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 Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody. This is a YA fantasy and mystery that was published in 2017 and has a 3.71 rating on Goodreads with almost 1.5k reviews.
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!
Well, we basically know that I’ve been “reading” Spellbreaker for quite a while now but since I finished my previous read last night, I decided to pick this up and give it my full attention, so this Sunday I’ll be tucking into bed with it! I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time focusing on this story because I am enjoying what I’m reading but I keep getting distracted while I’m reading and it’s starting to frustrate me 😂 I feel like I need to slap some focus into my head! Haha
The orphaned Elsie Camden learned as a girl that there were two kinds of wizards in the world: those who pay for the power to cast spells and those, like her, born with the ability to break them. But as an unlicensed magic user, her gift is a crime. Commissioned by an underground group known as the Cowls, Elsie uses her spellbreaking to push back against the aristocrats and help the common man. She always did love the tale of Robin Hood.
Elite magic user Bacchus Kelsey is one elusive spell away from his mastership when he catches Elsie breaking an enchantment. To protect her secret, Elsie strikes a bargain. She’ll help Bacchus fix unruly spells around his estate if he doesn’t turn her in. Working together, Elsie’s trust in—and fondness for—the handsome stranger grows. So does her trepidation about the rise in the murders of wizards and the theft of the spellbooks their bodies leave behind.
For a rogue spellbreaker like Elsie, there’s so much to learn about her powers, her family, the intriguing Bacchus, and the untold dangers shadowing every step of a journey she’s destined to complete. But will she uncover the mystery before it’s too late to save everything she loves?
Welcome back to another Top 5 Saturday! Just in case you don’t know Top 5 Saturday is a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and it’s where we list the top five books (they can be books on your TBR, favourite books, books you loved/hated) based on the week’s topic. You can see the upcoming schedule at the end of my post 🙂 This week’s topic is actually: apocalyptic books.
Well, I guess it’s about time I did a prompt for (post-)apocalyptic books this year, huh? I’m actually surprised I haven’t done one yet 🤔 Though in all honesty I can’t recall for sure right now because I’m operating on like 10% battery 😅 But I digress! All save one of these titles have been on my TBR for a while now and I did have plans to read either one or two of them this year but I haven’t been in the right mood for them (unsurprisingly). I do usually really enjoy post-apocalytpic stories though, so I’m hoping to get to these at some point in the hopefully not too distant future! So, on that note, here are the books I’m keen to read:
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?
I don’t know y’all… Reading has been hard lately 😂 and since last week I managed to finish these two books:
The Price of Temptation by Harmony Williams ★★★☆☆ I was really looking forward to this one so I was disappointed that I didn’t love it more. I had trouble connecting with the characters and empathising with their situations. There were inconsistencies in character and plot that took me out of the story, and while the con-artist aspect was intriguing, I found the overall execution fell short. Review to come.
Gargantis (The Legends of Eerie-on-Sea) by Thomas Taylor ★★★★☆ I loved coming back to the aptly named Eerie-on-Sea for another mystery with Herbie and Violet. We reunited with many familiar faces but are introduced to a host of new characters, including a wickedly creepy nemesis, Deep Hood. It was great to learn more about the legends and old fishermen’s tales in this action-packed and extremely fast-paced adventure! Check out my review.
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 want to read again.
Well, I thought that this was a pretty fitting topic as just last Friday, I shared my thoughts on rereading and I said that while I’m not much of a rereader, I would like to do it more–if only it weren’t for all the books sitting on my ever growing TBR! I didn’t mention in my post what books I’d like to reread again so what a perfect time do it with this TTT!
Almost all of these are part of a series and they’ve made it onto this list because my memory is the worst thing to exist™️ and I need to refresh it before I move onto the final book in the series. The standalones are because I remember loving them so much when I did read them (some as far back as middle school!) but I don’t recall (m)any details now so it might even be like reading a brand new book again, which is always super exciting! Yay for having terrible memory! 😂
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 or in the post announcing it. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!
This week’s prompt is: Shorties (under 150 pages).
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 The Book of M by Peng Shepherd. This is a post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel that was published in 2018 and has a 3.69 rating on Goodreads with 2k+ reviews.
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!
Just like in last week’s update, I’ve also read very little this weekend! 🙈 But I’m about 90% of the way through Gargantis, which I started on a whim at 2AM last night when I couldn’t sleep. This is such a fast-paced and action-packed MG fantasy and it feels good to be back at Eerie-on-Sea with Herbert Lemon and Violet Parma! But once I finish this tonight I think I’ll go back to Spellbreaker!
There’s a storm brewing over Eerie-on-Sea, and the fisherfolk say a monster is the cause. Someone has woken the ancient Gargantis, who sleeps in the watery caves beneath this spooky seaside town where legends have a habit of coming to life. It seems the Gargantis is looking for something: a treasure stolen from her underwater lair. And it just might be in the Lost-and-Foundery at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, in the care of one Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder. With the help of the daring Violet Parma, ever-reliable Herbie will do his best to figure out what the Gargantis wants and who stole her treasure in the first place. In a town full of suspicious, secretive characters, it could be anyone!
Welcome back to another Top 5 Saturday! Just in case you don’t know Top 5 Saturday is a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and it’s where we list the top five books (they can be books on your TBR, favourite books, books you loved/hated) based on the week’s topic. You can see the upcoming schedule at the end of my post 🙂 This week’s topic is actually: cover buys.
Listen, we all claim to not judge books by their covers but let’s be real–we totally do and we’re not alone in doing so! And sometimes, when we get a little book crazy, we do buy books based on their covers. Well, I guess I should just speak for myself on that one 😅
I think this week’s topic is pretty self-explanatory. While all of these titles were eye-catching because of their gorgeous covers, I did eventually read the synopsis to make sure that I wasn’t just throwing my money away like it grows on trees 😂 These are probably the most beautiful books on my shelf and although I still need to read them (heh…😬), I have zero regrets about indulging in a little splurge for them! We all deserve to treat ourselves now and again, right? So without further ado…
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @Eternity Books & Dani @ Literary Lion, where we get to discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! I’ve listed the upcoming topics in brief at the end of my post, but check out these pages for more information on November 2020 prompts & a list of past prompts!
Now without further ado… This week’s topic asks us about:
rereading books
(SUGGESTED BY ARIA @ BOOK NOOK BITS) Examples: Do you reread books? How often? Do you reread a series before reading the newest book? Is there a certain book or series that you always come back to reread? Do you count rereads towards your monthly/yearly goals? Do you feel guilty about rereading books?
Do i reread books?
As frequently as I go on about wanting to reread many books, especially the ones that are my favourites, I actually don’t reread often. Prior to the last two years I think I probably only reread one or two books a year or practically once in a blue moon. My memory is notoriously bad and I often can’t remember what I did earlier in the week let alone the details of books I read years ago, so I always intend to reread more; but with my ever increasing and already endless TBR I find myself feeling less motivated to pick up something that I’ve already read before.
I know many book lovers reread regularly for the comfort of knowing what comes next in a story, plus the fact that it’s a guaranteed win as it was such a joy to read the first time, and I totally get that. That said, I think part of the reason why I don’t reread so often is because I know what happens already and while I might’ve loved it the first time, I feel that takes a bit of the excitement away the second time around.
Aside from that, I think I also just like the idea of “preserving” how I felt about a book after that initial read especially if I really loved it. With rereading there’s always the possibility those feelings might change, and while of course sometimes it’s for the better, I think I prefer keeping those original feelings even if that means the finer details of the story/characters are fuzzy.
do i reread a series before the newest book?
Usually a good amount of time passes between books in a series and because of my awful memory, I know that if I pick up the latest without rereading (or at least recapping) the previous books, I won’t have a clue as to what’s going on! Though considering that my pile of unfinished series keeps growing because I say I’d like to reread the previous books, it’s a pretty good indication of how often I actually get around to doing it 😂 Oddly enough I only started wanting to reread series’ from last year, when before that I was fine with relying on recap sites to refresh my memory–I might struggle at the start but I’d eventually come around to (mostly) figuring it all out by the end. I’m quite tempted to just say “eff it” and pick up the newest book(s) for the series I have waiting in the wings, but I know I’ll come to regret that decision if I do it 🙈
REREADING THE ONES THAT GIVE ME COMFORT…
That’s not to say that I never reread or get around to rereading a series though! Last December, I reread the first two The Folk of the Air books before the finale came out. This is where that whole ‘changed feelings’ thing happened because I remembered adoring The Cruel Prince when I read it for the first time in 2018, but when I reread it those feelings changed… considerably! 🙈
I occasionally reread poetry/prose books, such as Lang Leav’s Memories, but my “go to” rereads are my favourite Austen’s: Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. For some reason, probably more sentimental than anything, I can keep rereading these two books over and over again and I’d still love the stories as much as I did the first time(s).
TOWARDS MY YEARLY READING GOALS & NOT FEELING GUILTY!
I find it kinda amusing how strict people are with what does and doesn’t count towards monthly/yearly reading goals 😂 If someone wants to include audiobooks, children’s books, and rereads towards their yearly count, then why shouldn’t they and why are you policing them about it? It’s not a competition and it will have zero affect on you and your reading goals! But I digress… 😬
I do count my rereads in my yearly goals because I’m still reading a whole ass book after all! Do I feel guilty about it? No. Do I feel guilty about rereading? Also no! As a mood reader I’m very much for picking up whatever fits my current feelings and if that means rereading something then I’ll go for it, and I encourage everyone to do the same! Of course, it might be slightly different if you’ve committed to reading something before a certain date, but I do find that if I really force myself to read anything I’m not in the mood for, it’ll only negatively influence my feelings toward it, and that’s not fair to either the story or the author!
What are your thoughts, friends? Do you reread books and how often do you do it? What are your “go-to” rereads? Do you also count them towards your yearly goal? Tell me all!
dinipandareads 