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!

 

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.

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...

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: Goodreads, Amazon

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

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:

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: Goodreads, Amazon (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.

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...

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.