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: 2021 Releases.
Unlike last year when I spent a good amount of time populating my 2020 releases list on Goodreads, I haven’t really done much of that this year so I know that what’s on my radar is fairly limited to mostly romance and some YA fantasy. These are the two genres I read most of anyway but I know I’m still missing out on *a lot* of what’s coming out next year, so I can’t wait to get caught up with that in the coming week as work slows down and I have more “free” time 😉 But I digress… Here are some books that made it onto my radar and that I’m stupid excited for!
🎄 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all friends who celebrate! 🎄
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:
“I’ve never understood why the heart always reacts. A shot of adrenaline is all it takes, triggered by a thought. A word. A memory. And every time the reaction is singular, a fingerprint of a moment.”
Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?
In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.
For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company’s value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.
This review was written on 19 December right after I finished reading it!
First of all, wow.WowwowwowwowWOW. Second, I’ve only ever read one non-fiction that I devoured so quickly and I think I read this one even faster! Third, JUST. WOW!
I really don’t know how to write this review right now because (clearly) I’m still a little shook. My brain keeps asking: did I just read a science fiction thriller or did this actually happen? I honestly can’t remember the last time I swore so much and so loudly while reading–there was a lot of “WTF, GTFO, and are you forking serious” going on during this read but I just couldn’t help myself! 😂 I had no intention of finishing the book today when I picked it up and decided to purchase the audiobook, but this was 100% unputdownable. I do think the audiobook is what helped me get through this so quickly though and I would definitely recommend it (I listened on 2x speed)!
I did my first End of Year Book Tag for 2019* and in what I’m guessing will become a yearly tradition now, I’ve come back to it again in 2020 as we’ve got one week left to go until this hot mess of a year comes to an end! I pretty much said the same thing last year (and basically in my posts for the last few weeks) but I can’t believe this year is coming to an end already! It felt like it took forever but also no time at all. Now without further ado, let’s get into this tag!
*I’m still not quite sure who made this tag but I did find it on Jenn @ Jenniely’s page.
Are there any books you started this year that you need to finish?
I won’t be counting my actual ‘current reads’ list but even not counting those, I do have a fair few that I started but wasn’t in the right mood for at the time, so I put them aside–it’s not at all because I wasn’t enjoying them though (honestly)! I’m still keen to get back to these ASAP.
Do you have an autumnal book to transition into the end of the year?
Confused man’s face with mouth hanging open (that is literally me rn)
Still not really sure that I get this question. I mean, it’s not autumn anymore but also, no I don’t have any particular book that I read to transition into the ‘end of the year mode’!
is there a new release that you’re still waiting for?
I was going to say no but then I remembered Love at the Icicle Café, which I added to my TBR just last week and it’s only out on 29 December, so I guess there is one I’m still waiting for in 2020 😂 The rest have all come out and what a year it has been!
what are three books you want to read before the year ends?
is there a book that you think could still shock you and become your favourite of the year?
Ngl, if I do manage to read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue before the year ends, I think that there’s a very high possibility it could end up being my favourite. Based on what others have said about it I have a feeling I’m going to really really love it and omg, I can’t wait to read it!
have you already started to make reading plans for 2021?
I was going to say no but then I do already have a few blog tours lined up for January so I guess I do 😂 These are just some of the titles I’m on a tour for and I’m excited to give them a go!
Aaand that’s a wrap, folks! Well, that ended up being a lot shorter than I thought it’d be 🤣 Why did I think this tag was miles long when I did it last year? LOL. Anyway, I’m not going to tag anyone specifically but if you wanna do it, feel free to link back to me so I can check out your answers!
IT’S THE SECOND TO LAST WWWWEDNESDAY FOR 2020!!! WHAT?!
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?
Since last week I managed to finish five books:
Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston ★★★★★ Love love love. I wrote a pretty gushing review about this. I had a feeling I’d enjoy it when I read the blurb but I didn’t expect it to love it as much as I did. Alston creates a fantastic supernatural world in parallel to our real world, and this was fast-paced and action-packed and had a wonderful heroine! Check out my full blog tour review.
Special Delivery (Always Satisfied #5) by Lauren Blakely ★★☆☆☆ There were two stories in this book and I found both a little meh. The first one had strong insta-love feels and then the accidental pregnancy trope was thrown in at the end. It was so convenient and it was a no for me. The second story was a ‘forbidden’ sister’s best friend to lovers romance and while the chemistry was a bit stronger there, I still didn’t connect with the characters. In both stories our H/H came across as much younger than their age and it was just… “eh” 🤷🏻♀️ Guess you can’t win ’em all!
The only reason this top ten list will be difficult is because I have to limit myself to just ten 😂 Kidding, I’m not trying to be greedy but I mean, c’mon, it’s books! We all know the feeling about limiting ourselves…. Right? 🙃 But I digress… Most of these are books that I haven’t read yet but would love to add to my TBR but there are a few that I’ve read digitally and want to add to my physical shelves. Since my family and I don’t celebrate Christmas, I’ll be my own Santa and I’ll probably end up buying these at some point in the hopefully near future. It’s good to have a list organised already for when the time comes 😉
With his smooth talk, rugged good looks, and deep pockets, native Texan Boone McBride appears to be a man who has it all. Few people know about the heartbreak behind his decision to leave home, family, and career for the isolation of a small town in the Colorado Rockies. Luckily, time and life in Eternity Springs has worked its healing magic upon his wounded soul, so when he meets obviously troubled Hannah Dupree, Boone sees a chance to pay his good fortune forward. The last thing he anticipates is tumbling into love.
Tragedy has taken everything Hannah loves, and her will to keep going is failing. So when Boone strides into her life determined to save her, it’s easier to go along with him than to resist. Soon she is drawn into the fabric of life in Eternity Springs, and as her spirit begins to heal, her strength returns, and she’s able to go toe-to-toe with this hardheaded, big-hearted Texan. But just when love blooms and happiness is within their grasp, shadows from the past threaten. Hannah and Boone must stand strong and united in order to defeat old ghosts—if they are to create a brand-new life together.
CW: mentions of suicide, child abuse, and death of a child and partner (all instances occurred in the past and off-page).
I’ve been on a serious fantasy binge over the last few months and I only recently started reading romances again when this book came onto my radar. Boone is the third book in a series and can easily be read as a standalone, but my curiosity was definitely piqued about the first two books because the characters make appearances and I was intrigued by them.
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!
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 Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston. This is a fairy tale inspired YA fantasy that was published in October 2020 and has a 3.88 rating on Goodreads with 600+ reviews.
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 haven’t touched a book this Sunday and I have no idea what I’ll be picking up next. I think I’ll be focusing my attention on either Crowns of Croswald because I really need to finish this book or I’ll return my attention to Trading Secrets. Both are ARCs I received from authors but I’ve been having a difficult time getting into both stories, the latter more so than the former. Let’s see if I’ll have better luck this time since I no longer have blog tour reads to prioritise!
dinipandareads 