January Reading Challenge Update

February 7, 2020February 22, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

Yes, I know I’m late to update. Life has been happening and in typical panda fashion, I also started to slack off a little with recording my reads on my challenge spreadsheet! Oops? Thankfully there’s the Goodreads Reading Challenge which has helped me to recall what books I’ve read over the last month and what challenges they’d fit under! So let’s take a look at how I’ve been doing for the *many* challenges that I decided to participate in this year…

I’ve been using many of the same books I’ve read to fulfil the prompts in different challenges and I think that’s OK although sometimes it feels like “I’m cheating” although I know that’s just the nay-sayers I’ve encountered whose voices are ringing in my ears 😂

ARC Apocalypse

I managed to read four ARCs in January and while that’s not a whole lot (at least compared to others) it’s more than I thought I’d read last month, so I’m happy there’s some progress, no matter how small!

#WWWWednesday: 05 February

February 5, 2020February 5, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads22 Comments

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?

Despite still being sick and ordered on bed rest by the doctor, I haven’t been able to read very much since last Wednesday and only managed to finish three books (one e-ARC and blog tour book)!

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead ★★★★★
This was a book I was expecting to be five stars and I’m so glad I was right. This was an incredible read. I hadn’t read anything by Colson Whitehead until this book but I’m very eager to read his previous and future books now. He writes so simply but with words that cause such a big impact. I found myself tearing up constantly while reading about the Nickel Boys and their mistreatment. I know that these things have happened in the past and in some countries still continue to happen, but gosh, my heart. It makes me feel so sick to think about what these children go through. It’s a tough and painful read, but so worth it! Review coming soon.

Let’s Get Textual (Texting #1) by Teagan Hunter ★★★★★
This was the much needed light read I needed after finishing my previous read. This was a fun, fast and absolutely hilarious romantic comedy with two loveable and nerdy MCs that I was constantly rooting for! Zach is now also my latest fictional man crush because yeah, who doesn’t love a hot nerd with fantastic nerd humor?! Check out my full review.

(e-ARC) The Queen’s Assassin (Queen’s Secret #1) by Melissa de la Cruz ★★★☆☆
I was lucky enough to be chosen as part of The Fantastic Flying Book Club (FFBC) blog tour for The Queen’s Assassin and it’s my first of quite a few that I’ll be joining this year! I just finished this book today with time to spare to prepare my blog post for Saturday–so be on the look out for that post coming up soon! 😉

#TopTenTuesday: Five-Star Predictions on my TBR!

February 4, 2020February 4, 2020 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: books on my TBR I predict will be five star reads!

I’ve just been thinking about the books I’ve been reading lately and… I’m kind of shook to realise that I haven’t really been giving out a whole lot of 5★ ratings to my reads lately. It’s funny because prior to joining the book community I’m pretty sure that the majority of my ratings were 4★s or 5★s… It makes me wonder whether I’ve not become more critical of the books I read or am I just not as easy to please as I was before? These thoughts actually made me realise how difficult this week’s TTT prompt is for me. It took some stewing over my want-to-read list but I think I’m happy with these predictions…

Friday Favourites: Bookish Quotes

January 31, 2020January 31, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

Welcome back to another Friday Favourites, dear friends! Last year this weekly meme was hosted by the wonderful Kibby @ Something of the Book! However, this year Kibby has passed the torch on to Lorraine @ Geeky Galaxy. This week’s topic is: bookish quotes.

Something I don’t often do is keep track of the quotes that I come across while reading but that’s especially the case with physical copies. One of the best things about having a Kindle is the ease with which I can highlight quotes and make notes. Lucky for me (most of the time), Goodreads also has a section for quotes that I often take a peek at, in case one of the quotes I like was also highlighted by someone else. My memory is notoriously bad so my answers for these types of prompts are always pretty short! Here are a choice few quotes thanks to Goodreads, Google

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
Khalil Gibran

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
The Diary of A Young Girl, Anne Frank

“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

“We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling

What are your favourite bookish quotes?

Manga Classics: The Count of Monte Cristo by Stacy King, Crystal S. Chan – #eARC #GraphicNovelReview

January 24, 2020January 26, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads17 Comments

Goodreads: Manga Classics: The Count of Monte Cristo
Publish date: 11 April 2017
Publisher: UDON Entertainment
Genre: Graphic Novel, Classic Literature
Panda Rating:

A Conspiracy and a miscarriage of justice turn the gentle Edmond Dantès into an implacable agent of fate: The Count of Monte Cristo . Obsessed by vengeance and empowered by providence, the Count avenges himself on whose who have wronged him – but is this justice, or is this hubris? In the end, does even the Count know? Alexandre Dumas’ skillful narrative combines intrigue, betrayal, and triumphant revenge into a powerful conflict between good and evil. Now this exciting saga, rich and diverse, takes on an entirely new life in this Manga Classics adaptation!

The Count of Monte Cristo is a classic that I’ve been meaning to read but have always been too intimidated to actually pick up, so when I saw this manga I immediately jumped on it! Surprisingly I realised I knew very little of the story when I started reading it and since I haven’t read the novel I also can’t attest to how well the manga actually adopts the classic. I do however know that it’s a fairly chunky text and I have no doubt that it has some very complex plot lines and in-depth character studies. Based on that, I think that the adaptors did an amazing job in condensing everything into a more simplified text. It took me a couple of hours to read this 400 page manga while I’m sure it’d probably take me one month+ to finish the original!

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin – #BookReview

January 17, 2020January 26, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads15 Comments

Goodreads: The Immortalists
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Family Saga, Magical Realism
Panda Rating:

If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

“Our language is our strength.
Thoughts have wings.”

It was difficult for me to write this review so apologies if it’s more nonsensical blabber than anything. I really enjoyed this touching novel about family and death. It sounds morose and it certainly isn’t the most fast paced storytelling, but as the story dove deeper into each characters’ life, I found that I couldn’t put the book down and very quickly sped through the pages. The Immortalists is a family saga that explores faith and the idea of destiny/fate. It asks readers the timeless question: if you could learn when/how you die, would you do it?

Down the TBR Hole – 12

January 13, 2020January 13, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads17 Comments

It’s 2020 and I’m back with my first Down the TBR Hole post of the year! As of right now, my Goodreads TBR is a whopping 1,052 books and I thought I’d make it clear that just because it’s on my Goodreads TBR doesn’t actually mean all these books are on my physical or Kindle shelves (I wish I could afford to own that many books)! With that out of the way, I’m hoping to start the year off strong and boot a few more books off my list. Let’s see how I do today!

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

Goodreads Monday – Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

January 13, 2020January 26, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads13 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 Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. I think this is a pretty well known novel that was originally published in 1979 and is classified as a mix of historical fiction and science fiction (time travel)! I added it to my Goodreads TBR in January 2018. On Goodreads it has an impressive 4.24 average stars with 80k+ ratings and 9k+ reviews.

Down the TBR Hole – 11

January 6, 2020January 12, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads15 Comments

It’s 2020 and I’m back with my first Down the TBR Hole post of the year! As of right now, my Goodreads TBR is a whopping 1,034 books and I thought I’d make it clear that just because it’s on my Goodreads TBR, that doesn’t actually mean it’s on my physical or Kindle shelves (I wish I could afford to own that many books)! With that out of the way, I’m hoping to start the year off strong and dismiss a few more books on my list. Let’s see how I do today!

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

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [37]

January 5, 2020December 4, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads6 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 been you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

Today I spent the day in bed with Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2) by Rachel Caine. This is a fast paced sequel! I’m enjoying it and it has answered some of the questions I had earlier, although I’m still noticing certain inconsistencies. This series is quite entertaining though!

LET THE WORLD BURN

With an iron fist, the Great Library ruthlessly controls the knowledge of the world, forbidding the personal ownership of books in the name of the greater good.

Jess Brightwell has survived his introduction to the sinister, seductive world of the Library, but his life and the lives of those he cares for have been altered for ever. Embarking on a mission to save one of their own, Jess and his band of allies suddenly find themselves hunted by the Library’s deadly automata and forced to flee Alexandria.

But Jess’s home isn’t safe any more. The Welsh army is coming, London is burning, and soon Jess must choose between his friends, his family, or a Library willing to sacrifice anything and anyone in the search for ultimate control . . .