I'm Dini (she/her) and I'm a thirty-something book lover based in Indonesia. I mostly read romance and SFF though I love to dabble in other genres but tend to stay away from horror and ghosty things because I'm The Ultimate Chicken™️. I'm always happy to meet other book lovers so feel free to chat with me!
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 your time reading in bed or wish you had time to read today!
I’m spending my Sunday night in bed reading Flawless by Elsie Silver. When I started I didn’t realise I’d already read it (I thought it was the second book in the series) but I’ve been meaning to finish the series so maybe I’ll do that this time!
Hi friends, as part of the blog tour hosted by TBR & Beyond Tours I’m excited to share my thoughts on We Are Big Time by Hena Khan and illustrated by Safiya Zerrougui! Special thanks to the TBR team for having me on tour and to Knopf Books for Young Readers for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Click the banner above or here to check out the other incredible bloggers on the blog tour!
We Are Big Time Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers Publication Date: 6 August 2024 Genre: Middle Grade/Young Adult Graphic Novel Rep: Muslim, Pakistani, Ghanian, Somalian, Malaysian, Asian, African
Rating: (5 pandas)
📖SYNOPSIS
SWISH! Cheer courtside for a Muslim teen as she joins an all-girls, hijab-wearing basketball team and learns that she’s much more than a score. This energetic graphic novel is inspired by a true story!
Aliya is new to Wisconsin, and everything feels different than Florida. The Islamic school is bigger, the city is colder, and her new basketball team is…well, they stink.
Aliya’s still excited to have teammates (although the team’s captain, Noura, isn’t really Aliya’s biggest fan), and their new coach really understands basketball (even if she doesn’t know much about being Muslim). This season should be a blast…if they could just start to win. As they strengthen their skills on the court, Aliya and the Peace Academy team discover that it takes more than talent to be great–it’s teamwork and self-confidence that defines true success.
For fans of The Crossover and Roller Girl, this graphic novel goes big with humor and heart as it explores culture and perceptions, fitting in and standing out, and finding yourself, both on and off the court.
TL;DR:I knew I was going to enjoy We Are Big Time but I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. There is so much to appreciate about this graphic novel and the wholesome, heartwarming story it tells about finding your place and believing in yourself. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a diverse coming-of-age sports-centred story about the underdogs! These girls will win your heart and the art will have you feeling like you’re sitting courtside cheering the Peace team on as they play their best game.
Hi friends, as part of the blog tour hosted by TBR & Beyond Tours I’m shining a spotlight on a new YA fantasy: The Girl with No Reflection by Keshe Chow.
Click the banner above or here to check out the other incredible bloggers on the blog tour!
The Girl with No Reflection Publisher: Delacorte Press Publication Date: 6 August 2024 Genre: Young Adult Fantasy Rep: Chinese, Asian
📖SYNOPSIS
A young woman chosen as the crown prince’s bride must travel to the royal palace to meet her new husband—but her world is shaken when she discovers the dark truth the royal family has been hiding for centuries—in this lush fantasy debut perfect for fans of Song of Silver, Flame Like Night and Violet Made of Thorns.
Princess Ying Yue believed in love…once upon a time.
Yet when she’s chosen to wed the crown prince, Ying’s dreams of a fairy tale marriage quickly fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won’t explain. Worse still are the rumors that swirl around the imperial whispers of seven other royal brides who, after their own weddings, mysteriously disappeared.
Left alone with only her own reflection for company, Ying begins to see things. Strange things. Movements in the corners of her mirror. Colorful lights upon its surface. And when, on the eve of her wedding, she unwittingly tears open a gateway, she is pulled into a mirror world.
This realm is full of sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. Unlike his real-world counterpart, the Mirror Prince is kind and compassionate, and before long Ying falls in love—the kind of love she always dreamed of.
But there is darkness in this new world, too.
It turns out the two worlds have a long and blood-soaked history, and Ying has a part to play in the future of them both. And the brides who came before Ying? By the time they discovered what their role was, it was already too late.
Keshe was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and migrated to Australia when she was two. She currently lives in Naarm (Melbourne) with her partner, two kids, and two cats.
She has won multiple awards for short fiction, as well as the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript.
Her debut novel THE GIRL WITH NO REFLECTION will be out in 2024 with Delacorte Press.
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:
This week’s topic is actually Ten Favorite Books from Ten Series (We all have a favorite book in our favorite series, right?) (submitted by A Hot Cup of Pleasure)
Happy Monday, friends! I thought I’d kick this week off on a high note and share some community posts I loved reading in June and July. Since I posted my June wrap-up ridiculously late, I decided to combine the monthly posts and because of that, this might be a bit longer than usual. Still, I hope you enjoy checking these posts out and spreading the love to the community! On that note, I’m gonna jump straight to the posts.
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 your time reading in bed or wish you had time to read today!
I’m spending Sunday night in bed with The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence. I’m taking my time with this one as there’s a lot of information to process at the start (it’s also a chonkster with tiny text). However, I’m enjoying it a lot! I’m listening along with the audiobook at times and I love the narrator—she captures characters so well!
Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly featurefor book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?Here are the rules:
Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!
First lines:
“Peter suspected the project was doomed. It had not been a good idea to begin with. Surely he could have found another way to satisfy his half sister’s desire for a rapier—one that did not involve dressing her in boy’s clothes and smuggling her into a fencing parlor on Bond Street.”
I just got around to posting my June wrap-up and it’s now time for July’s! This month had more going on than June but the latter half slowed down considerably. My brother’s wedding reception took place at the start of the month and that was lovely. I wrote a bit about it in this post if you want to see some pictures from the day! 🌻 Unfortunately, after that I got knocked out by a severe throat infection for a week. I couldn’t swallow for days and it took much longer than anticipated for me to bounce back. I’m doing okay now though and for the rest of the month, I’ve just been focusing on getting through the work days and restarting my Animal Crossing game play! 💜
On the gaming front, I’ve also been loving Potion Permit, an open-ended cosy fantasy RPG where you play a chemist from the big city stationed in a small countryside town. There are tons of quests, ingredients to collect, areas to explore, potions to brew, and friends to make. It’s got Stardew Valley style pixel graphics and a similar game play (also to Harvest Moon/SoS). I’ve been playing it on Switch and taking my sweet time with it cos I don’t want it to end! 😂
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:
dinipandareads 