Book Review: All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Goodreads: All Your Perfects
Genre: Romance, Contemporary Fiction, New Adult
Rating: ★★★★½

Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.All Your Perfects is a profound novel about a damaged couple whose potential future hinges on promises made in the past. This is a heartbreaking page-turner that asks: Can a resounding love with a perfect beginning survive a lifetime between two imperfect people?

The minute I started this book I knew that there was no way that I was putting it down until I read the final word. Turns out, I was very right. I started reading late Friday evening and finished the book around 4:00AM Saturday. I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of feelings I experienced reading this, but I shouldn’t have been surprised because Colleen Hoover has a knack for eliciting those strong emotions and reactions with her stories.

“If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim.”

All Your Perfects is a romance story of a marriage that’s full of love, miscommunication, and heartbreak. CoHo depicts a very real relationship struggle that perhaps many married couples who long to be parents can relate to. The story opens up to an uncomfortable and painfully heartbreaking situation involving Quinn and Graham. Do you believe in fate or soul mates? I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this a few times now but being a hopeless romantic, as much as I think I don’t want to believe it, I do. I love the idea that someone(s) out there is made for you. The story alternates between then, when they first meet, how they get together and their really beautiful friendship and love. (I know I sounded really corny just then but their relationship was great, okay?) We also get the now and while the love is still there, these chapters are full of unbearable anguish, heartbreak and loneliness, as Quinn and Graham are reaching the breaking point in their marriage because they are unable to get pregnant.

This novel sheds light on an issue that isn’t normally openly discussed: infertility. Being single and falling on the side of not wanting children, I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to relate to the story or the characters. Of course that was true to a certain extent because I can’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like to continuously try and not succeed in having a baby. How people can be so insensitive to such things. How the pressure you put on yourself to make it happen can make you question your worth and your purpose. However, CoHo writes her characters, their emotions and experiences in such a way that is so palpable, it doesn’t matter what your status is or whether you want a child or not, you can feel Quinn’s anguish, fear and feelings of inadequacy, as well as Graham’s constant love, pain and longing. I actually learned a lot from reading this.

This isn’t a perfect love story between two flawless characters. While I admittedly fell in love with Graham’s character from the start, there was a point where I wanted to hurl my Kindle across the room because of something his character did, and frankly, at that point, I was sure I hated him. Quinn’s character was also so mired in her depression at not being able to conceive that it was often so painful to continue reading. But their relationship was what made them even more real. While the story ultimately ends predictably, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of it; in fact, how they endure the struggles and the very dark points, and managed to find a way back to themselves made me love this story even more. I thought CoHo did a great job tying in the missing pieces between now and then to deliver a beautiful conclusion. Let me tell you, the last 20% of the book really had my water works flowing on overtime!

This was such a touching story and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, can I please, please, please have a Graham in my life? K, thanks.

Have you read All Your Perfects or is it on your TBR?
Are you a CoHo fan? What’s your favourite CoHo book?

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [04]

Dini @ dinipandareadsLeave a comment

The Sundays In Bed With… meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning! This meme 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 can’t wait to get back into bed with Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman. This week, including my weekend, has been so busy I haven’t had much time to read, so I’m looking forward to tucking in with this book. Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors and this will be the first book I’ve read by Terry Pratchett. I wonder if I’ll be able to identify the differences in the writing with these epic fantasy authors. So far I’m really enjoying the pace and the dry humor in this story! It makes me even more excited for the series to come out at the end of the month.

What are you currently reading?

This week has passed in (almost) the blink of an eye. The work week has been filled with endless meetings but also good times catching up with my colleagues from all over Southeast Asia. While these periods are some of the busiest times of the year for me, the enjoyment of seeing everyone helps to make the meetings less draining and the time pass quickly! With my busy days and evenings and how drained I’ve felt at the end of every day, I’m honestly surprised and quite pleased that I was able to post as much as I did! Here are the posts I’ve made this week:

First Lines & First Impression Friday with All Your Perfects
Review: Pride by Ibi Zoboi
My April Monthly Wrap Up!
WWW Wednesday: 01 May
Top Ten Tuesday: Inspiring & Thought Provoking Quotes from Books
My Most Anticipated May Releases!

How has everyone’s first week of May been so far? Hope you’re all having a great weekend 🙂 Here’s to another productive, book filled week!

First Lines & First Impression Friday w/ All Your Perfects

Dini @ dinipandareads1 Comment

First Lines Fridays 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? The rules: pick a book of your shelf (it could be your current read or one from your TBR), copy the first few lines (BUT don’t give anything else about the book away yet–you need to hook the reader first), and finally… reveal the book!

The doorman didn’t smile at me.
That thought plagues me during the entire ride up the elevator to ___’s floor. Vincent has been my favorite doorman since ___ moved into this apartment building.

What book do you think this quote is from?

📖

📚

📖

📚

📖

📚

📖

📚

📖

📚

If you guessed All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover then you got it right! I’m currently reading this with a group of fun people over on Instagram and ever since picking up Verity earlier this year I’ve been so excited to get back into CoHo’s books, of which there are plenty!

Goodreads

First Impression Friday is a weekly meme hosted by JW Martin! Here’s how to play:

First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther.Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end. Did you think you’d love and ended up hating it? Or did you think you’d hate it and wound up loving it? Or were you exactly right?

I’m about 5% into All Your Perfects and I already know that this book is going to make me feel uncomfortable with all the emotions, but in the best way. I can be a pretty anxious reader sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) and I’m quite sensitive to the emotions and moods while reading, so just knowing what this book is about and the journey I’m about to embark on with the MCs, I have a feeling I’ll be crying ugly tears throughout. Good thing I’m planning to binge read the majority of this tonight/tomorrow in the privacy of home. This is definitely not one I’ll be reading in public–I’m not about to embarrass myself like that! I predict this will be a ★★★★☆ star read.

Have you read All Your Perfects? What did you think of it?
Come let me know in the comments and let’s talk books 🙂

Book Review: Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Dini @ dinipandareads5 Comments

Goodreads: Pride
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction, Retelling, Romance
Rating: ★★★½

Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable. When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding. But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.

I was ready to love this book but I thought it just fell a bit short for me. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy reading this remix of one of my favorite novels (of all time), but I couldn’t quite relate with the characters and I was left wanting a deeper connection to the story. However, I do think that Zoboi did an amazing job of illustrating Bushwick and Brooklyn, and the changing times in those neighbourhoods, and I especially appreciated how the Haitian-Dominican culture of the Benitez family was so well-woven into the storyline. It’s such an important part of Zuri Benitez’s character, and I loved that you could really feel how much pride she had in her roots and heritage. Seeing Bushwick through Zuri’s eyes brought out the vibrancy of her block and the people living in it. It’s been a while since I’ve read a re-telling of this classic, so it was exciting for me to see how Zoboi would shape the story and it was a delight to see how the various characters appeared in this remix.

I thought the writing was done well and my favorite parts to read were Zuri’s poetry! They’re such good poems and I think they spoke more to me as a reader than the full narrative. These poems made me wish that I was listening to the audiobook because they were so powerful and I can imagine how much more impactful it would be hearing them spoken out loud.

While Zuri’s voice was quite distinct and she embodied the “Liz” character well, I often found myself getting frustrated and annoyed at her prideful behaviour. Though I understand that her attitude came from a place of fear and anger at the changes going on around her, I couldn’t help thinking that it came across as petty and spiteful a lot of the time, and that her inability to look past her fear was what made her character growth quite slow. The frustration with her attitude was what made this read less enjoyable for me. One of my favorite characters was Madrina, who reminded me of Blix, who is one of my favorite characters from Matchmaking for Beginners. They had such matronly auras that soothed, comforted and left you feeling like everything was going to be okay. Zuri’s strong bond with Madrina was also a defining trait of her character and I think ultimately it’s because of her wisdom that Zuri’s character growth really pushed forward. I was also hoping to learn more about Darius’ character and for him to have more character growth but as it is, he really felt more like just a romantic bystander in Zuri’s story, and this also took a bit out of the romance between them.

Overall, this was an enjoyable coming-of-age romance that portrayed modern day issues of socioeconomic change, class and cultural identity very well. It had a believably sweet and satisfying ending to Zuri and Darius’ story. I’m glad that I read it and I’m looking forward to reading other books by Ibi Zoboi, especially American Street!

Have you read Pride or is it on your TBR? What’d you think of it?
What are some of your favourite Pride and Prejudice retellings?

April 2019 Monthly Wrap Up!

Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

IT’S MAY! I can’t believe we’re five months into the year already. I mean, where are the months flying to?! April has been a pretty decent month in terms of work, life and reading; actually it has been more than a decent reading month for me! I think I even shocked myself when I counted how many books I got through. In no particular order, here’s what I read:

  • ARC
    ★★★½☆☆
  • ★★★☆☆
  • ARC
    ★★★☆☆
  • ARC
    ★★★★☆
  • ARC
    ★★★☆☆
  • ARC
    ★★★☆☆
  • ★★★★☆
  • ★★★★☆
  • ★★★★★
  • ARC
    ★★★☆☆
  • ★★★★½☆
  • ★★★★★
  • ★★★½☆☆
  • ★★★☆☆
  • ★★★★☆
  • ★★★½☆☆

So in total I read 17 books in April. I thought I was having a bit of a slow reading month but that definitely wasn’t the case! I read the majority of these as e-books and I realize that I often read much faster on my Kindle compared to when I’m reading a physical book. I’m also glad that I was able to get through 6 ARCs this month because my NetGalley TBR was getting a little ridiculous! My Goodreads Reading Challenge is currently at 60/75 books, so I think it’s about time I change my goal and bump it up to…90 books. If my year continues this way, I think 2019 will be a record making book year. Exciting times!

Out of all these books, my favorite(s) have to be The Dry and The Lost Man by Jane Harper. These were both such fantastic reads and I couldn’t possibly choose between them. I’m so glad that I finally picked up Jane Harper this month because she has made a place for herself on my favorite authors list and also my auto-buy authors list. I’d highly recommend picking her up up if you haven’t yet!

There are so many books I’m looking forward to reading in May and I’ve already posted about the books I’m most excited for. I just got an email today telling me that my Special Edition Owlcrate Finale box has just shipped today. AAAH 😃

How was your reading month? What was your favorite read?

#WWWWednesday: 01 May 2019

Dini @ dinipandareads3 Comments

Happy first of the month, book lovers! It seems that there’s a lot to look forward to in the month of May. Work is going to be hectic this month but I’m also taking a week off to celebrate my birthday with my bestie who’s coming up from Brisbane to join me in Bali! It’s gonna be a week of awesome hangs, reading pool/beachside, exploring what Bali has to offer, and of course, eating. Also, we’re five months into the year already — can you believe it?!

On that note, iIt’s time for another WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be talking about:

  1. What did you read last?
  2. What are you currently reading?
  3. What will you read next?

What did you read last?

Pride by Ibi Zoboi. I finished this book in the nick of time for it to be counted as my last April read! I’m a little bit on the fence about it because while I really enjoyed how Zoboi took this classic and made it into such a culturally vibrant modern tale, I wasn’t too keen on Zuri Benitez or Darius Darcy, the two MCs. Pride & Prejudice is one of my all-time favorites and while all the ‘boxes’ were basically ticked, I also felt that maybe the story could’ve done without some of them because not all elements added to this story. Still mulling over my review for this one, and I’ll hopefully post it soon!

What are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading three books. Little Darlings by Melanie Goldman, Mixed Signals by Mia Heintzman, and Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want To Come by Jessica Pan. Yes, I’m still reading Little Darlings. I can’t bring myself to pick it up at night and this week has been so busy with work and after work dinners and outings that I haven’t had much time to read. I hope to finish it by the weekend though! 🤞🏽 The other two are also ARCs because I want to cut my NetGalley reads down by just a little bit; my list on there has grown alarmingly fast and I’ve banned myself from requesting new reads until I read and review a few more! Mixed Signals is a cute little rom com that I’m reading alongside Little Darlings to keep myself happy, and Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want To Come is a non-fiction about the author’s experience as an introvert living the extrovert life for a year. As an socially anxious introvert, this book really appealed to me and I’ve enjoyed what little I’ve read so far!

What will you read next?

Next up are two buddy reads that I’ve committed myself to with my bestie and an IG group. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett and All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover. I’m hoping to read Good Omens before the show comes out this month!

What are you currently reading? Have you done a WWW Wednesday too? Leave your link in the comments!

#TopTenTuesday: Inspirational & Thought-Provoking Quotes from Books

Dini @ dinipandareads28 Comments

Welcome back to another Top Ten Tuesday! This meme was created by The Broke and the Bookish and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in 2018. Today’s prompt is: Inspirational & Thought-Provoking Quotes from Books. Who doesn’t love coming across a good inspiring or thought-provoking quote in the book you’re reading? I’ve never thought about ‘rating’ the quotes I find, so these aren’t really my top ten of all time, but they are quotes that sparked something in me. In no particular order…

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

“You can’t change just one part, can you? When you sit there and wish things had happened differently, you can’t just wish away the bad stuff. You have to think about all the good stuff you might lose, too. Better just to stay in the now and focus on what you can do better in the future.”– Taylor Jenkins Reid, Maybe In Another Life

“Whatever happens, love that.” – Maddie Dawson, Matchmaking for Beginners

“Human bodies are very complicated. Inside us there are all kinds of genes, hormones, and chemicals that affect our moods, and sometimes people have a certain combination of those things that makes them feel sad.” – Glendy Vanderah, Where the Forest Meets the Stars

“Once you figure out what matters, you’ll figure out how to be brave.” – Emily X.R. Pan, The Astonishing Colour of After

“Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.” – Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“People make a grievous error thinking that a list of facts is the truth. Facts are just the bare bones out of which truth is made.” – Greg Iles, Natchez Burning

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man’s will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.” – Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” – Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice

“It’s plausible to hypothesize that these patterns will be reflected in events and people in each dimension. That people who have met in one quantum reality will be likely to meet in another. Certain things that happen will happen over and over, in different ways, but more often than you could explain by chance alone.” – Claudia Gray, A Thousand Pieces of You

What are some of your favorite quotes? Have you also done a Top Ten Tuesday post? Leave a link to your post in the comments!

My Most Anticipated May Releases

Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

Now that May is just around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about my most anticipated releases for the month. There are a lot of books that I’m excited to get my hands on but I’ve managed to narrow down the list a little bit. I’ve already pre-ordered some of them but I’m hoping that my friends and family know me well enough (with a lot of wish-list hinting of course) to get me one or two of these for my birthday! 😉 So, without further ado, let’s get to it:

Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1) by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman. I’m so excited for another collaboration between Kaufman & Kristoff. They are such a dynamic badass team! I’m so happy that I was able to pre-order a signed copy of this book and apparently my pre-order comes with a copy of Memento, so what’s not to love?! I can’t wait until this arrives at my door.

Finale (Caraval #3) by Stephanie Garber. I stayed up until 3:30am just so that I wouldn’t miss the chance to order the special Owlcrate box for Finale. This series has been one of my favorites and the way Legendary ended, I can’t wait to find out how this beautiful series ends. Do I want it to end? No, but I’m hoping that it’ll bring some satisfying closure to a fun series! The excitement is real, yo.

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang. The Kiss Quotient was one of my favorite romance reads last year and I’ve heard from a few bookstagrammers and bloggers who’ve had the chance to read the ARC, that The Bride Test is just as good! I love the diverse characters and I’m expecting the romance to be just as funny, sexy and sweet as in Hoang’s debut!

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. This book has been hyped up down and around and while that makes me a little nervous, I’m more excited to read it! I’ve heard nothing but good things about this one.

Nocturna by Maya Motayne. This book has only fairly recently come on my radar thanks to the wonderful world of book blogs, but from what I’ve heard, this Latinx inspired magical world is one to definitely get excited about!

Romanov by Nadine Brandes. I’ve always found the history of the Romanovs so intriguing, so it’s no surprise that one of my favorite Disney movies (that I think is so weirdly underrated) is Anastasia. Sure, the dark tones of the animation got into my head and gave me sufficient nightmares for days, but it’s such a great story! I love historical fiction and when you combine that with fantasy, you better believe I’m here for it.

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren. Who doesn’t love Christina Lauren? I’ve almost read everything that they’ve put out and I always finish their books feeling good and happy. Their stories are always a great mix of comedy and romance, and really there’s nothing more to it than that.

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary. I love the idea of this book. Two people sharing a one-bedroom flat and never crossing paths because one works day shifts and one works night shifts. This sounds like the cute British romance that will worm its way into my heart and give me all the good feels.

What upcoming books are you most excited for? Have any of these books made it onto your list? Drop me a comment and let’s talk books 🙂

Sundays In Bed With… My #WeeklyWrapUp! [03]

Dini @ dinipandareadsLeave a comment

The Sundays In Bed With… meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning! This meme 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 my Sunday literally in bed and even though I feel a little guilty about the on-off napping/reading, I’ve been getting such lousy sleep last week, I guess my body really needed it? To be fair, my weird ass woke up at 7:30AM (on a Sunday!) and I jumped out of bed thinking it was well into the afternoon; I hate waking up feeling so disoriented! Since I couldn’t get back to sleep, I let myself laze for a long as I wanted, browsing through bookstagram, blogs, and eventually picking up Little Darlings again. I won’t lie, this book is giving me next level anxiety feels and I’m getting frustrated with the MC, which is making it difficult to get into the book. I’m only 42% in and I don’t want to get creepy feelings when I get back in bed tonight, so I’ll leave it until tomorrow.

What are you currently reading?

It’s also that time to share my weekly wrap up! I think it’s been a pretty decent blogging week. I still haven’t really had much opportunity to diversify my blog posts outside of the regular weekly memes and occasional reviews because the work days have been long and my brain is mush by the time I get back; and I still haven’t mastered the art of writing my posts ahead of time 😅 So in case you’ve missed them, here are my posts from the past week:

First Impression Friday & The Friday 56: Little Darlings
Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney
WWW Wednesday: 24 April
Top Ten Tuesday: The First Ten Books I Reviewed
Mini Reviews Monday with A Lost Man, A Summer Friendship & Naughty Princesses!

This week I also watched Avengers: Endgame and let me tell you, my feelings were not ready to be so thoroughly fcked with. I was bawling my eyes out along with about 90% of the movie theater and when the lights came on and the credits started rolling, we all stood up and started clapping and cheering. It was a moment. After catching a morning showing, I walked through the rest of the day like a zombie–I was so emotionally drained! I had to do some major retail therapy to distract myself from my drowning emotions, so I guess that was a perk, but it didn’t really work because I couldn’t stop thinking about that ending! What a journey… Have you watched Endgame yet?

Hope everyone had a great week and a fun weekend! Can you believe it’s Sunday already? Here we go Monday… Have a great week ahead!

First Impression Friday & Friday 56 w/ Little Darlings (ARC)

Dini @ dinipandareads1 Comment

There’s a brand new meme hosted by JW Martin called First Impression Friday! It sounded like a fun way to reflect on a new book, so I thought I’d play along! Here’s what it’s about:

First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther.Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end. Did you think you’d love and ended up hating it? Or did you think you’d hate it and wound up loving it? Or were you exactly right?

I started Little Darlings (ARC) by Melanie Golding during my lunch break today and by the time lunch ended I got to about 5%. I won’t be continuing this tonight as I’ll be waiting for the sun to guide me through what I feel will be a fairly dark and creepy read! I’ve probably mentioned this a few times by now but supernatural thrillers are not my thing. I have an insanely wild imagination that gets away with me, so I like to stay away from things that I know will easily induce nightmares. However, when I requested this on NetGalley, I didn’t actually realize it had supernatural elements (otherwise I would’ve stayed far away, duh). My first impression: there’s a sinister air that hangs over the story from the beginning. I feel that Lauren Tranter might give me anxiety but also frustrate me, her thoughts so far remind me a little bit of a the mother’s nightmares from The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent. I think I will end up giving this read a ★★★½☆☆ but I could end up surprising myself and really love it by the end. Anything can happen!

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda @Freda’s Voice, with the rules as followed:

– Grab a book, any book.
– Turn to page 56 or 56% on your eReader/book.
– Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grab you.
– Post it.
– Add your (url) post here in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url. It’s that simple

Doctor Summer followed Patrick into the corridor. As the door to the therapy room was closed and locked behind them by the nurse, the doctor peered at each boy in turn, giving them a little squeeze.

56%, Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

What are you currently reading? Have you done a First Impression Friday or The Friday 56 post? Leave a link in the comments and let’s chat books 🙂