#WWWWednesday: 24 March

March 24, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads19 Comments

Hello, hello and 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?

It has been another weird reading week and I still feel like I’ve not read anything but I finished five books? Good news is I’ve found my favourite of the month and a contender for one of my faves of the year! 🥳 Also, if you can’t tell by all the “RTCs” below, although I’ve been reading some I haven’t been doing my best when it comes to writing reviews… 🙈

The Hunter (Boston Belles #1) by L.J. Shen ★★★★☆
After reading my first Shen romance last week I went ahead and picked up another one of her books (as they’re all available on Kindle Unlimited) and sped through this one. I can understand when people say Shen’s books are formulaic as the H/H are almost carbon copies of the previous book I read of hers? That said, I liked Hunter and Sailor! Hunter was intensely douchey at the start but I enjoyed his ‘growing up’ and I loved how ‘take no shit’ Sailor was and how she stood up for Hunter against his shady ass family. There were definitely some corny and cliche moments but they were cute together!

The Villain (Boston Belles #2) by L.J. Shen ★★½
I thought I’d love this one the most since Cillian was the kind of broody/rude that intrigued me. In the end, Persy was the big surprise here–still a good girl, still ‘pure’ but she has a backbone! That said, there was such a lack of communication between them that it was unreal. I get Cillian’s reasons for being as he is and though his history was upsetting/sad I also thought that it was too much and not a great representation of someone with his condition (based on personal experience anyway). No spoilers though, so I won’t go on about it but ultimately, this didn’t end up working for me. I also don’t think I’ll continue with the story because these alpha-holes are getting too next level for my liking 😂 Series RTC.

#TopTenTuesday: I Liked It… But I Can’t Remember Much About It…

March 23, 2021August 12, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads21 Comments

So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Books I Really Liked but Can’t Remember Anything/Much About

Today’s topic is actually books with funny titles but I wasn’t feeling it so I’ve decided to go rogue and do prompt #374 (just for reference today’s prompt is somewhere in the 540s!) from 2018.

I go on about how my memory really fails me a lot and well, it’s true. Prior to writing reviews and having a book blog, I read a lot of popular titles that I remember loving at the time but that I cannot for the life of me remember much about now. There are books I read maybe 5-6 years ago? I mean, you’d think that since I loved them so much, enough to rate them 4-5 stars, I’d remember more about them right? So very wrong. 😂 I’d probably be able to tell you the gist of what happens and maybe even something of what I loved about the book but if you ask me about plot or character specifics, it’s very likely I’ll draw a blank! There are maybe one or two titles on here that I remember more bits about but I think if I were to pick any of these up again it might almost be like reading them for the first time (maybe, almost, likely)! On that note… Here are the books!

#5OnMyTBR: Green Covers

March 23, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Hello Mondays, welcome back to #5OnMyTBR, a meme created by the wonderful E @ The Local Bee Hunter’s Nook. This bookish meme gets us to dig even further into our TBRs by simply posting about five books on our TBR! You can learn more about it here. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!

This week’s prompt is: Green Covers.

Goodreads Monday – In Deeper Waters by F.T. Lukens

March 22, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! It’s been a very hot minute since I did one but I figured I might as well get back into it! 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.*

*Sorry if a book has been featured twice. I need to make better note of which ones I’ve done already!

This week’s featured book is In Deeper Waters by F.T. Lukens. This is a YA historical fantasy that comes out mid-April 2021!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

March 21, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads10 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 spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

I’ll be spending the rest of my Sunday in bed reading Lost in the Never Woods. I’m reading this for my spot on the blog tour next week and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve never read a Peter Pan fanfic or re-telling before so this already has that uniqueness going for it. I’m about 40% through now and I’m enjoying it but it’s definitely a lot creepier than I thought it’d be! 😂

When children go missing in the small coastal town of Astoria, people look to Wendy for answers.

It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road, and gets pulled into the mystery haunting the town. Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don’t do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what’s waiting for her in the woods

What are you currently reading?

#WWWWednesday: 17 March

March 17, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads11 Comments

Hello, hello and 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?

Wow, it really doesn’t feel like I’ve read a lot since last week but apparently I’ve managed to finish five books? Surprise to me! LOL. It might not help that I haven’t actually marked these as read on Goodreads and neither have I properly reviewed them either. Oopsies, one thing a time though… 🤣

Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells ★★★★☆
Repeatedly chants: I love Murderbot! Because I really really do and I would read all the books with Murderbot as the protagonist. This one was slightly less exciting than book one but we got to dive a bit more into Murderbot’s psyche and we also get to meet ART, who I also loved! 😂 Buddy reading this series with Leslie and we’re both loving it and can’t wait to continue! Series RTC.

Namesake (Fable #2) by Adrienne Young ★★★★☆
Namesake was a really satisfying conclusion to the Fable duology. The story picks up immediately where book one ends and it’s full of pirate-y goodness, many more high-seas adventures, and delicious deceptions and twists! This second book is less focused on world building and character development, but it has a very fast-paced plot that leaves little time to dwell on it. Check out my review!

#TopTenTuesday: Spring Possibility Pile!

March 16, 2021August 12, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads30 Comments

So, 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 Spring 2021 TBR.

Oh, how wonderful would it be to experience spring… 🤔 I miss having four seasons, but I digress! If you’re not new to my blog you know by now that I don’t do TBRs, rather I try to stick with possibility piles (and even then they don’t go 90% of the time lol)! That said, it’s always fun to think of the books that I want to read soon, and actually, a few of these are blog tour reads, buddy reads, and ARCs so I *will* be reading them soon enough! Needless to say, I’m super excited for all of these titles 😍 And on that note, here are the reads I’m hoping to pick up in the coming month(s):

#5OnMyTBR: Mythology

March 16, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads22 Comments

This week’s prompt is: Mythology.

I struggled to find books for this prompt today for some reason. I’m sure I have quite a few on my list since I love books based on mythology but I’ve completely blanked on it? 😂 I tried to come up with ones that were based on non-greek or norse mythology but those take up the bulk of my ‘mythology’ TBR but I’m glad that I found at least three books based on other mythology. Without further ado… Let’s get to it!

LOVELY WAR

It’s 1917, and World War I is at its zenith when Hazel and James first catch sight of each other at a London party. She’s a shy and talented pianist; he’s a newly minted soldier with dreams of becoming an architect. When they fall in love, it’s immediate and deep–and cut short when James is shipped off to the killing fields.

Aubrey Edwards is also headed toward the trenches. A gifted musician who’s played Carnegie Hall, he’s a member of the 15th New York Infantry, an all-African-American regiment being sent to Europe to help end the Great War. Love is the last thing on his mind. But that’s before he meets Colette Fournier, a Belgian chanteuse who’s already survived unspeakable tragedy at the hands of the Germans.

Thirty years after these four lovers’ fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, in a luxe Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another? But her quest for a conclusion that will satisfy her jealous husband uncovers a multi-threaded tale of prejudice, trauma, and music and reveals that War is no match for the power of Love.

Goodreads Monday – The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon

March 15, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

*Sorry if a book has been featured twice. I need to make better note of which ones I’ve done already!

This week’s featured book is The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon. This is a historical fiction that comes out tomorrow (16 March)!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

March 14, 2021June 23, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads3 Comments

This is feeling a bit like déjà vu because I said I was starting the book last week but really, I ended up reading something else. This time though I am actually reading Silence is a Sense. Our narrator is a Syrian refugee whose trauma has led to her to stop speaking and we basically follow her story as she observes the lives of her neighbours through the windows of the apartment block and as she grapples with processing everything she has experienced in Syria and in fleeing Syria to get to where she is now. It’s a very heavy book and I’m also getting a bit confused at times as we get present day scenes mixed with flashbacks to Syria mixed with dreams and I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not sometimes. There’s a lot packed into this book and I hope my review will be able to do it justice!

A young woman sits in her apartment in an unnamed English city, absorbed in watching the small dramas of her assorted neighbors through their windows across the way. Traumatized into muteness after a long, devastating trip from war-torn Syria to the UK, she believes that she wants to sink deeper into isolation, moving between memories of her absent boyfriend and family and her homeland, dreams, and reality. At the same time, she begins writing for a magazine under the pseudonym “the Voiceless,” trying to explain the refugee experience without sensationalizing it—or revealing anything about herself.

Gradually, as the boundaries of her world expand—as she ventures to the neighborhood corner store, to a gathering at a nearby mosque, and to the bookstore and laundromat, and as an anti-Muslim hate crime shatters the members of a nearby mosque—she has to make a choice: Will she remain a voiceless observer, or become an active participant in her own life and in a community that, despite her best efforts, is quickly becoming her own?

What are you currently reading?