in a romance mood for a while, as a mood reader whose moods can flip very quickly, I was a bit hesitant to start the books, though I was also pretty excited about starting this small ‘project’ that I knew could help me get back into reviewing and blogging. Plus, I’d be knocking out two books from my TBR and my ARC list and what’s not to love about that, right?
Thankfully, things went pretty smoothly overall. I read the lowest rated book first which I thought might’ve been a mistake but it ended up working out well in the end. Both are also contemporary romances so I felt that put them on an ‘even’ level to start and I managed to read both pretty quickly, finishing one for each day of the weekend. That said, my reading experience for both books were very different. 🤣
To say that I didn’t enjoy The Perfect Date would be an understatement and after putting myself through the torture that was reading it, I can understand why this title has the rating that it does. Before I started I thought that it surely couldn’t be that bad—it’s got a cute cover, it’s a single-parent fake-dating trope romance that promises a sweet love story—what could possibly go wrong? The answer is a lot. I mean, a lot can go wrong and if there’s anyone who truly thinks this book had the “perfect date” I would ask them if they were okay. I know that sounds harsh but… this hero is the worst I’ve ever read in a romance to date. He was a condescending, egotistical, misogynistic asshole that did not change and I could not fathom how anyone would consider him perfect in any way. Long story short, it took me until the 10% mark to realise why I never finished this (very overdue) ARC in the first place but I truly wish that I had DNF’d it. It was a slog and I gave it 1 star—my first of 2021. 🥺
After finishing that perfectly hot mess, I was honestly unsure whether I wanted to keep reading romance but I thought: this is Chloe Liese, there’s no way I’m not gonna love it. As much as I jinxed myself when I said the first book couldn’t be that bad, I’m so happy to say that I wasn’t wrong about this one. With You Forever is a wonderful addition to the Bergman Brothers series and if you’ve been around my blog for a while, you’ll know this series is one of my all-time faves (shameless plug: check out my reviews for the first three in the series: Only When It’s Us, Always Only You, Ever After Always)! There was so much heart and tender emotion in this book and I only swooned about a thousand times because the slow-burn romance between Axel and Rooney was so not only super steamy but it was beautifully heartwarming as well. I cannot recommend this book (and this series) enough and you just might hear me gushing about it a bit more until release date. I gave it 4.5 swoontastic stars (rounded up)! 😍
By the time I finished reading both books I couldn’t disagree with their respective ratings on Goodreads. Obviously, Liese’ book has a higher rating with a lower number of reviews, but I do feel that once the book is published and more people read it, its rating will remain high. I was also wondering whether my feelings for The Perfect Date were swayed at all by my knowledge of its low rating, and while I might’ve briefly toyed with the thought, I really don’t think that was the case. The totality of that book (characters, plot and writing) was just not good and I’m honestly a little shocked it was actually published by a major publishing house!
Overall, I had a lot of fun doing this little reading project. I thought it was a great way to bring some different content to my blog (although nothing ground breaking or anything) and it helped me get back into the swing of writing and reviewing! I’m quite tempted to keep doing this for books on my various TBRs: physical, digital, andARCs, and seeing whether those turn out as well as this one did!
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Have you read either of these books or are they on your TBR? Do you have any fun ‘reading project’ ideas that you’ve seen or done yourself? I’d defo love to hear about them!
We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!
I spent the majority of my Sunday on my cosy couch reading my ARC of With You Forever by Chloe Liese. This is the fourth book in the Bergman Brothers series and if you’ve been following me for a little bit, you’ll know that this series is one of my all-time favourites! Chloe Liese writes such amazing inclusive romances full of emotion and so much heart, and this one about Axel and Rooney was no different. I swooned at least a thousand times and thought it was a fantastic way to wrap up my weekend. I’ll be posting my review closer to pub day (14 September).
Axel
Rooney Sullivan is sunshine incarnate. Warm, bright, always smiling, she’s everything I’m not and the last person I have any business desiring. Desperate to hide a hopeless attraction, I’ve done everything possible to keep my distance…until a charades game gone wrong brought that to a grinding halt.
Since then, steering clear of Rooney has been impossible. In a matter of months, she’s kissed me speechless, commandeered my art career, and infiltrated not only my dreams but my home. The woman who was once avoidable has become the last thing I needed: temptingly within reach.
Rooney
Axel Bergman is a gorgeous grump who doesn’t have the time of day for me. Thankfully, I’ve kept my crush under wraps…well, until I kissed him. Charades got away from me, okay? It was an accident! I haven’t seen him since, which is for the best. My life is a mess, and the last thing I need is to embarrass myself further with the man who avoids me like that’s his job rather than painting modern masterpieces.
It seems the universe, however, has a different plan. When Axel and I unexpectedly find our paths—and problems—converging, a marriage of convenience proves the perfect solution. At least, until I’m facing my most serious problem yet: a once-loveless marriage of convenience that’s inconveniently become a love match, after all.
With You Forever is a sunshine and grump, marriage of convenience romance about a shy artist on the autism spectrum*, and a smiley smartypants who has a chronic IBD. Complete with combustible cooking lessons, interfering family and friends, and a steamy slow burn, this standalone is the fourth in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.
*This is an #OwnVoices story for its portrayal of autism by an autistic author.
What are you currently reading?
Read More »Special thanks to NetGalley and Wattpad Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Goodreads: Revenge of the Sluts
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Publish Date: 02 February 2021
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary, Mystery
Panda Rating:
(3 pandas)
Double standards are about to get singled out.
In this stunning debut, author Natalie Walton tackles privacy and relationships in the digital age.
As a lead reporter for The Warrior Weekly, Eden has covered her fair share of stories at St. Joseph’s High School. And when intimate pictures of seven female students are anonymously emailed to the entire school, Eden is determined to get to the bottom of it.
In tracking down leads, Eden is shocked to discover not everyone agrees the students are victims. Some people feel the girls “brought it on themselves.” Even worse, the school’s administration seems more concerned about protecting its reputation than its students.
With the anonymous sender threatening more emails, Eden finds an unlikely ally: the seven young women themselves. Banding together to find the perpetrator, the tables are about to be turned. The Slut Squad is fighting back!
BUY A COPY:
TL;DR: Revenge of the sluts was an interesting YA contemporary mixed with a bit of a mystery that takes place in a prestigious private school. I liked the investigative journalism angle that the story took and I think it covers important topics that can foster good discussions, especially amongst the intended young adult audience. I did have issues with the main character being Asian with very surface level stereotypical representation, and the overly descriptive writing did bog the story down, but overall, it was a very easy read that I finished in one sitting!
Revenge of the sluts is not a fast-paced book but it was engaging enough and the writing simple enough for me to quickly work through the pages. While I don’t normally mind descriptive writing, I felt in this instance that the story didn’t benefit from it because it completely dragged the pace down. The mystery of who sent the email was also a bit predictable and I was able to deduce who did it fairly easily, but I did enjoy the investigative journalism angle to the book and it’s what kept me pushing on. I loved learning about the work that actually goes into creating these articles and news items—it’s a lot!—and I could tell that the journalism aspect was something the author is passionate about, and that came through in the writing.
Our main character is Eden Jeong, a Korean-American young woman and one of the few POC that attends St. Joe’s private school (and one of the few POC in the book). I tend to dislike it when white authors write POC main characters because they tend to botch the representation by sticking to stereotypes and that is what happened here. I will say though that I found most of the main (side) characters to be generally indistinguishable as many of them didn’t have strong characteristics that set them apart. Had it not been explicitly mentioned that Eden was Korean-American, I honestly would’ve thought she was another white character in the story and because of that, it feels like the choice to make her Asian was just to have a checkmark beside the diversity box. Aside from that, I thought the high-schoolers were well represented and the various reactions they had to the ‘Nudegate’ scandal were realistic. Eden’s drive to investigate and report on the truth of the situation was also very admirable and it wasn’t hard to root for their success, especially when they worked so hard to give voice to the young women who were exposed. I did expect a bigger revenge role for the sluts, as that’s what the title indicates, but sadly that also didn’t really come through strongly—there is a revenge aspect, it just wasn’t as satisfying or as big as I expected it to be.
Overall, while I had some issues with the writing and characterisations, I think this book has the potential to create some good dialogue—especially amongst its intended YA audience—about slut-shaming, toxic masculinity, cyberbullying, revenge porn and society’s double standards. Young women being shamed for embracing their sexuality while young men are celebrated for it is an old story, but add the revenge porn and cyberbullying aspects and you get something that’s easier for younger audiences, who live the majority of their life online, to connect to.
Have you read Revenge of the Sluts or is it on your TBR?
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @Eternity Books & Dani @ Literary Lion, where we get to discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! You can check out these pages for more information on August 2021 prompts & a list of all prompts!
Now without further ado… The topic asks:
(SUGGESTED BY NICOLE @ THOUGHTS STAINED WITH INK)
Prompts: Do you schedule posts long before they’re published, how long? Do you write several drafts of a post and edit them, or do you not edit at all? Perhaps you simply write a post and put it up for the world to see immediately? There’s no right or wrong answer!
I didn’t intend to create my first discussion post post-hiatus so quickly but when I saw today’s prompt, I felt that it was just perfect timing to get myself back into the groove of writing and posting, as it’s a topic I’ve even mentioned in my ‘I’m back’ post yesterday!
Ahaha… That’s funny!!! I think one of lines I repeat most often in many of my posts is how I hope to be able to schedule ahead of time to reduce the pressure on myself. Le sigh, it’s been close to three years since I started blogging and… it hasn’t really happened yet! 🙊
I’m one of those people who (really) love to plan organising things but I’m also one of those people who struggle to follow through with said plans 90% of the time! I’m blaming it on my pro-procrastination skills and the fact that I do tend to thrive when I’m chasing a deadline—even if it’s one that I set for myself. I know it’s so unhealthy but it’s healthy that I acknowledge that, right? 😂 BUT I DIGRESS.
The only times I have been able to schedule posts in advance is when I finish reading an ARC months before its pub date and that has only happened a very smol number of times. I do feel pretty accomplished when this happens though, haha! I’m quite envious of the bloggers who do regularly schedule posts ahead of time, whether it’s just for the week or month ahead. Please teach 🥲
I don’t create multiple drafts of posts but I do have a habit of editing my posts as I write them, and once I’m done, I go through them again at least twice before previewing and then posting. This is definitely the reason why I need to spend so much time blogging because I can’t just post something without reading through it a few times, and I almost always end up removing or rewriting big chunks, and fiddling with the layout and design for way too long. This is something I do for all my posts and not just text heavy ones, so blogging anything always takes a lot of time—which is why if I ever manage to get my act together and schedule posts ahead of time, I know I’ll be making my life so much easier! 😂
So, are you like me or are you organized? 😂 If you schedule your posts ahead of time, can you pls teach me your sorcery?
Hello, friends! I’m so excited to be sharing the cover reveal for Fire & Ash by Heather Frost! Fire & Ash is a novella set in the world of the Royal Decoy series. While it is a prequel story, it is best enjoyed after reading Royal Spy.
I’m so excited to check this one out because it’s about Desfan, one of the newest characters we meet in book two of her series and one of my favourites! I can’t wait to learn more about his back story 😍
Check out my reviews for Royal Spy and Royal Decoy!
Goodreads: Fire & Ash (Fate of Eyrinthia 0.5)
Publication Date: 28 October 2021
Genre: Fantasy Romance (Romantasy)
First the flames . . .
When Desfan Cassian, the future ruler of Mortise, skips his fifteenth birthday celebration so he can gamble in the slums, he knows his father won’t be pleased. Then again, the serjan hasn’t been happy with him in years. And while Desfan anticipates a reprimand for his latest transgression, he doesn’t expect to be thrown out of the palace and exiled onto a patrol ship for the next year.
Then from the ashes . . .
Furious to be trapped on the same sea that stole his family four years ago, Desfan is fully prepared to hate his new life. After all, the Phoenix is run by a strict captain, and Desfan’s annoying new bodyguard, Karim, is his constant shadow. But when Desfan learns that a group of dangerous pirates may have been behind the deaths of his mother and sisters, he’s suddenly committed to hunting down the truth—no matter the risk.
He will rise.
(I honestly can’t type that without singing the first bars to Adele’s song!)
It’s been… a while, hasn’t it? This mini-break that I intended on taking took on a life of its own and it resulted in me taking a break for the last… almost 3 months now? Oops! If you’ve stuck around, you would’ve noticed that I posted a few blog tour reviews and spotlights during my break but for the most part I have really disengaged. I’m honestly quite surprised that there are still people out there who continue to engage and comment despite my absence, so thank you so much for your support! I appreciate all of you so much ❤️
In the time I’ve been away, part of me felt really free knowing that I don’t have to come online after work or on my days off to write a post or do other blog related things. It was so nice to not have that pressure I put on myself as I was pretty overwhelmed with constantly being online and spending so many hours behind a screen in my down time, when I was already staring at the screen for hours for work. That said, a bigger part of me really missed this community! I missed feeling productive by creating posts, reading and especially reviewing all the books, but I especially missed engaging with all of you. But when I go MIA, I tend to really go MIA and so I haven’t been hanging out online that much over the last few months! It’s been weird cutting off so abruptly but I think it did really help me in the end (even though it took much longer to get here than I anticipated)!
I’ve been trying to find the “right time” to come back and because I never found it, I kept postponing writing this post and kept pushing back my restart date. Sometimes though the right time never comes around, so I decided to suck it up and write a short post today to say HELLO! and share a quick update of what I’ve read (most recently), what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next. I hope to catch up with more of your blogs very soon and hopefully it won’t take me too long to get into the groove of blogging again. Who knows, maybe this time I’ll even manage to get myself organised enough to start scheduling posts in advance?! 😂
I’ve been in a pretty big romance mood lately, so I’ve been bingeing a lot of those (and I only plan to read more asap)! 😂 I discovered a new romance author that I’d love to read more from, a fun urban fantasy by a new-to-me indie author, and a favourite YA anthology with stories full of change, love and hope. I also devoured the latest book in a romance series by an author that never fails to make me laugh, and I finally picked up a romantasy series that’s been sat on my TBR for ages, thanks to a buddy read with Leslie and Maya!
I’ve currently only got the one book going right now. Revenge of the Sluts has been a pretty interesting YA contemporary mystery set in high school that explores slut shaming, revenge porn, toxic masculinity and society’s double standards. The writing is overly descriptive, the pace a little slow, and the mystery a little predictable but it has been a pretty interesting read and could generate some good discussions!
I’m not quite sure what I want to read next. I did just get an ARC for a Katee Robert book so I’m tempted to pick that up now, but I’m also hoping to catch up on some more ARCs this month, so these are some other highly likely possibilities…
So, that’s it! I’m back (hopefully)! How are all of you doing? What have you been reading? I hope to catch up with as many of your blogs as possible in the days/weeks to come!
dinipandareads 