Yayaya, HAPPY FRIYAY, book lovers and friends 😍We’re back with another First Lines Friday! This is 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 areTHE 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 two would-be jade thieves sweated in the kitchen of the Twice Lucky restaurant. The windows were open in the dining room, and the onset of evening brought a breeze off the waterfront to cool the diners, but in the kitchen, there were only the two ceiling fans that had been spinning all day to little effect. Summer had barely begun and already the city of Janloon was like a spent lover—sticky and fragrant.“
Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?
Yayaya, HAPPY FRIYAY, book lovers and friends 😍We’re back with another First Lines Friday! This is 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 areTHE 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:
“Ask me to spin the finest yarn or thread, and I can do it faster than any man–even with my eyes closed. Yet ask me to tell a lie, and I will stumble and falter to think of one. I have never had a talent for spinning tales.”
Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?
Oh what a month December turned out to be! With the end of the year activities at work combined with family flying in for the holidays, and my sister staying with me, there turned out to be a lot less time to read than I anticipated. Silly me for thinking I’d have more quiet time this month 😅 Now that everyone is on their way home, I’m back alone at my place and although I still feel slightly frazzled, I can also tell that my mind is calming down some. With that, I managed to read 17 books in December.
Wowow, it’s a question I’ve been asking myself repeatedly but seriously, where did November go?! Pretty sure that I blinked twice and the month was already over. Actually, these last few months have all been speeding by and I can’t believe that we’re now almost done with the teens of the 2000s and moving into our 20s! Insanity. So it’s time for another monthly wrap up and I gotta say, November was a weird month. I don’t know if it’s because the days passed so quickly but despite (what felt like) having a book in hand 98% of the time, this was the month that I also read the least. It might also have to do with the fact that my mood for romance has all but disappeared and I used to binge romance the most! I managed to read 12 books in November and for the most part, many of them were just okay…
I participated in #NonfictionNovember this month and as you can see from my read list, I didn’t do a very good job of it! I only managed to read two NF books, although I enjoyed both very much and one of them was my favorite read this month (Stranger Beside Me). I have a lot more NF on my list that I’d obviously like to get to and I’m hoping to read at least one or two more before the year ends. That said, I’m quite pleased that I even managed to read two because NF always takes me longer to get through… Also, two is more NF than I usually read in a year so… Yay? 🤷🏻♀️
I’m also quite chuffed that I managed to read two more of my eARCs this month and I’m slowly creeping closer to my 100% goal (and when I say slowly I really do mean… s-l-o-w-l-y! But slow progress is better than no progress, amirite?! 😂)! I wrote more reviews for my reads this month than before, but I still have tons to catch up on and I also didn’t end up posting any reviews from previous months either. Oops! Oh well, there’s always time to catch up… 😬
This month I also randomly decided to join in on the #Triwizardathon and it has been lots of fun! I’m on Team Durmstrang and at the start of Task 2, Durmstrang was in the lead! There’s one last task this December, starting next week, so I should probably start thinking about what to read but I’m pretty excited for the final! I think half of the books I’ve read this month were because of my participation in this readathon. I’m usually pretty bad at sticking to set TBRs and yes, I have replaced one or two books that I set out to read with something else, but for the most part I’m quite proud that I’ve managed to stick to the others. Go me!
I mentioned it briefly at the end of last month’s wrap up that I was thinking of doing a revamp on my blog look and I’ve finally done it. I changed my theme and made some new graphics, which are amateurish but I think overall, I’m quite pleased with how my blog looks. I don’t know if I’m enjoying this theme 100% yet, but I do like the new graphics that I made–especially the new blog headers! I think I’ve definitely brought more colour to my blog now! What do you all think of it? Or maybe you didn’t even notice or don’t care? (That’s totally fine too! Lol)
I hope you all had a great November! I’m sure that most of us have tons of books that we’d like to read before the year is out, so HAPPY DECEMBER READING, friends!
Friends! Can you believe? Two months until 2019 is over and I honestly still can’t believe it. I have no idea where this year has gone but it’s definitely gone in a blink! October was such a hectic month that I don’t even know where the days went because time moved so quickly. That said, I’m surprised that I managed to read 19 books this month, which brings my Goodreads reading challenge up to 175/90.
Thinking about it again, I’m not surprised I read 19 books this month because I read a ton of romances which I always speed through (at most it takes me 2 days to read one). While I took a little step outside of my comfort zone this month with Rules for Vanishing, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t read any other spooky read, although being a mood reader I know that forcing myself to read something I’m not feeling just wouldn’t work.
I’m clearly still very much on that romance vibe, although I can also start to feel myself becoming a little jaded with some of these romances (maybe as evidenced by the lower ratings because I just wanted to roll-my-eyes-so-hard). But I think I’ve been hitting the romance so hard because my brain is just… TIRED? Like… I have no mental energy left on most days and that means I love reading romances that not only give me swoony feelings but I also don’t have to think very hard about. Let’s see if the romancing mood will continue in November!
Just like last time, you can find all my weekly memes in my menu bar since I’ve organized that a bit more. You can find the rest of the posts that I’ve made this month below. I actually didn’t write a whole lot of reviews this month, I’ve just been ‘too busy reading’ and that’s okay because I know I’m not obligated to write a review for every book I read (unless it’s an eARC) but I’ve come to realize just how much writing reviews really helps my memory! So… I’m on a mission (maybe tomorrow) to sit down and write some reviews before I forget even more than I already have!
ALSO I’ve been toying with the idea of giving my blog a bit of revamped look but I don’t know if I should do it right now (it’s not even been a year but playing with blog layouts has always been a fun time for me! LOL 😅). Might give it a go this weekend but will play it by ear! What do you think?Do you like changing up your (blog) look or is that just confusing?
I hope you all had a great reading month in October and I hope that November continues to be awesome! What was your favorite read this month? Come let me know in the comments & let’s chat!
I still can’t believe that September is already over! This year is going by way too quickly and I’m wondering if the rest of 2019 is going to speed by in the exact same way? September was a pretty mediocre reading month for me. I think I started off pretty strong but once I tucked into Priory of the Orange Tree, my reads slowed down considerably. I still managed to read 15 books though, so it wasn’t all bad! I am now sitting at 156/90 reads (this number still shocks me; being part of the book community has really increased my reading this year)!
⁍ Pumpkinheads (review) ⁍ Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) (review) ⁍ Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle #2) (review) ⁍ The Hating Game (review coming)
My favorites out of all of these were Nevernight and Godsgrave. After finishing Nevernight (my mind was totally blown) at the start of the month, I just couldn’t resist reading the sequel as soon as possible. Kristoff is a man who does not hold back on screwing with your feelings. After the ending of Godsgrave, I’m so excited but equally terrified of finishing this series. But I know I won’t be able to resist Darkdawn so it’s gonna be happening this October!
I was planning to read a lot more sequels for Sequel September but also a few more standalone’s for Standalone September (focusing on hyped standalone’s) but both of these endeavors ended up failing pretty badly. I think I can only count one book towards the former and two books towards the latter. I think I’m going to give challenges a break for now? I’m obviously not very good at them 😂
Last time I listed a full recap of all the posts that I did for the month, but since I now have a more organized menu bar, you can find all my weekly memes, challenges, tags and thoughts in the drop down menus! I still have to fix some things up, but I think I’ve done the sorting right and hopefully all my posts will continue to be updated each time I make them! For now, I’ve still listed the other reviews that I did this month (the reviews for this months’ reads are above in the recap), just so it’s easier for you to read them, in case you missed out! I’m still trying to tweak how I do my wrap up posts–I’m sure you’ll notice that from the start they’re all quite different–but I think I’m happy with this? I don’t want to make it too long and boring for people to read! Any tips or comments? Please let me know!
I hope you all had a great reading month in September and I hope that October continues to be awesome for all of us! What was your favorite read this month? Come let me know in the comments & let’s chat!
Side note: I don’t normally do these posts because I don’t feel that I can convey my thoughts and opinions as well as other bloggers do. But I decided to take the plunge this week and I’m hoping it doesn’t fail lol I’d love to know if you enjoyed this post, so I know whether to try doing them more often!
As you can probably tell from the title 😏 today I want to talk about my Kindle and the reasons why I love it. I guess this topic really brings it back to the often discussed ebooks vs. ‘real’ books debate. I obviously still love my paperbacks and hardcovers, but I can’t deny the many advantages that my Kindle gives me, especially as an international reader.
And so the story goes…
Here’s a little backstory: I got my first Kindle the Christmas after I finished my MA degree in 2012. I was slated to finish with a 2:1, which isn’t a distinction but I’m not the best student and I was honestly just elated that I managed to complete my degree! Lmao. Obviously this meant treating myself, but my partner at the time beat me to it and got me the First Edition Kindle for Christmas. It was probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever received! But that was 2012 and since then, I’ve moved on to the Kindle Paperwhite (2015), followed this year by the latest model (2018), which I was “forced” to upgrade to when an unfortunate accident involving my backpack, laptop and Kindle, rendered the 2015 model dead. Sad times, but we don’t talk about it! 💔
I was really tempted to get the Kindle Oasis because it’s a beaut, and I use my Kindle often enough to justify the hefty price tag, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m hoping that *somebody* is going to take a hint that I want it and purchase it for me on my birthday or Christmas/New Year though. Who knows! But the newest Kindle Paperwhite is still pretty awesome. It’s practically got 90% of the Oasis features, it’s just bigger (same size as the OG Paperwhite), and half the price!
Let’s talk about love…
There are so many things to love about the Kindle. To state the obvious, it pretty much fits in every bag. I have this tiny Herschel backpack that won’t even fit flip flops, but my Kindle fits perfectly in it! I can conveniently take it everywhere. Sometimes I just don’t want to take paperbacks/hardcovers with me when I go out because they add quite a bit of weight to my bag and I’m so lazy. Plus, I usually fly a lot for work and reading on my Kindle means I don’t have to stop reading when they dim the lights on planes, and I don’t need two hands to read it while standing (i.e. waiting in queues). Not to mention you can have HUNDREDS of books with you at all times and you don’t need more shelf space. I mean, what’s not to love about that?! This indulges the mood reader in me as I can easily browse through the many unread books *coughcough* on my Kindle library and switch to different reads if I’m not feeling it with the ease of a few taps. Another great thing is that I can highlight all the passages and have it automatically stored and linked to Goodreads, which makes finding the important bits super easy to find come review time. I can even share my highlights on Goodreads if I wanted to.
But the best thing about having my Kindle is that I can get so many of the latest releases, more obscure backlist books, and e-ARCs. Living in Indonesia means the newest releases don’t come out until they’re no longer “new”, if they ever release in stores at all. Sure, I can pre-order or get them online, but living on the other side of the world means that books take 2-4 weeks, sometimes longer, to reach me and my impatient ass just can’t deal with that–even if sometimes I don’t read my newest buys right away. But… that’s a different story you can read on my TTT post about avoiding books on my shelves. Yes, even the ones I’m so desperate to get! As for ARCs, well, I can just forget about ever getting physical copies, but I can at least get the e-ARCs on my Kindle. WINNING! 👏🏽
Missing out?
So what am I missing out on when I’m reading on my Kindle? I honestly don’t have a very long list! I mean, it’s definitely not the same reading experience as holding a book, flipping pages and inhaling the new/old book smell; but there are worse things. Also, if I really love an ebook, I usually also want to add it to my physical shelf, so I end up having double copies and that also means bye-bye money (my savings get so sad)! Something that does annoy me about my new Kindle is that the battery runs out much faster. I don’t know why, since I don’t even use the bluetooth feature; but again, it’s not a big deal because it charges quickly!
So was this post basically just an endorsement for the Kindle? Yes. Yes, it was, but I really love my Kindle Paperwhite and I couldn’t imagine my life without it, especially because I would definitely be reading a lot less!
Do you have a Kindle? Do you also love it as much as I love mine? And if you don’t, would you get one or are ebooks not your jam?
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