Blog Tour Review: Summer Vamp by Violet Chan Karim

May 17, 2024May 17, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads5 Comments

Hello, friends. ✨ Today I’m excited to be part of the blog tour for Summer Vamp by Violet Chan Karim! Special thanks to the TBR & Beyond Tours team for organising the tour and including me in it.

Thanks to Random House Graphic for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Click here or on the banner above to check out the rest of the fantastic bloggers on tour!

Summer Vamp
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Publication Date: 14 May 2024
Genre: Middle-Grade Fantasy

Panda Rating:

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📖 SYNOPSIS

What happens when a very human kid ends up at the wrong summer camp—FOR VAMPIRES?! This quirky and heart warming graphic novel about making friends and getting in trouble is perfect for fans of Witches of Brooklyn.

After a lackluster school year, Maya anticipates an even more disappointing summer. The only thing she’s looking forward to is cooking and mixing ingredients in the kitchen, which these days brings her more joy than mingling with her peers… that is until her dad’s girlfriend registers her for culinary summer camp! Maya’s summer is saved!… or not.

What was meant to be a summer filled with baking pastries and cooking pasta is suddenly looking a lot… paler?! Why do all of the kids have pointy fangs? And hate garlic? Turns out that Maya isn’t at culinary camp—she’s at a camp for VAMPIRES! Maya has a lot to learn if she’s going to survive this summer… and if she’s lucky, she might even make some friends along the way.

📚 BUY A COPY!

What happens when you realize you haven’t gone to culinary camp and ended up at not just any regular old summer camp, but a camp for vampires?! Well, it turns out you can have a whole lot of fun in the last place you’d expect to! 😂

Blog Tour Review: Wrath of the Talon by Sophie Kim

May 16, 2024May 16, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

Hello, friends. ✨ Today I’m excited to be part of the blog tour for Wrath of the Talon by Sophie Kim! Special thanks to the TBR & Beyond Tours team for organising the tour and including me in it.

Thanks to Entangled: Teen for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Click here or on the banner above to check out the rest of the fantastic bloggers on tour!

Wrath of the Talons (Talon #2)
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Publication Date: 2 April 2024
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Rep: Asian, Korean

Panda Rating:

_{(4.5 pandas)}

📖 SYNOPSIS

Everyone thinks the Reaper of Sunpo—eighteen-year-old assassin Shin Lina—is dead. The only ones who know the truth are her cherished little sister and Haneul Rui, the icily gorgeous Dokkaebi Emperor, who she was sent to kill…and kissed instead.

Now, with the potent Imugi venom surging in her veins, Lina’s returned to right all wrongs. Already her body is changing, growing stronger, stealthier, and more agile, with serpentine scales she can call at will. She is living vengeance, seeking retribution for the massacre of the Talons. She’ll become the sword who cuts down the rival Blackbloods gang, along with their ruthless crime-lord leader. And when she is through, she will take the kingdom as her own.

But there is a mysterious side to Lina’s growing power, a dark voice inside her that whispers and guides her as she slips through the shadows of Sunpo’s streets. One that warns her not to trust the Dokkaebi, especially Rui.

Because if her destiny isn’t to love him…it must be to destroy him.

The Talons series is best enjoyed in order.

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Violence, murder, mild sex scenes (on page)

📚 BUY A COPY!

TL;DR: Holy wow, this was a sequel! That ending had me floored because no way was that the choice! Author!! The way you built up hope is illegal!!! I can’t remember the last time I was so thrilled by the second book in a trilogy but this, to me, did not suffer from that dreaded second/middle book syndrome. Perhaps it’s because I went in with lowered expectations having thought the first book was okay; however, I think the writing, plot, and character development were sharper and I’m happy to see that author growth. With such high stakes and a whole lot of tension and angst, this sequel got me invested in this series and after that ending, I can’t wait for the finale!

#WWWWednesday: 15 May 2024

May 15, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads16 Comments

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:

What did you read last?
What are you currently reading?
What will you read next?

#TopTenTuesday: Favourite Quotes from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

May 14, 2024May 13, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads52 Comments

We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s topic is Favourite Book Quotes (You can pick your favourite quotes from books, or about books! You can set a theme like quotes from books about love, friendship, hope, etc. or you can just share quotes you loved from your recent reads!)

Book Review: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

May 13, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)
Publisher: Gallery/Saga Press
Pub Date: 26 June 2018
Genre: Dystopian Fantasy

Panda Rating:

_{(4.5 pandas)}

📖 SYNOPSIS

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Dismemberment, gore, blood, extreme violence, substance abuse, racism

TL;DR: This was a reread for me but I read it back before I wrote reviews so despite giving it 4 stars I didn’t remember what I loved and didn’t love about it. I’m blown away by how much I enjoyed this especially because there are horror aspects in this that fall outside my usual reading comfort zone. Despite the stomach-turning moments and the fact that these pages are filled with a fairly depressing post-apocalyptic setting and dark mythology, I found myself being unable to turn away and I often didn’t want to stop reading even when adulting responsibilities called me back to reality. This review is a bit all over the place but that tends to happen with a book I’ve thoroughly enjoyed! 😂

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [233]

May 12, 2024 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 spent your time reading in bed or wish you had time to read today!

I’m spending my Sunday in bed with The Only One Left by Riley Sager. I started this yesterday and as I always find with Sager’s books, even though you’re quickly hooked and feel the need to know what happened, his stories aren’t necessarily fast-paced. I just got to the twist and I saw it right before the reveal and I’m having fun!

April 2024 Community Posts!

May 11, 2024May 11, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

Hello, friends! I hope everyone is having a good weekend. 🌻 After close to two weeks of unbearably hot and muggy weather, it finally rained heavily this afternoon and it’s the perfect moment to sit down and curl up with a good read. 🌧️ So I thought it’d be the perfect time to post my favourite part of each monthly wrap-up and I share some reads from around our wonderful book blogging community. Happy reading! 📖

#FirstLinesFriday: 10 May 2024

May 10, 2024May 10, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads5 Comments

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:

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:

“The first time I killed a man with a pie, it was an accident.
But only the first.”

ARC Review: Last of the Talons by Sophie Kim

May 9, 2024May 8, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads2 Comments

Special thanks to Entangled: Teen for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Last of the Talons (Talon #1)
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Publication Date: 27 September 2022
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Panda Rating:

_{(3.5 pandas)}

📖 SYNOPSIS

After the destruction of her entire Talon gang, eighteen-year-old Shin Lina—the Reaper of Sunpo—is forced to become a living, breathing weapon for the kingdom’s most-feared crime lord. All that keeps her from turning on her ruthless master is the life of her beloved little sister hanging in the balance. But the order to steal a priceless tapestry from a Dokkaebi temple incites not only the wrath of a legendary immortal, but the beginning of an unwinnable game…

Suddenly Lina finds herself in the dreamlike realm of the Dokkaebi, her fate in the hands of its cruel and captivating emperor. But she can win her life—if she kills him first.

Now a terrible game of life and death has begun, and even Lina’s swift, precise blade is no match for the magnetic Haneul Rui. Lina will have to use every weapon in her arsenal if she wants to outplay this cunning king and save her sister…all before the final grain of sand leaks out of the hourglass.

Because one way or another, she’ll take Rui’s heart.

Even if it means giving up her own.

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Violence, blood, traumatic deaths of loved ones

TL;DR: Despite my first attempt at reading this being unsuccessful, I’m glad to say that the second time’s the charm and I found myself enjoying this more than I expected to. Kim offers a lot in this upper YA fantasy debut—plenty of stabby action, deaths, found family moments, rebellion, deception, and a forbidden enemies-to-lovers romance. That said, much of the characters, relationships and world-building was kept on a surface level and at over 400 pages long, I think we could’ve got a lot more development! Overall though, this wasn’t a bad debut and I’m curious to see how Kim evolves as an author throughout the series and what happens next with Lina and her thirst for vengeance!

#WWWWednesday: 8 May 2024

May 8, 2024 Dini @ dinipandareads15 Comments

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: