Review: The Guy on the Right by Kate Stewart

March 10, 2020August 18, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads20 Comments

Goodreads: The Guy on the Right (The Underdogs #1)
Publisher: KLS Press
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult

Panda Rating:

(4.5 pandas)

Strike One – My mother named me Theodore after her favorite chipmunk.
Not cool, Mom.
I‘ve spent most of my life answering to Teddy, because I couldn’t make Theo work. Except for here. College. The place where all bets are off, and I’ve managed to redeem myself.

There’s only one problem, my new roommate, Troy, is football royalty and looks like he stepped off the set of an Abercrombie shoot.
Doesn’t matter, I cook a mean breakfast for his panty parade, and we get along well.
And anyway, this year I got the girl. And she’s perfect.
That’s right. Theodore Houseman, former band geek, now marching band rock star has finally landed the girl of his dreams. Everything is perfect.

That is, until Troy takes a good look at her.
I’m not going down without a fight. As a matter of fact, I’m not going down at all. As glorious as these days may be for my all-star roommate, Laney is my end game.
I may not know much about play strategy, but I’ve been the good guy my whole life. I’ve been listening and I know exactly what women want. Framed in a picture standing next to me, Troy may seem like Mr. Perfect, but he’s underestimating the guy on the right.

Spoiler alert: In this story, the underdog is going to win.

Brace yourselves for another gushing review friends because I LOVED EVERY. SINGLE. MINUTE of this book! The itch to read this has steadily built since last week, so I finally caved and of course I have zero regrets. There were a few moments towards the end that frustrated me and made me angry because wow, talk about being very intense and out of character, but I can’t honestly say that it affected my overall enjoyment of this book. I literally devoured this in the span of a few hours and it was by far the best way to spend a Sunday cozied up under the covers while the rain poured steadily outside!

Goodreads Monday – Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

March 9, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

It’s the first Goodreads Monday of 2020, friends! 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 book is Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This historical fiction has a 4.17 star average with 61k+ ratings and 5.5k+ reviews.

Top 5 Saturday: Trilogies

March 7, 2020March 7, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads27 Comments

We’re back with another Top 5 Saturday! I might’ve missed last week’s topic but I will come back to it at some point 🙂 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: trilogies!

I’m surprised to learn that a lot of the series on my TBR and ‘need-to-finish’ lists are trilogies! I like trilogies. I think three books is a good number because it’s just long enough for those who like reading series but it’s also “short” enough for those who don’t like long series. Or simply for those who don’t have the patience to wait even longer for the next book to come out 😅 Lucky for me, almost all the series mentioned below are complete so there’s no waiting time between books and that’s really the most perfect scenario! I’m really looking forward to starting/finishing these series!

First up is the Chaos Walking Series by Patrick Ness. I still haven’t read anything by Ness although I have five of his books (including this full series) sitting on my physical shelf. I got really cool copies too!

I’ve been wanting to read more by Amie Kaufman and when I saw the covers for the Starbound Series I knew there was no way I would be passing these up. Totally cover judging here–they’re STUNNING!

Ah, The Kingkiller Chronicles. I don’t know whether I’m dreaming but THERE IS A COVER FOR BOOK THREE. Is it the actual? I don’t know. There’s still no official release date but there are 2020 whispers and if it happens I’ll be deceased (kidding… But I might actually pass out from shock LOL)!

I have been meaning to finish His Dark Materials for a while now. I enjoyed the first book but didn’t continue with the rest of the series because I wanted to find matching books. Anyone else do that? 😂

I loved The Bear and the Nightingale when I read it last year but I was waiting for the rest of the Winternight Trilogy to deliver (which obvi took forever). Planning to re-read and finish this year!

Down the TBR Hole – 15

March 7, 2020March 6, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads20 Comments

My guilt has kicked in and told me that I can’t keep avoiding another culling of my ridiculous TBR forever, so here I am. Back again with a list of books from my Goodreads TBR that is now a whopping 1,088 books (don’t judge me, I added a lot more books to my TBR since last week)! I thought I’d make it clear again that just because it’s on my Goodreads TBR doesn’t actually mean I own copies of the book (that’d be way ridiculous even for me)! Let’s see what we can get rid of today, eh?

Down the TBR Hole is a weekly book meme created by the wonderful Lia @ Lost in a Story that attempts to organize our ridiculously long Goodreads TBR list by choosing either to keep or eliminate the books we’ve saved on there. Here’s how it works:

Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
Order on ascending date added.
Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course, if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
Read the synopses of the books
Decide: keep it or should it go

Verdict: Keep

#TopTenTuesday: One Word Titles

March 3, 2020March 3, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads56 Comments

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 with single-word titles! This prompt was submitted by Kitty @ Kitty Marie’s Reading Corner (who you should definitely go follow right now)!

What would I ever do without Goodreads? I would fail, that’s what. I would never be able to do these posts because my memory fails so hard. I really couldn’t come up with one title until I looked at several lists on GR and realised that I have read a few books with single-word titles! Plus, plenty of them are actually books from series that I love, so I can’t believe that I couldn’t think of any titles to start 😂

Goodreads Monday – All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

March 2, 2020March 2, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

This week’s book is All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood. This book was released in 2016 but I saw a lot of hype for it on bookstagram last year. This contemporary fiction has a 4.07 star average with 79.7k+ ratings and 11.5k+ reviews.

Top 5 Saturday: Books Inspired by Mythology

February 29, 2020March 2, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads18 Comments

I have to be honest and say that while I know of many of the popular myths, specifically Greek and Norse, I don’t really know them in great detail. But Mythology is a topic that has always sparked my interest and I’m always up for getting my hands on more books inspired by myths! I have quite a few on my TBR that I’m hoping to read sometime in the… near future? *so many books, so little time*

I adore these Big Ideas Simply Explained books! I randomly found The Mythology Book when I was actually looking for The Literature Book but the shiny gold cover held me captive. Obviously, I left the bookstore with it in tow! This is a ‘coffee table’ book that I’d happily flip through over time.

#TopTenTuesday: Characters I’d Follow on Social Media!

February 25, 2020July 18, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads49 Comments

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: characters I’d follow on social media! This fun and creative prompt was submitted by Tilly @thebiblioshelf

Wow, this is such a great prompt–following my favourites on social media is something that I would’ve have even thought of but that doesn’t mean that a few names didn’t immediately pop into my head! I loved a lot of these characters because they had me laughing endlessly with their witty banter and cheeky humour. I think following any of them on social media would be so much fun!

Down the TBR Hole – 14

February 24, 2020February 25, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads20 Comments

My guilt has kicked in and told me that I can’t keep avoiding another culling of my ridiculous TBR forever, so here I am. Back again with a list of books from my Goodreads TBR that is now a whopping 1,072 books (don’t judge me, I added more books to my TBR since last week)! I thought I’d make it clear again that just because it’s on my Goodreads TBR doesn’t actually mean I own copies of the book (that’d be way ridiculous even for me)! Let’s see what we can get rid of today, eh?

Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
Order on ascending date added.
Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course, if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
Read the synopses of the books
Decide: keep it or should it go

Verdict: Keep

Goodreads Monday – A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian

February 24, 2020March 22, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

This week’s book is A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian. I haven’t heard much about this book on the blogosphere/book community but Algonquin approached me to read/review it and it sounds so good, I immediately said yes! This contemporary fiction has a 4.04 star average with 518 ratings and 161 reviews.