Tag: Book Blogger

Books I Want To Read But Don’t Want to Read Tag

Dini @ dinipandareads26 Comments

I was tagged by the lovely Michaela @ Journey Into Books to do the ‘Books I Want To Read’ tag and look at me–doing a tag within a month of being tagged! 🤣 Thanks for the tag, lovely! Check out her blog for great reviews and other fun bookish content ❤️

The basic idea of this tag (from the original creator) is: basically all those books where you really like the idea of reading the book / you do WANT to read the book, but the actual process of reading it seems daunting or unappealing! Why do I feel like I’m gonna struggle with this even though this sounds like a fun and interesting tag?! LOL 😂

The Rules:

  • Link back to the original tag (this post, and Jami!)
  • Complete the questions with books you want to have read but don’t want to read
  • Tag some people at the end to do the tag next

1: A book that you feel you need to read because everyone talks about it

Layla by Colleen Hoover. I’ve heard some wildly mixed reviews for this book but I’ve also seen it EVERYWHERE. That said, I think I can apply a lot of Hoover’s books for this prompt–not that I don’t want to read them but there are so many and honestly, I don’t really want to either? 🤣

2: A book thats really long

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Not only is this one chonkster of a book, I also have very negative associations with this book because I picked it up during The Worst Slump Ever™️. I got really close to finishing it but then I stopped reading for 3 months (see: worst slump ever) and now I get weird iffy vibes when I think about picking it up again. I want to finish it cos I’m so close to the end but also… It’s so chonky? And I don’t remember what’s happened last and… Hmm. 🤔

3: A book you’ve owned / had on your TBR for too long

There are… Quite a number of books that I’ve been contemplating removing off the shelf lately but for this I’m going with Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. This was gifted to me by a family friend and I mean, it’s one of those “classics” that I do want to read because it’s a “classic” but at the same time I don’t think I actually have any interest in it anymore?

4: A book that is ‘required’ reading (eg, school text, really popular classic – something you feel obligated to read!)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I’ve actually attempted to read this one or two times (albeit without much enthusiasm) but I was never really able to get into it? I want to read it because it’s such a classic but also… I don’t know when (if ever) I’ll pick it up!

5: A book that intimidates you

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Confession time: I’ve never watched any of the adaptations because I’m convinced I want to read the book first but every time I look at this chonky beast of a book I wilt a little bit inside at the thought of making my way through it. I feel like it’s a book that’ll take not only my full concentration but also a good long while to read. I have a feeling it’ll be worth it(?) but it’s also very scary 😂 I guess time will tell if I’ll ever pick it up!

6: A book that you think might be slow

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke. This was honestly purely a cover buy but then I Goodreads’d it and it sounded really interesting. I don’t know why (maybe it’s the epic size of the thing but) I have a feeling that this might be on the slower side of reads. I do want to read it but also, I don’t know when that day might ever come! 😅

7: A book you need to be in the right mood for

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. I do have an interest in reading this book especially because everyone and their mum seems to have read it. I tend to struggle a lot with staying focused on non-fiction though so I definitely have to be in the perfect mood to read this!

8: A book you’re unsure if you will like

Um… Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I really don’t know why I feel this way but I just have a feeling that I might not like it and that’s why I keep putting off the many opportunities I’ve had to read it. I know it’s an incredibly well loved story so I’m not sure what about it makes me feel this way but I’m leaning towards maybe not reading it? (pls don’t hate me) 😂

And that’s a wrap, friends! That was fun (and I did have a time making up my mind lol)! I won’t be tagging anyone specifically but everyone is welcome to do the tag if you want! If you decide to do the tag don’t forget to link back so I can check out your post! 😃

Blog Tour Review: Silence Is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar

Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

Special thanks to Algonquin Books for inviting me to be on the blog tour and for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Goodreads: Silence Is a Sense
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Release Date: 16 March 2021
Genre: Literary Fiction

Panda Rating:

(5 pandas)

A young woman sits in her apartment in an unnamed English city, absorbed in watching the small dramas of her assorted neighbors through their windows across the way. Traumatized into muteness after a long, devastating trip from war-torn Syria to the UK, she believes that she wants to sink deeper into isolation, moving between memories of her absent boyfriend and family and her homeland, dreams, and reality. At the same time, she begins writing for a magazine under the pseudonym “the Voiceless,” trying to explain the refugee experience without sensationalizing it—or revealing anything about herself.

Gradually, as the boundaries of her world expand—as she ventures to the neighborhood corner store, to a gathering at a nearby mosque, and to the bookstore and laundromat, and as an anti-Muslim hate crime shatters the members of a nearby mosque—she has to make a choice: Will she remain a voiceless observer, or become an active participant in her own life and in a community that, despite her best efforts, is quickly becoming her own?

TL;DR: March 15 marked ten years since the start of the Syrian war. Millions of people have been become refugees and internally displaced and hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives. These are numbers that are so LARGE that it’s impossible to comprehend. What is it like for people to literally watch their nation crumble right before their eyes? To have to choose between leaving and living or staying and (very possibly) dying? As stated in an interview, through this book, AlAmmar set out to ‘dispel the abstractions’ of the literal crumbling of a nation and to ground the magnitude of such devastation and loss through a personal narrative and she does an INCREDIBLE job. Poetically written, thought-provoking and emotionally explosive, this isn’t an easy read at all but my gosh is it absolutely worth it! This will undoubtedly be one of the most impactful books I read in 2021 and I highly recommend it.

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#WWWWednesday: 17 March

Dini @ dinipandareads11 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:

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

Wow, it really doesn’t feel like I’ve read a lot since last week but apparently I’ve managed to finish five books? Surprise to me! LOL. It might not help that I haven’t actually marked these as read on Goodreads and neither have I properly reviewed them either. Oopsies, one thing a time though… 🤣

Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells ★★★★☆
Repeatedly chants: I love Murderbot! Because I really really do and I would read all the books with Murderbot as the protagonist. This one was slightly less exciting than book one but we got to dive a bit more into Murderbot’s psyche and we also get to meet ART, who I also loved! 😂 Buddy reading this series with Leslie and we’re both loving it and can’t wait to continue! Series RTC.

Namesake (Fable #2) by Adrienne Young ★★★★☆
Namesake was a really satisfying conclusion to the Fable duology. The story picks up immediately where book one ends and it’s full of pirate-y goodness, many more high-seas adventures, and delicious deceptions and twists! This second book is less focused on world building and character development, but it has a very fast-paced plot that leaves little time to dwell on it. Check out my review!

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#TopTenTuesday: Spring Possibility Pile!

Dini @ dinipandareads30 Comments

So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Books On My Spring 2021 TBR.

Oh, how wonderful would it be to experience spring… 🤔 I miss having four seasons, but I digress! If you’re not new to my blog you know by now that I don’t do TBRs, rather I try to stick with possibility piles (and even then they don’t go 90% of the time lol)! That said, it’s always fun to think of the books that I want to read soon, and actually, a few of these are blog tour reads, buddy reads, and ARCs so I *will* be reading them soon enough! Needless to say, I’m super excited for all of these titles 😍 And on that note, here are the reads I’m hoping to pick up in the coming month(s):

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#5OnMyTBR: Mythology

Dini @ dinipandareads22 Comments

Hello Mondays, welcome back to #5OnMyTBR, a meme created by the wonderful E @ The Local Bee Hunter’s Nook. This bookish meme gets us to dig even further into our TBRs by simply posting about five books on our TBR! You can learn more about it here. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!

This week’s prompt is: Mythology.

I struggled to find books for this prompt today for some reason. I’m sure I have quite a few on my list since I love books based on mythology but I’ve completely blanked on it? 😂 I tried to come up with ones that were based on non-greek or norse mythology but those take up the bulk of my ‘mythology’ TBR but I’m glad that I found at least three books based on other mythology. Without further ado… Let’s get to it!

LOVELY WAR

It’s 1917, and World War I is at its zenith when Hazel and James first catch sight of each other at a London party. She’s a shy and talented pianist; he’s a newly minted soldier with dreams of becoming an architect. When they fall in love, it’s immediate and deep–and cut short when James is shipped off to the killing fields.

Aubrey Edwards is also headed toward the trenches. A gifted musician who’s played Carnegie Hall, he’s a member of the 15th New York Infantry, an all-African-American regiment being sent to Europe to help end the Great War. Love is the last thing on his mind. But that’s before he meets Colette Fournier, a Belgian chanteuse who’s already survived unspeakable tragedy at the hands of the Germans.

Thirty years after these four lovers’ fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, in a luxe Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another? But her quest for a conclusion that will satisfy her jealous husband uncovers a multi-threaded tale of prejudice, trauma, and music and reveals that War is no match for the power of Love.

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Goodreads Monday – The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon

Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! It’s been a very hot minute since I did one but I figured I might as well get back into it! 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.*

*Sorry if a book has been featured twice. I need to make better note of which ones I’ve done already!

This week’s featured book is The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon. This is a historical fiction that comes out tomorrow (16 March)!

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ARC Review: Namesake by Adrienne Young

Dini @ dinipandareads17 Comments

Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books/St Martin’s Press for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Check out my review for Fable (Fable #1)!

Goodreads: Namesake (Fable #2)
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: 16 March 2021
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Panda Rating:

(4 pandas)

Trader. Fighter. Survivor.

With the Marigold ship free of her father, Fable and its crew were set to start over. That freedom is short-lived when she becomes a pawn in a notorious thug’s scheme. In order to get to her intended destination she must help him to secure a partnership with Holland, a powerful gem trader who is more than she seems. As Fable descends deeper into a world of betrayal and deception she learns that her mother was keeping secrets, and those secrets are now putting the people Fable cares about in danger. If Fable is going to save them then she must risk everything, including the boy she loves and the home she has finally found.

TL;DR: Overall, a very satisfying and neatly wrapped up conclusion to this duology. If you love stories full of action, a strong female lead, a cast of morally grey characters that you also can’t help but root for (mostly), and a setting in which the sea comes to life off the pages, I would highly recommend checking out these books! Also, major cover appreciation to this set of covers because they’re STUNNING!

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

Dini @ dinipandareads3 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 time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

This is feeling a bit like déjà vu because I said I was starting the book last week but really, I ended up reading something else. This time though I am actually reading Silence is a Sense. Our narrator is a Syrian refugee whose trauma has led to her to stop speaking and we basically follow her story as she observes the lives of her neighbours through the windows of the apartment block and as she grapples with processing everything she has experienced in Syria and in fleeing Syria to get to where she is now. It’s a very heavy book and I’m also getting a bit confused at times as we get present day scenes mixed with flashbacks to Syria mixed with dreams and I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not sometimes. There’s a lot packed into this book and I hope my review will be able to do it justice!

A young woman sits in her apartment in an unnamed English city, absorbed in watching the small dramas of her assorted neighbors through their windows across the way. Traumatized into muteness after a long, devastating trip from war-torn Syria to the UK, she believes that she wants to sink deeper into isolation, moving between memories of her absent boyfriend and family and her homeland, dreams, and reality. At the same time, she begins writing for a magazine under the pseudonym “the Voiceless,” trying to explain the refugee experience without sensationalizing it—or revealing anything about herself.

Gradually, as the boundaries of her world expand—as she ventures to the neighborhood corner store, to a gathering at a nearby mosque, and to the bookstore and laundromat, and as an anti-Muslim hate crime shatters the members of a nearby mosque—she has to make a choice: Will she remain a voiceless observer, or become an active participant in her own life and in a community that, despite her best efforts, is quickly becoming her own?

What are you currently reading?

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First Lines Friday – 12 March

Dini @ dinipandareads2 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:

“I saw my mother raise a man from the dead. “It still didn’t help him much, my love,” she told me. But I saw her do it all the same. That’s how I knew she was magic.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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Let’s Talk Bookish: Predicting Trends

Dini @ dinipandareads4 Comments

This is actually last week’s topic but since I ended up missing it I’ve decided to do it this week instead!

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @Eternity Books  & Dani @ Literary Lion, where we get to discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! You can check out these pages for more information on February 2021 prompts & a list of past prompts!

Now without further ado… The topic asks:

PREDICTING TRENDS

(SUGGESTED BY M.T. WILSON @ THE LAST BOOK ON THE LEFT)
Prompts: Have you noticed any trends in the genres/categories you read in the last few years? What seems to be trending now? What do you think the next trend will be? What trends would you like to see? Are trends healthy for the book world?

I thought this topic was pretty interesting but not a particularly easy one since it’s not something I’ve given much thought to prior to today. I also don’t know if what I’m saying “qualifies” or is relevant because I’m not sure what was trending beforehand so maybe some of these are old trends and I’ve only just now noticed them? Once I started thinking about it I started to notice much more than I thought and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic!

WHAT’S TRENDING?

I tend to read a lot of fantasy and romance but I also enjoy a good thriller now and again. Here are some of the trends that I’ve noticed in these genres:

  • Romantasy (Romance+Fantasy): I feel like the combination of romance and fantasy has become even more popular in recent years especially with books like the ACOTAR series.
  • Podcasts: A popular trend that I’m absolutely loving is the use of podcasts in thrillers/mysteries. I’m a fan of mixed-media formats but podcast scripts are a new form of telling the story that I’ve come to enjoy thanks to books like Sadie!
  • Retellings: I think, especially in the YA fantasy genre, this is probably the most popular trend I’ve noticed in recent years. How many times have we seen the Beauty & the Beast, Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White retellings? Honestly, I love a good retelling so I’m not even mad but I love to see that other less popular stories are being retold, too (Twelve Dancing Princesses, Red Shoes, Peter Pan).
  • Women supporting women: I don’t know if it’s just me reading the wrong romances at the start but I got really tired real fast with all the romances where women treat each other terribly over a man. I’m so over women being pitted against each other (in general and for that reason specifically) so I’m really happy to see more romances where women are supportive and don’t do terrible things to each other because they “deserve him more”. We need more women supporting women and I love to see it!
  • Fandoms or celebrity arcs: I’ve noticed this mostly in the contemporary genres, both YA and adult, and more specifically in romances. I’m noticing more stories about the “real lives” of celebrities and celebrity related romances (Dumplin’, Spoiler Alert, Daisy Jones and the Six). There’s also stories about the “real lives” of superheroes and about fandoms and popular conventions (The Extraordinaries, Renegades, Geekerella).
  • YA thrillers in school settings: I’m not sure if this is a “new” trend or anything but I’ve noticed a lot of YA thrillers/mysteries with high school settings in recent years (One of Us is Lying, Truly Devious, Good Girl’s Guide to Murder). I don’t know what it is about the school setting that works but I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve read.
  • Own Voices/Diversity: I don’t know if I should say these as “trends” because it feels odd thinking of them as such, as it sounds like they’ll disappear or fade away; but, as far as I’m aware, there are a lot more books that are being categorised/labelled as own voices in recent years compared to previously. It’s also a lot easier to find diverse books and not just in terms of cultural representation but also disability and mental health rep. I’ve loved seeing it in a lot of romances that I’ve read lately (The Kiss Quotient series, The Brown Sisters series, The Bergman Brothers series) and I hope we continue to see much more of it for always–like I said, I hope these aren’t trends that’ll “go out of fashion”.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE NEXT?

I honestly have no clue what could be trending next. I think a trend that could possibly be making a comeback are books with vampires and witches. Again, I don’t know if it’s a trend that’s ever really died out to begin with but I’ve started noticing more of them coming out lately. I also have a feeling that with our pandemic reality perhaps the dystopian trend could also make a comeback?

I’d love to see more of the trends mentioned above because although some of them can get a bit tiring (i.e. the same retellings lol) I’ve still really enjoyed seeing most of them in books! Keep giving me those strong female protagonists and their healthy and empowering relationships with those around them.

ARE TRENDS HEALTHY fOR THE BOOK WORLD?

I don’t think it’s a simple yes and no answer because it can be both good and bad. One of the more ‘obvious’ downsides is that once a trend really picks up in a certain genre (i.e. retellings) you can be sure to expect a lot of future releases to follow that trend. This over saturation of the market definitely gets a little tiring when you’re looking for something different in that genre but end up finding only the same or similar stories. Alternatively, this can obviously be seen as a good thing especially for those who love to read them and want more similar books!

In the end, I think readers should (and hopefully do!) read whatever they want to regardless of what’s on trend. As I said at the start, I never really payed much attention or given much thought to what is or isn’t trending in the genres I read, as I pick whatever strikes my fancy. It’s definitely interesting to think about though!

What are your thoughts on book trends? Have you noticed any of these trends in the books you read too? Do you think trends are healthy for the book world or should they be “done away with”?