Beautiful Quotes is a weekly meme hosted by me, where I post some of my favourite quotes. Any other bloggers are welcome to join me in this and just link my blog!
Hi all! I’ve been thinking a lot about books I need to reread, and I hate waiting between books in a series because I always forget what happens in the first book. The Wrath and the Dawn is definitely one I need to pick up before The Rose and the Dagger, because I read it back in 2016 and I don’t remember a thing that happened!
Which books do you need to reread before you continue with the series?
I’m very proud to say that I managed to read at least one book by every author I had books signed by at YALC! Saying that, July was still definitely a slow month for me and I’m excited for keeping more on top of my blog and TBR in August. Hopefully doing the Magical Readathon will help with that!
My favourite book of the month was probably Do You Dream of Terra-Two? and my least favourite was City of Ghosts, although I think these were all 4 star reads!
Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga where we share books we’ve bought this week. Find out more and join in here!
Hi everyone! I had so many books from YALC that these posts are going to have to be done in two parts. Today I’m going to talk about all of the books I was given, ARCs I won or ARCs I got as buying incentives! And next week, I’ll be discussing books I actually bought outright.
Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden but what they don’t know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.
This lovely author was giving away beautiful copies of her book to bloggers and vloggers! I was lucky enough to catch her and ask for a copy.
Selah has waited her whole life for a happily ever after. As the only daughter of the leader of Potomac, she knows her duty is to find the perfect match, a partner who will help secure the future of her people. Now that day has finally come. But after an excruciatingly public rejection from her closest childhood friend, Selah’s stepmother suggests an unthinkable solution: Selah must set sail across the Atlantic, where a series of potential suitors awaits—and if she doesn’t come home engaged, she shouldn’t come home at all. From English castle gardens to the fjords of Norge, and under the eye of the dreaded Imperiya Yotne, Selah’s quest will be the journey of a lifetime. But her stepmother’s schemes aren’t the only secrets hiding belowdecks…and the stakes of her voyage may be higher than any happy ending.
I managed to pick this up in a Fairyloot giveaway and it sounds so interesting.
16-year-old Ava Gardener is heading back to school one year after a house fire left her severely disfigured. She’s used to the names, the stares, the discomfort, but there’s one name she hates most of all: Survivor. What do you call someone who didn’t mean to survive? Who sometimes wishes she hadn’t? When she meets a fellow survivor named Piper at therapy, Ava begins to feel like she’s not facing the nightmare alone. Piper helps Ava reclaim the pieces of Ava Before the Fire, a normal girl who kissed boys and sang on stage. But Piper is fighting her own battle for survival, and when Ava almost loses her best friend, she must decide if the new normal she’s chasing has more to do with the girl in the glass—or the people by her side.
They say the thirst of blood is like a madness – they must sate it. Even with their own kin. On the eve of her divining, the day she’ll discover her fate, seventeen-year-old Lil and her twin sister Kizzy are captured and enslaved by the cruel Boyar Valcar, taken far away from their beloved traveller community. Forced to work in the harsh and unwelcoming castle kitchens, Lil is comforted when she meets Mira, a fellow slave who she feels drawn to in a way she doesn’t understand. But she also learns about the Dragon, a mysterious and terrifying figure of myth and legend who takes girls as gifts.They may not have had their divining day, but the girls will still discover their fate…
I won both of these books in raffles over the weekend and I’m so grateful for them.
When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne. Like most royal families, the Washingtons have an heir and a spare. A future monarch and a backup battery. Each child knows exactly what is expected of them. But these aren’t just any royals. They’re American. And their country was born of rebellion. As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America’s first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling. Nobody cares about the spare except when she’s breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn’t care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her. And then there’s Samantha’s twin, Prince Jefferson. If he’d been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.
High school senior Frank Li is a Limbo–his term for Korean-American kids who find themselves caught between their parents’ traditional expectations and their own Southern California upbringing. His parents have one rule when it comes to romance–“Date Korean”–which proves complicated when Frank falls for Brit Means, who is smart, beautiful–and white. Fellow Limbo Joy Song is in a similar predicament, and so they make a pact: they’ll pretend to date each other in order to gain their freedom. Frank thinks it’s the perfect plan, but in the end, Frank and Joy’s fake-dating maneuver leaves him wondering if he ever really understood love–or himself–at all.
Penguin gave both of these away with purchases over the weekend, so I nabbed them both at different points!
Twelve-year-old Jeanne Ann has doubts when her mom spends their savings on an old orange van and bundles them off to San Francisco to chase Mom’s dream of working as a chef. There, they camp on the street while her mother looks for a job she never gets. Before long, Jeanne Ann realizes that this van is the closest thing she has to a home. Across the road, twelve-year-old Cal watches the homeless community parked just beyond his big house. Cal’s mom is busy with the upscale restaurant she owns, but they’ve always been close–until Cal does something his mom just doesn’t understand. Then Cal and Jeanne Ann meet. Cal is too tall and too weird and too rich and wears all his emotions on the outside of his skin, and he just wants to help. Jeanne Ann is smart, she is funny, she is stubborn–hers is a royal-looking chin, in Cal’s opinion–and she does not want his help. But a quirky, meaningful friendship develops between them, and as it does, the pair is buoyed by a remarkable cast of nuanced, oddball characters, who let them down and lift them up. When Jeanne Annn’s situation worsens, though, and Cal’s desire to help gets the better of him, will their friendship survive? And without it, can either of them find their way through this mess?
Pixie’s defenses are up, and it’s no wonder. She’s been uprooted, the chickens seem to have it in for her, and now her beloved sister, Charlotte, has been stricken with polio and whisked away into quarantine. So it’s not surprising Pixie lashes out. But her habit of making snap judgements–and giving her classmates nicknames like “Rotten Ricky” and “Big-Mouth Berta”–hasn’t won her any friends. At least life on the farm is getting better with the delivery of its newest resident–a runt baby lamb. Raising Buster takes patience and understanding–and this slowing down helps Pixie put things in better perspective. So too does paying attention to her neighbors, and finding that with the war on she’s not the only one missing someone. As Pixie pushes past her own pain to become a bigger person, she’s finally able to make friends; and to laugh about the fact that it is in places where she least expected it.
I’m not going to lie, I was very drawn to the covers of both of these books!
In this mesmerizing sequel to the New York Times bestselling Girls of Paper and Fire, Lei and Wren have escaped their oppressive lives in the Hidden Palace, but soon learn that freedom comes with a terrible cost. Lei, the naive country girl who became a royal courtesan, is now known as the Moonchosen, the commoner who managed to do what no one else could. But slaying the cruel Demon King wasn’t the end of the plan—it’s just the beginning. Now Lei and her warrior love Wren must travel the kingdom to gain support from the far-flung rebel clans. The journey is made even more treacherous thanks to a heavy bounty on Lei’s head, as well as insidious doubts that threaten to tear Lei and Wren apart from within. Meanwhile, an evil plot to eliminate the rebel uprising is taking shape, fueled by dark magic and vengeance. Will Lei succeed in her quest to overthrow the monarchy and protect her love for Wren, or will she fall victim to the sinister magic that seeks to destroy her?
I’m not going to lie, this is the best thing I managed to get my hands on over the whole weekend and was totally worth the entire hour I spent queuing to get it! I can’t wait to read it.
So those are the books I managed to get at YALC other than buying! See you next week for books I bought!
Hello everyone and welcome to my first ever readathon – so apologies in advance if this is a complete shambles! I’ve never taken part in any kind of readathon before, but my friend Faye over at A Daydreamers Thoughts decided to take part and added me to a discord chat. So here I am, having not taken part in my O.W.L.s (therefore using this year as kind of a trial run for now), suddenly deciding on my N.E.W.T.s TBR! I’m super excited for it!
What is the N.E.W.T.s Magical Readathon?And how does it work?
The Magical Readathon is run by Book Roast on YouTube and is split into two parts: the O.W.L.s are in April and the N.E.W.T.s run throughout August. You aim for a profession using the wonderful career guide created by G (link below). Each profession includes the O.W.L and N.E.W.T levels you need to aim for to pass, including the level you need, that being A for Acceptable, E for Exceeded Expectations and O for Outstanding. Depending on your chosen profession, you’ll be aiming for more or less books than other professions!
If you complete your O.W.L.s in April, you can use these to dive into the N.E.W.T.s, but luckily for me it seems fairly straightforward to join in now. Once you know which exams you have to take, you can use the prompts letter to find out how to organise your TBR (link below). Each exam has different prompts, and you then pick a book to fit the prompt. Once you’ve completed them to the grade you need for your profession, you complete the exams! Hopefully if I’m not making sense it will become clearer as I choose my own TBR.
After much deliberation, I chose to aim for the Magizoologist career! I only looked at careers I would actually be interested and felt I could achieve full marks for in a month, especially as this is my first ever readathon. Other professions I considered were Astronomer and Herbologist.
To pass my N.E.W.T.s I need an Outstanding in Care of Magical Creatures, an Exceeded Expectations in Charms and an Exceeded Expectations in Herbology. The way the N.E.W.T.s work is you must complete the prompt for A (Acceptable) before you move onto E (Exceeded Expectations) and then O (Outstanding). I’m going to aim for the required levels I need, but I’ll include the Outstanding prompts too in case I do end up reading more than 7 books.
Care of Magical Creatures
A: Book title that starts with the letter A, for Aragog!
I’m not really an audiobook person, but I also don’t appear to have any obviously green books. I’m going to go with this ARC because it’s definitely mostly there!
Gosh, it’s harder than you’d think to find a book between 350-390 pages! But luckily this one is on my ARC TBR and I was lucky enough to win a copy at YALC over the weekend.
I don’t need to reach Outstanding in Herbology either, but if at the end of the month I find myself with extra time, I’m going to pick up The Marrow Thieves! Also, how pretty is this cover?
So that’s all from me for now! I’m super excited to work through my N.E.W.T.s TBR. Before I go, please let me know if I’m going about this the wrong way or if you have any advice for a newbie!
Are you joining the magical readathon this year? What career did you choose?
This Top 5 Wednesday series is inspired by the weekly meme on Goodreads which you can find here. I no longer follow the topics and instead use my own.
Hi everyone and happy Wednesday! Today’s post is about books I want to reread, and kind of started because of the Carry On re-readathon I keep seeing. As much as I’d like to join in, I never seem to have the space or time in my TBR to re-read books, but here’s a list of those I’d like to!
Simon Snow is the worst chosen one who’s ever been chosen. That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right. Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here—it’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.
Of course I had to include the book that inspired this post. I’m hoping I might be able to squeeze a reread in before Wayward Son?
Jude and her twin Noah are close until a tragedy drives them apart. Now they are barely speaking – and both are falling for boys they can’t have. Love’s complicated.
I constantly want to reread this book, in fact it’s probably at the top of my list!
On the anniversary of her daredevil brother’s death, Jaycee attempts to break into Jake’s favorite hideout—the petrifying ruins of an insane asylum. Joined by four classmates, each with their own brand of dysfunction, Jaycee discovers a map detailing her brother’s exploration and the unfinished dares he left behind. As a tribute to Jake, Jaycee vows to complete the dares, no matter how terrifying or dangerous. What she doesn’t bargain on is her eccentric band of friends who challenge her to do the unthinkable: reveal the parts of herself that she buried with her brother.
I adored this book so much, I’d love to read it again. I’m very excited to say, however, that I managed to pick up Once & Future and I can’t wait to read it!
What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them…all at once? Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.
This is the only book on this list that I can actually see myself rereading in the near future. I definitely want to reread it before carrying on with the series.
Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over. But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner. Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic.
This is another book I desperately need to reread before Finale, alongside rereading Legendary! Oh, the pain of waiting for books to be released and forgetting everything that happens in the previous ones.
Hi everyone! It’s time for my YALC 2019 masterpost, where I’ll take you through everything I did over the weekend, day by day. For those of you that don’t know, YALC is the Young Adult Literature Convention which takes place alongside London Film and Comic Con every year! This year was my first year going for the whole weekend, as I’ve been before but only for one day per event.
THURSDAY
Okay, Thursday was a day for travelling and it was hellish. Due to the insane heatwave we had in the UK, we managed to get one of the only trains going down to London and just about got out of the station before they stopped letting people in due to health hazards! We eventually made it down and luckily had a better and safer journey than some. We met up with Alex and Dan who we stayed at a hotel with and had some dinner before preparing for the next day!
Unfortunately we didn’t make it to any panels on Friday due to just being so busy running around and entering giveaways and meeting authors! We still had the most incredible day, gathered more books than we all meant to and met some great people. Alice Oseman ended up staying for an hour and a half more than she was scheduled for to finish off her line of people!
SATURDAY
Panels: Mythical YA, The World of Illustration and Concept Art Authors met: VE Schwab, Karen M McManus, Jim Kay, Malorie Blackman Books acquired: 4
Saturday was so much fun and we managed to get in on a few panels! I bought fewer books and even went down to Comic Con, which was insanely busy and made me very grateful for how chilled out YALC is. What a beautiful building though!
SUNDAY
Panels: New Voices of YA Fantasy Authors met: Lisa Heathfield, Samantha Shannon, Temi Oh, Kristen Ciccarelli, Natasha Ngan Books acquired: 5
We ended up getting up way earlier for the final day to make sure we got everything we wanted. Unfortunately we missed out yet again on an ARC of Infinity Son but got early VQ tickets for the authors we wanted! We managed to meet every author we wanted to other than Lauren James who unfortunately couldn’t make it. I also picked up an ARC I really wanted, Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan, and had it signed!
That’s the day by day account! To finish up, below you can see (from the left), a pile of books I took to have signed, books I bought, books (already released) I acquired, and ARCs I won or got as buying incentives. What an amazing haul! I’ll be posting Stacking the Shelves twice this week, Friday for ARCs and Saturday for books I bought.
Not pictured above are books I bought for my boyfriend Josh and my bestie Courtney, and the items below, a cute bookish candle from Bookish Burns entitled The Shire, and a rainbow bathbomb from Geeky Clean!
And before I go, I’d like to share some photos of my YALC squad. From the left, we have Anna, Faye, me, Alex and her boyfriend Dan! These guys have been incredible from start to finish, made my weekend so much more enjoyable and full of laughter. Can’t wait for next year!
Beautiful Quotes is a weekly meme hosted by me, where I post some of my favourite quotes. Any other bloggers are welcome to join me in this and just link my blog!
Hello all! It’s the day after YALC and I’m feeling blue. I had the most amazing weekend with such a great group of people, we had so many laughs and I miss them so much already! I’ll be posting a full post about YALC and what I got up to tomorrow, so until then you have a beautiful quote.
I chose today’s quote because of one of my YALC highlights, managing to get an ARC of Girls of Storm and Shadow! So today’s quote is from one of my favourite books of the year so far, Girls of Paper and Fire.
“Instead of disappearing, she makes me feel reappeared. Reimagined. Her touch shapes me, draws out the boldness that had been hiding in my core.” ― Natasha Ngan, Girls of Paper and Fire
