Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [38]

January 12, 2020December 4, 2022 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 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 re-reading Thunderhead (Arc of Scythe #2) by Neal Shusterman. I’m eager to continue on with this series so that I can finally read The Toll! My memory is so bad but all I remember is feeling heartbroken after I finished this book when I read it a few years back. It was wonderful and painful 😂

Rowan has gone rogue, and has taken it upon himself to put the Scythedom through a trial by fire. Literally. In the year since Winter Conclave, he has gone off-grid, and has been striking out against corrupt scythes—not only in MidMerica, but across the entire continent. He is a dark folk hero now—“Scythe Lucifer”—a vigilante taking down corrupt scythes in flames.

Citra, now a junior scythe under Scythe Curie, sees the corruption and wants to help change it from the inside out, but is thwarted at every turn, and threatened by the “new order” scythes. Realizing she cannot do this alone—or even with the help of Scythe Curie and Faraday, she does the unthinkable, and risks being “deadish” so she can communicate with the Thunderhead—the only being on earth wise enough to solve the dire problems of a perfect world. But will it help solve those problems, or simply watch as perfection goes into decline?

ARC Apocalypse Announcement & TBR

January 12, 2020January 13, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

As I mentioned in my bookish and blogging goals, I’ve joined quite a few challenges this year! Last year I (very loosely) joined one year-long challenge outside from Goodreads and that was the 2019 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge. I was complete trash at keeping track of what I read and basically gave up before I even started. That was fun 🙄 I guess I must be feeling more optimistic in 2020 because I joined a whopping FIVE challenges, and first up is the ARC Apocalypse!

This challenge was created by Destiny @ Howling Libraries in an effort to tackle those ARCs! And what’s better than tackling these reads with a bunch of other book lovers with the same goal, right? There are fun chats and buddy reads if you don’t think you can go it alone. Head on over to Destiny’s page (linked above) to find out more and join the challenge! I’ve mentioned it before but as an international book blogger I unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) don’t get as much access to all the reads on NetGalley, Edelweiss and from publishers, so my overall list isn’t as long as everyone else’s. Still, there are a few 2020 titles I’d like to stay on top of . but most importantly there are quite a few overdue titles I want to finish this year! Here are my current stats:

2020 eARCs: 12
Overdue eARCs: 10

Ten overdue titles doesn’t look so bad right? But overdue is overdue and there’s no making excuses! My game plan is to prioritise my 2020 deadlines (while I’m still ahead of the game!) and alternate with reading the overdue titles. Sounds doable. Seeing as these have deadlines this is going to be my actual TBR for the coming months (January-early March):

~~After some thought I think I’ll be sharing my progress at the end of every three months along with what’s next on my TBR for the following three months~~*. I hope that my progress will basically be me saying: I’VE READ THEM ALL! 😍

*After some more thinking I decided to share a monthly progress updates for all my challenges, so you’ll be getting an update from me soon! I still hope that I’ll have made some progress 😂

Are you also joining ARC Apocalypse?
How do you plan to tackle your ARCs?

Top 5 Saturday: Books Over 5 Years Old

January 11, 2020January 12, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

I skipped last week’s prompt because I wasn’t feeling it but I’m back this week for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books. This week’s topic is: books over five years old! Unless it’s a new release, I don’t usually pay attention to publication dates but thank goodness for handy dandy Goodreads because now I can look at what books were released before 2015 that are high on my TBR. I’m going to try to pick one book for each year so let’s see what we have:

2014

I’ve been wanting to read this one for a while now. It sounds so interesting and I love the cover!

Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) by Neal Shusterman – #BookReview

January 11, 2020January 11, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

Goodreads: Scythe
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopia
Panda Rating:

Thou shalt kill.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

Having just finished my first re-read of Scythe I’m reminded of just how much I freaking love this series. I didn’t write a review after the first time I read the book and there was actually a lot that I actually forgot (not surprising considering my trash memory). In a way it kind of felt like I was reading it for the first time and wow, it was just as crazy a ride as the first time!

“The growth of civilization was complete. Everyone knew it. When it came to the human race, there was no more left to learn. Nothing about our own existence to decipher. Which meant that no one person was more important than any other. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, everyone was equally useless.”

Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1) by Rachel Caine – #BookReview

January 4, 2020January 26, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads5 Comments

Goodreads: Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1)
Genre: Historical Fiction, Dystopia, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult Fantasy,
Panda Rating:

Rachel Caine rewrites history, creating a dangerous world where the Great Library of Alexandria has survived the test of time. In 48 AD, a fire set by the troops of Julius Caesar destroyed much of the Great Library of Alexandria. It was the first of several disasters that resulted in the destruction of the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world. But what if the fire had been stopped? What would the Library have become? Fast forward: the Great Library is now a separate country, protected by its own standing army. It has grown into a vast power, with unquestioned and unrivalled supremacy. Jess Brightwell, seventeen and very smart, with a gift for mechanical engineering, has been sent into the Great Library as a spy for his criminal family. Magical spells and riots abound in this epic new YA series.

How could my interest not be piqued after reading this blurb? Caine presents such a fascinating retold history wherein The Great Library of Alexandria is the most powerful entity in the world and knowledge is highly regulated. I admit to having a difficult time getting into the story initially. The pacing was slow and I found myself getting lost in the details of this alternate world, but I kept on reading because I was hoping that it would pick up and I wasn’t disappointed!

“There are three parts to learning: information, knowledge and wisdom, A mere accumulation of information is not knowledge, and a treasure of knowledge is not in itself, wisdom.”

Human by Diego Agrimbau, Lucas Varela – #eARC #GraphicNovelReview

December 11, 2019December 13, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

Goodreads: Human
Publish date: 16 October 2019
Publisher: Europe Comics
Genre: Graphic Novel, Post-Apocalytpic, Science Fiction
Panda Rating:

Planet Earth: 500,000 years in the future. Humans have been extinct for millennia. Two scientists, Robert and June, have been orbiting the Earth, waiting for the planet to become habitable once more. With the help of a team of robots, they plan to start over from scratch: a new Adam and Eve who won’t make the same mistakes as their ancestors. But first Robert has to find June, who seems to have landed somewhere else in this vast jungle—their Eden—full of grotesque creatures and strange primates…

This was a pretty bizarre graphic novel that I’m not quite sure I loved. I was immediately drawn in by the cover and the synopsis, which presented a pretty interesting post apocalyptic tale about returning to earth 500,000 years post death (both humanity’s and Earth’s). The story was well illustrated, however, the illustration style wasn’t what I expected when I picked this up. I thought the color palette of reds, greys, black and white was an interesting choice though; in a way it made earth seem a little bit leached of life, although that clearly wasn’t the case as there was plenty of animals living in the jungle. While I wasn’t a big fan of the illustrations, I thought the overall message of the story was very thought-provoking and made reflect on our relationship with our surroundings.

First Lines Friday – 06 December

December 6, 2019December 6, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

Yayaya, HAPPY FRIYAY, book lovers and friends 😍We’re back with another First Lines Friday! This is 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:

“The night Marcella died, she made her husband’s favorite dinner.
Not because it was a special occasion, but because it wasn’t–spontaneity, people insisted, was the secret to love.”

The Identity Crisis Book Tag!

December 6, 2019December 13, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

I stumbled across this post on Loretta’s page (which by the way is awesome and you should defo check it out if you haven’t yet!) several months ago and it looked like so much fun that I couldn’t wait to try it myself. But of course with life, reading, and all the awesome tags out there, I’ve only just now got around to doing it! It involves one of the things that I secretly really love to do on the interwebs: take quizzes! Yes, I’m a quiz-taker-lover! Especially when it’s a book related quiz but also pretty much any rando quiz I come across; you can bet that I’d love to do it, if I haven’t already done it 😂 This tag is then pretty perfect for me! Here’s what Loretta has to say about her tag:

“Now here we are! All of these quizzes tell you who you would be if you were in that specific universe. I tried to stick with the same quiz makers as much as possible for the sake of consistency, but was forced to stray on a few of them. Each fandom title links back to the original quiz I took (at this point you’re like, please for the love of god, stop saying the word quiz), so you all can take them too. So go forth and prosper. May the odds be ever in your favor. MWAHAHAHAHA!!”

With that said… Let’s get to it! First up are THE RULES:

Take all the quizzes down below and record your answers somehow. I decided to just copy the text from each quiz and paste it into my post, but screenshots work too! Whatever floats your goat (Yes goat. I SAID WHAT I SAID).
NO CHEATING. You get one shot to take each quiz my friends. I’m watching you. ∗Suspicious squinty eyes∗
Use this post to give credit to the creator Loretta @ The Laughing Listener or tag me on twitter @LaughnListener so I can see everyone’s answers!!
Tag some friends to spread the fun!

Malamander (Malamander #1) by Thomas Taylor – #BookReview

December 4, 2019August 18, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Goodreads: Malamander (Malamander #1)
Publisher: Walker Books
Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Panda Rating:

Nobody visits Eerie-on-Sea in the winter. Especially not when darkness falls and the wind howls around Maw Rocks and the wreck of the battleship Leviathan, where even now some swear they have seen the unctuous malamander creep…

Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, knows that returning lost things to their rightful owners is not easy – especially when the lost thing is not a thing at all, but a girl. No one knows what happened to Violet Parma’s parents twelve years ago, and when she engages Herbie to help her find them, the pair discover that their disappearance might have something to do with the legendary sea-monster, the Malamander. Eerie-on-Sea has always been a mysteriously chilling place, where strange stories seem to wash up. And it just got stranger…

What a delightful and fantastical read! I haven’t read MG books in a very long time, this might be my second this year, but I’d seen this all over the blogosphere and not only did the cover capture my eye, but the story sounded great too. I’m so glad that I decided to pick this up because it was such a fun read! It’s full of atmosphere, mystery, friendship, danger and perhaps just a little dash of magic–enough at least to make you wonder what’s real or not.

Goodreads Monday – 25 November

November 25, 2019November 28, 2019 Dini @ dinipandareads4 Comments

We’re back with another Goodreads Monday, a weekly meme started by @Lauren’s Page Turners. This meme 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 Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2) by Nora Roberts. Ooh, this is a good pick and it reminds me that I still have to read it! It has some pretty impressive stats on Goodreads too: 4.30 stars with 18,127 ratings and 1,855 reviews.