Sunday, April 3, 2016

Graceling read-along!

Graceling Read-Along! 

Hey all! 
So, as announced earlier today, Erika @ Books, Stars and the Pages in Between and I are hosting another read-along, full of surprises! :D 



We will start by reading Graceling on Monday, April 18th! We will have two weeks to read the book before moving onto the next one. 

This will include character profiles, a personality quiz, and other goodies - maybe a fan art contest or a giveaway of one of the e-books! (We are still working on the exact details ;) ) 

Let us know if you’d like to join, it should be fun! :D Just because we are hosting it doesn’t mean you can’t follow our posting schedules as well ;) 

Have a great weekend! 

~Caroline

March Wrap-up + Haul + Comments!

So What happened in March...? 

Hey all! 
I’m in a... hmm... not really talkative mood toady, but I feel like blogging and talking to other bloggers and such, so HI! 
How are you? 
I hope you’re having a nice weekend :) 

I feel like even though March was really busy for me, I still had a really bookish month. I (Finally) received all the books I ordered since January, practically all at once! I got new shelves, reached a few milestones, and a whole bunch of goodness! 

What I read
So I didn’t have time to read a lot because uni reasons. But I did enjoy everything I read! 

I ended up reading Everything Everything (5/5), Glass Sword (4/5) and The Rest of us Just Live Here (5/5). 

All of these were so good! 

What I got
I also kinda have a ridiculous haul this month... 
The thing is, most of these I bought over the span of January, February and March, but I received all of them in one big bundle xD 
Let me just show you guys a picture, just for emphasis... 

waaah! 
So we have: 

  • Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas (signed) 
  • Dissonance and Resonance, by Erika O’Rourke
  • Iron Fey books 1-4, by Julie Kagawa
  • The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise, by Matthew Crow
  • (better editions of) Heroes of Olympus books 3+4, by Rick Riordan
  • Lady Midnight, by Cassandra Clare
  • The Alchemyst, by Michael Scott
  • Shatter Me, by Tahereh Mafi 
  • The Darkest Lie, by Pintip Dunn (Thank you Kensington Publishing!) 
  • The Curse of the Sphinx, by Raye Wagner (Kindle) (Thank you Raye!)

Yeah... That’s a lot XD I’m gonna go hide now, this is crazy. And in April I’ll get like... one, maybe XD I don’t want to be show-offy and I didn’t realize it might sound like that when I started this post, I’m sorry! I just wanted to share stuff with you guys! 
What books did you guys get in March? :D 

Other goodies!
  • I got my first physical ARC!
  • I reached 500 Instagram followers
  • I’m working with Raye Wagner with the book The Curse of the Sphinx  (Review up soon!) 
  • New shelves
  • I’ve been in the mood for contemporaries. Any suggestions?
  • Make sure to enter my giveaway! 

Right now...
  • I’m 200 pages into Lady Midnight, but have it on hold because I’m reading The Curse of the Sphinx for review
  • Erika @ Books, Stars, and the Pages in between and I are working on a new read-along for you guys! It will start on the 18th of April, and we chose to read Graceling! Intro post to be published later today. 

I could keep rambling for a while, but I need to work a bit now =p 

I’ll see you guys later with another post, but for now, have a lovely day! <3

~Caroline



Friday, April 1, 2016

GIVEAWAY! ~ Blog Birthday April 23rd

BLOG BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAY! 

Hey all!
Soooooo big news! My blog will be turning 1 on the 23rd of April!




I can barely believe I went through a whole year (almost!).
To celebrate, I want to do a giveaway!
It is INTERNATIONAL! :D

There are two prizes, you will win one! (Or two if you’re really really lucky!)





Prize 1: The Coloring book!
Okay yeah it’s in Dutch, but that’s all I found. Plus it’s just the front cover, so that’s ok!
It has 30 pages with cool designs, which you can keep for yourself or send as a postcard to someone. I think the cover says something along the lines of “The one real coloring book to send”?

Prize 2: The Iron Fey poster!
Okay so this came with a box set of the first four books of the series. I have nowhere to put it, but I’m sure some of you would love it! :3 It is double sided so you can show what team you’re on, too ;)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for participating and good luck! <3
The winners will be announced on the 23rd of April with my Bloggiversary post! :D
Make sure to comment if you enter, saying which prize you’d prefer!

Have a wonderful day!

~ Caroline






Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Pottermore - Can you guys do me a quick favor?

Hey all! 
So maybe some of you guys were on Pottermore before it changed to what it was now. You know, the Pottermore with the comments sections, the interactive books, the potions and duels and collections. 



I’m writing an essay on Harry Potter fans and how they have influence on the ‘owners’ of the story and the site. It’s pretty hard to find first-hand accounts of how much fans appreciated the old pottermore vs. how much they dislike the new pottermore, even though that’s a large topic of discussion. 

Can you guys do me a favor and, in the comments, write a short bit about why, as a harry potter fan, you enjoyed the old website? I would appreciate it so much!! <3

~Caroline 

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Top Ten Tuesday - 5 stars

Top Ten Tuesday - 5 Stars for all! 

Hey all! 
Welcome to a new Top Ten Tuesday! This meme was started by The Broke and the Bookish, so I suggest you go check out their blog! :D 

This week’s theme is Top ten books I recently gave 5 stars to!



Let's get started!


1. Everything Everything, by Nicola Yoon 
2. The Rest of us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness
3. Rebel of the Sands, Alwyn Hamilton
4. Clockwork Princess, Cassandra Clare
5. A Court of Thornes and Roses, Sarah J. Maas
6. The Sword of Summer, Rick Riordan
7. Wonder, R. J. Palacio
8. Clockwork Prince, by Cassandra Clare
9. The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan
10. Forget Tomorrow, Pintip Dunn 


Well it’s pretty hard to get creative with these, so I’ll leave it at that! 
How about a little bookish chat? 
I started reading Lady Midnight in the car yesterday, and I’m already almost 200 pages in, and it’s so good! Cassandra’s books just keep getting better and better! 
I just recieved an ARC of the Curse of the Sphinx and I’ll be starting that soon as well :) 
My instagram reached over 500 followers yay! 

what’s the last book you gave 5 stars to? Let me know in the comments! :D

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Everything, Everything, by Nicola Yoon

Everything, Everything, by Nicola Yoon 

Hey all!
I just finished reading Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon! 
One word: ADORABLE

Goodreads Blurb: 


"My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.

But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He’s tall, lean and wearing all black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.

Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.






Ok first off - I didn’t know what to expect - I wanted to read it when I saw it on Netgalley, and when I saw the hard copy at my bookstore I just thought ‘why not?’. I’ve been in the mood for a contemporary practically since I got halfway through Glass Sword, and this seemed like a good choice. 
To be honest, my brother was asking me what the main character was allergic to. I read the first chapter to find out, and it got me hooked. I finished Glass sword and picked it up immediately. 

The book is an incredibly light, easy and fluid read (It’s rare that I read a 300-page-book in 2 days). And it was adorable! Now I’m not the biggest reader of romances, but this was just so sweet!





Okay so basically Maddie is a girl who has SCID - a low immune system which basically makes her ‘allergic’ to everything - practically anything can make her sick. She’s lived in her house all her life and has never really gone outside. 

Until Olly. 

So Olly is adorable as well - he’s a parkour guy, a math genius, and probably has one of the biggest YA-hearts ever. He’s dark and ‘mysterious’ (not really). 

So it’s no surprise that Maddie and Olly fall for each other - it’s a YA contemporary! But one thing I loved is how they’re shown as yin and yang - she is Japanese/African American, and he’s caucasian. She always wears white, and he always wears black. He’s an outdoorsy guy while she’s stuck inside. Yin and Yang and Yes I love it! 

(I just realized this has no structure, but I’m going with it!) 

Maddie loves reading, and studies architecture. She’s quite normal, really. She is funny, witty, slightly rebellious and curious about the world. And Olly tips her world around. 

So Maddie’s relationship with her mom is a huge part of this book - her mom is all she has left, and they spend a lot of time together. Until Olly. 

(Dang it Olly why did you have to go and mess up Maddie like that? Haha just kidding you two are cute ^^)

This book brought good feels, not the feels that leave you just wanting to sit in the rain contemplating life. *Cough Clockwork Princess* 

I really don’t want to say too much in the non-spoilery section. Just go read it! I promise it has a good ending! 

Spoilers start here. I’m usually like ‘yeah just read it if you want’, but now, if you are considering to pick this up, PLEASE STOP HERE! Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 
So their trip to Hawaii - it was rash, and stupid considering her situation, but it was perfect. It wasn’t quite like the trip to Amsterdam from TFIOS, it was really her discovering the world and what it had to offer. She didn’t feel sick (until she had to be hospitalized for a viral infection) and was just... happy. We don’t get a bomb dropped on us about Olly secretly having cancer or whatever. It was just nice! 

The Revelation: 
I was not expecting that Maddie wasn’t sick. The fact that it was all her mom’s psychological condition that ‘made her sick’ was probably the saddest part of the book - it was heart-wrenching when she found out that she was living in a bubble all her life for nothing. 
My only real regret about the book was that this part felt a bit rushed. But it was still amazing, and Yoon was a genius for having that idea. Plot twist like I haven’t seen in a long time! 
END OF SPOILERS! 

So for those of you who skipped the spoilers like you should have, I’m taking half a point away because the ending felt a bit rushed. Happy ending though! :) 

I’m giving this a 4.5/5 feathers! 
Have you read Everything, Everything? What did you think? Let me know! :D 

Friday, March 25, 2016

Glass Sword, by Victoria Aveyard

Glass Sword, by Victoria Aveyard

Hey all!
I just (finally) finished Glass Sword! *Fireworks* because that took ages. You can blame it on schoolwork ^-^ 

Goodreads Blurb: 
"If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control. 

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors. 

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat. 

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul.


This was dark... A lot darker than I expected. 
But it was really good! 

*This review will contain spoilers of Red Queen*

Ok so after Red Queen, Where Maven tricked the world into thinking Cal and Mare were murderers, they joined the Scarlet Guard to fight Maven and the Queen, because they want silvers to rule. 

Aw man I don’t even know where to start with this review. I want to keep the characters last...

I found the pacing of this book to be a hint too fast. I feel like so much happened in 440 pages, and I couldn’t get all of it, even though I probably did. 

So throughout the book, the group goes around the country looking for ‘newbloods’ - people like Mare who has red blood but with silver abilities. This took up a bunch of the book, and the abilities were so creative! I loved seeing the personalities and the powers that went with them! 

There were quite a lot of tropes in this book, but little unique ideas made them not as ‘trope-y’. 

I really like how much of a turn this took from Red Queen - The first book was a lot about royalty and Mare hiding, whilst this one was all out on the field, with feels. 

ABOUT the feels, let me talk about some spoilers before getting into characters. 

Spoilers!

  • SHADE WHAT NO! Shade was probably my favorite character and of course, of course, he had to die. ;-; I actually got really sad. And I thought it was so cute when you find out he’s with Farley! :3 I did ship Farley and Kilorn for a bit, but when Farlade was introduced, I liked it! ^^
  • The end... Cliffhangers... no... ;-;
  • That attack at the prison! And the dead queen!
End Spoilers

Cal is great - although he can have some temper, and he’s still loyal to the silvers, (Which I really don’t mind even though everyone else in the book does), he has a huge heart, is smart, and just cares about the turnout. Mare+Cal = Yes. BUT... 

Mare really, really annoyed me. She went from a girl from the Stilts forced to be something she wasn’t, to a military-general-like-person, and very very dark. I understand she’s in pain, and confused, but she always had such a negative attitude, pushing people away. Nothing ever made her happy, even things that should have. She became violent and practically bloodthirsty. And that bothered me. A lot. What did you guys think about that? 

I’m giving this 4/5 stars! 



Have you read Glass Sword yet? What did you think? Let me know! 

~Caroline~