#WWWWednesday: 08 April

April 8, 2020April 8, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads22 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?

My big question to you is: WHAT ARE BOOKS?! Because I certainly haven’t been reading them 😂😭 Since last Wednesday I’ve only managed to finish one book and that was a graphic novel for the blog tour I was part of today!

Gotham High by Melissa de la Cruz, illustrated by Thomas Pitilli ★★★½
I read this one for the FFBC tour and my stop was today! I haven’t read a DC comic before but I have seen seen pretty much all of the movies, so I really enjoyed this graphic novel! I love seeing known characters as their younger selves because I love knowing their origin story and how they end up where they do. The story/writing wasn’t anything ‘wow’ but it was so enjoyable spotting characters and I loved how the characters were diversified–Bruce Wayne is half-Chinese! Check out my full review.

Gotham High Blog Tour: Review

April 8, 2020April 8, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads20 Comments

Hello, friends! It’s been a hot minute since I joined in a blog tour, huh? I’m back with another Fantastic Flying Book Club tour today and this time it’s for the graphic novel: Gotham High! Every time I get picked to be part of any FFBC blog tour I die a little bit inside out of happiness because it’s always such a privilege 🥰 Huge thanks to FFBC for organising these amazing tours and to the authors/publishers as well for making the eARCs available to us.

Be sure to click on the banner above to see the other bloggers on tour!

Gotham High
Publisher: DC Comics
Release date: 07 April 2020
Genre: Graphic Novel, Superheroes, Young Adult

Panda Rating:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Alex and Eliza and The Witches of East End comes a reimagining of Gotham for a new generation of readers. Before they became Batman, Catwoman, and The Joker, Bruce, Selina, and Jack were high schoolers who would do whatever it took–even destroy the ones they love–to satisfy their own motives.

After being kicked out of his boarding school, 16-year-old Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City to find that nothing is as he left it. What once was his family home is now an empty husk, lonely but haunted by the memory of his parents’ murder. Selina Kyle, once the innocent girl next door, now rules over Gotham High School with a dangerous flair, aided by the class clown, Jack Napier.

When a kidnapping rattles the school, Bruce seeks answers as the dark and troubled knight–but is he actually the pawn? Nothing is ever as it seems, especially at Gotham High, where the parties and romances are of the highest stakes … and where everyone is a suspect.

With enchanting art by Thomas Pitilli, this new graphic novel is just as intoxicating as it is chilling, in which dearest friends turn into greatest enemies–all within the hallways of Gotham High!

Amazon (US) | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Google Books

#TopTenTuesday: It’s because of the ‘GRAM!

April 7, 2020July 18, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads26 Comments

We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is books I bought because of… bookstagram!

I’m sure by now you’re all aware that book Instagram or bookstagram exists. You might even have one and run it alongside your blog! Some days it’s hard to believe that I actually started on bookstagram and then took the big leap to start a book blog. It’s especially hard to believe now since I’ve basically all but abandoned my bookstagram 🙈 #shame But while I have you here (*shameless plug*), feel free to check out my bookstagram and follow me if you feel so inclined: @dinipandareads!

Last year I started a bookstagram and got quickly sucked into the book community! I fell hard and fast for all the beautiful hardcovers and gorgeous accounts. I tried to “keep up” with the good-looking posts by buying props etc. but it’s so hard to find quality things here I decided I didn’t want to spend all that money for it! LOL, but there’s seriously something about seeing gorgeous books in aesthetically pleasing photos that give me some serious *grabby hands* feels. Does that only happen to me?! 😂 So here are some of the books that I absolutely needed to get my hands on all thanks to the ‘gram! Honestly, if it wasn’t for bookstagram I probably would’ve never even heard of some of these, so I really can’t be that mad, right?!

Book Ending Spring: The Cinderella Effect

April 6, 2020April 6, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads18 Comments

Hello, hello, friends! Welcome back to another post for #BESpring2020! As per usual I am a day behind but since today’s post is about bujo’s and I don’t have/use one, I thought I’d answer yesterday’s prompt made by Sam @ Fictionally Sam!

A quick recap for those who don’t know, Book Ending Spring (2020) is hosted by Sam and Clo @ Cuppa Clo, and it’s one of the quarterly events running under the umbrella term “Bookend Events” that aspires to bring the book blogging community closer together! You can find more information on the announcement page and you can sign up to join as well, if you want in on the blogging fun!

Rules

Answer the prompts
Tag some friends
Link back to the original post and be sure to mention the creator (Sam @ Fictionally Sam)
Have fun!

Now without further ado let’s get to the prompt: The Cinderella Effect! For this prompt we’re naming five books that you couldn’t wait to get your hands on but turned into a pumpkin (a dud) when you got it. So for this prompt I’m looking at the books that I was so excited for but didn’t end up loving as much as I hoped. Maybe that’s not really focusing on books that were total ‘duds’ because I still rated them okay, but they were just disappointing!

Goodreads Monday – The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

April 6, 2020April 6, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads26 Comments

It’s the first Goodreads Monday of 2020, friends! This weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners and it 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 featured book is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I don’t remember when I first came across this book but it’s been on my Goodreads TBR for five years already! I’m not really sure what genre this would be classified as but Wiki is telling me it’s gothic suspense! It has a 3.96 star average with 263k+ ratings and 22.2k+ reviews, which is pretty great!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [50]

April 5, 2020December 4, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads23 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!

This Sunday I should’ve spent the day in bed with Ruthless Gods. But if you guessed that I spent the day gaming, then you’d be 10,000% correct 😅 I’m reading this as a buddy read so I really need to get myself together and get cracking on it! I’ve got my first two blog tours coming up next week and yikes, this panda has not read anything in what feels like forever now 🐼 Curse you, gaming! 🙃

Darkness never works alone…
Nadya doesn’t trust her magic anymore. Serefin is fighting off a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to him. Malachiasz is at war with who–and what–he’s become.
As their group is continually torn apart, the girl, the prince, and the monster find their fates irrevocably intertwined. They’re pieces on a board, being orchestrated by someone… or something. The voices that Serefin hears in the darkness, the ones that Nadya believes are her gods, the ones that Malachiasz is desperate to meet—those voices want a stake in the world, and they refuse to stay quiet any longer.

What are you currently reading?

Book Review: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

April 5, 2020March 29, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads29 Comments

Goodreads: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #1)
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: 31 October 2017
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Panda Rating:

(5 pandas)

Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any child to be born, she’s blamed for all local misfortunes, from hailstorms to heart attacks–and, worst of all, the curse means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday.

But as Morrigan awaits her fate, a strange and remarkable man named Jupiter North appears. Chased by black-smoke hounds and shadowy hunters on horseback, he whisks her away into the safety of a secret, magical city called Nevermoor.

It’s then that Morrigan discovers Jupiter has chosen her to contend for a place in the city’s most prestigious organization: the Wundrous Society. In order to join, she must compete in four difficult and dangerous trials against hundreds of other children, each boasting an extraordinary talent that sets them apart–an extraordinary talent that Morrigan insists she does not have. To stay in the safety of Nevermoor for good, Morrigan will need to find a way to pass the tests–or she’ll have to leave the city to confront her deadly fate.

Unsurprisingly with everything going on right now it has been more than a little difficult to focus on reading*, but apparently middle grade books are really working for me! I still remember the first time I read Harry Potter when I was 9 and this book gave me those exact same feelings. This was such a wonderful adventure and I’m really excited to continue it in the upcoming books!

*Also I apologise in advance if this ends up being a windy-non-sensical review because aside from finding it difficult to focus on reading, my brain’s also not having it with writing reviews 😂

Top 5 Saturday: Books to Read While Stuck Inside

April 4, 2020April 4, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads22 Comments

We’re back with another Top 5 Saturday! I might’ve missed last week’s topic but I will come back to it at some point 🙂 Just in case you don’t know Top 5 Saturday is a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and it’s where we list the top five books (they can be books on your TBR, favourite books, books you loved/hated) based on the week’s topic. You can see the upcoming schedule at the end of my post 🙂 This week’s topic is: books to read while stuck inside/quarantined!

I’ve seen a lot of book bloggers making recommendation lists about what books to read while most of us are stuck inside, WFH, quarantined, self-isolating etc. We’re all looking for either comfort or an escape from what’s going on right now. I know I’m especially avoiding the politics of this pandemic and how the Indonesian government has been handling the situation (real piss poor for effort, mate). So this Saturday I’m going to be looking at five books on my immediate TBR that I’m planning to read during this quarantine period (that for me will last until the end of May)!

It is a year after the action of One of Us Is Lying, and someone has started playing a game of Truth or Dare. But this is no ordinary Truth or Dare. This game is lethal. Choosing the truth may reveal your darkest secrets, accepting the dare could be dangerous, even deadly. The teenagers of Bayview must work together once again to find the culprit, before it’s too late . . .

My first pick would be One of Us is Next. I love a good murder mystery and don’t often read them in YA so I’m really excited for this sequel! OOUIL sucked me in and I’m hoping this will do the job of taking my mind off reality. I’m also a total sucker for this paperback version that has awesome sprayed edges 😍

Book Ending Spring: The Wedding Tag!

April 4, 2020April 4, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads26 Comments

Hello, hello, friends! Thanks to Leelynn tagging me on her Book Ending Spring post, I’ve remembered that I said I’d finally like to join in the fun after seeing it all over the blogosphere last fall. Honestly, if my head wasn’t attached I’d probably forget it somewhere these days because my mind is all over the show. Yikes!

For those who don’t already know, Book Ending Spring (2020) is hosted by Sam @ Fictionally Sam and Clo @ Cuppa Clo, and it’s one of the quarterly events running under the umbrella term “Bookend Events” that aspires to bring the book blogging community closer together! You can find more information on the announcement page and you can sign up to join as well, if you want in on the blogging fun! So… Without further ado, let’s get to day two’s prompt: The Wedding Tag!

First Lines Friday – 03 April

April 3, 2020April 3, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads10 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:

“Gina Luca knew one thing right down to the very marrow of her wedding-planner bones: brides were the devil. And a bridezilla on her fourth round of tequila shots during the reception? A highly flammable devil capable of anything, including hijacking the videographer and projecting an impromptu Kiss Cam on the movie theater-sized screen behind the bridal party dais.”