Tag: Book Blogger

The Hallotober Tag

Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

I was looking for a fun and easy tag to do for today and then I remembered that Leah @ Leah’s Books recently tagged me to do The Hallotober Tag, and with Halloween just around the corner it’s the perfect time to do this! If y’all haven’t already, you should check out Leah’s blog! She’s not only sweet and wonderful, but she also writes some great reviews that have resulted in me adding even more books to my TBR on a regular basis. Plus, she’s like my bookish twin so it’s almost a guaranteed win for me if it’s a win for her! Thanks for the tag, Leah 🎃

THE Rules

  1. Thank the person who tagged you and link to their post
  2. Put the rules at the beginning or after introduction
  3. Answer the 13 questions 
  4. Tag 13 people to do the tag 
  5. Delete Question 13, add a new number one question of your own
  6. You are free to use the tag image somewhere in the post

LEAH’S QUESTIONS

What is your favourite horror novel or short story?

Seeing as how I don’t really read horror, I’m not sure that I have a favourite. I did read Rules for Vanishing last year though and it was hella scary but I would definitely recommend it! I’m honestly surprised that I managed to read it because it’s everything I would normally run away from, and that cover still gives me major creeps, but I’m so glad that I ticked it off my list! Check out my review.

what was the last halloween costume you wore?

Hmm… I think the last costume I wore was a mix-n-match panda costume (ha, surprise) that I pulled together at the last minute. It was when I was living in the UK, I was going to a Halloween party at a club with my then partner, and we only decided to go at the last minute. It was a proper messy night 😂

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FALL SNACK?

Fall isn’t a thing in the tropics, but I also can’t remember indulging in any particular ‘fall snacks’ when I lived in Australia or the UK. I will say that my favourite fall treat is a Pumpkin Spice Latte and I mean, the drink itself is quite rich and could be considered a snack, right? It’s my favourite! I wish they had it year round LOL

do you carve pumpkins?

My last memory of carving pumpkins was also probably the first time I ever carved pumpkins… In Kindergarten 😂 It’s funny how I don’t remember so much but I do recall that memory well. It was definitely a fun time!

Do you prefer horror movies or stories?

Being The Ultimate(st of) Chicken(s), I would say neither. But if I had to force myself I’d probably choose a horror story. My imagination might run wild but at least I can try to control it? 😅

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE HALLOWEEN MEMORY?

Hmm… I don’t know if I really have a favourite memory. When I think of Halloween I always think of those fun times when I was still in school and used to go trick-or-treating around my neighbourhood in the Philippines. It was a surprisingly big thing! I always loved dressing up and coming home with lots of candy and seeing how crazy people went with decorations and costumes! 🍭

DO YOU PREFER TO GIVE OUT CANDY OR GET CANDY?

I mean, who’s gonna say they don’t prefer to get candy?! LOL kidding… 👀 I mean, obviously, I love to get candy but I also enjoy giving them out because I know the joy of receiving it!

DO YOU DECORATE FOR HALLOWEEN OR FALL?

I don’t! Like I said, it’s not really a big holiday here in Asia and although we did use to decorate when I was a kid, the most decorative Halloween props that I have now are fake fall leaves, a black pumpkin and a cute ceramic ghost + sign that says Happy Halloween! 🎃 I also only have these props because of bookstagram 😂

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE URBAN LEGEND? IF SO, WHAT IS IT?

Wow, I’m gonna be really boring (again) here and say that I don’t? I mean… Not really? That stuff scares the crap out of me and I tend to stay away from listening to them as much as possible. That said, I wasn’t immune to hearing about them, and although they’re not favourites, the most popular ones I heard about growing up were: Bloody Mary, Hanako, and the Candy Man. I shudder at the thought of them.

WOULD YOU RATHER SPEND THE NIGHT IN A GRAVE YARD OR A HAUNTED HOUSE?

Again, why would I wanna be doing either of those things?! 🙃 I mean, hard pass for sure, but if I was forced to choose, I would mos def go grave yard over a haunted house. At least a grave yard is open space, right? I also don’t think that they’re half as scary as haunted houses, although that doesn’t mean I’d want to be hanging around one for shits and giggles! 😂

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SPOOKY MOVIE?

Well… Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Christmas are spooky and they are favourites! 👻

Who is your favourite character from a horror movie or book?

Um… I’m actually drawing a blank for this one… 😅 I’m sorry, I can’t think of anyone because I can’t think of a book or movie!

WHAT KIND OF BOOKS ALWAYS PUT YOU IN THE AUTUMN/HALLOWEEN MOOD?

While I don’t read the traditional horror or scary books, I do like a book that can set a good creepy and mysterious atmosphere that send chills down your spine and the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. The kind of books that make me want to burrow even deeper under my duvet to keep me safe from all the scary! Those definitely put me in the Halloween mood!

~I tag whoever wants to do this!~

MY QUESTIONS

  1. What book would you recommend to someone who doesn’t normally read spooky/scary books?
  2. What is your favorite horror novel or short story?
  3. What was the last Halloween costume you wore?
  4. What is your favorite fall snack?
  5. Do you carve pumpkins?
  6. Do you prefer horror movies or stories?
  7. What is your favorite Halloween memory?
  8. Do you prefer to give out candy or get candy?
  9. Do you decorate for Halloween or fall?
  10. Do you have a favorite urban legend? If so what is it?
  11. Would you rather spend a night in a grave yard or a haunted house?
  12. What is your favorite spooky movie?
  13. Who is your favorite character from a horror movie or book?

Blog Tour Review + Giveaway: Inside Voices by Sarah Davis

Dini @ dinipandareads4 Comments

I’m back with another blog tour today with Rachel’s Random Resources for Inside Voices by Sarah Davis. Thanks to Rachel for organising this tour, and to the author for providing the book in exchange for an honest review.

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

Goodreads: Inside Voices
Publisher: Darkstroke Books
Release Date: 23 June 2020
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Fiction
Panda Rating:

The mind is a strange beast…extraordinary, unpredictable, protective.

Penny Osborn’s mind is no exception. In High School, Penny witnessed a massacre and lost her father to the same killers. She had seen it unfold before it happened, in a premonition, but could not prevent it.

A college research project at the edge of the Arctic is her chance for a new beginning. Struggling with PTSD, Penny’s therapy includes running, dogs, and guitars. Yet her fresh start is plagued by new premonitions, dark and foreboding, that coincide with a rising number of murders in the community. Her visions are vague, offering little to identify the killer.

When confronted with an orphaned polar bear cub, Penny risks everything to save its life. The deepening mystery of the murdered women, coupled with the exhaustive duties of caring for the small cub, draw her closer to her friend, Noah, and further from her sister.

Fearful for the serial killer’s next target, Penny discovers where her physical abilities can help her. Will letting go of the past lead to healing? And can she stop the murders? 

BUY NOW: Amazon (US)

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#WWWWednesday: 28 October

Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

Ugh, I’ve been hitting struggle town real hard since last week but… is it just me or is this week lasting forever? I can’t believe it’s Wednesday but I really wish it was already Friday 😂

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?

It’s been a slow time for reading lately and it’s not just playing my Switch that has me distracted. I’ve been in a reading mood but haven’t been able to really settle on anything lately, and since last week I’ve only managed to finish three books.

Beneath Black Sails (Beneath Black Sails #1) by Clare Sager ★★★★☆
This was an undeniably fun, fast-paced and action-packed story that was able to fully absorb my attention and that’s why I’ve rounded up and kept my review at four stars. There are things that irritated me about the characters and the world-building was lacking, but this was the most pirate filled (romance)fantasy that I’ve ever read and I was here for its pure entertainment. Review coming soon.

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Can’t Wait Wednesday: Ever After Always by Chloe Liese

Dini @ dinipandareads1 Comment

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This is my first week joining in on Can’t Wait Wednesday and it’s because I’m really excited to be sharing this upcoming book with everyone. I simply cannot wait until I can get my grabby little hands on it because I loved the first two books in this fun romcom series and it definitely takes one of the top spots for my favourite romance of 2020!

Note: this is the third book in the series and while it can technically be read as a standalone, trust me, you won’t want to! 😉

Goodreads: Ever After Always (Bergman Brothers #3)
Publication: 12 January 2021
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Aiden
I’ve spent twelve years loving Freya Bergman and twelve lifetimes won’t be enough to give her everything she deserves. She’s my passionate, tender-hearted wife, my best friend, and all I want is to make her happy. But the one thing that will make her happiest is the one thing I’m not sure I can give her: a baby. With the pressure of providing and planning for a family, my anxiety’s at an all-time high, and I find myself pulling away, terrified to tell my wife how I’m struggling. But when Freya kicks me out, I realize that pulling back has turned into pushing too far. Now it’s the fight of a lifetime to save our marriage.

Freya
I love my cautious, hard-working husband. He’s my partner and best friend, the person I know I can count on most. Until one day I realize the man I married is nowhere to be found. Now Aiden is quiet and withdrawn, and as the months wear on, the pain of our growing distance becomes too much. As if weathering marriage counseling wasn’t enough, we’re thrown together for an island getaway to celebrate my parents’ many years of perfect marriage while ours is on the brink of collapse. Despite my meddling siblings and a week in each other’s constant company, this trip somehow gets us working through the trouble in paradise. I just can’t help worrying, when we leave paradise and return to the real world, will trouble find us again?

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY: Amazon UK | Amazon US

Ever since stumbling across her first book, Only When It’s Us, earlier this year and absolutely loving the slow-burn romance between a fiesty sports heroine and lumberjack hero, I immediately knew I needed to read more by Chloe Liese. I was over the moon when I managed to get an ARC for her second book, Always Only You, and I fell even more in love with the characters. The whole Bergman family are a trip to read about and I dare you to not fall in love with all their loves! Chloe Liese’s books are such underrated gems and if you’re a lover of own voices and diverse romances with realistic and relatable characters, you should definitely read her sooner rather than later! 😉

If you’re not yet convinced, take a peek at my reviews for book 1 and book 2!

Have you read any books by Chloe Liese or any of the books in the Bergman Brothers series? Are you excited as me to get book three?!

#TopTenTuesday: Spooky Thrills for Chickens Like Me!

Dini @ dinipandareads31 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: Halloween Freebie!

I’ve never been a big proponent of Halloween mostly because I don’t really read “traditionally scary” books or watch scary movies. I am the Ultimate Chicken™️ after all. I was a bit stumped on what to focus on for this week’s Halloween freebie but I wanted to keep it short and simple, so I’m sharing ten books that were a little spooky or creepy, but were just the right amount for those like me who don’t really handle scary things well. Some of these lean more towards thriller creepy but it definitely still counts, right?! While these might give you a spook, they’re more on the level of “just keep a night-light on” kind of scary, so if you are curious or would like to step out of your comfort zone, I’d definitely give these a go! 😂

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#5OnMyTBR: Spooky Middle Grade Books!

Dini @ dinipandareads9 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: Halloween Freebie

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Goodreads Monday – The Outsider by Stephen King

Dini @ dinipandareads5 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.

This week’s featured book is The Outsider by Stephen King. This is a psychological thriller that was published several years ago now (2017) and has a 4.05 star rating on Goodreads.

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

Dini @ dinipandareads2 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’m trying to read but I’m having such a hard time focusing because my moods are a little all over the place! I’ve started reading The Song of the Marked again and I am enjoying it. Even though I haven’t made much of a dent, I’ve laughed a surprising number of times already because the banter is great!

I also started Love Offline as I need to get it read for the tour next week. The blurb says it’s perfect for fans of The Flatshare, Lindsey Kelk and Sophie Kinsella, so I have high expectations? Let’s see how it plays out! Both book covers are linked to the Goodreads pages if you wanna know more about them!

What are you currently reading?

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Top 5 Saturday: Books on my Wishlist

Dini @ dinipandareads11 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: wishlist.

Wishlists! I’m actually not very good at making them and keeping them up to date. Unlike my Goodreads TBR, which has all the books under the sun that I want to read, I very rarely remember to mark a book for my wishlist when browsing either Amazon and/or Book Depository, and more often than not, only remember to do so after I’ve closed everything and am thus too lazy to go back and mark them 😂 Yay for my bank but I guess but boo for those who want to buy me books? (Just kidding, no one wants to buy me books lmao). But anyway, before I manage to wind on even longer, here are five books that are on my Book Depository wishlist! 😉

(book covers are linked to the Goodreads pages!)

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Let’s Talk Bookish: What is the meaning of diverse books?

Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

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! I’ve listed the upcoming topics in brief at the end of my post, but check out these pages for more information on October 2020 prompts & a list of past prompts!

Now without further ado… This week’s topic asks us about:

what is the meaning of diverse books?

(SUGGESTED BY RUKKY)
Examples: We talk a lot about diverse books and reads, but what really makes a book diverse? Are books written by authors or about characters from Eastern Europe (Lithuania, Ukraine, Hungary, etc) considered diverse? Would you consider a book set in Spain about a Spanish main character diverse? Why or why not? Does diverse mean characters or authors from South America, Asia, and Africa, or from different religious, sexual, ability, etc backgrounds only?

This is a great question and very relevant topic as more readers continue to look for diverse books, and as more diverse books also get published. I’ve been trying to consciously diversify my reads for a while now and 2020 has been my most successful year doing that! I’m a little intimidated about answering this week’s prompt because I think there are quite a few layers to the topic, and I don’t feel comfortable going too in-depth as I’m not that “knowledgeable” about it. But this post is about sharing my thoughts, so I will do that and hopefully I make some sense and don’t come off as (too) uniformed or ridiculous!

defining diversity

Diversity (noun)
: the condition of having or being composed of differing elements : VARIETY
especially : the inclusion of different types of people (such as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization.

: an instance of being composed of differing elements or qualities

Diversity as defined by Merriam-Webster

HOW DO I CLASSIFY DIVERSE BOOKS?

When I think about diverse books, I immediately think of stories with characters who are marginalized, BIPOC, and/or LGBTQ+. Or are written by authors of colour or LGBTQ+. I also count books that have representation for different religions, ethnicities, mental health, disability, and chronic illness (among other topics) as diverse too. However, I only classify books as diverse when:

  • The main characters are BIPOC/LGBTQ+. I don’t consider it diverse when you have one or a few side characters that fall into these ‘categories’ but are barely represented. But I don’t consider stories written by authors of colour or LGBTQ+ authors as diverse if the story focuses on mainstream “straight and white” characters.
  • Same as above, the rep should concern or be focused on the main character(s) and is not used or identified as a minor sub-plot or anything like that.

is there a line and where do we draw it?

This prompt included a few guiding questions that really made me think whether I would classify certain reads as diverse. For example, if I read a book about Eastern Europe, is that considered diverse? I think if it’s set there and the story is about a straight white character, then no, I wouldn’t. But what if it’s about religion or ethnicity—would I consider it diverse then? I think I probably would because it includes people from different backgrounds. What about a book set in Spain with a Spanish cast—is that diverse? It made me think about a book I read earlier this year called Incendiary by Zoraida Córdova. It’s set during the Spanish inquisition period but in an alternate reality, and I considered it diverse because Cordova is AOC and the characters, including the MC, were diverse.

As I write this I realise that perhaps how I consider books diverse is pretty simplistic? But ultimately, I do think it’s subjective because I don’t believe diversity can be so neatly packaged into a box where it means exactly the same thing for everybody. There are many factors to consider, including our individual backgrounds and experiences, and it also depends on the book/author too.

Is it enough to consider a book diverse if it teaches you about different people, cultures, etc.? Is it enough to consider it diverse if it broadens your world view?

Sorry, I know I haven’t really answered anything in this post and it’s mostly just a bunch of brain blah and word vom that I’m not even sure makes any sense–but it has definitely got me thinking!

Now I’m really curious to know what you think. What makes a book diverse in your opinion? Do you think it’s a strict definition or do you think it’s subjective? I’m keen to know your thoughts if you’d like to share them with me!