September 2017 Wrap Up

Guys, let me tell you. I feel like I blinked and September was over. It is so surreal. I can't believe how quickly the year is going and I am willing it with all my might to slow down.

This month I only read three books which is perhaps the smallest amount I've read in a long time. I read:
- Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

I DNFed a book sometime between the two books because I wasn't into it at all which took up some of my precious reading time. Genuine Fraud was okay, definitely not anything I'd rave about but I didn't dislike it so there's that. Gone Girl was pretty good, I had minor issues but overall, really goo, I enjoyed it. Six of Crows was a reread because the first time I read it I was in such a bad slump and didn't actually absorb a single thing so I reread it because I really wanted to love it and I did this time around so you can look forward to that review.

September has been pretty stressful, not going lie. I usually pride myself on my ability to not let the stress get to me but college is so completely different to high school in the workload and expectations. But, not long to go now and it'll finished until next year when I get to do it all again but this time with even more stress and expectations. I'm really enthused, I don't know if you can tell. But, I'm hoping to write some stress related posts with all the new coping mechanisms I've become reliant on. So, you should look forward to that.

I'm looking forward to October, it's going to be absolutely jam packed with study. It's the last month before final exams so, it'll definitely be study, study, study. I probably won't get around to doing too much reading aside from the texts from my English text which I'll be going over so much in an attempt to soak in as much as possible from all four of the texts. But as for recreational reading, that may be hard to come by. But, I'll definitely try to get some in as a bit a relaxer between studying and practising and everything else I've got to be doing.

I think I'll leave it there for now. I hope you've all had a great and less stressful September than I did and I hope you got a bit more reading in than I did. I'd love to know what you read. I wish you all a happy and comfortable October.

Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray

4 Stars

“Ten thousand skies, and a million worlds, and it still wouldn’t be enough for me to share with you. Nothing less than forever will do.”

I love this world. I love that we got to see a bit more of it in this second book and gain a bigger and better understanding of how it works.

This was a big and explosive sequel to A Thousand Pieces Of You which I also adored. It was literally filled of action. And so many different dimensions. It was wonderful. I was always so excited to see what dimension Marguerite was going to jump into next.

It focused heavily on the relationship between Paul and Marguerite. The dimensions making it even harder for Marguerite to decode all the feelings she has for Paul. It was quite interesting to see how it all unfolded between them even if Marguerite's Paul wasn't present through the large majority of the book.

My one flaw for this book would be, the way the author switches from present time to the past by the drop of a hat. Especially at the beginning. I understand the author is trying to get across as much information as she can but it's difficult to understand when she's jumping from present time to a past memory. The transition wasn't as smooth as it could've been. I think this could be a great info dumping tool if done well, unfortunately this wasn't done all that well.

Another small flaw that has nothing to do with the actual author themselves, I love Theo. I really, really want Theo to be with Marguerite in the end. Theo is absolutely gorgeous and Paul is just not my type at all. Obviously, Marguerite is but I am not. I want more Theo action.

But, asides from my massive love of Theo. I loved everything else about this book. I don't often read Science Fiction but this makes me want to read more of it. I love the idea of dimensions and I'm so excited to explore more of that in the next and final book. I think this was a brilliant and excited sequel and it left me hardly able to contain my excitement for A Million Worlds With You.

The TBR Spot No. 2

Okay, so this one is a little bit of a cheat since I started reading it about twenty minutes ago. But, I've been meaning to read Gone Girl ever since the trailer for the film was released. I got a copy back in June and it's just been sitting on my shelf waiting to be picked up. I'm really looking forward to it, I've been on a bit of a thriller kick ever since I read You by Caroline Kepnes. I've heard nothing but good things about Gone Girl and I've heard Gillian Flynn is a pretty great author.
 I think it would be really cool to watch the film after reading the book and do some comparison. The trailer looks pretty good and I still can't believe I've managed to hold out from watching it. But, I really wanted to read the book first.
I'm really excited and I'll hopefully really enjoy it because I'm already eyeing off Gillian Flynn's other books. But, I'm sure you'll find out if I love it or not very soon, probably in the form of a gushing review.

Cress by Marissa Meyer

4 Stars

"Bending his head, Kai presses his lips to her knuckles. The plating had no nerve endings, and yet the touch sent a tingle of electricity along her arm."

Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles. The series takes fairy tale retellings and puts a scifi twist on them. Each book introduces a new character and follows the plot of a different fairy tale. Cress is the third of four books, following from Scarlet.

God, I loved this. This is quickly becoming one of my favourite series'. Cress might be my favourite one yet, it was really great.

Okay, I loved Cress. She reminds me of myself a bit. She is such a strong girl. She is so thoughtful and just wonderful. One of my favourite things about the Lunar Chronicles is the powerful women. I love that is really is about the girls and the guys are just along for the ride. It's very empowering. All the girls are so strong and independent. I love how Cinder takes control and Cress tries her hardest all the time. It's great. I love it.

 Cress was jam packed with action. But not an overwhelming amount of action. Just enough. I think Marissa Meyer does a great job of packing her books with action and just the right amount of romance on the side. That is one woman who knows what I'm about. I love the scifi factor. I didn't think I was a fan of scifi until I started this series. Turns out I love scifi. Cress has set up a fantastic start for Winter, the final book. I think it's really important for predecessors of the final book in a series to do that. They need to build up to an electric last book. They need to create excitement and drama. Cress has done that fantastically and I am thrilled about it.

Honestly, I don't have much else to say. I'm basically holding out from giving this a 5 star rating because I want to save it just in the case that the final book Winter blows me out of the water. And, I'm predicting it will. I'm excited. I absolutely love The Lunar Chronicles so far and hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on Winter soon. It keeps on getting better and it's shaping up to be one hell of a series.

DNF-ing: A Discussion

It's been ages since I've done a discussion post and this has been on my min recently. I don't often DNF books. I just hate leaving them unfinished but, I've been doing it a lot more recently. If a book doesn't grab me in a reasonable amount of time, I just don't have patience for it anymore. I just DNFed a book today because I just wasn't feeling it. So, it's something I'm doing a lot more often.

I think I've started to just have less patience with books I don't like. I don't get a lot of time these days to read so when I do, it's like it's frustrating for me if I'm wasting my reading time on crappy books. Which is almost a theme with everything nowadays. With so little time in my days I don't like wasting my time doing things that aren't productive somewhat and for me, reading books I don't enjoy is counter productive. 

As I said, I don't really like to DNF books. It just feels every unsatisfactory. But, I'm trying to bring myself to be more comfortable with it so I don't end up forcing myself through books I don't want to read. And, I'm also a huge mood reader so I can get half way through books and just become uninterested because I suddenly want to read a high-action fantasy or something. So, why not just put it down and pick something else up. But, no, because my brain tells me I must finish every book I
pick up. 

DNF-ing for me, is really about quality and enjoyment. Which is something I struggle with especially with my blog because I want to read things to review for the blog or because everyone else in the blogosphere is reading it. Which sometimes takes enjoyment out of it so in my reading I'm trying to think a little less about the blog and letting myself DNF reads and not force myself through for the sake of a review. DNF-ing is all about being able to read the things you want and not waste time with crappy books. I want to read good books that I enjoy because I don't have a lot of time to read anymore so when I do read I want it to be good. 

So, I don't know. Maybe DNF-ing books is less of a big thing for everyone else. I'm trying to make it less of a thing for myself so I can get maximum enjoyment out of my life. I just don't really have time to be reading books that are unsatisfactory. So, I guess I want to know, what are your feelings on DNF-ing? Do you do it? Do you like doing it? 

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

3 Stars

Thank you to Allen & Unwin for sending me a copy. 

Genuine Fraud is a thriller from E. Lockhart, otherwise known as the author of immensely popular, We Were Liars. I've read a few of E. Lockhart's books at this point so I was intrigued. The title really stuck out to me, it's a bit of a paradox. The words genuine and fraud are two words that very much contradict each other. I like it. I thought it was cool. So, anyway, there were things I liked and things I didn't. I will explain that a bit now.

E. Lockhart has this incredibly haunting way of writing which makes her a great voice for thriller. I wouldn't really call the other books she has written, thrillers. This was quite dark in comparison. But, it worked quite well because E. Lockhart has such a distinctive style. She also tends to reveal little about characters and sort of just keeps questions swimming around in your head. This was definitely the case with Genuine Fraud. I had so many questions and every time something was resolved, another can of worms was opened with it. Which I can't work out if I liked not. I don't think enough questions were answered at the end for me to like it.

I loved the structure. It was really interesting. E. Lockhart usually has quite an interesting way of telling stories and this was another one. It was cool, it went backwards which was cool and I think sets it apart a bit. Just opening the book you're trying to figure out what's going on but the more you read and go back, the more you find out. It worked really well with the type of story this is. I definitely liked it.

It was really gripping. I didn't want to put it down because I was so eager to find out what was happening. It was eerie at times and there was definitely something a bit unsettling which is often the tell tale sign of a good thriller. I read it in essentially one sitting because I just wanted to understand what was happening. That's also one of the tricks of beginning at the end, it gets you wanting to know what happened to lead up to that moment.

The things I didn't necessarily like was the fact that the ending was a bit weird to me. I feel like there were a lot of things we didn't find out but it was still kind of final. I think this could've been fixed if the book was just a bit longer. I didn't feel like there was a huge amount of characterisation which was where a lot of my questions throughout came from. I'm not sure, it just didn't feel like the right way to end it.

I also think it was a bit predictable. To a certain point there was definitely this air of 'oooh what's happening? What's going on?' but after that certain point it got very predictable and I was immediately able to understand the direction it was heading into and to me that was a bit disappointing. Especially when you compare it to We Were Liars which had such a shocking and unexpected ending. So, perhaps I was looking for just a little more there. It fell just a little flat.

So, overall. Genuine Fraud was good. I wouldn't read it again. But, for a quick thriller, it was pretty good. I enjoyed it. It was dark and creepy. It had some really good aspects and fell flat on a few things but not bad.

25 Facts About Me

1. I really love the colour pink

2. I also really love the colour yellow

3. I have a pet cat named Louis

4. I really love plants

5. I play the trumpet

6. I have a small addiction to coffee milk that grows by the day

7. I really badly want a golden retriever

8. I am an only child

9.  I will never have enough pairs of blue jeans

10. My favourite season is winter

11. I really love socks and have a drawer full of fluffy bed socks

12. I really love The Beatles and have a slowly growing collection of Beatles things

13. I will also never have enough cardigans (they're so comfy!)

14. I have a bit of a thing for 80's movies

15. My favourite season is winter

16. But, I get really excited about spring because of the plants (and I'm writing this on the very first day of spring, yay!)

17. I'm surprisingly good at sewing

18. I'm turning 17 in November

19. I love salt and vinegar chips with a passion

20. I have fear of flying

21. I hate horror movies

22. I really like makeup but have no idea how to use most of it

23. I have so many book ideas floating around my head but absolutely no desire to write them

24. My biggest guilty pleasure is McDonald's (I can not get enough of cheeseburgers)

25. I love baking (and then eating my delicious baked goods)