Goodreads Monday – The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez

November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads14 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 Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez. This is a contemporary romance that while fun and flirty, also covers the more serious topic of infertility. It has a 3.89 star rating on Goodreads with several thousand ratings and reviews.

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

November 8, 2020November 8, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 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!

I spent the majority of my Sunday in bed catching up on graphic novel ARCs and ticking them off my read list! Now I plan to spend the rest of my Sunday in bed reading The Forgotten Gift for a tour next week! This is a historical fiction that really sounds up my alley so I’m hoping to really enjoy it 😉

What would you do to protect the ones you love?

1861. George’s life changes forever the day he meets Lucy. She’s beautiful and charming, and he sees a future with her that his position as the second son in a wealthy family has never offered him. But when Lucy dies in a suspected poisoning days after rejecting George, he finds himself swept up into a murder investigation. George loved Lucy; he would never have harmed her. So who did?

Now. On the surface, Cassie is happy with her life: a secure job, good friends, and a loving family. When a mysterious gift in a long-forgotten will leads her to a dark secret in her family’s history she’s desperate to learn more. But the secrets in Cassie’s family aren’t all hidden in the past, and her research will soon lead her to a revelation much closer to home – and which will turn everything she knows on its head…

Discover a family’s darkest secrets today

What are you currently reading?

ARC Graphic Novel Review: The Grémillet Sisters by Giovanni Di Gregorio, Alessandro Barbucci

November 8, 2020November 7, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

Thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review

Goodreads: Sarah’s Dream (The Grémillet Sisters #1)
Publish date: 15 July 2020
Publisher: Europe Comics
Genre: Graphic Novel
Panda Rating:

Being sisters is never easy. But when you’re as different as Sarah, Cassiopeia, and Lucille, it’s even harder! The first is haunted by recurring dreams, the second lives with her head in the clouds, and the last spends most of her time with her cat. Then one day they discover a mysterious photo of their mother pregnant. Where was it taken, and who is the baby? And most importantly, why was this photo hidden away in the depths of the attic? To find out, they’ll have to venture into the tangled forest of the Grémillet family secrets!

Let’s Talk Bookish: Romance as a Sub-Plot

November 7, 2020November 7, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads11 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 November 2020 prompts & a list of past prompts!

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

ROMANCE AS A SUBPLOT

(SUGGESTED BY DANI)
Examples: Why do you think romance is the most common subplot? Do you think romance subplots take away from the main story, or add to it? Do you prefer stories without any romance in them? Is romance better as a subplot or as a main plot?

I love love. I might come off as a little bit cynical or jaded when it comes to love in real life, but deep down I’m truly a hopeless romantic 😂 It’s pretty obvious how much I love the romance genre because when you take a peek at my Goodreads, my read list is full of it! I feel like when it comes to romance though there are a lot of people that seem to take issue with it and don’t like it in their stories, especially when it comes to YA, but perhaps that’s because it’s always there whether it’s “needed” or not.

Why is the romance sub-plot so popular?

I never gave it much thought before and I’m not really sure why… But perhaps it’s because at one point or another romance is something that many readers can relate to whether they’ve experienced it themselves, or they’ve seen others go through that experience. Or maybe it’s also those happy and heartwarming feelings that romance brings? I think it’s also probably the easiest device for authors to use to endear readers more to their characters and to make them more realistic–although whether its well done or not is another thing!

does a romance sub-plot take away from the main story, or add to it?

As I mentioned at the start, I’m all about the love and while before I would’ve said “romance makes everything better” *cough* I now think that it really depends on the story and how well the romance is written. If written well, the romance doesn’t take away from the main story but successfully adds to the character arcs and increases the stakes (in a good way). Maybe it’s because I read a lot of YA fantasy and contemporary but I feel like, more often than not, they always have a romance sub-plot that often doesn’t feel needed. It doesn’t necessarily take away from the main story, but it also doesn’t add anything. I think it’s really easy for romance to over-take the main story though, and I’ve seen it happen quite a few times. It gets tedious when the MC ends up constantly thinking about romancing their love interest, then they start making ridiculous non-sensical decisions, the love drama gets too intense, and then it basically ends up not being fun anymore. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Do you prefer stories without any romance in them?

There are times that I feel the author throws in romance because it’s expected and that’s when I find myself getting frustrated with the romance sub-plot. This is especially the case when the romance feels forced or when the romance exists ‘for the sake of having romance’. So I never thought I’d say it but I’m starting to prefer stories without the romance sub-plot in them! *Gasp! I know…* That’s not to say I won’t read fantasies or other genres without romance in them, but it’s also okay for those stories to just be fantasy or historical without romance. That said…

romance as the main plot for the win!

Let’s be real, I’m still all about the romance. I love the feel-good and heartwarming vibes that romance brings to a story. I love to swoon and giggle at the romantic (and steamy) gestures between our love interests, and I don’t think any of that’s gonna change anytime soon. But if I do go looking for romance, I’m going to seek it out in stories where romance is the main plot, whether it’s historical romance, contemporary romance, or romantic fantasy, because too often lately the romance sub-plot leaves me feeling more than a little “meh”.

So, what do you think? Is the romance sub-plot a yay or nay for you? Do you think it takes away from the main story? Do you prefer your stories without romance in them? Keen to hear your thoughts!

First Lines Friday – 06 November

November 6, 2020November 6, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads11 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:

“Wizards never came to Ellicott Mills anymore. Beatrix stared at the contrary specimen striding toward her and had a fleeting thought–more of a hope, really–that he simply needed directions to some other place.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

October 2020 Monthly Wrap Up!

November 5, 2020January 2, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads21 Comments

Well, it’s now the second to last month of 2020 and I don’t know whether to be relieved or cringe at how much there’s still left to do in both my personal and work life, as well as when it comes to reading all the books! Time’s definitely flying although the latter part of October did seem to slow to a crawl (at least for me), and some days ended up feeling like weeks. I bet that’s definitely not going to happen this month though especially with everything that’s on my agenda and it’s low-key giving me some pretty intense anxiety. Welp! 😫 But anyway, let’s stick to the books, right?

In October, I managed to read 17 books. It’s not bad considering my reading slowed down considerably at the end of the month! It was a heavy fantasy month, with sprinklings of contemporary and a dollop or two of historical fiction. I actually didn’t DNF a book in October (yay!) and for the most part, I really enjoyed a lot of my reads although I had no five stars this month! So without further ado… Let’s take a look at what I got through!

#TopTenTuesday: It’s not always about books…

November 3, 2020July 18, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads33 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: my non-bookish hobbies!

This week’s prompt shifts away from all-things-bookish-all-the-time and has us sharing more personal bits about ourselves so we can get to know each other better ☺️ While I definitely had to gear my brain up for the change in topic, I thought this was a fun prompt to do because it made me actually stop and think about the things that I enjoy doing aside from reading–although I’m not lying when I say that reading/books take up the vast majority of my time outside of work. 😂

Goodreads Monday – Human Acts by Han Kang

November 2, 2020November 2, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

This week’s featured book is Human Acts by Han Kang. This is a historical fiction set in South Korea that was published in 2017 and has a 4.17 star rating on Goodreads with several thousand ratings and reviews.

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

November 1, 2020November 1, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

It’s Sunday evening and I spent the afternoon reading an ARC that I already finished, and since then I’ve been undecided on what to pick up next. I think I might be going with Kingdom of the Wicked or The Crowns of Croswald. But it’s also highly probably that I’ll end up going in a completely different direction from fantasy and read some romance because my mood is a fickle beast right now, and I can only obey its whims. 😂

What are you currently reading?

Top 5 Saturday: Books with Vampires

October 31, 2020October 31, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

🍭🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! 🎃🍭

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: vampires.

This topic was actually a tough one to answer because I honestly haven’t read that many books with vampires and neither is it usually what I gravitate towards. The same goes with other supernatural creatures too though, like werewolves. I’ve enjoyed the very few that I read (even Twilight all those years ago) but I don’t actively seek them out. I do still have a few books with vampires on my TBR though and I am looking forward to checking them out at some point, especially the ever popular Dracula! So without further ado…