Hello you brilliant bookworms! It’s the last day of the month and to many people that would just mean it’s the last day of the month but to us book bloggers it means monthly wrap up post! and OH MY GAWD SO MANY WRAP UP AND HAUL POSTS AND SO LITTLE TIME! . By the way this is going to be a long post so I suggest you get some popcorn!
Hello guys! It’s book haulin’ time! So this month I got 13 books and borrowed four library books! I think I just kept buying books throughout the month which is why I acquired a lot. I’m going to try to half the amount next month but for now let’s get on with what I got this month!
Title: Heir of Fire
Author: Sarah.J Maas
My rating: 4.25/5
Goodreads rating: 4.57/5
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Summary (Goodreads):
Celaena Sardothien has survived deadly contests and shattering heartbreak—but at an unspeakable cost. Now she must travel to a new land to confront her darkest truth…a truth about her heritage that could change her life—and her future—forever.
Meanwhile, brutal and monstrous forces are gathering on the horizon, intent on enslaving her world. To defeat them, Celaena must find the strength to not only fight her inner demons but to battle the evil that is about to be unleashed.
So I had to make a quick post about this because myself and many of you are Potterheads and some amazing news came out today as you can tell by the extremely long title. THE COVER FOR THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF CHAMBER OF SECRETS!
Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone came out last year and basically everybody loved it! I still have to read through it all because I haven’t reread Harry Potter yet this year, but I have seen many of the pictures and they are BEAUTIFUL!
Anyway, this is a cover reveal so lets actually get to the cover!
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TADA!
So as you can see, we have the iconic blue Ford with Harry, Ron and the Weasley twins inside heading towards the Burrow! What do you think of it? I really like it! I’m glad that they chose such a memorable scene to put as the cover and the colours just remind me of an old illustrated children’s reading book with all of the colours. I’m pretty sure this is the UK edition but the lettering looks like the one of the US edition so that’s a little confusing.
That’s not it folks! We also have some illustrations that will be in the book!
GORGEOUS RIGHT!!! We are getting this beauty and Cursed Child in the same year?! We salute you, Jim Kay!
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Illustrated Edition will be released in Hardback on 4th October 2016! I can’t wait!
What do you think of the cover? And the exclusive glimpse we got of the illustrations? And are you as excited as I am? Comment below and lets gush together!
I’ll write soon!
-Astra
Instagram (Bookstagram)
Hello everybody! I hope everybody is having a great day! March went quick didn’t it? It felts like I haven’t read a lot, but there is still three days and I’m hoping to get through two books in that time period. Wish me luck!
Anyway, today isn’t a Top Ten list but more of a Top 5 list. The official theme for this was is 10 Of My Most Recent 5 Star Reads or you can do Top Ten Recent 1 star reads or mix it up and so on and so forth. But as I’ve been checking my reviews I haven’t been giving a lot of books 5 stars. I mean, I’ve been reading a lot of books that are great and are around 4.5 and 4.75 and the only book I’ve scored under 3 stars this year was Room which was 2.75.
So this post is just going to be top 5 recent roarin reads that I feel like I need to shout and scream about!
Now onto the books!
Some have you have already seen my review of this brilliant books (which is here if you want to check it out) but basically this book was so good! A solid 4.5/5 for me and it did what a book sequel should always want you to do- read on. People have already told me that the series still gets better so I need Cress right now.
2. Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown
I hope you guys aren’t sick and tired of me gushing about this series because I haven’t! It wouldn’t be fair to all of the other glorious books if this trilogy took up more than half of the spaces. So basically if you haven’t read this trilogy, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? This is one of my favourite series ever because it is so merciless to the characters and to the reader. Morning Star was to die for and Pierce Brown has now become an automatic buy author now. I can’t give any higher praise then that.
3. Crown of Midnight by Sarah.J Maas
This sequel was just so badass and so action packed and raw and suspenseful I had to give it a five star rating. Maas’ writing was just so brilliant and clear you never really got confused during the action scenes (and there were plenty of those!) and she balanced out all of the action with some vital info-dumping so that we understood our favourite assassin and her situation better. I’m in the middle of Heir of Fire and I’m loving that too.
4. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
I read this beautiful, beautiful book back in January so it isn’t ‘recent’ as such but oh my gosh it was so beautiful (and I don’t care if I said beautiful three times in one sentence because it is!)! The charcaters were just so authentic and I know people had a kind of problem with Ari but ARI WAS CUTE AND CONFLICTED! And I need to sequel which is coming out like right now!
5. Tokyo Ghoul – Volume 1 by Sui Ishida
This is a manga but I’m still including it because it was so good and a five star read! The artwork in it was so gorgeous and also just the careful selection of words. You just want to hug Keneki to pieces while reading it but also slap him and tell him to suck it up and deal with it. Fantastic!
Those are my recent roarin’ reads! I think there’s a mix up there- we have two fantasies, a sci-fi trilogy, a contemporary and a manga! Are there any up above that you have read and gave a high rating? Or recommend me one of your recent 5 star reads!
I’ll write soon!
-Astra
Instagram (Bookstagram)
-Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish where they pick a new topic each week for us to create a top ten list to.
Hello guys and I hope you are having a marvelous Monday. It is actually pretty sunny outside today but there is like nothing to do outside. NOTHING. SO I’m staying inside and catching up on some Once Upon A Time FINALLY!
Anyway, enough with my life and onto the tag. I was tagged by the wonderful Lila @ Bookkeeper’s Secrets. Please check out her blog because it is amazing! Now the tag is pretty self explanatory. Choose five characters that represent you in someway.
Now onto the characters!
Quirkiness- Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter)
I think a lot of people will be able to identify with Luna because of her quirkiness. Let’s be frank here- if you are a bibliophile you are a tiny bit quirky and for me many people don’t understand why I would spend my days reading and not doing something more fun. And that misunderstanding and my general quirkiness makes me identify myself with Luna!
Unique Fashion Sense– Lou Clark (Me Before You)
So I’m including Lou and it kind of links with Luna but if you have read Me Before You, you would know that Lou has a really unique (and I’ll say adorable) fashion sense and that reminds me of myself because I don’t usually wear (or like to wear) the usual style standard and if I do then I normally add something peculiar! This isn’t really conscious I just love quirky things.
Fandom Craziness- Cath Avery (Fangirl)
I think people liked this story so much because Cath was just such a relatable person. As bibliophiles I think it’s safe to say that we’re at least in one fandom, so we understand how obsessed she is. It was like looking into a mirror when went off talking about Simon Snow.
Youngest Sibling (between the brothers in Ron’s case)- Ron Weasley (Harry Potter)
I am putting Ron Weasley on this list because I can totally relate to him. Maybe not his deep insecurity but rather the preassure of being the youngest one in the family. For example my older brother and sister are really smart and got terrific grades in their exams, so if I kind of need to live up to that like Ron needs to live up to the Weasley name. This is probably why I like Ron unlike many other fans.
Contently On The Outskirts- Mikey Mitchell (The Rest Of Us Just Live Here)
In The Rest Of Us Just Live Here, Mikey along with his friends are just contently chilling on the outskirts of the chosen one circle and I am not a popular girl so the premise of the book really appealed to me. Not all of us have this great destiny, the majority of us just need to make sure we live in the moment and I think that’s what the book was trying to get across. The majority of us are Mikey- ordinary.
Tag done! Now who to tag…
RaeAnne @ The Loquacious Bibliophile
Kat @ Life and Other Disasters
AND ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO DO THIS TAG 🙂
What character would you choose to describe yourself? Comment down below and lets chat!
I’ll write soon!
-Astra
Title: Scarlet
Author: Marissa Meyer
My rating: 4.5/5
Goodreads rating: 4.31/5
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Summary (Goodreads):
Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.
Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.
Hello guys! I hope your Saturday is going amazingly well!
SO I just had a brainwave.
I’m going to start doing a series of posts called ‘Why I Love…’ which is where I’m just going to talk about why I love a certain topic. These aren’t going to be restricted to book genres, I’m also going to be book characters, authors and stuff like ‘Why I Love UK YA books’. These posts are going to be sporadic unlike my other blog post series so I could do this once every two months or three times a month, it just depends really.
Anyway, enough blabbering, lets get on to the loving.
Fantasy
A good fantasy book will transport you to another world, one that you would of never experienced before, one where it’s probably guaranteed that you wouldn’t last a week, but you don’t care because that week would be the best week ever.Sometimes people need a break from reality and a fantasy book is the perfect escape route to have a breather away from the stress of just being human.
I love fantasy because it is limitless! Reading a fantasy book is so fun and enjoyable because the plot can really twist and change. It’s like sliding down a curvy slide blindfolded and not knowing if your going to turn right or left. The possibilities especially in a high fantasy book at the beginning are endless. That feeling of anything could happen can bring other feelings of wonder and curiosity and when you are wanting to know more about a fantasy world and all of the ins and outs of everything is when you know you have a good fantasy book.
Reading fantasy just makes me want to explore my imagination to the extreme. Especially for me as a writer, after reading fantasy I want to write down loads, I want to venture into my creative depths to see what I pull out.While reading fantasy the impossible becomes possible and that touch of magic there is what makes me fall in love with the genre again and again and again. Fantasy isn’t bound by laws, physics and fact. It’s free and that freedom can only be a good thing while reading.
Do you love fantasy? If so why and if you don’t, why? Let’s get a conversation going!
I’ll write soon!
-Astra
Hello guys and I hope you are having a fabulous Friday! This is my fourth post for my Fem(+me) Friday series which is basically Femme Friday but because I’m not a feminist it’s Fem(+me) Friday.
I will link all of my previous Fem (+me) Friday post down below, but for now I will be spotlighting another Booktuber because I love booktube so much!
So this wonderful bibliophile is Naya and she runs a booktube channel called NayaReadsandSmiles and you guys…she is so happy. Like all of the time! When I first stumbled upon her videos and had to take a metaphorical step back because she is such a bundle of happy energy. But she stands out because of her bright personality and when I see her video on my subscription page I’m excited to see how excited she is going to be about a certain book. Also her hair is so gorgeous!
Up above is her March Book Haul (because I don’t care what anyone says- book hauls are awesome!) and this video should represent her bubbly, infectious personality well. Even though, she is smiley and hyper, Naya does get her point across very clearly which is why I continue to watch her videos
Here is a link to her youtube channel- NayaReadsandSmiles– if you want more!
I’ll write soon!
-Astra
Previous Posts:
-Femme Friday was created by Vicky @ Books and Strips and means we spotlight a female, real (writers, illustrators, cover designers ect) and not real (characters) to bring some recognition to them.
Title: Harper and the Sea of Secrets
Author: Cerrie Burnell
Illustrator: Laura Ellen Anderson
My rating: 3.5/5
Goodreads rating: 3.08/5
Genre: Fantasy
Summary (Goodreads):
The Songs of the Sea festival is about to start, but disaster has struck! The royal musicians will be performing, but all their instruments have disappeared…Harper and her friends use her flying umbrella to come to the rescue, and that very night they start hearing beautiful music coming from Melody Bay. Will they have the courage to walk along the pitch-black smugglers’ tunnels passing under the sea to find out who has stolen the instruments? A captivating adventure story all about friendship, creatures of the sea and magic. This is World Book Day UK book for 2016.
A Stranger's Guide To Novels 
