Welcome back to my second week joining the Thursday Discussion posts! Thursday Discussion is a biweekly meme hosted by Ally Writes Things where you write a post based on the prompt for that week. The post can be as long or as short as you want, and you can talk about as much or as little as you want. This week’s topic is books you need to read before the end of 2019 and coincidentally, I’ve just posted on bookstagram about that topic today!
It’s time for another 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?
Side note: I’m writing this post as I sit at the airport waiting for my flight back to Bali after an overnight stay in Jakarta and a hectic AF, whirlwind of a day attending an event for work. Sorry if it’s slightly short and a maybe a little mediocre 🙃
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: changes in my reading life. I find this topic pretty interesting and I specifically want to give focus to how my reading life has changed since I joined the book community earlier this year. Although it’s not something that I think about that often, I know that there have been so many changes to my reading life since then. Let’s see if I can get my brain to remember ten things! Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Read More »We’re back with another episode of Down the TBR Hole! My TBR currently sits at a whopping 1,005 books, which is the same number I ended this post with last week. I reviewed 10 books again this week but… I’m just gonna be up front here and let you know that I cut ZERO books out this week. NONE. NIL. ZILCH. Because I really want to read all of these books and I’m convinced that I will (eventually) read them all. It’s gonna happen! So all of these are staying 😂
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:
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 I Kills Giants by Joe Kelly, Ken Niimura. Well, this is a little different from my previous Goodreads Monday picks! I honestly don’t remember adding this graphic novel to my TBR but it could’ve been during one of my biggest graphic novel binge phases! On Goodreads this has an average rating of 4.14 stars with 14,154 ratings and 1,467 reviews.
Barbara Thorson is your new hero: A quick-witted, sharp-tongued fifth grader who isn’t afraid of anything. Why would she be..? After all, she’s the only girl in school who carries a Norse war hammer in her purse and kills giants for a living… At least, that’s what she’ll tell you – but where does the fantasy end and reality begin in the heart of this troubled girl? And what if she’s telling the truth?
Brought to life with unexpected tenderness by JOE KELLY (Supergirl, Action Comics, Deadpool) and breakout talent J. M. KEN NIIMURA, I KILL GIANTS is the bittersweet story of a young girl struggling to conquer monsters both real and imagined as her carefully constructed world crumbles at the feet of giants bigger than any one child can handle.
Why do I want to read it?
Ever since I discovered Saga–the greatest graphic novel of all time, don’t at me–towards the end of last year, I’ve been desperately scouring the graphic novels out there to find one that’ll hook me in and make me feel the feels like Saga did. I’ve read a few pretty great ones but none that I love as much as Saga itself! That said, this one does sound really interesting; especially the main character! I’m looking forward to reading it 🙂
Have you read I Kill Giants or is it on your TBR too?
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!
I spent this Sunday in bed finishing up both Malamander and Monstress, Vol. 3: Haven!
Utterly unique in its astonishing intimacy, as jarringly frightening as when it first appeared, Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me defies our expectation that we would surely know if a monster lived among us, worked alongside of us, appeared as one of us. With a slow chill that intensifies with each heart-pounding page, Rule describes her dawning awareness that Ted Bundy, her sensitive coworker on a crisis hotline, was one of the most prolific serial killers in America. He would confess to killing at least thirty-six young women from coast to coast, and was eventually executed for three of those cases. Drawing from their correspondence that endured until shortly before Bundy’s death, and striking a seamless balance between her deeply personal perspective and her role as a crime reporter on the hunt for a savage serial killer — the brilliant and charismatic Bundy, the man she thought she knew — Rule changed the course of true-crime literature with this unforgettable chronicle.
Utterly unique in its astonishing intimacy, as jarringly frightening as when it first appeared, Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me defies our expectation that we would surely know if a monster lived among us, worked alongside of us, appeared as one of us. With a slow chill that intensifies with each heart-pounding page, Rule describes her dawning awareness that Ted Bundy, her sensitive coworker on a crisis hotline, was one of the most prolific serial killers in America. He would confess to killing at least thirty-six young women from coast to coast, and was eventually executed for three of those cases. Drawing from their correspondence that endured until shortly before Bundy’s death, and striking a seamless balance between her deeply personal perspective and her role as a crime reporter on the hunt for a savage serial killer — the brilliant and charismatic Bundy, the man she thought she knew — Rule changed the course of true-crime literature with this unforgettable chronicle.
What are you currently reading?
It’s been such a stressful Sunday, friends and I’m so over it. Although I haven’t been feeling the best over the last two days, the day started off well enough. I got a few hours of sleep, finished a couple of books, and I watched the adorable movie on Netflix called Klaus! I love a good animated film and this was no exception; it was touching, sweet and funny and I’m so glad it popped up on my suggestions today! It’s the well-imagined backstory of how Santa Claus came to be and I thought it was inventive and entertaining! I’ve possibly been feeling a little more emotional than usual lately but it definitely had me shedding a couple of sad-happy tears and I loved it! Would 100% recommend it if you’re looking for a cute holiday movie to watch, whether alone or with family!
Aside from that it was a relatively chilled out weekend until late this afternoon when there were some work things that came up and stressed me out big time. I’m leaving on a very short work trip tomorrow but it’s so disorganized, everything is feeling a little too last minute and chaotic for my tastes and it’s making me feel extremely anxious. I especially hate that it’s put a damper in my evening as I scramble to do last minute things that people request of me. I really should learn how to say no… That said, I’m going to put on How the Grinch Stole Christmas after this because that black heart is a mood right now 😅
Reading & Blogging Recap
I finished four books this week which isn’t bad considering how busy and stressful it was. I managed to read my first Nonfiction November read and I also finished my first successful week of the Triwizardathon! I had originally set out to read three books to complete the challenges, but in the end, I completed four prompts for the two challenges in my first task! The graphic novel that I listed in my Triwizard post wasn’t the one I ended up reading in the end, but it still counts towards completing the challenge. Not off to a bad start, if I do say so myself 😊
I’ve been doing pretty well on the blogging front as well, although I only posted one review and I’ve still got tons to write for books I read last month 🙈 Slowly, though, right? As usual, in case you missed any of my posts from this week, you can find them all listed below:
Top 5 Saturday: Books by Unread Authors!
Friday Favorites: Hyped Books!
First Lines Friday: 15 November
Review: The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
The Book Snob Tag!
Thursday Discussion: Books That Make Me Laugh Out Loud!
This or That Book Tag!
#WWWWednesday: 13 November
Triwizard Tournament Readathon: Task 1 Possibility Pile
#TopTenTuesday: Favorite Bookmarks!
Down the TBR Hole – 07
Goodreads Monday: 11 November
I’ve been listening to a lot of throwback tunes this week and it’s all thanks to discovering that there’s a musical inspired by Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill album! I’m sharing the video that set me off on this jaunt down the 90s to early 00s music memory lane below. This is the cast of the musical singing one of my favorite songs off Morissette’s album: You Learn.
How has your week been? Hope everyone has/had a great weekend!
It’s time for another Top 5 Saturday, a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and this week’s topic is: books by unread authors you want to read. Friends, I’m loving and hating this prompt because it’s a keen reminder of all of the unread books sitting sadly on my shelves and the guilt is making itself known just a little bit right now and it’s making me feel like such an irresponsible reader! *flails dramatically under mountain of guilt* Now, with that out of the way, here are five books by unread authors that I’m hoping to read before the end of 2019! 😂
SYNOPSIS: How far will you go to protect your family? Will you keep their secrets? Ignore their lies? In a small town in Virginia, a group of people know each other because they’re part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and it’s clear the explosion wasn’t an accident. A powerful showdown unfolds as the story moves across characters who are all maybe keeping secrets, hiding betrayals. Chapter by chapter, we shift alliances and gather evidence: Was it the careless mother of a patient? Was it the owners, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? Could it have been a protester, trying to prove the treatment isn’t safe?
SYNOPSIS: Nestled in the Hudson Valley is a sumptuous retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, private fitness trainers, daily massages—and all of it for free. In fact, you get paid big money—more than you’ve ever dreamed of—to spend a few seasons in this luxurious locale. The catch? For nine months, you belong to the Farm. You cannot leave the grounds; your every move is monitored. Your former life will seem a world away as you dedicate yourself to the all-consuming task of producing the perfect baby for your überwealthy clients. Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines and a struggling single mother, is thrilled to make it through the highly competitive Host selection process at the Farm. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her own young daughter’s well-being, Jane grows desperate to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she’ll receive on delivery—or worse.
Descendant of the Crane by Joan He
SYNOPSIS: Tyrants cut out hearts. Rulers sacrifice their own. Princess Hesina of Yan has always been eager to shirk the responsibilities of the crown, but when her beloved father is murdered, she’s thrust into power, suddenly the queen of an unstable kingdom. Determined to find her father’s killer, Hesina does something desperate: she engages the aid of a soothsayer—a treasonous act, punishable by death… because in Yan, magic was outlawed centuries ago. Using the information illicitly provided by the sooth, and uncertain if she can trust even her family, Hesina turns to Akira—a brilliant investigator who’s also a convicted criminal with secrets of his own. With the future of her kingdom at stake, can Hesina find justice for her father? Or will the cost be too high?
How to Make Friends With the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow
SYNOPSIS: Here is what happens when your mother dies.
It’s the brightest day of summer and it’s dark outside. It’s dark in your house, dark in your room, and dark in your heart. You feel like the darkness is going to split you apart.
That’s how it feels for Tiger. It’s always been Tiger and her mother against the world. Then, on a day like any other, Tiger’s mother dies. And now it’s Tiger, alone.
Here is how you learn to make friends with the dark.
SYNOPSIS: Two kids, Morgan and Eric, are bonded for life after being born on the same day at the same time. We meet them once a year on their shared birthday as they grow and change: as Eric figures out who he is and how he fits into the world, and as Morgan makes the difficult choice to live as her true self. Over the years, they will drift apart, come together, fight, make up, and break up—and ultimately, realize how inextricably they are a part of each other.
Are any of these books on your own list? What books by unread authors would you have on your list? Any of them to be read before 2019 ends?
It’s time for another Friday Favorites hosted by Kibby @ Something of the Book! This weekly meme is where you get to share a list of all your favourites based on the list of prompts on Kibby’s page. Sounds fun, right? This week’s prompt is: favorite hyped books! Oh, the hype. It’s something that all of us are familiar with and all have different reactions to, right?
Some readers feel FOMO and immediately race out to buy whatever book is currently all over the gram. Some wait a little while for the hype to die down before caving and reading the book. Others stay as far away from hyped books as possible and sometimes never pick them up until the hype is completely dead and years have passed, if ever. I’m pretty much a mix of all of these reactions — sometimes I can’t stand the FOMO and race out to get the book ASAP, but most of the time I wait until the hype dies down a little before I cave. To be honest though, most times when I get the book as soon as it comes out, I usually let it linger on my shelf (unintentionally!) and next thing you know, the next hyped book is out, that ‘old-new’ book stays untouched, and the cycle continues 😂 There are SO MANY HYPED BOOKS coming out all the time, I feel like I can never keep up, and so (mostly) I don’t. Pretty much all of the books mentioned below have already made countless repeat appearances on my blog (sorry I’m boring!) so it’s no surprise that they’re coming back again as my favorites!
With such a long introduction, I’m going to keep this short and sweet by sticking with sharing the book covers. These are just 20 of the most hyped books that I could think of (lies, they’re the books that are already in my media gallery but all of them are hyped)!
Do you recognize all of these hyped books? Would any of them make your list of favorite hyped reads or am I the only one who loves them?
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:
First lines:
“There was a reason Gavin Scott rarely drank.
He was bad at it.
As in, face-planted on the carpet while reaching for the bottle bad. And too drunk to see in the dark so might as well stay down bad.”
Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?
Okay, okay, calm yourself Loki, mate...
*drumroll please!*
The book is: The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams
The first rule of book club:
You don’t talk about book club.
Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott’s marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.
Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.
Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville’s top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it’ll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.
Have you read The Bromance Book Club or is it on your TBR?
Hosted by Ally Writes Things, Thursday Discussion is a biweekly meme where you write a post based on the prompt for that week. The post can be as long or as short as you want, and you can talk about as much or as little as you want.
Over the last month I’ve seen some Thursday Discussion posts on some of my favorite blogs and I’ve been interested in taking part but one thing or another always took me away from posting (most likely my laziness). I finally decided to join today — although with a different topic than what’s post! Oops, yes, hi! It’s just that this week’s topic is childhood favorites and I have two posts about that already, which you can read here and here. So instead I decided to do my post on a previous discussion topic about books that make me laugh out loud!
Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren. Honestly, Hazel is just the funniest character. I love her spunk and vivaciousness and how she was unapologetically herself!
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman. There was a lot of awkweirdness in this book that had me laughing out loud because not only was it awkweird but it was also incredibly relatable. I laughed quite a lot every time Nina and Tom interacted with each other!
Saga Series by Brian K. Vaughan. This series!!! It’s no secret that this might be my favorite graphic novel ever! I just love everything about it. Some of the characters in this book, especially Lying Cat 😻, really had me cracking up!
Nevernight and Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicles #1 & #2) by Jay Kristoff. I have to hand it to Kristoff, as bloody and gory as this book can be, there are so many moments where he can still really have me laughing out loud with his dark and dry humor! Gotta love it 😂
What If It’s Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli. As much as there were cringey moments in this book that made me feel my age, the characters and their awkwardness really had me laughing out loud. As a side character, Dylan never failed to make me laugh. Arthur was a lottle OTT sometimes but his bumbling innocence really had me laughing too (not in a mean way)!
dinipandareads 