Thursday, September 3, 2015

August 2015 Wrap Up

So, August wasn't the best reading month for me, sadly. I spent a lot of my month working, and I started up both my book blog and my bookstagram this month, resulting in a lot of time going towards setting them up and getting them out there instead of reading. I managed to read 4 books this month, and they were all very good!
  • We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach ★★★★☆
  • Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid ★★★★★
  • Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn ★★★★☆
  • Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon ★★★★★
I realize that only four books in a month, especially during the summer, isn't a whole lot, but in my defence I worked pretty much the whole month, and Dragonfly In Amber is 947 pages...

I read We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach very quickly at the beginning of the month, because I had taken it out from the library and I needed to finish it. I really liked the idea of it, and how the story was told from multiple point of views, but after awhile it started to become very confusing and I found that a lot of the characters' thoughts were written in a very similar way. I had to keep flipping back to the beginning of the chapter to see who the character was, and I did zone out every once in awhile while I was reading it. It was a very enjoyable read though, and I think that Tommy Wallach did a great job with it.

I quickly picked up Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid right after I finished We All Looked Up, because I was still in the mood for a light, quick contemporary book, and I was not disappointed! Each character was complex and had their own personality, past, and story. I could connect with each and every character from their uniqueness and complexity, whether it was through road tripping, stress from school and the future, loss, or love. The writing style was very cute and light (as it is a contemporary novel) but also very grabbing and full of suspense. It was an amazing story, and I loved every second of it.

Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn sat on my shelf, untouched, for six years (kind of insane, when I think about it), and I kind of regret not reading it sooner. I read the entire book in about two days, which was pretty easy since it's summer and it's only 330 pages, with a large font. I was expecting more of a historical fiction type of book, with information about the Titanic and the time period, but it had more about magic and ghosts then about the Titanic. I was surprised, and slightly disappointed, but the book was still very good, if maybe for a bit of a younger audience then I expected. Overall though, a very interesting, quick read.

Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon is the best book I read in August, and one of the best books I've read this whole year. It was beautifully written, and all of the characters that I had fallen in love with in Outlander made me fall even further in love with them. There is a full review to this book under the review page of my blog, if you want more information!

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

My first Top Ten Tuesday! (1): Top Books to Read Before 2016

As it is now September (already?!) I decided that I should do the top ten books I need to read before the end of the year. I may not read them in this order, but I need to read all of them before 2016.

The Top Ten Books I Need to Read Before 2016
  1. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
  2. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
  3. Legend by Marie Lu
  4. Red Rising by Pierce Brown
  5. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
  6. Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
  7. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
  8. Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider
  9. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
  10. The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa
I'm really hoping I can get all of these books read by the end of the year. I still have four more months, and there are only ten books, but with school and work I don't know how many I will be able to tackle. Hopefully this will happen!







Review: Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon


Title: Dragonfly In Amber (Outlander #2)
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical fiction/Fantasy (adult)
Pages: 947 (Mass market paperback)
Publisher: Bantam Dell
Publication date: October 9th, 2001 (Original date - 1992)


**The below synopsis will contain spoilers if you have not yet read Outlander**


Synopsis from Dragonfly In Amber's Goodreads page


For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones ...about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ...and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his ....
Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire's spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart ...in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising ...and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves....


"Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart wi' loving you." You break mine too Jamie, mine too.
I finished Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon last night, and I am still at a loss for words. As I read my way through the book, I cried, laughed, loved, and cried some more. (There was a lot of crying involved in this book, and I don't cry very easily). I have never felt such strong emotions for a character as I did for Jamie and for Claire, and I have never loved a book and its characters and story as much as I have this one. The last 100 pages made me feel even stronger about all of the characters then I had through the entire book, and I sobbed like a baby the whole time. This book was AMAZING.
I had some doubts once I read the synopsis, knowing that it takes place 20 years after Outlander, and that made me hold back on reading it for a couple months. I was very nervous that we wouldn't have as much Jamie as we had in the first book, and I didn't want my views of Claire and of Jamie to change, if they were different people from the ones they were in Outlander. Eventually, with enough curiosity and prodding from my friends on Instagram, I decided that I should give it a go, and man am I glad that I did.
Not only was I able to connect so well with all of the characters, but the story was just as intriguing and grabbing as the first book. Everyone had stayed the same loving, (if not violent - it is 1744 Scotland) and humorous characters that I had fallen in love with in Outlander, when we were introduced to them all those pages ago. I highly recommend this series, it is so beautiful and it will definitely make you feel all of the things!
Overall - ★★★★★

Monday, August 31, 2015

August 2015 Book Haul

This month I decided to tell myself that I would not pay full price for any of the books that I bought. So, every single book on this list was either at a discounted price, or I found it on clearance. Not the best way of decreasing the TBR pile, but a helpful way for now.


In total I bought 16 books in August.

 Young adult:
  1. Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor (hardcover)
  2. Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass #2 - hardcover)
  3. Nowhere But Here by Kaite McGarry (hardcover)
  4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (paperback)
  5. Say You Will by Eric Walters (signed paperback)
  6. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone #3 - paperback)
  7. Because It is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin (Birthright #2 - hardcover)
Adult:
  1. Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks (movie tie-in paperback)
  2. The Movement of Stars by Amy Brill (paperback)
  3. When You Walked Back Into My Life by Hilary Boyd (paperback)
  4. The Crook Factory by Dan Simmons (paperback)
  5. The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O'Melveny (paperback)
  6. Starter House by Sonja Condit (paperback)
  7. Red Rising by Pierce Brown (paperback)
  8. Parasite by Mira Grant (hardcover)
  9. Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult (paperback)
I usually get more books than this every month, but I tried to tell myself that since I have one year until I leave for university, I need to read more and buy less. Hopefully I will continue with that plan next month, but I keep telling myself that and it never happens!

Saturday, August 29, 2015

September 2015 TBR

So, since I'm going back to school on September 8th, and it's my senior year of high school, I don't know how well I will be able to stick to a specific pile of books. I am an extreme mood reader, but I always plan on reading at least one or two specific books each month.


I plan on reading:
  • Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (The Grisha trilogy, #1)
  • Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (The Grisha trilogy, #2)
  • Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo (The Grisha trilogy, #3)
  • Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider
  • Say You Will by Eric Walters


I definitely plan on reading the Shadow and Bone, as I have never read the trilogy yet and I just got Ruin and Rising, which completes the trilogy. I may or may not get around to reading the whole trilogy, because I am doing a buddy read for Shadow and Bone, and we have yet to pick a set date to start reading. If we end up finishing it early enough into the month, I should be able to read the rest of the trilogy though!
None of these are final, because if I am not in the mood to read the first one, I won't be able to read the trilogy, so it will just depend on how I feel about reading this month!
I have never been able to set a monthly TBR for myself, so I really want to try and start one, even if just for a couple books a month to reduce my massive TBR pile, and to read some of the books I've had for awhile.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Posting


Hello everyone! I've realized that my posting is very all over the place, so I've decided that I will post at least two to three times a week. Once on Tuesday, when I will be doing a Top Ten Tuesday (if I don't run out of ideas), and hopefully once or twice more throughout the week, hopefully with either one or two reviews and something else bookish.


I'm hoping to get onto a schedule so that I don't need to worry about updating my instagram and my blog every second, and that will hopefully make it easier for me to work on it, especially with school starting in about a week and a half.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Review: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Title: Outlander (Outlander #1)
Author: Diana Gabaldon                                                                 
Genre: Historical fiction/Fantasy (adult)
Pages: 850 (Mass market paperback)
Publisher: Bantam Dell
Publication date: June 2nd, 1992 (Original date - 1991)



The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.


The amount of praise that I have for this book is indescribable.
Diana Gabaldon managed to give every single thing anyone would ever want in a book in the first two chapters, then continued to do it throughout the entire book. She managed to write something so beautifully terrifying and brutal and lovely and intense that I have no words for it. She piled plot twist on top of plot twist on top of plot twist without it being too overwhelming, and she managed to hold suspense for just long enough that you don't throw the book across the room in frustration but end up in tears in about 10 seconds.
Her writing is so beautiful; it seems to just flow and come together naturally, without any thought. There are only so many ways that the 26 letters of the English language can come together, and never in my LIFE have I seen it done so perfectly.
She managed to include so much information as well; languages and history and facts without making it boring, but instead makes me even more curious about my own background and it makes me want to reach back into my family history so that I can see what my ancestors were doing in 1743.
Not only was this book beautifully written and so interesting history wise, it was also one of the funniest and most enjoyable books I have read to date. It had me cry-laughing, (as well as just straight-up crying) and made me wish I had my own Jamie Fraser (because who doesn't?!?).
Overall, 5 stars for this book is nowhere near enough, it deserves the highest of all praise, and more. Thank you, Diana Gabaldon, for writing this book and the rest of the series. I look forward to reading more about spit-fire Claire and her stubborn Jamie.
Overall - ★★★★★