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Weekend Reads : 7/18/2020

Another weekend, another chance to make a dent in my ever growing TBR.

Here is what I have planned for this weekend.

Scythe – – Neal Shusterman

I know I am VERY late to this. I have owned this book forever, but never got around to it. It was calling to me recently, so I decided to go for it.

I am currently 100 pages in and I am liking it. It isn’t grabbing me like it did for so many other people but I am not disliking it so much that I want to DNF. I will continue to power through and hopefully finish this up this weekend.

Wonderland – – Zoje Stage

I am excited but hesitant for this book. I literally just picked it up at the library today and I think I am going to pick this up right away.

I read Baby Teeth when it came out and it wasn’t my favorite. But I am intrigued enough with this author to try this one out. I am not really sure what it is about, but it is a genre I love so that’s all I need.

Hopefully this is a hit for me.

The Goldfinch – – Donna Tart

I should finally, FINALLY finish this one this weekend. After literally months of making way through it. I have 4 hours left in the audiobook. I hope the ending is phenomenal because the rest of it has just been okay. Final thoughts to come (hopefully) next week.

I am being a little ambitious this weekend. It looks to be extremely hot here in eastern PA and I plan to spend some time at the pool. If I could finish the audiobook and one of my physical books before Tuesday, I would call that a win.

What do you have planned for your weekend?

Let me know in the comments!

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Weekend Reads Update : 7/11/2020

First things first, I apparently am still stuck in June. I can’t believe I didn’t notice I put “6” instead if “7” in the title of my last post. So embarrassing. But if anyone needed clarification, that post was in regards to what I was reading the weekend of 7/11/2020.

So anyway, I had a pretty productive reading weekend. I was able to finish one thing, start and finish a second book, and continue on in an audiobook I started a few months ago but never finished.

Call Your Daughter Home – – Deb Spera

I really enjoyed this book. I am a little upset I didn’t realize that I was approved for this through Netgalley before it was released. I can’t believed I missed that and only noticed it a few days ago. But, I finally read it, I enjoyed it and I am glad I got to it.

I decided to listen to this on audiobook. I was surprised to see it available on Hoopla, but I downloaded it right away and started listening.

Call Your Daughter Home follows 3 woman; Gertrude an abused mom of 4, Retta a first generation free slave working as cook and house maid on a plantation and Annie the wife of the man who owns the plantation. At first you would not think they have anything in common, but they do. They are all strong women living in South Carolina dealing with life during the time before the Great Depression.

I love historical fiction and it was nice to be in a time period that wasn’t WWII. I thought the author did a fantastic job of conveying the emotions and atmosphere of these years. She also did a great job with these characters. I loved Retta the most.

Overall, this was a very well done book and I highly recommend it.

5 Stars

The Wife Stalker – – Liv Constantine

Oh boy, what can I say about this one, besides it was a mess. I think I am done with this author duo. I absolutely loved The Last Mrs. Parrish but nearly DNFed The Last Time I Saw You. I should have DNFed this one.

It’s best to list all the things I had a problem with in this book

  • Time frame; it was all over the place. You never really knew how much time passed between chapter or even paragraphs.
  • The dialogue was cringe worthy. Amateurish.
  • Instalove worse than in a YA novel.
  • Unoriginal. As predicted, it was a one man 2 women situation.
  • Even the twist could not save this. It was predictable but at the same time not.
  • Key parts of the story were missing. Important conversations that would have changed the tone of the story weren’t there. You didn’t find out till the end that they even happened.

On the positive side, it was a fast read. The chapters were short and kept the story moving. It was just completely lack luster and just not worth the time, even if it is minimal.

2 Stars

The Goldfinch – – Donna Tart

I feel like I have been making my way through this audiobook for months. While I find it ok, it just isn’t wowing me. I am not eager to pick it up because nothing is really happening. But I have made it halfway through, so I will push to the end. On the positive side, the audiobook is done very well and the narrator is great. The story itself is just meh.

There we have it. Overall, I had a pretty productive reading weekend. It helped that I was just lazy and not really in the mood to leave my house. I am not complaining since I very much do enjoy being at home.

How did your weekend/week reading go?

Until next weekend!

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Book Review : Have You Seen Me? by Kate White

What did I read? No, seriously. I am super confused on what I just read. Probably because it felt like several different books in one.

Premise

One rainy morning, Ally Linden arrives early to work only to realize she doesn’t have her key to get in and has to wait for someone. When her boss finally shows up, he is surprised she is there waiting because she has not worked there in years. Turns out, Ally has no idea where she has been and what she has been doing for the last few days. She is now trying to piece together what has happened to her and why she doesn’t remember.

Review

Have You Seen Me? by Kate White started out on the right note. I like a good amnesia thriller. It started to lose me right in the very beginning though. I felt like it moved too fast; no lead up to anything. We were just thrown in to the story and I thought I missed something.

This also felt like several stories in one. Storylines were just coming out of left field and it really made no sense. I feel like some of them could have been left out and we would have missed nothing from the actual story. I know thrillers like to throw out red herrings, but it felt like this author was just reaching for something and it became too far fetched.

It was a fast read, the audiobook made it go even quicker. But had I not been listening to it, I would have DNFed it. If I am being very honest, this felt like a debut novel and not something from a NY Times Best Selling author. It just felt very amateur; characters weren’t really developed (they were very much one note in fact), the dialogue was cringeworthy and then the ending was just so out there that it both made sense and made absolute no sense at all.

Overall, this was just a hard miss for me. There are better psychological thrillers at there.

2 Stars

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Book Review : Docile by K.M. Szpara

Are you ready to hear a about a book that I thought was going to be a 5 star read!?! Yes, it would have been my third 5 star read of the year. Sadly, it missed the mark. 

Well, the last third of the book missed the mark for me. 

Premise

In this world, we are introduced to two different social classes; the debtors and the the trillionaires. In this story Alex is the trillionaire who pays off Elisha debts and in turn Elisha becomes his Docile. When you are a Docile, you basically do whatever you are told; may it be labor duties or sexual acts. To help with the emotions or pain of what is expected of you, as a Docile, you can choose to take Dociline, which is like a numbing agent, but 10xs stronger. Interesting enough, Elisha chooses to not take Dociline but the man who bought his debts comes from the family who created it.

Review

I was somewhat hesitant to start the book because I have had no luck lately. But I was so excited to finally go to the library that I figured why not try it. I was hooked right away. And then when it started to turn dirty!?! I couldn’t get enough. 

I have such dark reading tastes. I love reading about things that I have no interest in in real life. And this had it! I was like okay! This is good. And then all of a sudden, it lost it.

I didn’t want a love story! I wanted down and dirty! I wanted to see a different way of “living”. The dominate and submissive. I was so intrigued by that. And yes, some parts were graphic and there was one scene I had a hard time reading (claustrophobia). But it hooked me and I couldn’t put it down. But I was more interested in the first 2/3 of the story than how it ended. It became a forbidden love story slash court room drama and I wasn’t here for it.

I also wasn’t convinced of Elisha’s behavior towards the end. He was so back and forth that it did not seem genuine. I found myself questioning his choices and actions when I wasn’t doing that in the beginning. I think this book suffered from being too long. It comes in at just under 500 pages. Had it been edited down a bit, I don’t think I would have had the issues with it that I did.

Overall, I gave this book 4 stars. I did enjoy it and read it pretty quickly with how long it is and considering I am in a bit of a reading slump. I thought the writing was good and the storyline was very intriguing.

TW: self harm, sexual abuse, lack of consent

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Let’s Talk Audiobooks

My love for audiobooks has only grown in the last few years. It is hard to believe that I only started utilizing this format a few years ago, considering it is how I do majority of my reading nowadays. That wasn’t always the case. I was very much intimidated by them. I thought there would be no way that I could retain what I was listening to. Not surprisingly, I was wrong.

The very first audiobook I listened to was The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith. (I will not be going into anymore detail with this series or author in light of the very cruel and insensitive things J.K Rowling has said in the past few weeks). Mystery/Thrillers are my favorite genre and I figured if anything was going to keep my attention, it was this genre. And I was right. At this point, it would take me almost a solid month to listen to a long audiobook, or any audiobook in general. I was listening to it at 1.0x speed and only when I was on the treadmill and maybe in the car. It was a slow moving process. But I enjoyed the experience and wanted to try out some more.

I started to venture into nonfiction and short story collections for my next stop in audiobooks. If for some reason, I zoned out, I didn’t miss a whole lot and could get back into the story without feeling lost. By this point I had also gotten into podcasts so it was becoming normal for me to listen to both of these in the car and on walks with my dog. I also learned you could adjust the speed at which you listen to an audiobook. I slowly started to creep up to 1.25x and 1.5x speed, allowing me to listen to a full book in less time. That was a game changer.

Here we are 2ish years later and majority of my reading is done via audiobooks. I always have an audiobook downloaded to my phone. I don’t watch a lot of TV so when I am cleaning, cooking, playing Animal Crossing, I am listening to an audiobook. In a good reading month, I can go through 2-3 audiobooks a week, listening on 2x speed. And to be honest, some books are just better on audio; you get so much more out of it.

If you are like me, and find audiobooks intimidating, just try them. There are so many free platforms to download them from. My main source is Hoopla. And then I use Libby and borrow from my local library system. I have had a subscription to Scribd, but to be honest, it wasn’t worth it to me to keep it. If there is an audiobook that I absolutely want to listen to and it is on Scribd, I may join for a month, but most things are available to me free elsewhere.

Clearly, I love audiobooks. And I do have my favorites.

Stay tuned to find out what they are. That post will be up Friday!

Are you an audiobook listener? Do you still consider it reading? (I do!)

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Quarantine Wrap Up

Like most of you, I have been spending my days at home. I have been out of work since March 17, with no return date as of now. Surprisingly, I have been in a reading mood and have been able to read 19 books since I have been home, which is the most I have ever read in a 2 month span.

Now, I am not going to talk about every book I have read but I do want to highlight some of my favorites and then the few that just missed the mark for me.

Let’s get the not so great books out of the way first.

Disappointing Reads

Thankfully, I do not have many of these. Honestly there was only one book I gave under 3 stars and I can say I hate read.

Never Let You Go – – Chevy Stevens

I did a complete review of this book which you can find HERE. Without a doubt, I did not like this book at all. There is no “maybe”. I did not like the characters in this book, really, I did not enjoy anything about this one. I listened to the audiobook, which I do not recommend. I have heard better narrators in my life. Overall, this was not a good book and I can not wait to unhaul this. I gave this one 2 stars.

TW: Domestic Abuse

I did have 2 reads that I had high expectations for but were a bit of a disappointment. They were not bad books by any means. I was just expecting more from them.

Imaginary Friends – – Stephen Chbosky

Ok, so I have never read Perks to Being A Wallflower, but when I heard about this one, I knew I wanted to read it. I normally do not purchase brand new books, I utilize my library for those. But I did pick this one up at Target when it came out.

It started out strong and I was enjoying it. I think it was about halfway through, maybe a little less, when I felt like the reveal happened and it could have ended. But I still had a few hundred pages to go. Despite the length and despite it feeling like it could have been like 200 pages shorter, I read it very quickly. I don’t think it was as scary as I was hoping and as scary as I wanted at that time. My biggest disappointment came at the end, when it took a weird turn. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all and I wasn’t into it.

Overall, I gave this 3.5 stars but it is probably closer to 3 stars.

The Deep – – Alma Katsu

I LOVED The Hunger so when I heard about this and that it was taking place on the Titanic, I had to have this. And when I got it, I had to read it right away.

First, it took me awhile to get into this. I thought it was a little slow going. And to be honest, I don’t think it every really picked up. I did enjoy the two different timelines, but again, I was hoping for something that was scarier. I was completely weirded out by The Hunger, and was expecting more from this. It never really got there. And the ending was just mediocre in my opinion. I think there was so much potential. The atmosphere was there, the location of being on the Titanic and knowing how that plays out, set this up to be so much more than it was. And the cover is stunning. It just fell flat for me.

I gave this 3.5 stars but again it is more like a 3 star.

Standout Reads

The last two months I have been binge reading The Grant County Series by Karin Slaughter. I love the audiobooks of these so I just did one right after the other. I was able to read the first 4 books; Blindsighted, Kisscut, A Faint Cold Fear and Indelible. If you have never read Karin Slaughter and you can handle tough, sometimes gory and gruesome subject matters, I highly recommend her books. When people ask me about them, I compare her books to Law and Order: SVU but a little more in depth. They are so fast paced and keep your attention the whole time.

I would advise to read these in order, the same with the Will Trent series. Each crime is finished within the book, but Slaughter develops her characters a little more with each book that it just makes sense to read them in order to get the full effect. And I would recommend reading the Grant County Series before the Will Trent Series as they do merge at some point and can be spoiled.

Overall this is a fantastic series and I can’t wait to finish the last two books this month.

4 Stars

All the other books I read during my time home were average reads. I enjoyed them but I don’t have much to day about them. If you would like to keep up on my reading, check me out on Goodreads or on my Instagram. I would love to be friends on both platforms!

How has your reading been while spending some time at home?

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons Book Tag

I saw this Tag done by Frayed Books and I knew I had to do it. I am new to Animal Crossing but I cannot get enough. It is helping me get through this time at home but really, it’s just a lot of fun!

Past Villager – Who is a character you found when you were younger that still has a place in your heart?

I will forever and always love Becky Bloomwood from the Shopaholic series.

Blather’s Blatherings – Recommend a historical fiction book that you think everybody should read.

This is a tough one because I really enjoy Historical Fiction. Besides Thrillers, it is my most read genre. But one book I keep thinking about, even though I read it about two years ago, is The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. It is a hard read, it deals with some tough subjects, but it is absolutely worth it.

Celeste’s Wish – What is a future book release you wish you could read now?

There is no set release date yet, but I know it is coming. I can not wait for the fifth installment in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith. I know JK Rowling is questionable, but I really do love this series.

Timmy and Tommy – What is your favourite sibling relationship in a book?

I am a bit stumped on this, so I am going to cheat a bit. I love the relationship between Elsa and her grandmother in My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry.

The Easter Bunny – A popular book character that you’re not a big fan of.

I can’t really think of an individual character, but I have a book that includes a few characters. I may get some negative reactions to this, but I was not a fan of Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Something about it was just not for me.

Nook’s Loans – An author you’d give all your money to.

Karin Slaughter, without a doubt. I am in the middle of binge reading her Grant County series. I have not come across one of her books that I disliked.

The Sisters Able – What is your favourite fictional family (found or otherwise)?

This is another long shot or perhaps cheat, but the “family” in The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne. Really, I am just trying to work this book into this tag because I love it so much.

It’s a C+ – What is a book trip that you don’t like that keeps popping up?

Wilder Girls by Rory Power. I like weird, but I just didn’t get it.

The Wedding Camel – What is your favourite book set in a land far away from yours?

I don’t read a lot of Fantasy but one book that I adore and has a magical world is The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. I just love that series.

What Would Dodos Do? – A fictional land you wish you could fly away to at any moment?

Predictable, but Hogwarts. There is something so special about that setting.

Do you play Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

I tag anyone who would enjoy this!

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Book Review : Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens

It has been quite awhile since I have read something that I so strongly disliked. And for that I am super grateful, but I knew I was bound to come across something that was such a disappointment for me.

The book that has prompted my return to my blog is Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens.

Earlier this year I read That Night, also by Chevy Stevens. Now, it wasn’t the best mystery/thriller that I have ever read, but I didn’t dislike it. I gave it 3/3.5 stars, which in my rating, I would consider pretty good. So when I saw Never Let You Go was also available on Hoopla as an audiobook, I figured why not.

Never Let You Go is told in a dual timeline as well as from two different perspectives. I actually like both of these concepts. One timeline is from when Lindsey and Andrew were early into their marriage and the other is from 10 years later when Lindsey and her 17 year old daughter are rebuilding their lives.

I thought this was going to be everything I like in a suspense novel. Twists and turns, a domestic thriller, unreliable people. But it was not. And one of the big reasons why it was not for me was all the domestic violence in here. I can handle a lot, but domestic violence is something I have a hard time with. Had I paid more attention to reviews and what this book was about, I don’t think I would have read it.

I will say, that I do think a big part of my dislike of this book was the audio narration. The version I listened to had two separate narrators; one for Lindsey and one for Sophie. I did not like either, but especially Sophie. Sophie in general reminded me why I do not read a lot of YA. I have little to no tolerance of whiny, entitled teenagers, and this perfectly describes Sophie. To be honest, I was taken out of the story every time the chapter was from her perspective. I cringed when I was listening to it, and not in a good way.

Because of the audio narration and because of my strong dislike for one of the main characters, I completely fell out of this story. I did not care what was going on. All I paid any attention to was how much time I had left in the audiobook.

My final thoughts. There was nothing thrilling about this book. It was more a domestic suspense novel that really wasn’t that great, with characters, or more specifically one character that I wish didn’t have a main role in the book. Towards the end, I was just listening to get it over with.

2 Stars

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O.W.Ls TBR

Well….Hello again. Long time no write. 2020 has been, well it just has been, to say the very least. We all are aware of what is going on in the world. I myself am out of work for the foreseeable future. As a hairstylist, there is no way to practice social distancing. Instead of using this time to be angry, upset, scared, just every emotion, I decided to be productive and focus on my other joys in life. So time for some more blog updates.

For the first time ever, I am going to be participating in the O.W.Ls Magical Readathon. I am super excited to be doing this. This readathon is created and hosted by Book Roast on YouTube.

I have decided to pursue two different careers.

Astronomer

For this path, I need to complete 3 O.W.Ls.

Arithmancy – – Magical qualities of number 2: balance/opposites – – read something outside your favorite genre

Astronomy – – Night Classes: read majority of this book when it’s dark outside

History of Magic – – Witch Hunts: book featuring witches/wizards

Journalist/Writer

This path also requires three O.W.Ls

History of Magic – – Witch Hunts: book featuring witches/wizards

Muggle Studies – – Book from a perspective of a muggle (contemporary)

The third is a class of my own choosing so I decided to do

Ancient Runes – – Heart Rune: heart on the cover or the title

All together, if I want to complete both careers paths, I need to read 5 books total. The amount of books is completely doable. I am a little nervous for which books I chose, mainly The Priory of the Orange Tree and Shadow of Night. But I am excited to knock some books off my ever growing physical TBR.

Are you participating in the O.W.Ls? What are you reading?

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2020 TBR

Recently, I went through my shelves and picked out books that absolutely have to be read this year. The main reason for that is because I have had them on my shelves way too long. It’s time they either get read or I find a new home for them where someone will read and love them.

I have 12 books on my list.

I am currently reading All My Puny Sorrow. I am liking it, but it is a bit slow moving. But after that, I don’t know where to go next!

Have you read any of these? What should I make a priority? Anything I should unhaul? Let me know in the comments! I need all the help I can get.

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