Tag: Book Reviewer

Top 5 Saturday: Books with Unique Formats

Dini @ dinipandareads21 Comments

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: Book with Unique Format (Diary entries, verse, documents, podcast, blog, etc.)

I can’t believe I had such a hard time coming up with five books for this week’s prompt because I do love a book that’s written in mixed-media format. As it turns out though, I don’t seem to have a lot of them on my TBR although I can think of quite a few that I’ve read and loved, such as the Illuminae Files–which you MUST read if you haven’t yet! In the end, I’ve managed to come up with five books that are a mix of verse and epistolary, and some have been on my TBR for way too long (looking at you, Dracula!) but all of them are high on my priority list for this year!

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First Lines Friday – 12 February

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:

“The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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Blog Tour Review: Bad Habits by Flynn Meaney

Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

Hey friends! I’m excited to be back for another tour with @TheWriteReads for Bad Habits by Flynn Meaney. Be sure to check out all the other bloggers participating in this tour: here! 😍

Special thanks to Penguin & Netgalley for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Goodreads: Bad Habits
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 11 February 2021
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary

Panda Rating:

(4 pandas)

Hilarious, bold, sparky and surprising, this is the funniest feminist book you’ll read all year.

Alex is a rebel from the tip of her purple faux-hawk to the toes of her biker boots. She’s tried everything she can think of to get expelled from her strict Catholic boarding school. Nothing has worked so far – but now, Alex has a new plan. Tired of the sexism she sees in every corner of St Mary’s, Alex decides to stage the school’s first ever production of The Vagina Monologues. Which is going to be a challenge, as no one else at St Mary’s can even bear to say the word ‘vagina’ out loud . . .

BUY NOW: Book Depository | Amazon (UK) | Amazon (US)
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#WWWWednesday: 10 February

Dini @ dinipandareads17 Comments

Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:

  1. What did you read last?
  2. What are you currently reading?
  3. What will you read next?

Since last Wednesday I’ve finished five books and basically I’ve finished an NA romance series, picked up the first book in the spin-off NA series and finished my buddy read for a contemporary romance. It’d be super accurate to say that my February is shaping up to (unintentionally) be a month of all the romance! Other than my two scheduled blog tour reads this month, I think I just might stick to the romance kick until the month ends but as a mood reader, it’s possible this could change on a whim. 😂

The Mistake (Off-Campus #2) by Elle Kennedy ★★★½
The Score (Off-Campus #3) by Elle Kennedy ★★★½
The Goal (Off-Campus #4) by Elle Kennedy ★★★½
The Chase (Briar U #1) by Elle Kennedy ★★★☆☆
I’m planning to write a series review for Off-Campus and I’m going to clump in The Chase in that review as well because I don’t think I’ll be continuing the Briar U series… While this series was a whole lot of fun banter, feisty heroines and smouldering heroes, I felt that the crazy college party and sex vibe of the story became too much in the end and the quality of the romances suffered for it. There were definitely great moments, I still rated the books 3+stars but the constant reminder that these players could get all the girls they wanted and that they frequently did prior to meeting their heroines became pretty gross and tiring in the end. 😅 Full series review to come soon!

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#5OnMyTBR: L-O-V-E!

Dini @ dinipandareads20 Comments

Hello Mondays, welcome back to #5OnMyTBR, a meme created by the wonderful E @ The Local Bee Hunter’s Nook. This bookish meme gets us to dig even further into our TBRs by simply posting about five books on our TBR! You can learn more about it here. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!

This week’s prompt is: Love.

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Goodreads Monday – Again Again by E. Lockhart

Dini @ dinipandareads6 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.*

*Sorry if a book has been featured twice. I need to make better note of which ones I’ve done already!

This week’s featured book is Again Again by E. Lockhart. This is a YA contemporary/coming-of-age story that was published in 2020.

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

Dini @ dinipandareads5 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 spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

I’ve spent very little of this Sunday with a book but I plan to finish the day off finishing Bad Habits. This is for a blog tour next week and I picked it up in between my romance binges last week, so I’m taking my time with it but I’m really enjoying it so far. While our MC, Alex, can be a bit much at times, I’ve laughed several times cos of her snarky and sassy voice and it’s honesty such a good time. The story is definitely as loud (and fun) as this cover makes it out to be! 😉

Hilarious, bold, sparky and surprising, this is the funniest feminist book you’ll read all year.

Alex is a rebel from the tip of her purple fauxhawk to the toes of her biker boots. She’s tried everything she can think of to get expelled from her strict Catholic boarding school. Nothing has worked so far – but now, Alex has a new plan.
Tired of the sexism she sees in every corner of St Mary’s, Alex decides to stage the school’s first ever production of The Vagina Monologues. Which is going to be a challenge, as no one else at St Mary’s can even bear to say the word ‘vagina’ out loud . . .

What are you currently reading?

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Top 5 Saturday: Royalty in the Title

Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

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: Royalty in the Title (King, Queen, Princess, Prince, etc.)

This was only easy because of the search function on Goodreads but otherwise I had a surprisingly difficult time calling to mind the “royal titles” I have on my TBR. Memory, she eludes me often! 😂 On the whole, while it does seem that there are a lot of titles with royalty in them, I don’t seem to find myself gravitating towards them more than other kinds of titles/books. I do read quite a few stories about royals as they’re found in abundance in fantasies, especially YA, but perhaps I think that because I read mostly YA. With that said, here are five titles that are on my TBR that I’m looking forward to reading! Unsurprisingly, most are fantasy but there’s a romance and poetry collection in the mix too! 😉

KING OF SCARS

Book cover: King of Scars
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Book Spotlight + Excerpt + Giveaway:Beautiful Facade by Kathryn S Rose

Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

Hi, friends! I’m delighted to share a book spotlight + excerpt today as part of the Xpresso Tours tour for Beautiful Facade by Kathryn S Rose! There’s also a tour-wide giveaway (INT) so don’t forget to enter–details at the end of my post!

Be sure to click on the banner above to check out the rest of the bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: Beautiful Facade
Publish Date: 02 February 2021
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult

On the day that 16-year-old Winter Starling had her life and dreams shattered by a sexual assault, she meets Kai, a boy from her high school obsessed with music. They develop a deep friendship, which comes to an abrupt end when Kai unexpectedly has to leave. Winter has no idea why he went or any way to contact him.
​
Ten years pass, and Winter has constructed a new reality for herself. Now living in Melbourne, she has a successful career in advertising and is engaged to Liam King, a star player in Australian Rules Football. Winter has a perfect life.

During a night out, Winter runs into Kai, now the lead singer of ‘The Stonevilles.’ Winter and Kai rekindle their friendship, and to everyone around them, their attraction is evident. With Kai back in her life, Winter’s past threatens to ruin her relationship with Liam and everything she has worked to achieve. But can she risk losing Kai a second time?
​
Emotional and edgy, Beautiful Facade is about love, loss, healing, self-discovery, and the messy battle between one’s head and one’s heart.

BUY NOW: Amazon

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Blog Tour Review: The Death of Honor by Lyra Thorsson

Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

I’m back with another blog tour today and this time it’s for The Death of Honor by Lyra Thorsson. Special thanks to Heather Fitt from Overview Media for asking me to be part of this blog tour and to the author for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review!

Goodreads: The Death of Honor (Honor Trilogy #1)
Published: 12 January 2021
Genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera

Panda Rating:

(3 pandas)

All Rebecca wants in life is to sail through space in her ship—is that too much to ask? The moment she lays eyes on her old military buddy Jonathan, Rebecca knew there was no running away from her duties. With her best friend, sometimes with benefits, Nik, she desired to return home to the Nreff Nation, one of the four government powers of the systems, to serve on one last mission.

However, the problem with returning is that they all are wanted for treason. It wasn’t their fault, however, as they had been framed by their old admiral, Sebastien Wilde. Fortunately, succeeding in this mission might give them a clean slate, as they are to find evidence of Wilde’s involvement in the illegal human experimentation ring that goes against the Treaty Of World Equality and Rights (T.O.W.E.R.).

Rebecca and Nik agree to the mission, hoping to earn a more peaceful life, however Rebecca hides a dark secret: she was once closer to Sebastien than any of them ever realized, and the evidence incriminating him might also implicate her.

Now Rebecca has a choice: turn her back on her comrades and run for her life, or face her sins in order to prevent an all-out war.

CW/TW: This book contains sexual content, violence, drug abuse, and physical, sexual, and mental abuse.

BUY NOW: Amazon US | Amazon UK | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

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