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:
“Gray Woodson didn’t know much, but he knew one thing… Life had been a lot easier when he was killin’ people. This whole retirement thing, on the other hand, was a pain in his saddle-hardened ass.”
Hello, friends! It’s time for another round of Tag Thursday. I’ve been keeping today’s tag for the right mood and now the day has finally come! 😂
I found this tag on Budget Tales Book Blog who found it on A Little But Alot. I tried scouring the Google for who was the creator of this tag but there are so many Bookish Questions Book Tag variations that I can’t find the one for this specific tag. If you do find them or know who it is, please leave a comment so I can properly link them up! 💜
On that note, let’s get straight to this tag!
Genre I stay away from
As The Ultimate Chicken™️, horror in general is a genre that I stay away from. More specifically, paranormal horror is something that I try as much as possible to not touch. This goes for books, movies, shows, etc. I’ve dipped my toes in a time or two and I wouldn’t say that I didn’t enjoy it at all but my overactive imagination went into overdrive and I couldn’t sleep for… a while. 👀 It’s just really not my jam!
Worst habit as a reader?
Oh, I’ve got a few bad habits when it comes to books but I think one of them is my inability to DNF. I’m actively trying to improve on this but it’s so hard, friends! My brain always goes “but what if it gets better?” and it very rarely does, yet my brain still convinces me that maybe this time it will. 😂 Let’s just say that I’m a work in progress!
Do I read the synopsis?
I always do… But that doesn’t mean I will remember it. 🤭 Most of the time I simply remember what the gist of the book is about but often times, I forgot details I read in the synopsis. It’s both good and bad (especially if I’m taken completely by surprise in a not good way, lol)!
Do I read used books?
I love used books! When I first started actively reading again post-uni, the books that got me started were secondhand Nora Roberts books I found in one of the only indie bookstores that sold English books in Cambodia! 😂 Sadly, where I live now doesn’t really do “used” books at least not of English books.
Favourite book from last year?
Uhm, ask me to choose one favourite and it’s impossible. I can never choose whenever I make my Yearly wrap-up posts and well, I still can’t choose. So here the Top 5 I listed in my 2023 End of Year Book Survey:
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Role Playing, The Dragon Republic, Unethered Sky, The Six Deaths of the Saint
Favourite Classic?
I’m not trying to be difficult but again, it’s a tie between my queen Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion.
Book I always recommend?
Hmm, not an easy question to answer since there’s so much to consider when recommending anything! However, a book I realise that I’ve recommended a lot over the past couple of years is Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. It’s the perfect slice-of-life cosy fantasy with new beginnings, warm friendships, wonderful characters, and a sweet sapphic romance. It’s so good! 🥰
There are literally so many that I can’t name them all! Here are five that are a mix of new and old releases.
Below, The Phoenix Keeper, They Called Us Enemy, In Memoriam, Night Song
Books I’m ashamed of not reading yet?
Oh, there are truly so many but the ones I’m really most ashamed of not reading yet are the backlist ARCs on my NetGalley shelf. 🥺 I’m gonna further call myself out here and share a few of the titles that are on the list and some of them are backlist backlist ARCs. (Cue: That Game of Thrones shame GIF!)
The Raven and the Dove, The Mermaid from Jeju, She Who Became the Sun, Hooked, How Do You Live?
That’s it for today’s tag! I won’t be tagging anyone this time but if you do it, feel free to link back so I can read your answers! 😃
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 Destination Titles (titles with name of places in them. These places can be real or fiction!) (this was a topic Rachel @ Sunny Side came up with for a freebie week last year and has let me steal it!)
Bright Young Women Publisher: Macmillan Pub Date: 28 September 2023 Genre: Historical Crime Fiction
Panda Rating: (5 pandas)
📖SYNOPSIS
An extraordinary novel inspired by the real-life sorority targeted by America’s first celebrity serial killer in his final murderous spree.
January 1978. A serial killer has terrorized women across the Pacific Northwest, but his existence couldn’t be further from the minds of the vibrant young women at the top sorority on Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee. Tonight is a night of promise, excitement, and desire, but Pamela Schumacher, president of the sorority, makes the unpopular decision to stay home—a decision that unwittingly saves her life. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she makes the fateful decision to investigate. What she finds behind the door is a scene of implausible violence—two of her sisters dead; two others, maimed. Over the next few days, Pamela is thrust into a terrifying mystery inspired by the crime that’s captivated public interest for more than four decades.
On the other side of the country, Tina Cannon has found peace in Seattle after years of hardship. A chance encounter brings twenty-five-year-old Ruth Wachowsky into her life, a young woman with painful secrets of her own, and the two form an instant connection. When Ruth goes missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight, surrounded by thousands of beachgoers on a beautiful summer day, Tina devotes herself to finding out what happened to her. When she hears about the tragedy in Tallahassee, she knows it’s the man the papers refer to as the All-American Sex Killer. Determined to make him answer for what he did to Ruth, she travels to Florida on a collision course with Pamela—and one last impending tragedy.
Bright Young Women is the story about two women from opposite sides of the country who become sisters in their fervent pursuit of the truth. It proposes a new narrative inspired by evidence that’s been glossed over for decades in favor of more salable headlines—that the so-called brilliant and charismatic serial killer from Seattle was far more average than the countless books, movies, and primetime specials have led us to believe, and that it was the women whose lives he cut short who were the exceptional ones.
⚠️CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS
Rape, sexual assault, sexual partner violence, murder, kidnapping, misogyny, forced institutionalisation/corrective therapy for being queer (lesbian) recounted, lesbophobia, paedophilia and grooming recounted, depictions of grief
This review was originally posted on Goodreads on 7 November 2024.
TL;DR: I just finished this book and I’m still feeling heated by it. Anything I say right now probably won’t make much sense since I’m so *emotional* because this book made me SO MAD! I’m mad at the media, at police incompetency, at how society treats women, at how men are given passes and chances and leniency because “they have bright futures, have so much potential and blah blah bs”, and at how pointedly this book shows that after all these years, while so much is different so little has changed. Bright Young Women was just utterly heartbreaking.
I buddy read this book with Becky and it was the best decision because we needed someone to vent to while reading this. We got more emotional and angry the further we read but this also ended up surprising us and has ended up on both our last of 2024 favourites.
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’ve spent my Sunday reading a gothic fantasy and a romance: Starling House and Rare Blend. I’m buddy reading Starling House with Leslie and Julie, and I’m enjoying it so much but it’s defo a daytime read cos it’s doing a great job of creeping me out, lol. To balance the creepy I picked up Rare Blend after seeing a review yesterday Jeeve Reads Romance. I love the angst, mutual pining, and slow burn so far!
Happy Friday, friends! It’s time to share some of my favourite posts of the month from the community. As September last month left very little time for blog hopping, I combined September & October! I hope you take the time to visit some of these blogs and share some love. ✨📖 Happy reading! 📖✨
A.J. Fikry, the grumpy owner of Island Books, is going through a hard time: his bookshop is failing, he has lost his beloved wife, and a prized rare first edition has been stolen.
But one day A.J. finds two-year-old Maya sitting on the bookshop floor, with a note attached to her asking the owner to look after her. His life – and Maya’s – is changed forever.
⚠️CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS
Character experiences multiple absence seizures (on the page), cancer (brain) resulting in aphasia, car accident (on the page, minor details) resulting in the death of a side character, death of a spouse as a result of a car accident (recounted), suicide (off-page), alcoholism, child abandonment, infidelity, suicide ideation, miscarriages (recounted)
TL;DR: I was looking for a book that would make me cry and well, this definitely got the job done! 😅 The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is every bit as wonderful as everyone told me it would be and I’m so happy that I’ve finally read it! I definitely understand why it’s so well-loved by many. There’s something about Zevin’s storytelling that’s so compelling, emotional and human—flaws and all. I would recommend this to those who enjoy a character-driven slice-of-life story that takes place over part of a lifetime, and for those who love a book about books!
Today is gonna be tough for so many people and I’m so sorry that this has happened (again). As an international viewer watching this all unfold, I’m astounded that it’s actually possible for a convicted felon to be elected President. Sending positivity and courage to all. Have strength! 🫂
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 