November Monthly Wrap Up!

December 2, 2019December 2, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

Wowow, it’s a question I’ve been asking myself repeatedly but seriously, where did November go?! Pretty sure that I blinked twice and the month was already over. Actually, these last few months have all been speeding by and I can’t believe that we’re now almost done with the teens of the 2000s and moving into our 20s! Insanity. So it’s time for another monthly wrap up and I gotta say, November was a weird month. I don’t know if it’s because the days passed so quickly but despite (what felt like) having a book in hand 98% of the time, this was the month that I also read the least. It might also have to do with the fact that my mood for romance has all but disappeared and I used to binge romance the most! I managed to read 12 books in November and for the most part, many of them were just okay…

⁍ The Stranger Beside Me (read my review!)

⁍ Under Locke (read my review!)
⁍ Malamander (review coming)
⁍ (eARC) TH1RT3EN (read my review!)

⁍ Notes On A Nervous Planet (read my review!)

⁍ The Last Mrs. Parrish (review coming)
⁍ The Perks of Being A Wallflower (review coming)
⁍ Kiss Me Not (read my review!)
⁍ Monstress, Vol. 3: Haven (review coming)
⁍ Wicked Saints (read my review!)

⁍ (eARC) The Death of Baseball (read my review!)
⁍ Everything Under the Sun (review coming)

I participated in #NonfictionNovember this month and as you can see from my read list, I didn’t do a very good job of it! I only managed to read two NF books, although I enjoyed both very much and one of them was my favorite read this month (Stranger Beside Me). I have a lot more NF on my list that I’d obviously like to get to and I’m hoping to read at least one or two more before the year ends. That said, I’m quite pleased that I even managed to read two because NF always takes me longer to get through… Also, two is more NF than I usually read in a year so… Yay? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m also quite chuffed that I managed to read two more of my eARCs this month and I’m slowly creeping closer to my 100% goal (and when I say slowly I really do mean… s-l-o-w-l-y! But slow progress is better than no progress, amirite?! 😂)! I wrote more reviews for my reads this month than before, but I still have tons to catch up on and I also didn’t end up posting any reviews from previous months either. Oops! Oh well, there’s always time to catch up… 😬

This month I also randomly decided to join in on the #Triwizardathon and it has been lots of fun! I’m on Team Durmstrang and at the start of Task 2, Durmstrang was in the lead! There’s one last task this December, starting next week, so I should probably start thinking about what to read but I’m pretty excited for the final! I think half of the books I’ve read this month were because of my participation in this readathon. I’m usually pretty bad at sticking to set TBRs and yes, I have replaced one or two books that I set out to read with something else, but for the most part I’m quite proud that I’ve managed to stick to the others. Go me!

I mentioned it briefly at the end of last month’s wrap up that I was thinking of doing a revamp on my blog look and I’ve finally done it. I changed my theme and made some new graphics, which are amateurish but I think overall, I’m quite pleased with how my blog looks. I don’t know if I’m enjoying this theme 100% yet, but I do like the new graphics that I made–especially the new blog headers! I think I’ve definitely brought more colour to my blog now! What do you all think of it? Or maybe you didn’t even notice or don’t care? (That’s totally fine too! Lol)

I hope you all had a great November! I’m sure that most of us have tons of books that we’d like to read before the year is out, so HAPPY DECEMBER READING, friends!

Goodreads Monday – 02 December

December 2, 2019December 13, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads6 Comments

We’re back with another Goodreads Monday, a weekly meme started by @Lauren’s Page Turners. This meme invites you to pick a book from your TBR and explain why you want to read it. Easy enough, right? Feel free to join in if you want to! I’ll be using a random number generator to pick my books from my insanely long GR Want-to-read list.

This week’s book is Hunted by Meagan Spooner. I had absolutely no idea that this was even on my list but I did add it in 2017 so… That’s a long enough time for my very spotty memory to completely forget! 😆This is a YA fantasy retelling of Beauty and the Beast and it’s got 3.92 stars with 21,269 ratings and 4,101 reviews.

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [32]

December 1, 2019December 4, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

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 been you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

I’ve spent this Sunday thinking that I should probably be in bed with the book that I’m “currently reading”: The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland. I’ve finally picked up another e-ARC that’s *cough* a little *cough* overdue…

Ailsa Rae is learning how to live.
She’s only a few months past the heart transplant that – just in time – saved her life. Life should be a joyful adventure. But…

Her relationship with her mother is at breaking point.
She knows she needs to find her father.
She’s missed so much that her friends have left her behind.
She’s felt so helpless for so long that she’s let polls on her blog make her decisions for her. And now she barely knows where to start on her own.

And then there’s Lennox. Her best friend and one time lover. He was sick too. He didn’t make it. And now she’s supposed to face all of this without him.

But her new heart is a bold heart.
She just needs to learn to listen to it…

Bury the Lede by Gaby Dunn, Claire Roe – #eARC #BookReview

December 1, 2019February 1, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads3 Comments

Goodreads: Bury the Lede
Publish date: 08 October 2019
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Genre: Crime Thriller, Mystery, Graphic Novel, LGBTQ+
Panda Rating:

Twenty-one-year-old Madison T. Jackson is already the star of the Emerson College student newspaper when she nabs a coveted night internship at Boston’s premiere newspaper, The Boston Lede. The job’s simple: do whatever the senior reporters tell you to do, from fetching coffee to getting a quote from a grieving parent. It’s gruelling work, so when the murder of a prominent Boston businessman comes up on the police scanner, Madison races to the scene of the grisly crime. There, Madison meets the woman who will change her life forever: prominent socialite Dahlia Kennedy, who is covered in gore and being arrested for the murder of her family. The newspapers put everyone they can in front of her with no results until, with nothing to lose, Madison gets a chance – and unexpectedly barrels headfirst into danger she never anticipated.

I love discovering new graphic novels and I requested this because the cover hooked my interest, plus I don’t think never read a crime noir graphic novel/comic before! Bury the Lede was mostly what I anticipated it to be, although there were some elements that really grated on my nerves and that’s what made me only give it three stars.

Top 5 Saturday: Series I Want to Finish Before 2019 Ends…

December 1, 2019February 1, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads24 Comments

Yes, I’m aware it’s now Sunday but yesterday was a weird day for me combined with work + bingeing The Good Place. I didn’t realize I hadn’t posted anything until it was 1AM and I was still binge watching the series. So I’m posting this a little late… But one day late is better than never!

It’s time for another Top 5 ~~Saturday~~Sunday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: books to be read by the end of the year. I actually answered a similar prompt for last week’s Thursday Discussion post, which you can read here. For this prompt I decided to look at the final books in series that I wanted to read this year and still haven’t got to. Is it highly ambitious to want to finish these series seeing as December is already here and I’ve got so many freaking books that I hope to finish before 2019 ends? It definitely is. But who knows what’ll happen, right?! Maybe December will be my miracle month of reading and I’ll be able to fly through whatever I pick up, even if I’m unsure that I’m really in the mood for it 😃It could be my tropical Christmas miracle! 😂

First Lines Friday – 29 November

November 29, 2019November 29, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Yayaya, HAPPY FRIYAY, book lovers and friends 😍We’re back with another First Lines Friday! This is a weekly feature for 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:

“Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet. 1977, May 3, six thirty in the morning, no one knows anything but this innocuous fact: Lydia is late for breakfast.”

Friday Favorites: Books That Make Me Thankful to be A Reader

November 29, 2019November 29, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

It’s time for another Friday Favorites hosted by Kibby @ Something of the Book! This weekly meme is where you get to share a list of all your favourites based on the list of prompts on Kibby’s page. Sounds fun, right? This week’s prompt is: favorite books that make me thankful to be a reader. So… This is a really tough prompt to answer! I find the idea of narrowing it down to a small list so daunting because obviously there are gonna be loads of amazing favorites that don’t show up below. I think almost every book I’ve read has left a part of itself with me that makes me thankful to be a reader. There are just too many books to name one-by-one but I’m only going to name five below. I’ve learned and experienced so many different thoughts and emotions while reading all of these books. Forever thankful!

Notes On A Nervous Planet by Matt Haig – #MiniBookReview

November 28, 2019November 28, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

Goodreads: Notes On A Nervous Planet
Genre: Non Fiction, Self-Help, Mental Health
Panda Rating:

Rates of stress and anxiety are rising. A fast, nervous planet is creating fast and nervous lives. We are more connected, yet feel more alone. And we are encouraged to worry about everything from world politics to our body mass index.

– How can we stay sane on a planet that makes us mad?
– How do we stay human in a technological world?
– How do we feel happy when we are encouraged to be anxious?

After experiencing years of anxiety and panic attacks, these questions became urgent matters of life and death for Matt Haig. And he began to look for the link between what he felt and the world around him.

Notes on a Nervous Planet is a personal and vital look at how to feel happy, human and whole in the 21st century.

This was my first book by Matt Haig and it certainly won’t be my last! I’m not much of a nonfiction reader but I’m so glad that I decided to read this book because Haig touches upon incredibly relevant issues that we face today living on this increasingly overloaded and sensitive nervous planet.

Kiss Me Not (Kiss Me #1) by Emma Hart – #BookReview

November 28, 2019November 28, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

Goodreads: Kiss Me Not (Kiss Me #1)
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Panda Rating:

What do you do when you’re the reigning kissing booth champion but the only person you want to kiss is your best friend’s brother?

Let me make this clear right here, right now: I, Halley Dawson, do not care that Preston Wright is kissing other women. Not a lick. Not at all. Nuh-uh-freakin’-uh.
I do care that he’s doing it six feet away from me behind a gaudy velvet curtain—making him my competition in this year’s kissing contest.

Why do I care, you ask? Because I’ve had an unfortunate crush on the insufferable idiot since I was sixteen years old, but I also know it’s never going to happen. He’s the Creek Falls bachelor to die for, and I’m the Creek Falls racoon lady who puts peanut butter sandwiches out for them every night. I’m not going to let him break my four-year-long reign—no matter how many times he breaks the rules and slides the curtain across to do the one thing he’s not allowed to: Kiss me.

Kiss Me Not is a short and fluffy romantic comedy that certainly had me giggling at times but overall, I thought was just alright. The enemies-to-lovers story focuses on our MCs Halley and Preston. Halley is the all-around golden girl and notorious Raccoon lady, and Preston is her best friend’s older brother and the most eligible bachelor of Creek Falls. Halley has been the reigning champion of the town’s Kissing Booth for the last four years, but this year Preston is her competition and soon bets are made and truths come out.