Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

December 28, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 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!

This Sunday has seen me spend most of the day reading The Existence of Amy. I was very lucky to have the author send me a copy of the book earlier this year and I’m embarrassed to admit that I only got around to it now. I had a feeling I’d have to prepare myself to read this and I was not wrong–this was pretty emotional and I ended up tearing up a time or two (oh, who am I kidding? As an emotional reader this made the waterworks flow!). I sat down with it at 1pm and finished around 8:30pm because I didn’t want to put it down! This was a raw and intimate portrayal of what it’s like to live with mental illness and while it was an emotional read for me, I wouldn’t exactly say it was super heavy. It’s very accessible and eye-opening, plus Amy was very realistic and relatable. Would definitely recommend it! My review will come soon 😊

Amy has a normal life. That is, if you were to go by a definition of ‘no immediate obvious indicators of peculiarity’, and you didn’t know her very well. She has good friends, a good job, a nice enough home. This normality, however, is precariously plastered on top of a different life. A life that is Amy’s real life. The only one her brain will let her lead.

What are you currently reading?

Top 5 Saturday: 2021 Releases

December 26, 2020December 25, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads26 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: 2021 Releases.

Unlike last year when I spent a good amount of time populating my 2020 releases list on Goodreads, I haven’t really done much of that this year so I know that what’s on my radar is fairly limited to mostly romance and some YA fantasy. These are the two genres I read most of anyway but I know I’m still missing out on *a lot* of what’s coming out next year, so I can’t wait to get caught up with that in the coming week as work slows down and I have more “free” time 😉 But I digress… Here are some books that made it onto my radar and that I’m stupid excited for!

First Lines Friday – 25 December

December 25, 2020December 25, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

🎄 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all friends who celebrate! 🎄

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’ve never understood why the heart always reacts. A shot of adrenaline is all it takes, triggered by a thought. A word. A memory. And every time the reaction is singular, a fingerprint of a moment.”

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

Book Review: Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

December 25, 2020December 25, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Genre: Non Fiction, True Crime
Panda Rating:

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.

For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company’s value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.

This review was written on 19 December right after I finished reading it!

First of all, wow. WowwowwowwowWOW.
Second, I’ve only ever read one non-fiction that I devoured so quickly and I think I read this one even faster!
Third, JUST. WOW!

I really don’t know how to write this review right now because (clearly) I’m still a little shook. My brain keeps asking: did I just read a science fiction thriller or did this actually happen? I honestly can’t remember the last time I swore so much and so loudly while reading–there was a lot of “WTF, GTFO, and are you forking serious” going on during this read but I just couldn’t help myself! 😂 I had no intention of finishing the book today when I picked it up and decided to purchase the audiobook, but this was 100% unputdownable. I do think the audiobook is what helped me get through this so quickly though and I would definitely recommend it (I listened on 2x speed)!

#WWWWednesday: 23 December

December 23, 2020December 23, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads20 Comments

IT’S THE SECOND TO LAST WWWWEDNESDAY FOR 2020!!! WHAT?!

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:

What did you read last?
What are you currently reading?
What will you read next?

Since last week I managed to finish five books:

Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston ★★★★★
Love love love. I wrote a pretty gushing review about this. I had a feeling I’d enjoy it when I read the blurb but I didn’t expect it to love it as much as I did. Alston creates a fantastic supernatural world in parallel to our real world, and this was fast-paced and action-packed and had a wonderful heroine! Check out my full blog tour review.

Special Delivery (Always Satisfied #5) by Lauren Blakely ★★☆☆☆
There were two stories in this book and I found both a little meh. The first one had strong insta-love feels and then the accidental pregnancy trope was thrown in at the end. It was so convenient and it was a no for me. The second story was a ‘forbidden’ sister’s best friend to lovers romance and while the chemistry was a bit stronger there, I still didn’t connect with the characters. In both stories our H/H came across as much younger than their age and it was just… “eh” 🤷🏻‍♀️ Guess you can’t win ’em all!

ARC Review: Boone by Emily March

December 22, 2020December 21, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads1 Comment

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Boone (Eternity Springs: The McBrides of Texas)
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: 29 December 2020
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Panda Rating:

With his smooth talk, rugged good looks, and deep pockets, native Texan Boone McBride appears to be a man who has it all. Few people know about the heartbreak behind his decision to leave home, family, and career for the isolation of a small town in the Colorado Rockies. Luckily, time and life in Eternity Springs has worked its healing magic upon his wounded soul, so when he meets obviously troubled Hannah Dupree, Boone sees a chance to pay his good fortune forward. The last thing he anticipates is tumbling into love.

Tragedy has taken everything Hannah loves, and her will to keep going is failing. So when Boone strides into her life determined to save her, it’s easier to go along with him than to resist. Soon she is drawn into the fabric of life in Eternity Springs, and as her spirit begins to heal, her strength returns, and she’s able to go toe-to-toe with this hardheaded, big-hearted Texan. But just when love blooms and happiness is within their grasp, shadows from the past threaten. Hannah and Boone must stand strong and united in order to defeat old ghosts—if they are to create a brand-new life together.

CW: mentions of suicide, child abuse, and death of a child and partner (all instances occurred in the past and off-page).

I’ve been on a serious fantasy binge over the last few months and I only recently started reading romances again when this book came onto my radar. Boone is the third book in a series and can easily be read as a standalone, but my curiosity was definitely piqued about the first two books because the characters make appearances and I was intrigued by them.

#5OnMyTBR: Winter Love!

December 22, 2020December 21, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads13 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 or in the post announcing it. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!

This week’s prompt is: Winter Celebrations.

Goodreads Monday – Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

December 21, 2020December 21, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads17 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 Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston. This is a fairy tale inspired YA fantasy that was published in October 2020 and has a 3.88 rating on Goodreads with 600+ reviews.

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

December 21, 2020December 20, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads15 Comments

I haven’t touched a book this Sunday and I have no idea what I’ll be picking up next. I think I’ll be focusing my attention on either Crowns of Croswald because I really need to finish this book or I’ll return my attention to Trading Secrets. Both are ARCs I received from authors but I’ve been having a difficult time getting into both stories, the latter more so than the former. Let’s see if I’ll have better luck this time since I no longer have blog tour reads to prioritise!

What are you currently reading?

Blog Tour Review: Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston

December 20, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads18 Comments

Hey friends! I’m excited to be back for another @TheWriteReads blog tour for this absolute gem of a book: Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston. Be sure to check out all the other bloggers participating in this tour: here! 😍

Special thanks to Egmont Publishing and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Goodreads: Amari and the Night Brothers
Publisher: Egmont Publishing
Published: 21 January 2021
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Panda Rating:

Amari Peters knows three things.
Her big brother Quinton has gone missing.
No one will talk about it.
His mysterious job holds the secret . . .

So when Amari gets an invitation to the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, she’s certain this is her chance to find Quinton. But first she has to get her head around the new world of the Bureau, where mermaids, aliens and magicians are real, and her roommate is a weredragon. Amari must compete against kids who’ve known about the supernatural world their whole lives, and when each trainee is awarded a special supernatural talent, Amari is given an illegal talent – one that the Bureau views as dangerous. With an evil magician threatening the whole supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she is the enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t pass the three tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton . . .