First Lines Friday – 13 March

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:

“Most of life’s defining moments happen unexpectedly; sometimes they slide past you completely unnoticed until afterwards, if at all.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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Would You Rather – Bookish Edition

I’ve been tagged by the wonderful Mani @ Mani’s Book Corner to do this post towards the end of last year and I’m finally getting around to it now! (Oops, sorry, I’m drowning in backlogged tags lol) Y’know, this type of post looks easy AF to do but for someone who’s notoriously bad at making decisions and who worries over the little things until they become big things, this took me much longer than expected to answer 😂 I always underestimate how my mind can kick off with its thoughts!

The Rules:

  • Answer the questions given to you by your nominator.
  • Make up your own questions and tag others.
  • Sounds easy, right? Well, let’s see…!

Would you rather have to read the last chapter of every new book first, or never read the last chapter?

Well, there are plenty of factors to consider here and one of the most important ones for me being an international blogger is $$$. I don’t have access to libraries in Indonesia (welp) so that means the majority of what I read, I have to buy! I just don’t know if I’ll always be rolling in the deep for the rest of my life so it’s gotta be standalones.

Would you rather have someone ruin the ending of a book for you or never finish a book you were reading?

Oh snap! I think… I’d rather have someone ruin the ending of a book for me than not know how it ends at all. OR BETTER YET: I’d rather never finish a book I was reading but have someone “ruin” the ending by telling me what happens. That totally counts, right?! 😏

Would you rather lose your place or get a paper cut every time you read a book?

OMG NO! I’d much rather lose my place than suffer the pain of a paper cut, thanks! 😅

Would you rather be friends with Hermione Granger or Matilda?

I would choose teenage Hermione towards the end of the series. As fun as it’d be to befriend Matilda, I think I could have a much better time with Hermione, especially as she’ll be closer in age at least to me 😅

Would you rather wait five years for the final installment in a series or get it now, but must read every spoiler before you can start reading it?

Oh, tough! Well, considering how many years I’ve been waiting for the final instalment of The Kingkiller Chronicles…. Lol I mean, it’s been SO LONG since the second book came out and although I’m impatient for the final, I’ve also been doing pretty well on holding out for the goods 🤣 so I think I’d survive waiting five years for a final instalment!

Would you rather reread your least favorite book monthly or never be able to read your favorite book again?

I’m really not much of a re-reader in the first place because I’m always wary about whether my thoughts/feelings on a book will change between reads. So I know this is gonna sound crazy but I’d pick never being able to read my favourite book again! 😱

Would you rather read in an isolated cabin that was infested with spiders or in a noisy coffee shop with bad music?

You lost me at isolated cabin but then you throw spiders into the mix and it’s just a completely big fabulously fat NO. I don’t care how distracted I’d get and how annoying the music would be, I’d always pick that noisy coffee shop over that nightmare 😂

Would you rather have the ability to read minds, but never able to read another book or live as you are now and keep reading?

Yeah, as cool as reading minds might seem, I would be so sad if I never got to read another book so I’ll keep living as I am now, thanks!

Would you rather read a novel based on a true story of someone you know or a fictional novel where a character is based on you?

Ooh, this is a great question! I think I’d be interesting to read a fiction with a character based on me! I don’t know if this sounds really weird but I think it’d be interesting to see how an author would perceive me and my experiences and write me into a book! 😂 I hope that doesn’t sound conceited!

Would you rather have a book where anything you write in it becomes true or have a book that contains all the knowledge of the universe?

Um, yes to the first please! I would obviously make sure that only positive things go into that book so that they’ll come true! Imagine all the amazing and wonderful things you could do for everyone and for mother earth?! It’d be amazing!

Now is the part where I cheat because I know I’m meant to make my own questions but I really enjoyed answering these ones, so I’m going to stick with them (hope you don’t mind, Mani)! Tagging a few people below but no worries if tags aren’t your jam! Also, even if you’re not tagged but want to do this, please do and don’t forget to tag back so I can check out your answers! 🙂

E @ LocalBeeHunter
Sammie @ The Writerly Way
Leah @ Leah’s Books and Cooks
Andie @ Books, Coffee & Passion
Joanna @ The Geekish Brunette

#TopTenTuesday: Authors I Follow on Social Media

It’s that time of the week again, friends! We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: authors who have a fun social media presence.

I almost skipped this week’s TTT for the first time since joining in weekly because I honestly don’t follow that many authors on my social media accounts? Not for any particular reason other than the fact that I just don’t? 🤷🏻‍♀️ I think there’s only one author who I follow religiously on all platforms I’m on and he’ll be at the top of my list. There are a few other authors whose tweets I do enjoy reading whenever they come up on my feed though so they’ll be making up my list for today!

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Goodreads Monday – Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

It’s the first Goodreads Monday of 2020, friends! 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 book is Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This historical fiction has a 4.17 star average with 61k+ ratings and 5.5k+ reviews.

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [46]

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 a part of my Sunday morning finishing my tour read for The Deep. It wasn’t as spooky as I expected, which is always a pleasant surprise for an Ultimate Chicken™️ such as myself because that means I can read it without fear of my feet being grabbed by things once I step outside the safety zone that is my bed 🤣

Someone, or something, is haunting the Titanic.

This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set sail: mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner’s illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers – including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher – are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.

Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not – could not – have survived the sinking of the Titanic . . . 

What are you currently reading?

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Top 5 Saturday: Trilogies

We’re back with another Top 5 Saturday! I might’ve missed last week’s topic but I will come back to it at some point 🙂 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: trilogies!

I’m surprised to learn that a lot of the series on my TBR and ‘need-to-finish’ lists are trilogies! I like trilogies. I think three books is a good number because it’s just long enough for those who like reading series but it’s also “short” enough for those who don’t like long series. Or simply for those who don’t have the patience to wait even longer for the next book to come out 😅 Lucky for me, almost all the series mentioned below are complete so there’s no waiting time between books and that’s really the most perfect scenario! I’m really looking forward to starting/finishing these series!

First up is the Chaos Walking Series by Patrick Ness. I still haven’t read anything by Ness although I have five of his books (including this full series) sitting on my physical shelf. I got really cool copies too!

I’ve been wanting to read more by Amie Kaufman and when I saw the covers for the Starbound Series I knew there was no way I would be passing these up. Totally cover judging here–they’re STUNNING!

Ah, The Kingkiller Chronicles. I don’t know whether I’m dreaming but THERE IS A COVER FOR BOOK THREE. Is it the actual? I don’t know. There’s still no official release date but there are 2020 whispers and if it happens I’ll be deceased (kidding… But I might actually pass out from shock LOL)!

I have been meaning to finish His Dark Materials for a while now. I enjoyed the first book but didn’t continue with the rest of the series because I wanted to find matching books. Anyone else do that? 😂

I loved The Bear and the Nightingale when I read it last year but I was waiting for the rest of the Winternight Trilogy to deliver (which obvi took forever). Planning to re-read and finish this year!

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First Lines Friday – 06 March

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:

“Sweet sixteen is when the claws come out. We’re all flash tonight. Jenny and Summer and Mads and me. Vodka and heels that we could never quite walk in before, but tonight we can.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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February Reading Challenge Update

Can someone tell me where February went? At times it went insanely slowly (probably due to being sick early on) but then as the weeks passed it went in a blink! What a month… Unfortunately as it was quite busy I didn’t manage to do so well on my challenges? There was a little progress but I’m hoping March will be better!

ARC Apocalypse

I managed to read six ARCs and I’m pretty good with that progress! Yes, most of them were for blog tours but I’m glad I had that as motivation to keep reading them. I thought a few were just okay but I really enjoyed some of these and can’t wait for everyone to read them!

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February Monthly Wrap Up!

February was a month 🤯 My health issues continued to plague me but after seemingly endless rounds of medication, I’m starting to finally feel semi-human again. I’ve just felt constantly drained of energy the whole time but I had to push through especially since I also moved houses and did the majority of the cleaning and packing myself. I really need to start taking on Marie Kondo habits into my life and minimise (next time)! But I digress… Despite all the craziness this month I managed to read 22 books, mostly thanks to the crazy romance reading challenge I set for myself during Valentine’s week.

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#TopTenTuesday: One Word Titles

It’s that time of the week again, friends! We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: books with single-word titles! This prompt was submitted by Kitty @ Kitty Marie’s Reading Corner (who you should definitely go follow right now)!

What would I ever do without Goodreads? I would fail, that’s what. I would never be able to do these posts because my memory fails so hard. I really couldn’t come up with one title until I looked at several lists on GR and realised that I have read a few books with single-word titles! Plus, plenty of them are actually books from series that I love, so I can’t believe that I couldn’t think of any titles to start 😂

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