Tag: Book Blogger

#TopTenTuesday: 10 Books I Didn’t Read in 2020… But Will Read in 2021!

Dini @ dinipandareads56 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 I Meant to Read In 2020 but Didn’t Get To (You could take this opportunity to tell us what’s left on your seasonal TBRs from last year. Or books you were super excited about and then you didn’t get to them.)

At the tail end of December, I made a list for the weekly meme, #5OnMyTBR, about five books I planned to read in 2020 but never got around to before the year ended. There are obviously a lot more than five, so I’m glad to highlight even more books this week, but on top of that, these are the backlist books (including 2020 releases) that I want to prioritise this year. I’ve heard pretty much all good things about so many of these titles and I know they made it onto a lot of peoples’ favourites lists, so that makes me even more excited to read them!

While the books I listed in the #5OnMyTBR post are also top priority, I won’t be repeating them here today! On that note, here are ten of the books I didn’t get to read last year but will be prioritised (and for sure READ!) in 2021! 😉🤞🏽

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#5OnMyTBR: White Covers

Dini @ dinipandareads11 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 or in the post announcing it. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!

This week’s prompt is: White Covers.

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Goodreads Monday – The Shape of Thunder by Jasmine Warga

Dini @ dinipandareads10 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 Shape of Thunder by Jasmine Warga. This is a middle grade contemporary that is set to be published May 2021.

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

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

I’ll be spending the rest of my Sunday in Bed with Cast in Firelight. I’m reading this as part of the blog tour for next week. I’m definitely curious to know what #OwnVoices readers will think of it because the author states it’s not OV but she wrote it so her children can identify with characters who look like them. It’s still ‘early days’ in the book but I am enjoying it so far and can’t wait to keep it reading it in bed tonight.

Also, I know a lot of people have commented about how Bowater’s art is basically the same everywhere and yeah, I do agree (especially when looking at this cover), but that doesn’t make this cover any less beautiful! I absolutely LOVE it and it makes me even more excited to dive back into this story! Have you read it?

What are you currently reading?

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Blog Tour Review: Kept from Cages by Phil Williams

Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

I’m back with another blog tour with The Storytellers on Tour for Kept from Cages by Phil Williams. Thanks to the author for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review!

Be sure to click on the banner below to check out the rest of the bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: Kept from Cages (Ikiri Book 1)
Publication Date: 21 September 2020
Genre: Supernatural Action Thriller

Panda Rating:

(4.5 pandas)

No one returns from Ikiri.
Reece’s gang of criminal jazz musicians have taken shelter in the wrong house. There’s a girl with red eyes bound to a chair. The locals call her a devil – but Reece sees a kid that needs protecting. He’s more right than he knows.
Chased by a shadowy swordsman and an unnatural beast, the gang flee across the Deep South with the kid in tow. She won’t say where she’s from or who exactly her scary father is, but she’s got powers they can’t understand. How much will Reece risk to save her?
On the other side of the world, Agent Sean Tasker’s asking similar questions. With an entire village massacred and no trace of the killers, he’s convinced Duvcorp’s esoteric experiments are responsible. His only ally is an unstable female assassin, and their only lead is Ikiri – a black-site in the Congo, which no one leaves alive. How far is Tasker prepared to go for answers?
Kept From Cages is the first part in an action-packed supernatural thriller duology, filled with eccentric characters and intricately woven mysteries. Start your journey to Ikiri today.

BUY NOW: Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK)

BOOK PROMO: The Kept From Cages ebook will be available for 99p/99c in UK/US Kindle from January 13th–19th.

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Top 5 Saturday: Metals in the Title

Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

Welcome back to another Top 5 Saturday! 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 actually: Metal in the Title (Gold, Silver, Brass, Steel, etc.).

I surprisingly don’t have a lot of books with metals in the titles and neither have I read that many apparently, but I did mange to *just* come up with a list of five that I’m looking forward to reading (mostly). One of them, The Goldfinch has been sat unfinished on my TBR since I started reading it during my worst ever reading slump and that was a bad decision as now I associate that book to that horrible time? I got about 70% through the book and I’m sad I didn’t push myself to keep reading it. The others are ones that I’ve heard mostly good things about while some, like Silver Sparrow, I’ve seen mostly mixed reviews for. Still, I’m eager to check all of these out at some point, especially The City of Brass as so many people have raved about how good that series is!

THE GOLDFINCH BY DONNA TARTT

Book cover: The Goldfinch
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Book Review: Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

Dini @ dinipandareads13 Comments

Note: Review originally posted on Goodreads 07 January 2021

Among the Beasts & Briars
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: 20 October 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Panda Rating:

(3 pandas)

Cerys is safe in the kingdom of Aloriya.

Here there are no droughts, disease, or famine, and peace is everlasting. It has been this way for hundreds of years, since the first king made a bargain with the Lady who ruled the forest that borders the kingdom. But as Aloriya prospered, the woods grew dark, cursed, and forbidden. Cerys knows this all too well: when she was young, she barely escaped as the woods killed her friends and her mother. Now Cerys carries a small bit of the curse—the magic—in her blood, a reminder of the day she lost everything. The most danger she faces now, as a gardener’s daughter, is the annoying fox who stalks the royal gardens and won’t leave her alone.

As a new queen is crowned, however, things long hidden in the woods descend on the kingdom itself. Cerys is forced on the run, her only companions the small fox from the garden, a strange and powerful bear, and the magic in her veins. It’s up to her to find the legendary Lady of the Wilds and beg for a way to save her home. But the road is darker and more dangerous than she knows, and as secrets from the past are uncovered amid the teeth and roots of the forest, it’s going to take everything she has just to survive. 

TL;DR: Mine is an unpopular opinion but I didn’t end up loving this as much as I hoped I would and I was sad about not enjoying it more. If you’re looking for a YA fantasy that’s light on the world building and character development, but has a nice fairytale vibe with “far-off places, magical spells, and a prince in disguise” then I would recommend it!

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Blog Tour Review + Giveaway: Girl on the Ferris Wheel by Julie Halpern, Len Vlahos

Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

I’m back with a blog tour with Xpresso Tours for Girl on the Ferris Wheel by Julie Halpern and Len Vlahos. Thanks to Feiwel & Friends for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Be sure to click on the banner above to check out the other bloggers on tour!
Also, don’t forget to enter the GIVEWAY (US) at the end of my post!

Goodreads: Girl on the Ferris Wheel
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: 12 January 2021
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary, Romance

Panda Rating:

(3 pandas)

In Girl on the Ferris Wheel, Julie Halpern and Len Vlahos expertly tackle this quirky and poignant romance that explores what first love really means—and how it sometimes hurts like hell.

Tenth graders Eliana and Dmitri could not be more different. He’s an outgoing, self-confident drummer in a punk band called Unexpected Turbulence. Eliana is introspective and thoughtful, and a movie buff who is living with depression. Dmitri quite literally falls for Eliana when he sees her in gym class and slams into a classmate. The pair then navigate the ins and outs of first love. Exciting, scary, unexpected, and so much more difficult than they ever imagined. They say opposites attract, but they soon realize that there is so much they just don’t understand about each other. It begs the question: How long can first love possibly last when you’re so different?

BUY NOW: Amazon (US) | Barnes & Noble | iBooks

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#WWWWednesday: 13 January

Dini @ dinipandareads25 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?

Since last week, I’ve managed to read 5 books. It was a bit of a mixed bag with mostly so-so reads and one big win, so at least there’s that!

Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston ★★★☆☆
I was disappointed that I didn’t love this more but I went into it expecting something completely different. This is a light fantasy fairytale that was a little whimsical, with writing on the younger side of YA, but it was a lot spookier than I expected! Sadly, I didn’t really connect with the characters and inconsistencies in the story/characters kept jarring me out of the zone. Not bad, but not a fave. RTC!

The Crowns of Croswald (The Crowns of Croswald #1) by D.E. Night ★★☆☆☆ (or 1.5 idk)
I FINISHED IT. I FINALLY FINISHED IT! And I wept with relief when I did. 😂 Wow, this is one of those books that sounded like it’d be amazing but it ended up being so very, very not for me! There were some interesting world elements but I simply couldn’t get into it and did not care. This took me two months to finish and I honestly wish I had DNF’ed it. Check out my full review.

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ARC Review: The Crowns of Croswald by D.E. Night

Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

Thanks to the team at Stories Untold for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Crowns of Croswald (The Croswald Series #1)
Publisher: Stories Untold
Publication Date: 21 July 2017
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Panda Rating:

(2 pandas)

Ivy Lovely is 16 and she has no idea who she is—or what her powers could be. When she crosses a magical boundary, she discovers a whole new world of enchantment and mystery. Making friends that will last a lifetime—and save her life—she steps into her own abilities and discovers more about her hidden past, magical blood, and the power of Croswald’s mystical stones. But all is not well: a dark history and an evil Queen threatens all that is good. Will Ivy’s bravery and wit be enough?

Curious and whimsical, both shy and brave, Ivy is a hero that connects with readers of all ages. For those who wished that Narnia, Harry Potter, and Alice in Wonderland could go on forever, Croswald opens a whole new world of magic. Recommended as a read-aloud for families and a first middle-grade fantasy read, The Crowns of Croswald is a four-part series that will carry readers to a whimsical world that they won’t want to leave. 

I really wanted to love this story. I wanted to love it so much that although I struggled to read it over a period of 2 months, I still persisted in the hopes that it would get better or something about it would click for me. I’m really sad to say that it never happened and it was with a great resounding sigh of relief that I finally came to the last page of this book. I feel terrible leaving a low rating, especially when the author’s team reached out for me to read it, but I did receive a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and an honest review I shall give it. It does seem that I’m very much in the minority with my feelings though so perhaps this just really wasn’t for me!

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