Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! 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.
This week’s featured book is Romanov by Nadine Brandes. This is a standalone Young Adult Historical Fiction/Fantasy re-telling about the famous Romanov family. This was released in May 2019 and currently has a 3.80 rating on Goodreads!
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!
We’re already half-way through Sunday and I’ve not touched a book all day, but I hope to spend the latter half of my Sunday diving into book two of Venators:Promises Forged. I thought book one’s cover was amazing but I’m definitely loving book two’s cover more. I’m guessing that’s my little marshmallow, Grey, on the cover? I can’t wait to dive back into Devri Walls’ world! I’ve been hearing really great things 😍
It has been mere days in the world of Eon, where Rune Jenkins, her twin brother Ryker, and their friend Grey have been trapped, fighting for their lives. After discovering the truth of their ancestry, the three are far from home, and far from anything resembling their mundane lives of the past. While Ryker is still held captive by the eerily beautiful Zio and her goblins, Grey falls into the clutches of Feena, the Fae queen. She begins to drain his soul bit by bit to feed her dark underground garden, and Grey has no hope of escaping on his own.
It is now up to Rune to save Grey, as his precious time slips away inexorably. But the Council has denied her permission to embark on a rescue mission, until she can harness her Venator gifts and prove herself capable of venturing into the Fae queen’s territory. As Rune discovers that promises in Eon are forged with life-or-death consequences, she realizes that she must act quickly, or else be swallowed and Grey along with her by the dangers of Eon.
Hi everyone, I’ve joined the @WriteReads gang on another blog tour and this time it’s for: Catalyst! Today I’ll be doing a spotlight and sharing some mini-excerpts from the book. Super huge thanks goes to Dave for organising these tours and thanks to the author for providing a free copy. Don’t forget to check out the other bloggers on tour here.
Goodreads: Catalyst (The Catalysts #2) Publication Date: 02 June 2020 Publisher: Brown Books Publishing Group Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Supernatural
Marcie Horton has a sixth sense. Not in the “I see dead people” way, but . . . well, maybe a little. She feels a sort of knowing about certain things that can’t be explained—an intuition that goes beyond the normal. Then there was that one summer four years ago, when she connected with a long-departed spirit . . . But nothing that incredible has happened to Marcie since.
This summer, Marcie is spending time working at Angel Mounds, the archeological dig her mother heads, along with her brother, Eric, and his girlfriend, Renee. The dig is the site of an ancient indigenous civilization, and things immediately shift into the paranormal when Marcie and her teammates meet Lorraine and Zeke. The two mysterious dig assistants reveal their abilities to access the Universal Energy Field with their minds— something Marcie knows only vaguely that her brother has also had experience with. Marcie learns how our planet will disintegrate if action is not taken, and she and her team must decide if they are brave enough to help Lorraine and Zeke in their plan to save Mother Earth, her resources, and her history.
It looks like the summer just got a lot more interesting.
Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It’s the highest honor they could hope for…and the most demeaning. This year, there’s a ninth. And instead of paper, she’s made of fire.
In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back and this time it’s Lei they’re after — the girl with the golden eyes whose rumored beauty has piqued the king’s interest.
Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learns the skills and charm that befit a king’s consort. There, she does the unthinkable — she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world’s entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she’s willing to go for justice and revenge.
2020 note:I was super excited to read this book because there was a helluva lot to be excited for and so I was pretty disappointed that I didn’t love it more. I know it’s a super unpopular opinion because everyone adored this book. So, JFYI, there’s an unpopular opinion coming right up! 😅 Also, soz it’s a bit of a chunky review!
I’m kind of torn on how I feel about this one. I was super excited to start reading it and while I did enjoy it— especially the world that the author created—I think the story just fell a bit flat for me. I’m feeling disappointed because I wanted to enjoy it so much more than I did. That said, with her debut, Natasha Ngan presents a wild fantasy that is not only rich in detail, but has a diverse and representative cast of characters and a very open narrative on sexuality and on sensitive issues such as abuse. There is action, politics, coverage of social issues such as discrimination and poverty, and there is also a blooming f/f romance. TW: violence and sexual abuse.
“We might be Paper Girls, easily torn and written upon. The very title we’re given suggests that we are blank, waiting to be filled. But what the Demon King and his court do not understand is that paper is flammable.
And there is a fire catching among us.”
We follow 17-year-old Lei as she is forcibly taken from her village to become an unprecedented ninth Paper Girl, where on her journey she discovers unexpected friendships and her first love, while also navigating the dark and harrowing experiences that come with being forced to be a consort to the Demon King.
Ngan stated that she wanted to tell a story that has diverse representation, one that more young readers can relate to, and I think she did a wonderful job delivering on that. Even though I’m not “young” anymore (lol), I thoroughly enjoyed reading a YA story that was so heavily influenced by Asian, specifically Chinese-Malaysian cultures, which also have many similarities to my own Indonesian culture.I found it refreshing to read a YA fantasy where I recognized words from my own native tongue and other familiar references from Asia in the text. I found that the cultural influences added an extra special element to the world building, which Ngan creates with a wonderfully bizarre fusion of human and animal forms, mixed with the rich spiritual beliefs and ritualistic practices from Asian cultures. Ngan’s writing offers such rich and vivid imagery that breathes life, not only into the characters, but into the surroundings, making it easy to picture exactly what’s being painted.
This was also the case when we encounter the ‘darker’ scenes in the story that involve abuse (sexual and physical). Although there was a CW/TW at the start, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever read a YA novel that’s as explicitly dark as this. If you’re okay with confronting and reading about these topics, then this book is suitable for you. Though I think that because Ngan is so open about it in her writing, it provides a good platform where young readers can gain an understanding, engage in discussions and explore these difficult issues in private or in safe spaces such as book clubs. Not only that, but I think the openness allows people to gain a sense of empowerment from the main character Lei—who ultimately chooses to not let what has happened to her define her life.
While Lei’s character was admirable in how she dealt with her situation, I have to admit that I didn’t really connect with her—which I think is perhaps the main reason why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I expected to. Yes, she’s undoubtedly brave for having stood up to the Demon King, but I also felt that (ironically) her character was a little helpless and lacked strength. Her emotions and actions were sodependent on other characters pulling her through and what I found really frustrating was that she would dive into these situations without any forethought into how it would affect others; especially if she failed, which she did almost every time. I know this is YA, and really, Ngan does a great job in capturing the internal coming-of-age struggles of a teenage girl and an even better job at capturing the struggles of a young woman discovering her sexuality. However, Lei’s character just didn’t latch on to me. In many ways, I see Lei as being so far from the typical ‘fierce, strong, warrior, self-saving heroine’ that YA fantasy is full of and this is definitely not a bad thing but for some reason she just didn’t work for me…
It was unfortunate that the majority of the Paper Girls and other characters experience little to no growth, save for one other Paper Girl, Aoki, who goes through just as much change as Lei. It was actually quite painful (in the best way) to see how Aoki’s character develops, especially in relation to Lei’s, and I can see her playing a much bigger and potentially more sinister role in the upcoming book(s). The next one is meant to come out towards the end of 2019 and Ngan will apparently make an announcement about the upcoming book’s title very soon. I personally hope that how I feel about Lei’s character improves or changes in the next book and that the pace of the story picks up a little bit. I felt the pacing was a bit slow for me at times and the climax I was anticipating towards the end, also didn’t hit that ‘satisfying’ spot for me.
Butit really wasn’t all negative for me—even though maybe this review might make it seem so. I did enjoy this book, just not as much as I hoped to. That won’t stop me from picking up the next one though! I look forward to diving back into Ikhara and seeing where the story takes us next 🙂
Have you read Girls of Paper and Fire or is it on your TBR?
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: male POVs — I’m taking this to mean male only POVs
Okay wow, I didn’t think I’d struggle as much as I did to think of a list for today’s prompt! Turns out, a lot of the books I own on my TBR aren’t written from male (only) POVs 🙃 I also don’t think I ever properly paid attention to this before (oops! 🙈) but that’s pretty interesting to note! Also interesting was that when I took to Google and Goodreads (as I usually do to jog my memory for these prompts), it turns out a lot of male POV lists are either romance or YA related (or both), with little to no mention of contemporary fiction, mysteries/thrillers, adult fantasy or the sub-genres. So that wasn’t really useful… but after deep-diving into my failing memory (and my Kindle shelf!) I’ve managed to make a list of five books from mixed genres including adult fantasy, middle-grade fantasy and contemporary fiction!
Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly featurefor 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:
“As seems to be the custom, bad news comes with the afternoon mail: the news that his granddaughter was rejected from her top-choice college, then a call to jury duty. Today, though, it is much worse.”
Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done some tags so I thought I’d get around to answering one that I was tagged in fairly recently by Leslie @ Books Are the New Black! Thanks for the tag, lovely 🥰 If you haven’t checked out her blog, I strongly suggest you head on over there because her content is great!
If it isn’t obvious from the title, this is a tag that lets you readers get to know me a little better! So if you’re not keen on doing that (which is totally okay), you should probably leave now 🤣 Without further ado… Let’s get to it!
Nominate 5+ bloggers you’d like to know more about, to do this tag
Why did you start blogging? & Why have you kept blogging?
Being very honest, the main reason I started blogging was because I wanted to get (e)ARCs and I thought having a blog was one of the only ways to do that. 😅 When I started I’d already had my bookstagram running for a few months, and I was really focused on that more than my blog, but that’s completely changed now since I’m rarely on there.
I’ve kept blogging because it was so much more rewarding than I anticipated. I used to have a personal blog that I kept for almost 10 years but I stopped because I didn’t feel inspired anymore. Being part of the book community, sharing my thoughts, and having people actually read and relate to them has been so rewarding, but most importantly it’s meeting so many like-minded people that has kept me motivated with blogging! (And I really hope that doesn’t change any time soon!)
What is your favorite type of blog post to write?
I really enjoy writing the weekly meme posts which is what a lot of my blog contains on top of the reviews I write. #5OnMyTBR, Top Ten Tuesday, #WWWWednesday, First Line Fridays and Top 5 Saturdays are so fun to do and even though I’m horrible at choosing/making decisions about favourites, I’ve come to really love making these lists! I think since I blog on top of a full-time job these meme posts are just what appeal to me most because I still have to think but not as hard compared to if I were to write more discussion posts 😂
What are your top three favorite blog posts you wrote?
It’s so hard to pick favourites — I’m rubbish at that! So I’ve just chosen three random posts that I really enjoyed making!
My review for Nevernight (Nevernight Chronicle #1) by Jay Kristoff is probably one of my favourite because I mean, I was proper freaking out about how much I loved the book, but there was also a lot of artwork and reaction GIFs that I included, plus it was my first time writing a review in this way and it was just so fun! 🤣
What are some of your favorite things to do to relax?
Well, reading obviously! But I also really love gaming (although that’s not always super relaxing when you’re in battle or on a quest haha). Another thing that really relaxes me is colouring — it’s just so soothing not having to think about anything except what colour I’ll choose next. I also love to throw on my favourite playlists while doing other things (like colouring) or sometimes simply doing nothing but lying back and listening to the song lyrics (while singing along off-key)!
What are three of your favorite things?
My family & friends (who are basically my family!) 💞
Animals (especially doggos, pandas, and elephants)
Food (especially Japanese, Mexican and Chinese)! 🤤
What are your proudest blogging moments?
As of 20 May 2020!
One of the blogging goals that I set for 2020 was to reach 500 followers and I actually reached that goal yesterday! 😭 I’m pretty shook (understatement) because I didn’t even think getting 100 followers would even be in the realm of possibility for me and my little blog! I’m so thankful for this community, for all the people who follow me, for the new friends I’ve made… It’s beyond anything I ever expected when I started this and (sorry if I’m starting to sound like a broken record but) I’m so grateful for all of it! 🥰
What are your hobbies outside of blogging?
It’s a bit sad but I honestly don’t have many hobbies outside of blogging (and reading)! Um… I do love singing and I’m part of a small community choir here. I also really love to bake — pies and cookies are my absolute favourites to make 😍 If this counts as a hobby, I also love colouring 🤣 One time I got a bunch of colouring books from my friends and I was the happiest little panda 🐼 Sometimes it’s the simple things, right?!
Describe your personality in three words
I really dislike answering these kinds of questions because I always have a hard time coming up with answers! If I had to say… Loyal, Compassionate, and Stubborn (AF) 😆
What are your top three pet peeves?
I wouldn’t necessarily say these are my “top three” but… they’re pretty high up on the list!
People holding very loud and personal conversations in public. Must you really? 🤦🏻♀️
People who walk very very slowly in the middle of the walkway/sidewalk — and to make it even worse, those who don’t move even when you say “excuse me”! 🙄
People who are rude to workers. That’s vague but when I say workers I also mean waiters, cleaners/helpers, etc. Okay, this one is definitely in my top three (maybe even top two!) because I can’t stand those who treat people like trash just because they feel they’re better than them. Reality check: you’re really not. This is the toxic environment that I’m leaving and I couldn’t be happier! 😤
What’s something your followers don’t know about you?
Hmm… Hard to choose because I feel like there’s a lot that my followers don’t know about me 😁 But I’m going with the most random thing I can think of (that a lot of people in my real life probably don’t even know about me): I used to teach hip hop dance and break dancing with a friend when I was in high school. When I was in boarding school in Australia, I started an after-school dance club with a friend that counted towards my extracurricular credits! It was heaps of fun 😊
And that’s it folks! I hope you enjoyed reading those little tidbits about me — not very interesting but hey, that’s me 🤷🏻♀️ This was a lot of fun to answer so thanks again for tagging me, Leslie!
I’m Tagging:
Again, no pressure if tags aren’t your thing 😊 Even if you’re not tagged and want to do this, go for gold! Don’t forget to link back so I can read your answers and learn more about you too! 🥰
Today I’m coming at you with one big review for the three books in The Great Devil War series that I read over the last week! I read the first book, The Devil’s Apprentice (read my review here), when I took part in the blog tour organised by Dave @ TheWriteReads. I thought it was a bizarre book but highly enjoyable and like nothing I’ve read before. This was followed by Andersen contacting me on Twitter a couple of months ago to ask if I’d like to be part of his ARC team and I said yes! So a big thank you to Kenneth Andersen for reaching out to me and for sending me the books to read. Of course it goes without saying that this did not influence my reading experience or review, which is, as always, honest and unbiased.
Now let’s get back to the review before I get even further off track! Despite a slightly slow start with book two, I’ve really enjoyed reading these books and I think book four is without a doubt my favourite in the series so far.
Ah, Disney. Who doesn’t love Disney and the Disney parks? It’s been a freaking long ass time since I went to one of the parks but it’s definitely on my bucket list to go back and experience it as an ‘adult’! A few years ago I discovered some childhood photos taken at Disney (world or land I can’t be sure) and well, while you can’t say much about my fashion sense (coz clearly I didn’t have any and neither did my brother), you can definitely tell these were happy times!
But back to this tag… I was tagged to do the Disney Parks Book Tag by the wonderful Kay @ Hammock of Books and awesome Brittany @ Perfectly Tolerable — go check out both their blogs because they have great content and they’re lovely people to follow so you won’t regret it! Thanks for tags, lovelies and I’m sorry its taken so long for me to get around to doing this tag. First up, the rules!
The Rules
☆ Mention the creator and link back to original post [Alexandra @ Reading by Starlight] ☆ Thank the blogger who tagged you [done above!] ☆ Answer the 10 questions below using any genre ☆ Tag 5+ friends ☆ Feel free to copy the heading graphics
Oof, it took me a hot minute to recall a title set along the river but this heart-stopping thriller certainly ticks that box! I’m still amazed by Caine’s writing versatility 😍 Wolfhunter River is book three in the Stillhouse Lake series — which is crazy and absolutely thrilling!
You guys… I’m kind of shook because scouring the dark corners of mind (and Goodreads), I’ve realised that… I haven’t read (m)any ‘swashbuckling high seas adventures’… Wot wot?! Can it be true? It sadly is. Many of them adventures are still on TBR though! For now, I’m leaving you with A Gathering of Shadows because there’s certainly some swashbuckling in this favourite series of mine!
Ooh, just looking at this cover again already covers me in mad goosebumps and makes me wanna cry! But I have to give a shout out to Rules for Vanishing because even I, most Ultimate of Chickens™️, managed to read this and loved it! Ugh, this book was drowning in eerie vibes.
Surprisingly absolutely no one, the Illuminae Files absolutely takes the cake for this one! Ugh, I love this series so much 💞 Kristoff and Kaufman can take all of my monies!
Ugh, Where the Crawdads Sing was just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! I loved Kya and the lyrical descriptions of the marsh lands and of nature swept me away to an enchanting but also dangerous world that I’d love to one day see IRL.
I feel like I also have to give an honorary shout out to The Natchez Burning Trilogy for this prompt. This trilogy is one of my all-time favourite thriller/court drama and is just *chefs kiss*!
A Curse So Dark and Lonely was of course the first book I thought of. There’s no Beauty & the Beast (retelling) without that eerie and beautiful enchanted castle!
The Trials of Morrigan Crow, book one of the Nevermoor series, was an utterly enchanting and whimsical read! There were fantastical adventures, magical and terrifying creatures, and otherworldly settings. This was an absolute treat to read! 💞
Okay, I’m cheating a little bit with The Mountains Sing. There is some trekking through mountains but that’s not what the whole book is about. It is an absolutely stunning, heartbreaking and hopeful read though and I would highly recommend this debut for those interested in own voices reads!
I haven’t read very many Spanish inspired fantasy books (I could also be totally wrong because my memory very often fails me) so Incendiary was a refreshingly set fantasy world with a cool magic system that I can’t wait to learn more about in the next book!
Another non-surprise here with Aurora Rising (this is totally a space opera, right?)! This book was a fabulously crazy, fast-paced space adventure that was full of all the things! Seriously, just read it.
No pressure to do this if tags aren’t your thing. Also, even if I haven’t tagged you here, feel free to go for gold if you want to do this one and link back to me so I can check out your answers too 😍
Um, excuse me, how is it already the last Wednesday in May?! Can someone also please tell me where this month has gone? I feel like I’ve done nothing but I *know* I did the things… What are these vibes?!
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 Wednesday I’ve managed to read a little bit more than the previous week. Still not my best reading weeks these days but work has been driving me mental and the added stress of a big island move during this pandemic (admittedly the worst time to be moving anywhere) is making my ‘normal’ levels of anxiety sky-rocket. But I’ve been enjoying my escape into hell these last few days! What am I talking about? Don’t worry, I haven’t lost the plot completely (yet).
I’ve been reading The Great Devil Warseries by Kevin B. Andersen lately and I’m sure you can guess what it’s about based on the series name. I’m planning to share one review for the three books I read later tonight, as the fifth book releases tomorrow! 🥳
dinipandareads 