Tag: Book Nerd

Top 5 Saturday: Enemies to Lovers…

Dini @ dinipandareads28 Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for a while now, you might’ve noticed that I’ve been unexpectedly MIA for a while now. Life has been… Life? No excuses but if you want to read me waffle on about it, check out my smol life and reading update post. On that note, I’m looking forward to getting back into the groove and a perfect way to do this is to start doing my regularly weekly memes (that I’ve missed so much)! Glad to be back with…

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: enemies to lovers.

I used to be embarrassed to admit that I’m a big fat hopeless romantic but… I am indeed a big fat hopeless romantic. GIVE ME ALL THE LOVE and I will (probably) love it! I think I’ve only really taken the time to notice this year just how much romance I read and the enemies-to-lovers trope is one of my all time favourites! I mean, who doesn’t love the delicious tension that builds between two characters who, deep down, have all these feelings for each other that they don’t know what do with until one day it finally explodes? Not to mention all the hilarious, snarky banter that’s usually a staple in our protagonists’ exchanges? Just thinking about it gets me giddy with excitement and anticipation! Safe to say, I’ve read my share of enemies-to-lovers but I’ve still got plenty on my TBR! Here are five of them that I hope to read ASAP:

(book covers are linked to the Goodreads pages!)

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#TopTenTuesday: Authors I’ve Read the Most Books By

Dini @ dinipandareads17 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: authors I’ve read the most books by.

This week’s topic is pretty straightforward and although it should be easy I have to admit I was a little stumped to figure out who I’ve read the most books by. I have to admit that I don’t actually know the number of books that I’ve read for each author and I’m also really tired right now so I don’t have the energy to look it up (I’m so lame, I’m sorry, friends!), and so I’m ballparking it here… I’m also keeping this short since this week has already felt like the past three months combined and is it really only Tuesday? 🙃 Welp.

Jodi Picoult and Nora Roberts really take the top spots for this because I used to devour their books starting from high school and when I picked up reading again after I finished uni. I’ve also read almost all of Michael Crichton’s books after I discovered a bunch of his books in the secondhand bookstore when I moved to Cambodia and started reading again (the same time as Roberts’ books actually which were also found in abundance at the secondhand store)!

I’ve read about half of V.E. Schwab’s books including some of her earlier works (The Archived series) but I’m still planning to read her latest middle grade books eventually… If I can work up the courage to since it’s all ghost-y and stuff!

Pretty sure that when it comes to romances I’ve binged a large number of Mariana Zapata and Christina Lauren (including their much earlier and quite smutty romances back in the day)! 😂 I love these three authors so much and they’re always my go-to recs.

I realise that I’ve actually read all of Leigh Bardugo’s books, save for her latest two releases. I read her series years ago before knowing that such a huge book community existed online and that the books had such huge followings lol. Same goes for Laini Taylor! All I have to finish now is Muse of Nightmares… *cough*

Then of course there are my more ‘recent’ favourites: Jay Kristoff (& Amie Kaufman) and Neil Gaiman! I still have a lot of Gaiman to read although I’ve already read a fair few of his books. Of course I can’t wait to read more of Kristoff and Kaufman, too!

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First Lines Friday – 03 July

Dini @ dinipandareads9 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:

“It is better to be a coward than a corpse.
The phrase was a cacophonous jingle in Tillie Pembroke’s mind.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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#TopTenTuesday: Most Anticipated Releases 2nd Half of 2020!

Dini @ dinipandareads22 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: most anticipated releases for the second half of 2020.

Well… Considering I have 100+ books marked as 2020 releases, it was definitely… “fun” narrowing it down to just ten for today’s list 🤣 Yes, we should all already be aware of the fact that I have a very problematic relationship with that ‘want-to-read’ button on Goodreads–it’s all too easy to click! Adding books to my already endless TBR only ever became a problem when I joined the book community and I really don’t foresee this problem going away any time soon (unfortunately for my TBR and savings)! Obviously this list of ten is a smol peek at the books I’m looking forward to getting my grabby hand son, but they are the ones that came to mind first. I’m so excited for some of these I can’t even! Also, I tried to mention books that haven’t made an appearance in my more recent posts (even though I’m definitely still very excited for them–especially Cemetery Boys and Cinderella is Dead!)

(book covers are linked to Goodreads pages!)

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First Lines Friday – 26 June

Dini @ dinipandareads16 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:

“Aleja was a girl so hungry for adventure that sometimes she found herself in strange places.“

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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#TopTenTuesday Turns 10: A Trip Down Top10 Memory Lane!

Dini @ dinipandareads41 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: Top Ten Tuesday Turns 10! Option 1: pick a past TTT topic you’ve done and re-do/update it (Perhaps you’d remove certain books you put on the list back when you first wrote it, or perhaps you have 10 MORE books you’d add to that list now. You could also re-visit TBR posts, whether seasonal or series you need to finish, etc., and tell us if you’ve read them yet or not. Any variation of this idea works. Feel free to be creative.) Option 2: pick a past TTT topic you wish you’d done, but didn’t get a chance to do (the list of topics is below).

Happy Birthday, TTT! What an incredible feat to have such a successful weekly meme that has been running for 10 years with over 500 topics. Very inspiring 🥰 I remember the first time I came across a TTT post and thought wow, I wanna join in the fun! It was in the ‘early days’ of my blogging journey and I remember questioning whether I would even be allowed to do the TTT posts because I was a total noob! Then I remember writing it in March and saying that I suck at making lists (and that’s still very true) and because of that I thought I might not do TTTs regularly. Well, more than one year later and I’ve only missed a small handful of topics and it has quickly become my favourite weekly meme. I’m so glad that I didn’t let my noob fears stop me from doing it and I’ve discovered so many new blogs/blogging friends through it. It has been an awesome experience being part of an amazing community and I hope to continue with it every week for as long as this blog is alive 💜💙💜

For this week’s topic I decided to go with a slightly tweaked version of option one and share with you a list of ten of the TTTs that I’ve done including the very first one. I might include updated notes or comments on some of these but not all because (let’s be real) I’m lazy AF and some of them might not need any changing/updating!

So without further ado, let’s take that stroll down Top10 (memory) lane!

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Top 5 Saturday: Books I Need to Finish!

Dini @ dinipandareads25 Comments

We’re back with 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: books I’d give a second chance.

But as we know by now I don’t normally DNF books for a number of reasons but mostly guilt. Most of the time I power through that baddie and just “get it over with” (which also doesn’t sound great), but that’s also a longer discussion for another time! So since I don’t have (m)any DNFs to choose from, I decided to dig deep into memory banks and recall the books that I have put to the side but am determined to (eventually) finish!

As a mood reader, it can be pretty tough to stick to a book when my mood is swinging wildly all over the place. It doesn’t happen often because most of the time I settle into a book/story and I end up really enjoying the read and my moods quickly “calm down”… But when my moods are particularly erratic, I usually end up jumping through at least 5-10 books until I find one I can handle (this is making me sound insane, right? Lol). Most of these were put down because my mood just wouldn’t comply and I ended up repeatedly re-reading passages until I decided it’s not for now. Without any more waffling, here we go:

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First Lines Friday – 19 June

Dini @ dinipandareads6 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:

“I have a fatal flaw.
I like to think we all do. Or at least that makes it easier for me when I’m writing–building my heroines and heroes up around this one self-sabotaging trait, hinging everything that happens to them on a specific characteristic: the thing they learned to do to protect themselves and can’t let go of, even when it stops serving them.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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#TopTenTuesday: Summer 2020 Possibility Pile!

Dini @ dinipandareads24 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: Books on my Summer 2020 TBR (or winter if you’re in the southern hemisphere).

It’s already June but also how is it still only June?! Thinking about a summer possibility pile of ten books is tough because there are so many I want to read and how do I even choose?! Since last year when I really got into the book community I’ve tried focusing my June reads on LGBTQ+ books because of pride, but this year is a little different. One because I have really not been reading as much due to Animal Crossing, but mostly because as a mood reader it’s already hard having any ‘fixed’ kind of list, but it’s become even more impossible this year when my moods have been as wildly unpredictable as the year itself. I could just list the blog tour reads that I’ll be doing but I decided to pick a random mix of books that have been on my mind and that my mood has been leaning towards lately, so there’s a somewhat *high possibility* of me reading them this summer 😂

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First Lines Friday – 12 June

Dini @ dinipandareads17 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:

“Can you see the girl crying?
She’s not always easy to spot. She may have her head down, pretending to be on her phone, using her hair to cover her blotchy face.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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