If there's one thing I've learnt so far in 2016, it's that life is too short. Far too short. In the midst of family issues, and celebrities dropping like flies, along with career alterations and just life in general, I've started to focus on things that matter the most to me, and spending more time doing the things I love. Whilst this includes reading, some 'light' crafting, and filming for my YouTube channel and writing blog posts, it also means spending time with family, fiance, and friends.
So what does this mean for my blog and YouTube?
Absolutely nothing.
As soon as I finish a book, I'll be posting a collective review of my thoughts and feelings surrounding the book, its plot, characters etc. I'll still be posting videos as and when I can, with hopefully a variety of content.
But what about my reading?
Well, that's actually what I wanted to talk about in this post to be honest. I've FINALLY decided to make the executive decision of being ruthless toward my reading. I have such a huge TBR pile that it just has to be done. So how am I going to do it?
It's simple. If I'm reading a physical book, I'll give it 3 chapters, or between 30 and 50 pages, depending on what I reach first. If the book seems promising and I'm enjoying it, I'll see it out. If it isn't tickling my fancy, it'll have until the 50 page mark to redeem itself, or else it will be going on my DNF pile. If I'm reading an eBook, it will have between 10 and 20%, depending on the size of the book. If the book is large, I'll apply the 50 page rule, as long as my kindle has the page number option available. If not, it'll have up to 30% to redeem itself, or else I will be leaving it unfinished, It's a shame to have to be strict on myself and my reading, but when I have such a busy schedule, along with a continuous growth spurt of my TBR, it has to be done.
Have any of you had to be ruthless with your TBR? Or with anything else for that matter? If you have any more tips or tricks about being ruthless, let me know down below!
See you all soon with another post!
Friday, 22 April 2016
Tuesday, 5 April 2016
REVIEW || A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
How the hell am I meant to review this book?
*
In this short, but powerfully moving novel from Patrick Ness, we follow Conor, who has all the usual teenage struggles alongside two other things. His mums illness, and a nightmare that visits him night after night. Until one night, there's a looming shadow in this nightmare. And it doesn't go away.
*
This book had me in tears. I honestly don't know how anyone can read this and NOT cry. I genuinely believed Conor's views and thoughts, so much so I was rooting for him from start to finish. But it just wasn't meant to be.
I loved the representation that the character of the monster brought to the novel. It had this big looming scary feeling to Conor, but as time passed, he got used to it and allowed to become a friend almost. And in true friend fashion, it allowed him to do absolutely anything, from trashing his grandmas pristine and precious living room, to finally beating the crap out of his bully (which was totally justified).
I don't want to say too much in fear of spoil on the experience. I went in not knowing much - literally just what I had read on the back of the book, and in this instance, that is exactly how it should be.
A phenomenal piece of writing from Ness, so thought provoking, thoughtful and eye-opening. This has definitely willed me into reading more by him, and is incredibly deserving of the full five star rating I'm giving it.
*
In this short, but powerfully moving novel from Patrick Ness, we follow Conor, who has all the usual teenage struggles alongside two other things. His mums illness, and a nightmare that visits him night after night. Until one night, there's a looming shadow in this nightmare. And it doesn't go away.
*
This book had me in tears. I honestly don't know how anyone can read this and NOT cry. I genuinely believed Conor's views and thoughts, so much so I was rooting for him from start to finish. But it just wasn't meant to be.
I loved the representation that the character of the monster brought to the novel. It had this big looming scary feeling to Conor, but as time passed, he got used to it and allowed to become a friend almost. And in true friend fashion, it allowed him to do absolutely anything, from trashing his grandmas pristine and precious living room, to finally beating the crap out of his bully (which was totally justified).
I don't want to say too much in fear of spoil on the experience. I went in not knowing much - literally just what I had read on the back of the book, and in this instance, that is exactly how it should be.
A phenomenal piece of writing from Ness, so thought provoking, thoughtful and eye-opening. This has definitely willed me into reading more by him, and is incredibly deserving of the full five star rating I'm giving it.
Sunday, 3 April 2016
REVIEW || Flawed by Cecelia Ahern
***this book was received as an eArc in exchange for an honest review***
You want honest?
I've never read Cecelia Ahern.
Now, I'm well aware of just how popular her works are and how successful a writer she actually is. So when I heard she was venturing out of her usual writing realm and diving into YA, I thought 'good for her'. Well, you can only imagine my surprise at seeing her new novel available on the eArc site I use. I snapped that bad boy up.
So what is Flawed about exactly? Well, we follow Celestine, our main female character who is 17 years old. Lives with her parents and siblings, straight A student with an amazing boyfriend. One problem. There's this thing called the Guild. The Guild are there to protect the community, by preventing corruption and dishonesty in leaders BEFORE it has a chance to happen. How? They monitor your every move. If you do something morally or ethically wrong through any of your actions, you get punished, and are seen as flawed. The punishment is simple. You are branded - with a hot iron just like cows no less- in one of five places, depending on your sentencing. Those places each have a different meaning, and being flawed and branded restricts your freedoms and corrupts your quality of life. So what exactly does this have to do with Celestine, our seemingly perfect female lead? Well, she's faced with a rather tough decision, and whatever path she follows for that decision has grave consequences...
This book is phenomenal for a first time venture into YA fiction from an author outside the field. Throughout my goodreads updates, I found myself going through the motions with Celestine. When she was scared, I was scared for her. When she was worried, I was too. And so on. One thing I didn't like however, is that this is part of a series. The ending clearly leaves the series open to a number of different directions, but I felt it didn't have the closure I usually prefer, which naturally would come from a standalone piece.
Overall, I'm rating the book 4 out of 5 stars. I may pick up the sequel (if I remember to), but if not, I can leave the series knowing that I have been pleasantly surprised by yet another novel, with an ending open to interpretation for myself.
Have you read this book? Let me know down below and we can chat about it! (I promise I'm going to try harder with comment replies!)
You want honest?
I've never read Cecelia Ahern.
Now, I'm well aware of just how popular her works are and how successful a writer she actually is. So when I heard she was venturing out of her usual writing realm and diving into YA, I thought 'good for her'. Well, you can only imagine my surprise at seeing her new novel available on the eArc site I use. I snapped that bad boy up.
So what is Flawed about exactly? Well, we follow Celestine, our main female character who is 17 years old. Lives with her parents and siblings, straight A student with an amazing boyfriend. One problem. There's this thing called the Guild. The Guild are there to protect the community, by preventing corruption and dishonesty in leaders BEFORE it has a chance to happen. How? They monitor your every move. If you do something morally or ethically wrong through any of your actions, you get punished, and are seen as flawed. The punishment is simple. You are branded - with a hot iron just like cows no less- in one of five places, depending on your sentencing. Those places each have a different meaning, and being flawed and branded restricts your freedoms and corrupts your quality of life. So what exactly does this have to do with Celestine, our seemingly perfect female lead? Well, she's faced with a rather tough decision, and whatever path she follows for that decision has grave consequences...
This book is phenomenal for a first time venture into YA fiction from an author outside the field. Throughout my goodreads updates, I found myself going through the motions with Celestine. When she was scared, I was scared for her. When she was worried, I was too. And so on. One thing I didn't like however, is that this is part of a series. The ending clearly leaves the series open to a number of different directions, but I felt it didn't have the closure I usually prefer, which naturally would come from a standalone piece.
Overall, I'm rating the book 4 out of 5 stars. I may pick up the sequel (if I remember to), but if not, I can leave the series knowing that I have been pleasantly surprised by yet another novel, with an ending open to interpretation for myself.
Have you read this book? Let me know down below and we can chat about it! (I promise I'm going to try harder with comment replies!)
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
BOOK BUYING BAN || The Update
Hello!
So at the beginning of the year, I posted a resolutions video on my YouTube channel, where I gave a list of resolutions I wanted to carry out for the first half of 2016. One of those was a book buying ban, and well....... it didn't go too well.
The video above is a video showing you the books I've aquired since posting my resolutions video, in which I stated I was banning myself from buying books until at least Easter. For all Easter is just around the corner (it's Easter weekend this weekend!), I've still gained books between now and January. Shame on me!
The Books:
The Versions of Us Laura Barnett (buy here)
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark Anna North (buy here)
**the above were kindly given to me by Orion books in a competition, thanks so much and I cant wait to get to them!**
Anno Dracula Kim Newman (buy here)
Room Emma Donoghue (buy here)
The Bones of You Debbie Howells (buy here)
Me Before You Jojo Moyes (buy here)
The Buried Giant Kazuo Ishiguro (buy here)
Rebel of the Sands Alwyn Hamilton (buy here)
The Poppy Factory Liz Trenow (buy here)
The Bookshop Book Jen Campbell (buy here)
My Life Next Door Huntley Fitzpatrick (buy here)
and an extra one I got after filming...
The Dwarves Markus Heitz (buy here)
So yes, I am failing terribly at that part of my resolutions. But who can blame me? Books are beautiful things and they will just fall into my arms time and time again!
Friday, 18 March 2016
REVIEW || Mañana by William Hjortsburg
So a while ago, I got this as a free eARC in exchange for an honest review. Here goes.
-
I actually don't remember all that much about it. As in, I made my decision on my star rating on Goodreads, but didn't leave a review. Clearly, this book had a profound impact on me.
Our main character, Tod, wakes up whilst on holiday with his wife, to find a dead prostitute lying next to him. Yup, that's right a dead prostitute. Naturally his wife is nowhere to be seen, neither are the people he vaguely remembers from the night before. Cue Tod spending the whole of this novel trying to track his wife down, as he is adamant she has been kidnapped against her will. He also needs to figure out whether he did actually murder his wake-up friend, or whether it was all staged to make him look bad.
Now, don't get me wrong, this book had so much promise. It could have took so many different twists and turns, and it did, they just weren't exciting enough for me. I found his wife to be quite whiny and actually, quite cunning, and I found Tod being a tad too helpless for his own good at some points. However, the points where his head was screwed on actually made sense, but it was so frustrating to see some things pan out the way they did.
Through the time spent writing this review, I've decided to drop my stars from 3 to 2. Mainly because I've realised just how much I disliked the book, even if I did get through it quite quickly.
Sorry if I've disappointed you with this review, and although I am thankful for the eARC copy, I'm pleased I didn't actually pay for this, which is such a shame.
Wednesday, 10 February 2016
REVIEW || Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
This book. Wow. Just wow.
I bought this on a whim, mainly a guilty pleasure cover buy, but also for the fact that we (myself and the book), share the same name. Rebecca. Obviously!
In this book, we follow our female lead, who begins her take working for a Mrs Van de Hopper as a servant almost. She lives with her, dines with her, holidays with her, and so on, all in exchange for £90 a month. When we first come across the pair, they are holidaying abroad, when they just so happen to be staying in the same hotel as Maxim De Winter, esteemed Englishman and sole owner of the stately homes of Manderley. We see the relationship between our main character and Maxim blossom during the hotel stay, to the point where Maxim asks her to becomes his bride! From there, we are taken on a journey full of twists and turns with the newly-weds, as our main female character struggles to come to terms with life at Manderley, all the while trying to understand her husbands ever-growing silence ad suspicion surrounding his deceased first-wife, Rebecca.
*from here this review will no longer be spoiler free, scroll to the last paragraph to see my overall thoughts and rating*.
I adored this book. I read it as part of my #2016classicschallenge, and have completed it in under a week. Which for me, and a 400+ page book, is pretty damn impressive! Initially I believed our main character to be a bit of a pain, as the author writes in all of these other scenarios playing out in our females head, so I was never really sure what was truth and what wasn't at certain points. However I found that becoming less and less frequent the more I read, which was a definite bonus.
I went through every single emotion I could possibly imagine with almost all of the characters, bar one or two who I loathed from the moment I met them. I have to say, Maxim exceeded my expectations, and I loved his character development throughout the book. I began hating him for leading our poor female on (I've yet to learn her name, it's probably mentioned somewhere and I didn't pay attention), until suddenly it all went up in the air when she confronted him about his feelings. And then - well, that was one hell of a revelation!
***
Overall I'm giving this book an amazing 5 out of 5 stars, which is rare for a classic read (for me anyway). This means that I would highly recommend it to absolutely anyone and everyone. Don't read classics? Read this one. Prefer YA? Try this, trust me you'll love it. I just hope someone somewhere has thought about a novella or sequel so we can see what has happened to our beloved couple since the end of the novel!
Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?
I bought this on a whim, mainly a guilty pleasure cover buy, but also for the fact that we (myself and the book), share the same name. Rebecca. Obviously!
In this book, we follow our female lead, who begins her take working for a Mrs Van de Hopper as a servant almost. She lives with her, dines with her, holidays with her, and so on, all in exchange for £90 a month. When we first come across the pair, they are holidaying abroad, when they just so happen to be staying in the same hotel as Maxim De Winter, esteemed Englishman and sole owner of the stately homes of Manderley. We see the relationship between our main character and Maxim blossom during the hotel stay, to the point where Maxim asks her to becomes his bride! From there, we are taken on a journey full of twists and turns with the newly-weds, as our main female character struggles to come to terms with life at Manderley, all the while trying to understand her husbands ever-growing silence ad suspicion surrounding his deceased first-wife, Rebecca.
*from here this review will no longer be spoiler free, scroll to the last paragraph to see my overall thoughts and rating*.
I adored this book. I read it as part of my #2016classicschallenge, and have completed it in under a week. Which for me, and a 400+ page book, is pretty damn impressive! Initially I believed our main character to be a bit of a pain, as the author writes in all of these other scenarios playing out in our females head, so I was never really sure what was truth and what wasn't at certain points. However I found that becoming less and less frequent the more I read, which was a definite bonus.
I went through every single emotion I could possibly imagine with almost all of the characters, bar one or two who I loathed from the moment I met them. I have to say, Maxim exceeded my expectations, and I loved his character development throughout the book. I began hating him for leading our poor female on (I've yet to learn her name, it's probably mentioned somewhere and I didn't pay attention), until suddenly it all went up in the air when she confronted him about his feelings. And then - well, that was one hell of a revelation!
***
Overall I'm giving this book an amazing 5 out of 5 stars, which is rare for a classic read (for me anyway). This means that I would highly recommend it to absolutely anyone and everyone. Don't read classics? Read this one. Prefer YA? Try this, trust me you'll love it. I just hope someone somewhere has thought about a novella or sequel so we can see what has happened to our beloved couple since the end of the novel!
Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?
Monday, 8 February 2016
Life Update
Until I consider whether this is going to be a permanent feature in my blog, I will just be calling this a "Life Update".
Okay. So exactly four weeks ago today (I think that's right), I took the plunge and joined my local weight loss group with my mam. She's been going for little under a year now, and has done phenomenally, so I finally bit the bullet and joined myself. Everything was going great. Until...
My hiccup.
I've been weighed tonight (it's just after 9pm) at class and found since last week I've put half a pound on. I'm feeling both frustrated and upset but at the same time I'm feeling nothing at all. And I think I know why.
I didn't stick to plan.
Each week for the first four weeks of your journey, you're meant to fill out food diaries to see what you're eating, what your habits are, and how you can change them if necessary. You pass then back to your consultant who then looks over them and returns them the following week (or texts you like mine does, she's such a good consultant!)
This week however, life admittedly got in the way, and although I was mentally preparing my meals and counting my good and bad foods, I wasn't actually writing these down, not even on a scrap bit of paper, let alone my food diary! So naturally I had a rather naughty week as a consequence (totally my own fault and I take full blame), which I've paid for in my gain. To me, this proves that I really do need my food diaries to help me control my eating habits and make the correct changes I need.
Anyway, this ramble is now over, I've had my say and can't decide if I want to keep up with this segment or if this is a one off.
See you all soon with another post!
Okay. So exactly four weeks ago today (I think that's right), I took the plunge and joined my local weight loss group with my mam. She's been going for little under a year now, and has done phenomenally, so I finally bit the bullet and joined myself. Everything was going great. Until...
My hiccup.
I've been weighed tonight (it's just after 9pm) at class and found since last week I've put half a pound on. I'm feeling both frustrated and upset but at the same time I'm feeling nothing at all. And I think I know why.
I didn't stick to plan.
Each week for the first four weeks of your journey, you're meant to fill out food diaries to see what you're eating, what your habits are, and how you can change them if necessary. You pass then back to your consultant who then looks over them and returns them the following week (or texts you like mine does, she's such a good consultant!)
This week however, life admittedly got in the way, and although I was mentally preparing my meals and counting my good and bad foods, I wasn't actually writing these down, not even on a scrap bit of paper, let alone my food diary! So naturally I had a rather naughty week as a consequence (totally my own fault and I take full blame), which I've paid for in my gain. To me, this proves that I really do need my food diaries to help me control my eating habits and make the correct changes I need.
Anyway, this ramble is now over, I've had my say and can't decide if I want to keep up with this segment or if this is a one off.
See you all soon with another post!
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