#TopTenTuesday: Five-Star Predictions on my TBR!

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 on my TBR I predict will be five star reads!

I’ve just been thinking about the books I’ve been reading lately and… I’m kind of shook to realise that I haven’t really been giving out a whole lot of 5★ ratings to my reads lately. It’s funny because prior to joining the book community I’m pretty sure that the majority of my ratings were 4★s or 5★s… It makes me wonder whether I’ve not become more critical of the books I read or am I just not as easy to please as I was before? These thoughts actually made me realise how difficult this week’s TTT prompt is for me. It took some stewing over my want-to-read list but I think I’m happy with these predictions…

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Book Review: Let’s Get Textual by Teagan Hunter

Let’s Get Textual (Texting #1)
Pub Date: 20 September 2022
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Panda Rating:

(5 pandas)

📖 SYNOPSIS

A wrong number is supposed to be just that—a wrong number.
Delete. Done.
Do not continue to text. Do not flirt.

A wrong number shouldn’t be the first person on your mind in the morning, or the last at night…and you’re definitely not supposed to talk them into buying a baby goat.

Because that would be weird.

When Zach Hastings and I get into a wrong-number mix-up, we don’t follow the rules. We keep texting and flirting, because he’s wicked funny and perfectly nerdy and a wonderful distraction.

I’m not looking for love, and Zach definitely had the wrong number.
But maybe…
Maybe he’s the right guy.

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Friday Favourites: Bookish Quotes

Welcome back to another Friday Favourites, dear friends! Last year this weekly meme was hosted by the wonderful Kibby @ Something of the Book! However, this year Kibby has passed the torch on to Lorraine @ Geeky Galaxy. This week’s topic is: bookish quotes.

Something I don’t often do is keep track of the quotes that I come across while reading but that’s especially the case with physical copies. One of the best things about having a Kindle is the ease with which I can highlight quotes and make notes. Lucky for me (most of the time), Goodreads also has a section for quotes that I often take a peek at, in case one of the quotes I like was also highlighted by someone else. My memory is notoriously bad so my answers for these types of prompts are always pretty short! Here are a choice few quotes thanks to Goodreads, Google

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

Khalil Gibran

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

The Diary of A Young Girl, Anne Frank

“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

“We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling

What are your favourite bookish quotes?

#TopTenTuesday: Favorite Illustrated Covers (Cover Freebie)

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: a cover freebie!

The first topic that always comes to mind are the prettiest covers and while I wanted to keep the topic easy enough for myself today (as I’m finally traveling home–YAY!), I thought that’d also be too easy. Plus, I kinda already did something like it at the end of 2019. After some thought I decided to focus on my favorite illustrated covers, which is a trend I’ve been noticing lately and loving a lot! 😍 I’m a sucker for illustrated covers and I’m definitely guilty of judging a book by its cover when it comes to them 😅

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Book Review: Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

Goodreads: Spin the Dawn (The Blood of the Stars #1)
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: 09 July 2019
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Panda Rating:

(4.5 pandas)

A gifted tailor in disguise.
Three legendary dresses.
The competition if a lifetime.

On the fringes if the Great Spice Road, Maia Tamarin works as a seamstress in the shop of her father, once a tailor of renown. She dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for us to marry well.

When a royal messenger summons her ailing father to court, Maia poses as his son and travels to the Summer Palace in his place. She know she her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but she’ll take that risk to save her family from ruin and achieve her dream of becoming the imperial tailor. There’s just one catch: Maia is one of twelve tailors vying for the job.

The competition is cutthroat, and Maia’s job is further complicated by the unwelcome attention of the court enchanter, Edan, who seems to see straight through her disguise. But nothing could have prepared her for the final challenge: to sew three gowns so dangerously beautiful, it will take a quest to the ends of the earth to complete them…

Tell me, why did I take so long to read this? Spin the Dawn is pitched as Mulan meets Project Runway and with such a unique premise, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this #OwnVoices Asian inspired fantasy. I was wary when I started reading it (because I was really let down by another Asian inspired fantasy last year) but I’m so glad this one didn’t disappoint! Not to sound cheesy or anything but it was so magical! It didn’t take long for me to fall head first into the story and to find myself caring deeply about its characters. 💞

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Top 5 Saturday: Unread Books by Favourite Authors

I’m back this week for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books. This week’s topic is: books by favourite authors, but as it’s a Top 5 Saturday and I usually focus on books that are on my TBR or books that I haven’t read yet, I’ve turned it into unread books by my favourite authors. Narrowing down this list was surprisingly tough because I really suck at picking favourites and there are just so many, how do I pick only five?! Even with my favourite authors there are still plenty of books that I need to read because really, will there ever be enough time? In no particular order…

I’ve admittedly only read The Shadow of the Wind but I was so blown away by it that Zafón was quickly added to my favourite authors list. If you haven’t read it, I’d highly recommend it! 🖤 The Angel’s Game is the second book in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series and I’ve shamefully had it sitting unread on my shelf for TOO LONG!

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Friday Favourites: Fictional Families

Hello, hello and welcome back to another Friday Favourites, dear friends! This’ll be the first Friday Favourites of the year and there are some small changes to note. Last year this weekly meme was hosted by the wonderful Kibby @ Something of the Book! However, this year Kibby has passed the torch on to Lorraine @ Geeky Galaxy. This week’s topic is: favourite fictional families.

My thoughts immediately went to my favourite found families when I saw this prompt but I felt like I had focused a previous post on found families and I was right. In a previous Friday Favourites I shared my favourite character team ups and in that post I basically shared all my favourite found families 😂 So with that done, I decided to suck it up and focus on plain ol’ fictional families and let me tell ya, I struggled because my memory is so awful *why 😭* But after some scouring of my Goodreads shelves, I came up with this smol list of five that I came across last year and who I absolutely loved!

I adored the relationship between Ryn and her siblings. Their love and dedication for one another, even if they might not always agree with each other, was heartwarming. Their banter was also fun and totally relatable!

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The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) by Neal Shusterman – #BookReview

Goodreads: The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3)
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopia
Panda Rating:

It’s been three years since Rowan and Citra disappeared; since Scythe Goddard came into power; since the Thunderhead closed itself off to everyone but Grayson Tolliver.

In this pulse-pounding conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman’s Arc of a Scythe trilogy, constitutions are tested and old friends are brought back from the dead.

You know when you’re so excited to read a book and then you finish it and you’re left feeling pretty… whelmed? Not over or under whelmed just… WHELMED? I think that’s kind of how I feel after finishing this series. I don’t know, I’m honestly kind of confused!

“You can whisper, and people will still hear thunder.”

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#TopTenTuesday: Most Recent Bookshelf Additions…

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: the ten most recent additions to my bookshelf. I’m taking this to mean my actual (physical) bookshelf and not my Goodreads TBR shelf.

Have I mentioned yet how I’m looking to cut down spending on new books in 2020? The plan is not only to save money but it’s also an attempt to cut down on my unread physical shelf! But let’s also be real because I’m only hooman and when it comes to books I have little to no control (and I know I’m not alone in that); especially when it comes to that FOMO feeling! It gets me every time 🙈 So while I have added a *few* books to my shelves lately, I’ve also been doing pretty good at holding back, if I do say so myself! Here’s what I got:

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Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2) by Neal Shusterman – #BookReview

Goodreads: Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopia
Panda Rating:

The stakes are high in this chilling sci-fi thriller, in which professional scythes control who dies. Everything else is out of human control, managed by the Thunderhead. It’s a perfect system – until it isn’t.

It’s been a year since Rowan went off-grid. Hunted by the Scythedom, he has become an urban legend, a vigilante snuffing out corrupt scythes in a trial by fire. Citra, meanwhile, is forging her path as Scythe Anastasia, gleaning with compassion. However, conflict within the Scythedom is growing by the day, and when Citra’s life is threatened, it becomes clear that there is a truly terrifying plot afoot.

The Thunderhead observes everything, and it does not like what it sees. Will it intervene? Or will it simply watch as this perfect world begins to unravel?

“That’s exactly what the scythedom is: high school with murder.”

A somewhat slower paced sequel to Scythe but it is no less enjoyable. I savoured learning more about this dystopia and I became even more invested in the characters. I loved the Thunderhead and as a reader, I felt its helplessness to do anything very acutely!

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