It’s on to parts two and three of the 2024 End of Year Survey! If you haven’t yet, you can check out Part I here! These next two parts are more about the blogging journey and looking ahead to 2025!
This survey was originally created by Jamie @The Perpetual Page Turner.
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 reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January with Leslie and Julie. It’s my first buddy read of the year, and I’ve had this book on my TBR for ages, so I’m glad to finally be reading it. I’ve gone for the full immersive read this time with the ebook and audio, and I love how Harrow brings memories and images to life through the sense of smell! The only thing is these chapters are SUPER long! 🤣
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits where we get to discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Check out January’s and all the past topics if you want to join the bookish discussion fun.
Today’s topic is actually:
But since I’ve already done the bookish part of my year-end survey where I go into all of bookish things in great detail, I thought I would go back to last week’s topic that I missed:
Prompts: What is/was your first read of 2025? Was it a deliberate selection? Or did you just pick up the nearest book? Do you typically make sure to finish all your current reads by the 31st? Do you mind if some of your reads spill over into the New Year? Are you particular about when you read certain books, or do you read whatever, whenever?
✨ Happy Thursday, friends! ✨
It’s time to share one of my favourite posts of the month from across the book community. December’s list includes several wrap-ups, 2025 challenges, and other festive, holiday, or winter-themed posts. I know my community posts lists tend to be quite long but I hope you’ll take the time to visit some of these blogs and share some love!
✨📖 Happy reading! 📖✨
Read More »
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:
We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl.
This week’s topic is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2025.
Special thanks to HarperCollins for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
A Language of Dragons
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub Date: 7 January 2025
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
Panda Rating:
(4 pandas)
EVERY ACT OF TRANSLATION REQUIRES SACRIFICE
Welcome to Bletchley Park… with dragons.
London, 1923. Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivian Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get an internship studying dragon languages, and make sure her little sister never has to risk growing up Third Class. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.
With her parents arrested and her sister missing, all the safety Viv has worked for is collapsing around her. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort – if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.
At first Viv believes that her challenge, of discovering the secrets of a hidden dragon language, is doable. But the more she learns, the more she realises that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must What war is she really fighting?
An epic, sweeping fantasy with an incredible Dark Academia setting, a clandestine, slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance, and an unputdownable story, filled with twists and turns, betrayals and secret identities, A Language of Dragons is the unmissable debut of 2025, from an extraordinary new voice.
Gun and knife violence, physical assault, classism, speciesism, sexism and misogyny, police (Guardian) brutality, murder
TL;DR: A Language of Dragons took me on a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions. This fantasy world where humans and dragons co-exist had a fascinating premise and overall, I think the author executed it well. This has a little something for everyone—an in-depth exploration of linguistics and the power of language, political intrigue and subterfuge, romance, and dragons, and I think its comparison to Babel and The Hunger Games (or any other dystopian YA) is apt. Despite being a historical fantasy, it explores evergreen themes of social inequality, redemption, forgiveness, and justice, among others. The main struggle I had was dealing with the wildly negative feelings our protagonist, Viv, brought out in me as she’s one of the most flawed and unempathetic YA characters I’ve ever read. Upon reflection, I appreciated what the author did with Viv and how it made her eventual growth more satisfying—even if I didn’t reach that level of acceptance while reading, lol. If you’re affected by unlikeable protagonists then you might not enjoy this but if you can have patience, I think you’ll come to appreciate Viv too! Overall, this was a solid debut and I can’t wait to see where Williamson takes the story next!
Read More » 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 finished my read earlier this morning and I haven’t picked anything up since then because I’ve been gaming all day. 🤭 That said, I’m looking at these possibilities because I’m not quite sure yet what reading mood I’m in!
Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, 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:
First lines:
“A white silence blanketed the land. Newly fallen snow, hushed. Pure, crystalline ice hardening against the pale bark of the trees. The chilled air that swelled with the slow, sleeping breaths of a world that had yet to wake.
And a girl cloaked in heavy furs, waiting.”
It’s become an annual tradition for me to post this End of Year Book Survey broken down into three parts (but I’ve combined the last two parts into one). I find this ‘survey’ is an easy way to summarise my year of reading and blogging and I look forward to making it by the time December rolls around. 2024 was frankly a blur and while I started the reading year on a high, I ended it on a lower but still satisfying note. I’m keen to see what 2025 has in store but I sure hope there’ll be more highs than otherwise!
Before I digress any further, let’s get to this survey. If you want to check out my previous years, I’ve linked them all up below. Here’s to an amazing year ahead, friends! 🌟
This survey was originally created by Jamie @The Perpetual Page Turner.
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