#TopTenTuesday: Summer 2020 Possibility Pile!

June 16, 2020June 16, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads24 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 Summer 2020 TBR (or winter if you’re in the southern hemisphere).

It’s already June but also how is it still only June?! Thinking about a summer possibility pile of ten books is tough because there are so many I want to read and how do I even choose?! Since last year when I really got into the book community I’ve tried focusing my June reads on LGBTQ+ books because of pride, but this year is a little different. One because I have really not been reading as much due to Animal Crossing, but mostly because as a mood reader it’s already hard having any ‘fixed’ kind of list, but it’s become even more impossible this year when my moods have been as wildly unpredictable as the year itself. I could just list the blog tour reads that I’ll be doing but I decided to pick a random mix of books that have been on my mind and that my mood has been leaning towards lately, so there’s a somewhat *high possibility* of me reading them this summer 😂

#5OnMyTBR: Colours of the Rainbow Covers!

June 15, 2020June 15, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads23 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 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: Rainbow (on the cover, made from covers… be creative!) ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Goodreads Monday – The Secret History by Donna Tartt

June 15, 2020June 15, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! 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.

This week’s featured book is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. This contemporary mystery was published in 1993 (wow, I had no idea it was published that long ago!) and has an impressive 4.10 rating on Goodreads!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

June 14, 2020June 14, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads5 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!

I’ve spent very little time lounging in bed this Sunday but I’m planning to spend the rest of my Sunday in bed with The Storm Crow. I’m about 30% of the way through and I’m really enjoying it so far — gutted that I’ve waited so long to finally pick it up 🙄 I’m part of the blog tour for the second book which is coming up in two weeks, so this is perfect timing! I know this book was very hyped before it came out but I’m not actually sure that I remember what people thought of it once it came out… I hope that I continue to enjoy it as I make my way through!

In the tropical kingdom of Rhodaire, magical, elemental Crows are part of every aspect of life…until the Illucian empire invades, destroying everything. That terrible night has thrown Princess Anthia into a deep depression. Her sister Caliza is busy running the kingdom after their mother’s death, but all Thia can do is think of all she has lost. But when Caliza is forced to agree to a marriage between Thia and the crown prince of Illucia, Thia is finally spurred into action. And after stumbling upon a hidden Crow egg in the rubble of a rookery, she and her sister devise a dangerous plan to hatch the egg in secret and get back what was taken from them.

What are you currently reading?

#TopTenTuesday: Books I’ve Forgotten on my TBR…

June 9, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads34 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 that I’ve added to my TBR and forgotten why (stolen from Louise @ Foxes and Fairytales)!

At first I wasn’t sure how to answer this prompt despite how straightforward it is but then I realised that I was unnecessarily complicating things for myself and when I thought that, everything fell into place really quickly 😂 For this prompt, I’m looking specifically at my Goodreads ‘Want-to-read’ list which is currently… a whopping… 1.1k+ books. *COUGH* Yep. That’s insane, right? It really is. It does make me feel better to say that I don’t actually own all these books but because my list is so long, there are undoubtedly plenty that I don’t remember! With my goldfish memory it’s also not surprising that I’ve found more recent adds that I don’t remember adding too 😅 But before I ramble on even further, let’s get to it!

Although these books have been picked randomly, my list was sorted to ‘ascending’ so it turns out that all of these were added between 2017-2018, and I have absolutely no memory of even coming across some of these books let alone ‘wanting-to-read’ them 🙃

#5OnMyTBR: Anticipated LGBTQ+ Releases

June 8, 2020June 8, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads16 Comments

This week’s prompt is: Pride Free Day.
I’m taking this to mean that it’s a freebie so I’m looking at my most anticipated LGBTQ+ releases for the latter half of 2020!

Goodreads Monday – If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

June 8, 2020June 8, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

This week’s featured book is If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio. This mystery/thriller was published in 2017 and has an impressive 4.10 rating on Goodreads!

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

June 7, 2020June 7, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

I spent Sunday morning in bed finishing my read of The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones and let me tell you friends… The tears did not stop for the last 30%! Oh granola, I’m an emotional reader and we all know how intense emotions have been running these last few weeks but… This book was just… so everything? It was heartwarming and heartbreaking. It’s a poignant YA historical fiction coming-of-age story about race, friendship and family. It’s out later this month (16 June) and it couldn’t be more relevant right now. I’ll be sharing my review for it as part of the FFBC blog tour on Wednesday, so keep an eye out!

It’s the summer of 1955. For Ethan Harper, a biracial kid raised mostly by his white father, race has always been a distant conversation. When he’s sent to spend the summer with his aunt and uncle in small-town Alabama, his Blackness is suddenly front and center, and no one is shy about making it known he’s not welcome there. Except for Juniper Jones. The town’s resident oddball and free spirit, she’s everything the townspeople aren’t―open, kind, and full of acceptance.

Armed with two bikes and an unlimited supply of root beer floats, Ethan and Juniper set out to find their place in a town that’s bent on rejecting them. As Ethan is confronted for the first time by what it means to be Black in America, Juniper tries to help him see the beauty in even the ugliest reality, and that even the darkest days can give rise to an invincible summer.

What are you currently reading?

Top 5 Saturday: Books Set Near/On the Sea

June 6, 2020June 6, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads24 Comments

We’re back with 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: books set near/on the sea.

This is a great topic that I don’t think I’ve ever answered in a meme before. Now that I’m thinking about it, I realise that I have a lot of books set near/on/in the sea, so it’s clear I love the idea of a story set by the sea or on the sea. I say I love the idea because these are all on my TBR (*cough*) LOL

It’s funny when I think about it because when I think of books set on the sea I always think of fantasy (mostly YA) and when I think of books set near/by the sea, a lot of the time I think about women’s fiction books that are set in the summer and revolve around quaint sea-side towns and have cute fluffy romances! That said, when thinking about books for this list none were the latter but one was the former 😂 I’m looking forward to reading all of these though and I’m really hoping I’ll be able to get to them them at some point this year!

#WWWWednesday: 03 June

June 3, 2020June 3, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads10 Comments

This is starting to feel a little bit like de ja vu but how is it already Wednesday now? What have I done this week? I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing and… that actually shows in my reading! *womp womp womp*

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?

Since last Wednesday I’ve only finished one book. Technically, I read two but for the first time in pretty much ever I purposefully set aside a book and decided to DNF it. Yep, it’s a mood. But anyway, I’m going to focus on the one book I did finish this past week: The Fallen Angel by Kenneth B. Andersen. This is book five in The Great Devil War series and while I enjoyed it, it wasn’t my favourite in the series (that title still belongs to book four)! My review will be posted later tonight so be on the look out for that 😊