Friday 31 May 2019

Book Tag | OMG This Song

I spotted this tag over on The Literary Phoenix whilst blog hopping and thought it was a really interesting way to combine books and music so I thought I'd give it a go. The tag was created by Kate's Book Date and involves choosing one book and one song that fits the category.

I'm going to apologise in advance for my varied taste in music. I listen to a lot of different genres but my favourites tend to be 80's and indie pop with plenty of guilty pleasures thrown in for good measure. I think the only music that I would never voluntarily listen to is the really hard metal stuff, it just makes my ears bleed and I have a headache after about 5 seconds!

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Wednesday 29 May 2019

WWW Wednesday | 29/05/2019


WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words that highlights three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What did you recently finish reading?

I finished reading The Alienist by Caleb Carr on Monday and I ended up really enjoying it. It was about an Alienist (the term back then for someone who studies mental illnesses) and his team who are hunting a serial killer in 1896 New York. It was very gritty and graphic at times but I really liked how the story unfolded. Most of the thrillers I read give you a handful of suspects and you are kinda able to guess who the killer is going to be out of the people already introduced but this novel used a different approach. It reminded me a lot of Criminal Minds and CSI where they spend the majority of the novel profiling the killer in order to catch him. It was kinda slow in places but would definitely recommend if you like these kind of books.

I also just finished reading Before the Broken Star by Emily R. King which was my Kindle First book for May. I didn't go into this with any expectations but I found this suprisingly fun. It was about a young girl (with a clockwork heart, how cool!?) who travels to a dangerous isle to hunt down the man who killed her family in a race against time. This was a lot of fun, it incorporated so much magic and folklore into it and i'm excited to continue the series. My full review will be up soon!

 

What are you currently reading?

I'm just about to start That's Not What Happened by Kody Keplinger . I wasn't the biggest fan of her most popular novel, The Duff (although I adored the film) so i'm hoping i'll have better luck with this one. It's about the aftermath of a school shooting told from the perspective of six survivors. The content is pretty heavy and understandably I think this is going to be a difficult read but hopefully a powerful one as well.

What do you think you'll read next?

I'm planning on reading Cogheart by Peter Bunzl next which is the first book in the Cogheart Adventures, a middle grade fantasy series. I was actually approved for the second book in the series Moonlocket on Netgalley but when I went to find the first book, I looked on Scribd and found all
three books in the series available to read which was a little confusing. I'm guessing they're re-releasing the second book under a different publisher in August or something? I don't know. Anyway, seeing as all the books are there already I think i'm going to read all three and do a series review instead.

Have you read any of these? What did you think? What are you currently reading and hoping to pick up next? Leave a comment or link your own WWW Wednesdays below for me to check out!
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Tuesday 28 May 2019

Top Ten Tuesday | Ten Books From The Last Ten Years That I Still Need To Read


And the award for the most complicated title goes to...
Honestly I struggled with how to word it but hopefully once I explain my take on this weeks topic it'll be a little bit clearer!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that highlights ten books that all relate to a certain topic and is  hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This weeks topic is...


Favorite Books Released In the Last Ten Years (one book for each year) but I was kinda struggling with this one to be honest so I decided to put a little twist on it. For each year I've chosen one book that's still on my TBR and said why I still desperately need to read it. Making this list also made me realise just how many books there are that I still want to read and it's kinda stressing me out! Let's go...

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Monday 27 May 2019

ARC Review | The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg

Title: The Kingdom
Author: Jess Rothenberg
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 11th July 2019 by Pan Macmillan
Genre: Young AdultScience Fiction
Format: ARC via Netgalley
Links: GoodreadsAmazonBook Depository


Source

Synopsis


Welcome to the Kingdom… where ‘Happily Ever After’ isn’t just a promise, but a rule.

Glimmering like a jewel behind its gateway, The Kingdom™ is an immersive fantasy theme park where guests soar on virtual dragons, castles loom like giants, and bioengineered species―formerly extinct―roam free.

Ana is one of seven Fantasists, beautiful “princesses” engineered to make dreams come true. When she meets park employee Owen, Ana begins to experience emotions beyond her programming including, for the first time… love.

But the fairytale becomes a nightmare when Ana is accused of murdering Owen, igniting the trial of the century. Through courtroom testimony, interviews, and Ana’s memories of Owen, emerges a tale of love, lies, and cruelty―and what it truly means to be human.

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Friday 24 May 2019

Let's Babble About... Music


I love writing about books but this blog is called Books and Babble so i'm going to do some babbling today and talk about some music I love that's been released within the last month or so. Music has been my escape for so many years, I listen to pretty much anthing although I do draw the line at pure rap and metal music, I can't stand anything within those genres. I'm constantly scrolling through spotify for some new tunes so I thought I'd share some recent finds with you today...

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Wednesday 22 May 2019

WWW Wednesday | 22/05/2019


WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words that highlights three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?


What did you recently finish reading?

I recently finished reading The Art Of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson which ended up being a pretty mixed bag for me. It was a book that I heard lots of good things about when it was first released all the way back in 2015 but never got to reading. I spotted a copy in my local library so I decided to give it a go. There were a lot of things that I liked about it but there were also some issues that stuck out for the wrong reasons. I'm planning on posting a review for this book so hopefully that will be up soon.

I also just finished The Girl Who Came Out Of The Woods by Emily Barr. This was an eARC read I got through netgalley and I really enjoyed this one. It ended up going in a completely different direction then I thought it was going to go as I orginally thought it would be closer to a thriller but this was still a solid contemporary. My review for this one should be up in the next couple of weeks.


What are you currently reading?

My current read is A Little Princess by Frances Hodgeson Burnett which is a book I'm reading as part of a personal challenge to read one classic a month. I decided to start off with a pretty easy children's book to ease my way in to this challenge. I'm only a couple of chapters in although it's a really short book but I'm enjoying it so far. I was fairly sure I would cause the film is one of my childhood favourites.

What do you think you'll read next? 

For my physical read i'm planning on picking up The Alienist by Caleb Carr which is another library book. I knew this book was turned into a mini-series recently and I always like to read the source material first. This looks really interesting and i'm definitely in the mood for a historical mystery-thriller.

The year is 1896. The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.  


My next ebook will be Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay, another book on my netgalley shelf. This has been getting some good reviews so i'm excited to dive into this.

Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story.

Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it.
  

What are you currently reading and hoping to pick up next? Leave a comment or link your own WWW Wednesdays below for me to check out!


 

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Monday 20 May 2019

Book Review | Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Title: Summer Bird Blue
Author: Akemi Dawn Bowman
Publication Date: 4th April 2019 by Ink Road
Pages: 384
Format/Source: ARC via Netgalley
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQ
Links: Goodreads, Amazon, Book Depository

Source

Synopsis
Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.


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Tuesday 14 May 2019

Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Want To See Turned Into Films


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that highlights ten books that all relate to a certain topic and is  hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This weeks topic is...

A page to screen freebie so seeing as I love being able to see books come to life on the screen, I decided to feature ten books that I'm desperate to see made into films. Here we go...
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Monday 13 May 2019

Book Review | Dear Lily by Drew Davies

Dear Lily by Drew Davies
Publication Date: 17th May 2019 by Bookouture
Pages: 281
Target Audience: Adults
Genre: Contemporary
Format: ARC via Netgalley
Links: GoodreadsAmazon

Source
Synopsis 
Dear Lily,

It’s me, Joy, your much wiser and (very slightly) older sister. I thought I’d start a new tradition of letter writing – now that we’re long distance.

On the plane over here, I began to cry in seat 21C. I think the magnitude of it finally hit me, after everything that happened…

I haven’t even unpacked yet – the only thing I’ve taken out of my suitcase is Harville, your beloved childhood teddy. Sorry for stealing him, but I need him more than you do. Every time I look at that little brown bear I think about our childhood. Remember that dance we made up to Annie’s ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’? (Remember the broom choreography?)

I’m also sorry for abandoning you – I’ve always been your agony aunt, and a buffer in your infamous shouting matches with Mum. But I had to leave, Lily, I had to.

Anyway, I’m here now. I’m here to start over, and to face up to the past. I want to learn to laugh again, and to find someone to love who will maybe even love me back. You always told me I was just getting by, not actually living, so I’m finally doing it. Wish me luck, little sister.

Love,

Joy x

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Wednesday 8 May 2019

Waiting On Wednesday | The Babysitter's Coven


Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature highlighting the books that you're most excited for which was created by Jill at Breaking The Spine. The feature 'Can't Wait Wednesday' is now hosted by Wishful Endings.

This week i'm waiting on:

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Monday 6 May 2019

Book Review | Limited Wish by Mark Lawrence

Title: Limited Wish (Impossible Times #2)
Author: Mark Lawrence
Publication Date: 6th June 2019 by 47North
Pages: 240
Format/Source: ARC via Netgalley
Genre: Fantasy, Science-Fiction
Links: GoodreadsAmazon (Pre-order)

Source


Synopsis
It’s the summer of 1986 and reluctant prodigy Nick Hayes is a student at Cambridge University, working with world-renowned mathematician Professor Halligan. He just wants to be a regular student, but regular isn’t really an option for a boy-genius cancer survivor who’s already dabbled in time travel.

When he crosses paths with a mysterious yet curiously familiar girl, Nick discovers that creases have appeared in the fabric of time, and that he is at the centre of the disruption. Only Nick can resolve this time paradox before the damage becomes catastrophic for both him and the future of the world. Time is running out—literally.

Wrapped up with him in this potentially apocalyptic scenario are his ex-girlfriend, Mia, and fellow student Helen. Facing the world-ending chaos of a split in time, Nick must act fast and make the choice of a lifetime—or lifetimes.



You can read my review of the first book in the series, One Word Kill, here.

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Saturday 4 May 2019

April 2019 Reading Wrap Up


I managed to pull myself out of a massive reading slump in April so i'm quite happy that I managed to read 7 books in total. It's been a decent reading month but I have a feeling this month is going to be even better, a lot of it being down to the fact that I got approved for some amazing books on Netgalley which i'm really excited to get stuck into. I was thrilled when I saw because I haven't been approved for any books before so hopefully my good luck will continue. Anyway, onto the books I read in April...

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Wednesday 1 May 2019

Book Review | Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan

Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan
Published by Bloomsbury YA
Publication Date: 21st February 2019
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought
Links: Goodreads, Amazon, Book Depository


Source


Synopsis

Jasmine and Chelsea are sick of the way women are treated even at their progressive NYC high school, so they decide to start a Women's Rights Club. They post everything online—poems, essays, videos of Chelsea performing her poetry, and Jasmine's response to the racial macroaggressions she experiences—and soon they go viral. But with such positive support, the club is also targeted by online trolls. When things escalate, the principal shuts the club down. Jasmine and Chelsea will risk everything for their voices—and those of other young women—to be heard.

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