Tag: Book Meme

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [21]

Dini @ dinipandareads10 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’ve been spending much of time wishing that I was actually in bed reading The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle #1) by Patrick Rothfuss. I read this book last year and it quickly escalated to the top of my favorites list. I plan to finally read Wise Man’s Fear this month as part of #SequelSeptember so I’m giving myself a refresher by re-reading the first book. With all that’s been going on this weekend with family visiting, driving up to my parent’s home town and participating in some ceremonies, I’ve had little to no concentration to spare, so it’s been hard getting into it. I’m hoping to dive into it fully over the next few days though. Already my love for Kote/Kvothe is coming back to life and I can’t wait to reacquaint myself with him and all the other characters in this story! If you like epic fantasies, I would definitely recommend it.

Told in Kvothe’s own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen. The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature.
A high-action story written with a poet’s hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard.

What are you currently reading?

Oohhhmygoodness. This weekend has been killer hectic and I’m both so relieved it’s Sunday but also dreading that tomorrow is already Monday because with how my body is feeling so damn exhausted right now, I can hardly fathom waking up early! My parents and sister visited me this weekend and we took a trip up to my parent’s hometown (which is about 3-hours through long uphill, downhill and winding roads North of Bali’s capital). We stayed in this beautiful villa with gorgeous pool/sea views and the Australian owners had about eight cats, five dogs and a parakeet. The cats roamed freely and one particular fella took a keen liking to my family, so he followed us around everywhere! Of course I brought along a few books (my latest haul!) with me to take some snaps when I could!

TWLOHA represent

While the stay was nice and relaxing, this time I was the one driving us there and back and it’s surprising how much driving can really take a toll out of you 😅 I don’t know what’s more tiring–winding sloping roads or endlessly straight roads? Either way, it’s definitely taken a toll an🖤d I’m now typing this up my mind shrouded in a tired fog. Sorry for rambling more than usual and for saying anything that might not make any sense! Haha

Reading & Blogging Recap

With family around it’s been a slow reading week. I managed to finish four books this week, all of which I’ve written reviews for except for the one I just finished reading Friday evening. My reviews for the books can be found below! I know I’ve already raved on about it endlessly this week on every platform I’m on, but I’m pretty sure I found a new favorite in Nevernight and I can’t wait to continue this series. Knowing that once I started I’d want to be disturbed as little as possible, I didn’t bother trying to start it this weekend, although the audiobook is just waiting for me to press play! Despite how busy I’ve been, I think I’ve done fairly well in keeping up with my blogging schedule! Almost missed a post or two but managed to post them right on time (at the very last minute 😅). I’m sad that I haven’t been able to engage as much as I wanted to this week but I’m hoping to catch up in the coming week! Now that my family has gone back to Jakarta, I can hop into bed early and get my reading on in peace before sleep drags me under and I CAN’T WAIT! On that note, here’s a recap of my posts from this week, in case you missed any:

Top 5 Saturday: Summer Romance Reads on my TBR!
Blog Tour Book Review: A Different Time by Michael K. Hill
Friday Favorites: Side Characters!
First Lines Friday: 06 September
The Blogger Recognition Award!
Review: Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) by Jay Kristoff
#WWWWednesday: 04 September
#TopTenTuesday: Books I Enjoyed Outside My Comfort Zone!
Review: The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black
Goodreads Monday: 02 September

How has your week been? Hope everyone has/had a great weekend!
Let me know how you’re doing in the comments and let’s chat 🙂

Top 5 Saturday: Summer Reads on my TBR!

Dini @ dinipandareads23 Comments

It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: summer reads. For most of the western hemisphere, summer has come and has either gone or is slowly being eclipsed by cooler breezes and brisker climes as autumn/fall comes in. Lucky for me, I live in the tropics so summer is pretty much a year-round deal (I admit to being a little jealous of the cooler climes because I LOVE fall weather)! Last month, I did a Friday Favorites: Summer Reads post where I focused on the genres I liked to read poolside: Romance, Thrillers, and YA SFF. For this post, I thought I’d specifically look at the top five summer romance reads that are sitting high on my TBR!

Say You Still Love Me by K. A. Tucker
I’ve heard so many good things about Say You Still Love Me and its second-chance romance. I’ve heard it’s done really well, so I’m excited to check it out! I read my first Tucker book, The Simple Wild, last month and I absolutely adored it. I fell in love with the beautiful setting and while some characters took some time to grow on me, all of them eventually stole my heart!

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
I don’t think any summer would be complete without a book by Christina Lauren. They do romances so well and have written so many stories and characters I love! The Unhoneymooners has been all over everyone’s blogs and booksta feeds full of praise and love for the characters. I don’t know why I’ve been sitting on this one, but being set in Hawaii, it seems like the perfect summer read!

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
What could be better than reading about a character who’s just as much of a bookworm as you are? This has been another very hyped read over the summer and many have loved it! I can’t wait to see if I’m one of them, and I’m keen to find out just how much of myself I’ll see in Nina’s character.

The Mother Road by Meghan Quinn
Maybe it’s a little cliche but so many summer adventures start with people setting off on a road trip, so why not read a romance with a quirky family and a crazy but hilarious sounding road trip? I’ve only read two books by Meghan Quinn but have loved them both, and this one sounds really cute and fun!

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
This is another book that I’ve seen on everyone’s bookstagram feeds over the summer and it sounds like the perfect ‘starting-over’ summer read about second chances (in life and love) and I can’t wait to read it (maybe by next summer? Lol)!

What are your top five summer reads? Any of these
Please leave me some recommendations in the comments below!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [20]

Dini @ dinipandareads2 Comments

Can someone tell me how it’s already the first of September? Like… How? 👀 So 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 wished I were in bed with two of my current reads: Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) by Jay Kristoff and The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black. I’m re-reading TCP because I remember jack-nada from when I read it last year. Elements of the plot are coming back to me and while I found Jude slightly annoying at the start, she’s really growing on me? I’m listening to Nevernight on Audible while following along to it on my Kindle and I’m honestly LOVING this book so much. It took a little while to grow on me, but it’s really grown on me (at 16%). This book is surprisingly hilarious (although maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because Kristoff) and it’s making it such a pleasure to read alongside the darker and more murder-y stuff!

Destined to destroy empires, Mia Covere is only ten years old when she is given her first lesson in death.
Six years later, the child raised in shadows takes her first steps towards keeping the promise she made on the day that she lost everything.
But the chance to strike against such powerful enemies will be fleeting, so if she is to have her revenge, Mia must become a weapon without equal. She must prove herself against the deadliest of friends and enemies, and survive the tutelage of murderers, liars and demons at the heart of a murder cult.
The Red Church is no Hogwarts, but Mia is no ordinary student.
The shadows love her. And they drink her fear.

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

What are you currently reading?

Did I already mention how baffled I am that it’s already September? I honestly don’t know where time flies to, especially on weekends! It’s like the more relaxed I am, the faster time goes? I had grand plans to bring my bookshelves/TBR carts to some semblance of order on Saturday but ended up spending all day under my doona, lost in a book. I realized at around 9pm that I had yet to eat or prepare any of my Saturday blog posts. Oops! So I sprang out of my cocoon, whipped up dinner while finishing up the audiobook for Naturally Tan, and then proceeded to write my blog posts while eating and watching Back-to-Back Chef with Carla Music on the Bon Apetit channel on YouTube. I was multitasking like a boss last night 😏 By the way, this cooking show is AWESOME (basically celebrities of all cooking abilities come on and cook with Carla with only vocal instructions from her and they can’t peek at each other’s stations)! It’s actually hilarious and I’d 100% recommend! I’ve also still been listening to Lover on repeat all week and I just can’t get myself to stop. I think my new favorite is Daylight because of how it ends on such a sweet, fresh and positive note! Contrary to what my last two posts may indicate, I’m not obsessed with Taylor Swift, but with her last two albums I’ve found that I have a great appreciation for her pop music, and Lover has certainly solidified that appreciation for me!

I think this week has been a pretty good one for reading! I managed to finish five books, including one audiobook that I’ve been listening to for a while, and I ended up having one 5★, one 4½★, one 4★, and two 3★ reads! It’s also been pretty freaking awesome on the blogging front this week! I actually didn’t realize how much I’ve posted this week and looking at the long list below, I think I’ve set myself up for failure if I want to do the same next week 😂 I also have to say sorry to everyone who has engaged with me and left comments on my blog this week. It’s been a pretty weird week in terms of my mental health and I’ve been wanting to retreat big time at the end of every work day, so even though I’ve been posting, I haven’t been engaging and I’m sorry about that! I just needed a bit more time off the laptop and the interwebs. That said, I’m hoping to catch up on more blogs and on comments in the coming week, so I’ll be getting back to you all soon 😊 On that note, here’s a recap of my posts from this week, in case you missed any:

August Monthly Wrap Up!
Review: The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker
Top 5 Saturday: Road Trip!
Friday Favorites: Books Read in School
First Lines Friday: 30 August
Graphic Novel ARC Review: The Avant-Guards Vol. 1 by Carly Usdin, Noah Hayes
Wrapping Up: Goodreads Summer Reading Challenge & ARC August
The (Double) Liebster Award!
Review: Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper #1) by Kerri Maniscalco
#WWWWednesday: 28 August
ARC Review: Pillow Thoughts III: Mending the Mind by Courtney Peppernell
#TopTenTuesday: Books I Want In My Physical Library
Review: Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini
Goodreads Monday: 26 August

How has your week been? Hope everyone has/had a great weekend!
Let me know how you’re doing in the comments and let’s chat 🙂

Top 5 Saturday: Road Trip!

Dini @ dinipandareads6 Comments

It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: books with a road trip. I have admit that I struggled with this week’s prompt because I couldn’t recall reading any books with literal road trips involved. So I decided to loosely interpret the prompt into characters hitting the road or going on an adventure too — it’s still the same thing, right? 😅 Here’s a mixed bag of books I have read and want to read!

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
It’s like the most epic road trip of all time for Shadow? A lot people are on the fence about American Gods but this sucked me in almost as quickly as Neverwhere did. It’s a bloody crazy story!

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
This is one that I still haven’t read yet but I’m keen on reading more John Green books. Sounds like an interesting, albeit a little quirky, story and there’s a road trip involved (apparently)!

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Sisterhood #1) by Ann Brashares
I mean okay, it’s not a typical ‘road trip’ but these pants do make their way around the world on various trips. That counts right? Lol My friends and I loved this story so much, we decided to do our own version but instead of pants we did a sisterhood of the traveling scrapbook. It was great!

The Mother Road by Meghan Quinn
This is another one I haven’t read yet but I’ve only discovered Quinn a month back, and have loved what I’ve read by her so far. This one sounds like a funny romance, with lots of meddling family antics involved as well (which I usually find hilarious) so I’m keen to check it out 🙂

Northern Lights (His Dark Materials #1) by Philip Pullman
Lira goes on an insane trip, across what feels like the world, to save her friend and the other missing children in this book. It’s a wild ride but highly enjoyable!

What are your favorite books with road trips?
Please leave me some recommendations in the comments below!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [19]

Dini @ dinipandareads6 Comments

It’s Sunday again already?! I don’t think I’m ever going to stop questioning how my weekends go so quickly. I only wish that the weekdays would do the same 😂 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 day finishing my first Marina Zapata book (review coming soon!) but I’m now in a contemporary romance mood. I think I’m going to pick up From the Start (Walker Family #1) by Melissa Tagg next. I’m a sucker for small town romances and from this week’s TTT, which looked at favorite tropes, I came across quite a few other book bloggers who loved the same trope and gave some book recs that sounded up my alley.

Kate Walker used to believe in true love and happily ever after. While her own love life may have left her brokenhearted, it hasn’t kept her from churning out made-for-TV romance movie screenplays…until a major career slump and a longing to do something meaningful send her running back to her hometown of Maple Valley. 

Permanently sidelined by an injury, former NFL quarterback Colton Greene is temporarily hiding out in a friend’s hometown to avoid the media and the reminders of all he’s lost. Maple Valley seems like the perfect place to learn how to adjust to normal life. The only trouble is he’s never really done normal before.

While Kate plays things safe and Colton is all about big risks and grand gestures, they both get what it’s like to desperately need direction in life. An unexpected project gives them both a chance to jumpstart their new lives, but old wounds and new dreams are hard to ignore. Starting over wasn’t part of the plan, but could it be the best thing that’s ever happened to them? 

What are you currently reading?

I’m officially out of my book slump and this week has probably been my best reading week since August started. I spent my Saturday out and about with my bestie on the island and ended up going a little crazy with the retail therapy! I wasn’t looking to buy anything but I managed to come home with four bags full of shoes, clothes, beauty care and general knick knacks for home. I shocked myself (and my friend!) by walking into a book store and walking out without a purchase though! Who am I even?! It might’ve been the rampant shopping I’d already indulged in prior to stepping into the bookstore that made me feel a little guilty so I managed to hold myself back! I think I’m going to do a post-summer Marie Kondo of my closet and bookshelf next weekend, just to clear up the clutter that’s hanging around my tiny flat!

Overall it’s been a pretty good week. Work didn’t drive me too mental. I had some issues with my laptop that I took care of. I’ve started reading again. I’ve also been listening to Lover all weekend. I wasn’t fan of a few songs on the album when it came out on Friday, but as I expected, they’ve all mostly grown on me now. Have you been listening to the album? Do you have a new favorite track? Cornelia Street and Death by A Thousand Cuts might be new faves but Lover has really grown on me! I’ve still got quite a few reviews to catch up on but I’ll be working on posting those in the coming week! I also have quite a few book tags that I want to do from when I was tagged over the last few weeks! I find that I always just take forever to think of answers and then questions to ask 😂 It’s not been my greatest blogging week but I’m okay with that–life happens after all! On that note, here’s what I did manage to post last week, in case you missed it:

Top 5 Saturday: Dragons
Friday Favorites: Nerdy Characters
Review: The Whisper Man by Alex North
ARC Review: Probably the Best Kiss in the World by Pernille Hughes
#WWWWednesday: 21 August
#TopTenTuesday: Favorite Tropes
Goodreads Monday: 19 August

How has your reading and blogging week been?
Come let me know in the comments and let’s have a chat 🙂

Top 5 Saturday: Dragons!

Dini @ dinipandareads18 Comments

It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: books about dragons. As I was thinking about preparing this post, I realized that while I love a good book about dragons and with dragons in it, I can’t actually recall reading many of them? That’s crazy right? I officially cannot call myself a sucker for dragons coz I’d flatout be lying. Yikes! I’m counting on you good bookish friends to do me a favor and after you read this post, give me all the good recs for dragon books, please! 🐉

The Written (Emaneska #1) by Ben Galley
I think this was the first fantasy that I read in 2019 for the The Write Reads’ Ultimate Blog Tour for Ben Galley. The Written had awesome dragons (and dragon riders!) in the story. I love dragons are given their own thriving society and individual personalities on top of being insanely large, fierce and growly. I became very quickly attached to these dragons and can’t wait to read more about them!

Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle #1) by Christopher Paolini
I think I picked up Eragon in high school and immediately fell in love with the story. I remember loving the bond between Eragon and Seraphina, but I have to admit, I don’t remember much about the story or series now (coz I’m old)… But I’d definitely like to re-read it at some point!

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George R.R. Martin
This might be a little predictable but obviously I’m going to include ASOIAF on my list! I might be influenced by the show and how awesome the dragons were in it, but I liked their appearance(s) in the books too. I did stop reading after Book 4 though (it was just too much of the same for me)!

The Tea Dragon Festival (Tea Dragon #2) by Kate O’Neill
Well, you asked for dragons, right? And these little tea dragons are absolutely the cutest things alive! I mean, little floofy dragons that grow different types of tea on their backs!? How can you not love them? But in the Tea Dragon Festival there is also a real dragon, that can shift between being a full sized dragon and a human-dragon creature named Aedhan who is just as cute! So much warmth 🥰

The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
Okay, so I might’ve mentioned multiple times how much I didn’t enjoy this book and how disappointed I was that it was incredibly different from the movie (which I watched first). But we’re not going to get into that now. Smaug was a pretty awesome dragon with all his billions of trinkets and jewels to keep him cool inside the mountain. I might not have enjoyed the story, but I can still appreciate the dragon!

What are your favorite books about dragons? GIVE ME ALL YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS in the comments below please!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [18]

Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

I’M AWARE IT’S MONDAY! But I went completely MIA this weekend because of wedding shenanigans and I totally spaced on scheduling posts in advance (I’m so disorganised), so I totally missed out on Top 5 Saturday (gutted) and my weekly wrap up! I thought I’d still share my weekly wrap up anyway, and hopefully sometime this week I’ll share my Top 5 Saturday post (better late than never, amiright!?) So here’s another Sundays Mondays 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 weekend, I took a leap out of my comfort zone and start reading The Whisper Man by Alex North. Going by the title of the book, it’s supposed to be a creepy thriller and it definitely lived up to it! I was constantly getting goosebumps while reading this, and even now thinking about the book has me breaking out in shivers! It also has a touch of the paranormal in it which I usually stay away from big time, but I have no regrets reading this because I think it was the kick up the slump ass that I needed. I think switching to a completely different genre might’ve totally worked, friends! 😃Stay tuned for my review coming up this week!

If you leave a door half-open, soon you’ll hear the whispers spoken…
Still devastated after the loss of his wife, Tom Kennedy and his young son Jake move to the sleepy village of Featherbank, looking for a fresh start. But Featherbank has a dark past. Fifteen years ago a twisted serial killer abducted and murdered five young boys. Until he was finally caught, the killer was known as ‘The Whisper Man’. Of course, an old crime need not trouble Tom and Jake as they try to settle in to their new home. Except that now another boy has gone missing. And then Jake begins acting strangely.
He says he hears a whispering at his window…

What are you currently reading?

Roped my sister into helping me for the book gram with this shot! IG: @dinipandareads

As I mentioned, this weekend was insanely hectic because I was in Jakarta for my cousin’s wedding! Because I thought I’d have time during the day between the wedding and the evening’s reception, I didn’t schedule any posts, so I didn’t end up posting anything past Friday! Oops, bad planning 🙊But I had a really great time with my family, plus we hadn’t seen many of our cousins for years, so it was nice that all of us finally got the chance to come together *as adults* and party the night away! I got pretty sloshed on Saturday (I might have abducted a wine bottle or two from the bar) and it’d been a while since I drank like that, so Sunday saw me feeling pretty sluggish (although thankfully only mildly hungover)! It was totally worth it though. I’m glad that even on top of feeling a little below par and having to get up early for a Sunday brunch with the family, I still managed to finish The Whisper Man on the flight back home, so GO ME 😂Sometimes it’s just the little things in life! LOL

Due to the annoying reading slump last week, which I’m sorry I’ve been so vocal about(!), I really didn’t manage to read much, so very few reviews were posted. But I’m feeling a little bit of a reading kick now, so I hope that I’ll be reading and reviewing more in the very near future! On that note, here’s what I did manage to post last week, in case you missed it:

ARC Graphic Novel Review: Elma: A Bear’s Life: The Great Journey (Vol 1) by Ingrid Chabbert
Friday Favorites: Underrated Books
ARC Review: A Random Act of Kindness by Sophie Jenkins
ARC Graphic Novel Review: Sparrowhawk #1 by Delilah S. Dawson
#WWWWednesday: 14 August
#TopTenTuesday: Book Characters I’d Love to be Besties With!
Who Am I Book Tag
Goodreads Monday: 12 August

How has your reading and blogging week been?
Come let me know in the comments and let’s have a chat 🙂

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [17]

Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

Friends, how is it already practically the middle of August? How? What? When? Now 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!

After finishing This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel on Friday I found myself feeling very restless and unable to pick up another book. These are classic signs of a book slump for me and I’m sad to admit that I’m still undecided about my next read! I keep looking (read: gazing longingly) at the many books I have on my shelves and TBR carts, and I keep going back and forth between a few that I want to pick up, but when I start reading, I find myself woefully distracted by another book. I’ve also been distracted by my ARC August TBR list, which I haven’t even made the smallest of dents in! The fact that it’s already mid-August and I haven’t even really started an ARC has me feeling a little stressed out 😰 Welp. But I’m hoping to shake off this feeling in the coming week and hopefully finish (at least) one book! Here’s a list of the books that I started this weekend. Have you read any of these? What do you think I should continue with right now? A Random Act of Kindness is an ARC and Sweet Valley High is for one of my Goodreads Summer Reading Challenge prompts!

What are you currently reading?

This week and weekend has been a bit of a mad time! My parents and sister were visiting me in Bali and so I spent a lot of my time after work hanging out with them and driving them around places. It was really nice to have them here, but I definitely realized how much I appreciate some quiet time alone to decompress and read! I barely read anything at all when they were here! Of course, it’s nice to take a break from reading sometimes and perhaps with how I’ve been feeling like a book slump’s coming on, it was a good thing for me to focus on other things for a while. I’m hoping that I can finally pick and stick to a book this week! For how busy this week/end was, I think I did pretty alright with my blogging, although I still have a fair few reviews from July to catch up on! I’m hoping I’ll be able to catch up a bit this coming week. On that note, here’s a list of my posts from this week, in case you missed out!

Review: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Top 5 Saturday: Books about Assassins
Friday Favorites: Books that Define You
Review: The Surface Breaks by Louise O’Neill
Review: A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult
#WWWWednesday: 07 August
#TopTenTuesday: Cover (Re)Designs That I Love/Hate
ARC August TBR
Goodreads Monday: 05 August

How has your reading and blogging week been?
Come let me know in the comments and let’s have a chat 🙂

Top 5 Saturday: Books about Assassins

Dini @ dinipandareads28 Comments

It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: books about assassins. I love a good book focused on assassins, but I realize that I’ve got more of these books on my TBR than ones I’ve actually read. I don’t know if these are the only four books that I’ve read about assassins (probably not) but they are favorites, so book five will be a bonus book that’s currently on my TBR and will hopefully no longer be on it after this month!

The Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan
I think this was one of the first adult fantasy novels that I ever picked up and it was so good! I didn’t expect to be so sucked into the world and to become so attached to the characters. Royce & Hadrian are as different as they come but they complement each other so well. I’m keen to read more of them in the Riyria Chronicles 🙂

Throne of Glass Series by Sarah J. Maas
Throne of Glass is my favorite of Maas’ two series, even though I find that a lot more people liked ACOTAR more. There was a lot of intense romance in this as well, but I loved the world building and characters more in this series than in the other. I always thought Celaena was a pretty sweet as assassin who really lived up to her kickass reputation!

Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson
This was my first introduction to Sanderson and it was the series that bumped him onto my auto buy and favorite author list. This is truly an epic but it is incredible adult fantasy–his world building, characters and magic in this series are just amazing!

Six of Crows Duology by Leigh Bardugo
The characters in SoC are thieves and badasses. They’re the rebels and misfit and together they undertake an insane and dangerous mission to infiltrate a fortress. The world building is amazing and the magic system is also really cool.

BONUS: Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) by Jay Kristoff
I’ve been hearing a whole lot about this adult fantasy series about a ‘fledgling killer’ who attends a school of assassins by Kristoff! I don’t know why I haven’t read it yet but I’m looking forward to starting it soon. I’m excited to read my first book written by Kristoff, since I’ve only read his collabos with Kaufman (but have seriously loved both series they’ve done together)!

What are your favorite books with assassins? Do you have favorite assassins? Let me know in the comments and let’s chat!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [16]

Dini @ dinipandareads4 Comments

So.. Can someone please tell me where the week went? Because I swear it just started! Now 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!

So you know how on Wednesday I mentioned that my buddy read for A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult was probably cancelled because nobody was saying anything in the group chat? Well, not 30 minutes after I published my post, the mod revived the chat and everyone agreed to have the discussion this Sunday (as in today). So, I put all my other reads on hold and went full speed ahead with this one. I read the majority of it on Saturday (more accurately between the midnight hours with Sunday) and since I spent most of my day today out and about, I just finished it off this evening! There’s a reason Jodi Picoult has been a favorite since I discovered her books in high school. I had high expectations for this book and she didn’t disappoint! Be on the look out for my review of it which I’ll be posting on the blog tomorrow. My conclusion is that I highly recommend it!

SYNOPSIS: The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.

After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester disguised as a patient, who now stands in the cross hairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.

Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day.

What are you currently reading?

Well, this week has come and gone in what literally feels like the blink of an eye! It makes me feel extra unproductive because I actually can’t recall much of what I did or read (for no particular reason other than my memory seems to be getting worse every day with this lack of sleep lol). I think I only managed to read three books, which is kind of average for me, although two of them were shortish romances. I also realize that I haven’t been posting much on my blog aside from the regular weekly memes that I do, which probably means that I’m behind on my reviews! I just haven’t had the energy to put my thoughts down into words after work lately, even though I don’t end up sleeping until the wee hours anyway! 🤦🏻‍♀️But I’m not going to harp on about this. It just is what is is! I’m hoping that I’ll get back into the blogging and review writing groove soon otherwise I probably won’t end up remembering half of what I read! LOL

Now, without further ado, here’s what I’ve posted this week, just in case you missed it.

Review: The Consequence of Falling by Claire Contreras
Review: That Second Chance (Getting Lucky #1) by Meghan Quinn
Top 5 Saturday: Books with Asian Settings
Friday Favorites: Sequels
July Monthly Wrap Up!
#WWWWednesday: 31 July
#TopTenTuesday (Freebie): Books From A Genre I Want to Read More of…
Goodreads Monday: 29 July
ARC Graphic Novel Review: The Magicians: Alice’s Story by Lilah Sturges and Lev Grossman

As an added extra, I’m sharing a song that I’ve been obsessed with since I discovered it on Friday, and which I’ve been playing non-stop ever since! It’s so, so good and just makes me wanna jump up and start dancing around my apartment (which I did do, obviously)!

How has your reading and blogging week been?
Come let me know in the comments and let’s have a chat 🙂