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’ll be spending the rest of my Sunday night in bed reading The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver. This has been on my TBR for so long now but I finally I picked it up on a whim yesterday. It took me a bit to get into, but I’m surprised by how quickly I’ve gone through the story! It’s an easy but emotional read.
What book are you spending your Sunday in bed with?
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and myself! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics HERE.
This week’s topic is:
The Elusive 5-star Read
Prompts:What makes a book a 5-star read for you? Do you give books 5 stars easily, or are you more selective with them? What are your all-time favourite “can’t-live-can’t-breathe-without-them” 5-star reads? Is there anything that makes a book automatically 5 stars for you? Or the opposite — what makes you drop to 4 stars?
Happy Thursday, friends! I don’t know about you, but I am so excited for the weekend and the prospect of doing nothing but reading all day. 😍 But I digress… Today I’m doing a tag that I found on Alli the Book Giraffe‘s blog a little while back: the In My Audiobook Era Book Tag. I thought it was perfect, as I kind of am in my audiobook era this year!
This tag was originally created by Honest Fiction on BookTube.
What was the first audiobook you ever listened to?
I keep forgetting that the first audiobook I ever listened to was Born A Crime by Trevor Noah. I don’t know why I keep forgetting it (perhaps because it was so long ago) but it wasn’t because it was bad. I loved it, actually! Hearing Trevor narrate his own story was perfect and powerful. I’d recommend it!
Who are your favourite narrators?
There are four narrators that come to mind almost immediately and they are all *chefs kiss* absolute perfection. I love how they capture the personalities and voices of all the characters in the story so incredibly, and their narration did an amazing job bringing these stories to life!
Audiobook covers for Jade City by Fonda Lee, Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang, Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
Andrew Kishino — Narrates The Green Bone Saga impeccably. My first audiobook love, lol.
Jeff Hayes — Narrates Dungeon Crawler Carl and I have no words for how mind-blowing he is with every single character from the AI to the monsters to the different characters. I’m in awe every time I listen to him!
Emily Woo Zeller — Narrated The Poppy War Trilogy. I fell in love with how EWZ narrated this series and she enhanced my reading experience so much! Made the gut punches and heartbreak even more potent.
Graham Holton — Narrated the Nevernight Chronicles. This was the first series that I completed as an immersive reading experience (audio + physical) and I loved every moment of it. He also made the copious footnotes not read like footnotes! 🤭
What audiobook platform do you use?
So, when I first started listening to audiobooks, the only platform that was available to me (with the most book options) was Audible. I know there are starting to be more options available for international readers too, but most still aren’t available. Audible is still the most affordable and easily accessible for me so I’m sticking with it!
What book did you love on audio that you might not have enjoyed reading physically?
This is a tough one but I think maybe I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. It’s not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed reading it physically, but I struggle with non-fiction (even if it’s true crime!). This was more slow-paced as well, so it might’ve taken me ages to read it or I might’ve even given up without the audio motivation!
What’s your go-to audiobook speed?
I start all audiobooks at x1.5 speed and gradually increase the speed from there as I get used to the narration. Most of the time x1.8-x2.0 is my comfort zone but lately I’ve been listening to books at x2.3-x2.5! I never thought I’d get to the point where I can still understand what the narrator is saying at this speed, but I’ve come so far in my audiobook journey, haha! 😂
Do you prefer single or dual/multi-narration?
I think this answer is super dependent on the book but also on the narrator. There are certain books with multiple POV that just beg to be read with multiple narrators and the whole production shebang(thinking of books like The Illuminae Files, Clap When You Land, or Cloud Atlas). But depending on the narrator and how well I feel they capture the voices and personalities of the characters and how they bring the story to life, I also don’t mind single narration(thinking of books like the ones mentioned in my answer about narrators but also Sadie, Project Hail Mary, or The Deep).
Do you listen while multi-tasking or do you sit and listen like it’s a movie?
One of the main reasons I never really got into audiobooks is because I was unable to multi-task while listening and I had to sit like a statue and stare at the ceiling in order to focus. 😂 This obviously limited the times I could listen to audiobooks and so it just never clicked. That’s changed a lot this year ever since I started going to the gym where audiobooks are my constant companion—and now I don’t feel like I can gym without listening to a book! 🤭 I still can’t really do other tasks while listening, but this is a great start, imho.
What’s your biggest audiobook pet peeve?
This is tough because I don’t know if these would even really be considered pet peeves but I also don’t have a whole lot to complain about because the audiobooks that I have listened to, I’ve mostly really enjoyed. I think the times when it doesn’t work for me is when there’s a music soundtrack in the background that doesn’t correspond with the story or make it feel more immersive—it’s just background music. I thought I would enjoy it but wow, no! 🤣 It was so distracting and did nothing good for my reading!
Another thing I don’t enjoy is when narrators are so monotone. I’ve only had one or two audiobooks that I found incredibly tough to listen to because the narration was so droll and there wasn’t any emotion in the story. A character is angry, happy, sad, etc.? It’s all the same tone and it was a nope for me!
If you could have any book made into an audiobook, which one would it be —and who would narrate it?
Oh, I don’t know if I have a good answer for this because all of the books I read do have audiobooks… 🤣 So I think I’ll go slightly rogue and pick a book that has an audiobook that I found really disappointing. I stopped listening to it because—I’m sorry to say—the narrator did the book such injustice, and it’s wild cos the narrator was the author!
I wish that the audiobook for Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson could be redone because the story was a 5-stars but the narration was 1-star (for me). If I could choose, I’d pick Idris Elba to narrate this, haha (being serious though)! 🤭
What’s your all-time favourite audiobook experience?
I can’t just choose one all-time favourite audiobook experience. I will kind of sound like a broken record when I repeat the books mentioned with my favourite narrators. So I’m just going to mention five more books I had incredible audio experiences with!
Emily Wilde Series by Heather Fawcett, The Wayfarers Series by Becky Chambers, Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Hunger by Roxane Gay, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Have you ever listened to an audiobook that made you pause and say, “Wait… what did I just hear?!”
Dungeon Crawler Carl was the first audiobook that came to mind because oh my gosh, there have been so many things that are said in this book that have caused me to react as the prompt asks! 🤣 Not in a bad way though but just like a hilariously shocking “they said what?!” kind of way, haha.
And that’s it for this tag, folks. I won’t be tagging anyone specifically but feel free to link back if you do it so I can read your answers! I’d love to find more audiobooks to add to my audiobook TBR now that I’m getting more into them! 😍
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:Books Set in/Take Place During X (Pick a place, time, era, etc. Examples: Books set in Europe/Italy/Australia/Chicago, books set in Regency England, books that take place during the 1900s, books set in imaginary worlds/post-apocalyptic/dystopian worlds, books set on the ocean, books set it castles, books that take place during WW2, etc.)
The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.
Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.
When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.
In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.
But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.
Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.
⚠️CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS
Domestic abuse (recounted), death of parents (recounted)
I buddy read this with Charlotte @ Bewitching Books, Ravenous Reads and I’m so glad we did cos I loved our discussions about this (and thanks for patiently allowing me to bombard you with questions, lol)! 💜
TL;DR: The Spellshop is a whimsical and magical cosy fantasy that many readers have loved and I know many readers will continue to love. Unfortunately, while I liked it, I didn’t wind up loving it the way I thought I would. The best parts of this cosy fantasy are the descriptions of the lush verdant greenery of the island, especially the area surrounding our MC’s cottage in the forest, the magical creatures, and Caz, the sassy sentient magical plant.
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’ll be spending the rest of my Sunday night in bed reading The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri. This is a re-read buddy read and we’re close to finishing it! The writing is just as sharp, the story as action-packed, and the characters just as compelling (and equally frustrating) as I remember. Such fantastic world-building and so much emotion packed into this book!
Sorry my post is going up pretty late! With how hectic this week’s schedule has been I totally forgot it was Friday and so I forgot to schedule my post in advance… 🤦🏻♀️ I hope everything I say in this post makes sense and sorry for the brevity too—my brain is too tired to think at the moment, lol.
✨ Welcome back to another week of LTB! ✨
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and myself! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics HERE.
This week’s topic is:
Reading Beyond Books
Prompts:What do you read other than books? Do you like non-novel forms of literature, like poetry and plays? Do you read a lot of news articles, op-eds, or essays? Do novels make up most of your reading, or is it a mix of those other kinds of writing? Do you ever listen to podcasts in place of audiobooks?
Happy Thursday, friends! It’s time to share one of my favourite annual tags: The Mid-Year Check-In! I’ve been doing this tag since I started this blog six years ago, and it’s a great way to reflect on half the year that’s already passed. I still can’t believe that we’ve already crossed into the final half of 2025 when it feels like this year has just begun. But maybe the rest of this year can speed by even faster now cos it’s been a bit of a hot mess train wreck, and I think it’s safe to say that we’re all ready for a different vibe next year. But I digress… Let’s get to this tag and see what I’ve read in 2025!
Note: I’ll do my best to not repeat too many books but I’ll tell you now, there are a couple that are repeated often. 🤭 I also wanted to stick to books that came out in 2025 but that would’ve been even more limiting as I don’t think I’ve read many new releases… So, this is what it is!
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 