I’m back! Maybe you noticed I was gone, maybe you didn’t, but if you’re wondering what happened, here you go: I packed two suitcases, left all my books behind, and moved to another country. Finding a new home and a job while getting used to having winter—among a bunch of other things new to me—takes time, so I decided to put a hold on blogging. But time has passed, life is finally getting back to ‘normal’, and I’ve missed blogging!
Ahh, the beginning of a new year. The time when resolutions, goals, and dreams come together as a to-do list. For some readers, this is the time when challenges emerge, TBR books get organized, and classics are dusted off, all to accomplish an end goal.
And the list can go on and on. Of course, that’s just one side of the book community. The other simple receives the new year as a new date and continues reading whatever they want, whenever they want it.
Why is it some people love setting reading goals for themselves while others hate it? Do reading goals actually suck the life out of reading? I’ve seen myself siding with both types of readers at one point or another, so I thought it would be an interesting discussion topic for today. Continue reading “Do reading goals suck?”
I know how important, fun, and interesting it is to reread a book. I truly do. I used to reread Harry Potter all the time, always finding new little details or seeing things differently after a while. It showed how I’d grown or how my perspective had changed. But… I don’t feel like I can do it anymore.
The last time I reread a novel was last year and it was for a challenge I participated in. I reread a book from childhood, Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne, and it was fascinating to compare how differently I saw the whole story and the characters. Other than that and a few poetry collections I’ve reread this year, I just don’t feel up to it any longer. But, before you say how bad I am for not giving it a chance, let me explain my reasons!
Another day, another installment of my Genre Exploration series, where I discuss genres and anything interesting I find about them.
Since I joined the online book community I’ve noticed that not many pay attention to written plays. Of course, this all changed this year, when most hurried to bookstores and got one they couldn’t wait to read and discuss with other readers – Harry Potter & the Cursed Child.
Seeing everyone reading that got me very excited because I love reading plays and I thought that people were going to start paying more attention to that genre. Sadly, it didn’t really mean that, as it was a one time thing for many. A Potter exception. Still, as part of this series I wanted to discuss a little what the pros of reading plays vs. watching them are. I’m not exactly trying to convince you to read plays… but I totally am. So let’s go!
Continue reading “Genre Exploration: Reading vs. Watching Plays”
You know those books you can’t figure out how to rate? The ones that aren’t bad, but didn’t make you fall in love with them either? I call them “meh” books. I have the hardest time with these books because it takes a while for me to figure out how I feel about them.
I haven’t done a discussion post in such a long time and this has been something that I keep thinking about, so I thought it would be perfect for that! So today, I’ll talk about what are “meh” books for me, why reviewing them is so hard, and if we should recommend them or not.
Continue reading ““Meh” books: Hard to review, impossible to recommend?”
It’s no secret that pretty much everyone dislikes insta-love in novels. Two characters that just by looking at each other are instantly smitten makes us roll our eyes. There are cases when we can tolerate it or even sort of like it, but that doesn’t happen often. There are endless posts and articles out there talking about this trope and why people find it annoying, yet authors still use it in their books. Whenever I encounter it, I think to myself:
Don’t they know that the book community rejects it with a passion?! Are they writing it on purpose or are they oblivious to the fact that they used it?
No matter how much hate it receives, this controversial trope still makes appearances in many many books. It is especially evident in Young Adult novels, but Contemporary and New Adult books do not fall far behind. So today I thought I would ramble a bit on my thoughts on it and why I think authors still go for it.
Welcome to another installment of my Genre Exploration series, where I discuss genres I don’t normally pick up, define them, talk about their classics and new releases, recommend books and authors, and much more.
I had left this feature a little unattended, but it’s finally back. Today I want to have a little discussion on non-fiction books, mention my favorite subgenres and give out some recommendations. Most readers I know pick up very few non-fiction books during the year. Some don’t even read this genre at all. I also have a hard time reaching out for this genre and veer more towards fiction. So it left me wondering: are we afraid of non-fiction?
Continue reading “Genre Exploration: Afraid of non-fiction?”
When I decided to start a blog I never realized the amount of work it took. I knew it would require time and dedication, but I didn’t quite know how much. I actually don’t think anyone understands the work behind a blog unless you start one yourself. For me, blogging and reading are my biggest hobbies. As such, they shouldn’t feel like a job. But if you aren’t well prepared (or even if you are!), sometimes they can start feeling a bit stressful.
Accepting Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) or requested reviews from authors is incredibly fun and definitely a book blogging perk, but if you go overboard, you can feel pressured by it. The same goes for writing posts. If you overthink it or try to keep up a schedule that is too much for you, you can feel anxious about it. As of lately, I’ve been struggling with this so I thought that I would share my own experience and hopefully hear about your own and how you cope with it.
For me, rating a book can be a very hard task. Sometimes I finish a novel and I immediately know how many stars I think it deserves. But, more often than not, I have to spend a few hours or days mulling over it. Over at my Review Policy you can check out my star rating system, which is fairly simple and based on the one provided by Goodreads. My problem is that I overthink it. I always think that my rating has to convey perfectly how I felt about a book. This is obviously impossible and where reviews come in handy, but star ratings are the quickest way to see if people have a similar reading taste.
Because of that, I prefer being overly critical and tend to be a bit harsh rating books. Over at Goodreads I have an average rating of 3.12. I decided to look at other people’s average rating and found that I had the lowest number, as I suspected. The lowest I saw from almost 20 people was 3.40! I’ve been meaning to change the way I rate and I thought it would be of great help for me to have this discussion post, so join me and let’s talk about rating books.
As readers, we are constantly discovering new books. Sometimes people introduce them to us and other times we find them ourselves by sheer luck or through our own research. Either way, it’s a never-ending process of adding books to our mental, digital or written lists of books to read. The notorious TBRs.
I never gave much thought to what I added to my ‘to be read’ list on Goodreads until I saw someone on Twitter commenting they were ‘cleaning up’ theirs. That got me thinking in all the books I’ve added that I’m never really going to read, which are a nuisance when I’m looking for something that I actually want to pick up. So today I want to discuss if we should limit the books we add to our TBRs or if it’s better to add any book that calls to us, no matter how small the reason might be.
Chapter Adventures 