Bout of Books 13 – Wrap Up!

Bout of Books 13 is over! 😦 As always, I had an absolute blast, found some new people to follow on Twitter, read a bunch, and just had a wonderful, bookish week with a bunch of other book nerds.

What I read:

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan (finished it) – ~134 pages [Check out my review]
Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu – 325 pages (ARC) [Review soon!]
Young Avengers, Volume 1: Style > Substance – 120 pages
Hawkeye: My Life as Weapon – 136 pages
The single issue comics (320 pages, single issues are 32 pages each): Convergence #2, Return of the Living Deadpool #1, Wytches #5, The Walking Dead #138, 139, 140, Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #4 and 5, Divergence #1, and Batman and Robin Annual #3
Valiant by Sarah McGuire – ~286 pages (74%)

TOTAL PAGES READ: ~1,321 (I say approximately because two of these are eARCs which do not have page numbers)

Challenges participated in: 

The Bookish Survey challenge hosted by Lori at Writing My Own Fairy Tale
Character Face Off hosted by LuLo FanGirl – I put Ronan Lynch up against Celaena Sardothien. Who do you think won?
The Favorite Read Photo Challenge from Once Upon a Chapter. You can see my entry on Instagram.

Other stuff:

I got to participate in the last half of the first twitter chat and all of the second chat! The Twitter chats kept their spot as my favorite thing about Bout of Books. I always have an absolute blast meeting new bookish people and attempting to keep up with the craziness that is these chats. I love them.

I’m looking forward to participating in Bout of Books 14 in August! If my posts or tweets have convinced you to participate (you really, really should!) head over to the BoB website and follow them to learn more about the next readathon!

Bout of Books Challenge: Bookish Survey

As you may or may not know, today is the first day of Bout of Books 13! YAY! Lori at Writing My Own Fairy Tale is hosting the first challenge, a short bookish survey. Super easy and fun!

1. How do you organize your shelves? A lot of my books are still packed up from when I moved to Scotland, so I currently only have two bookshelves in my room: one where I keep books I own but haven’t read and the other with books I have read. They are in alphabetical order by the author’s last name; I know, not very exciting, but I don’t want to break them up by color or something and separate series. My TBR shelf also holds my trade paperbacks and graphic novels and the books I have checked out from the library.
2. What is one of your favorite book that’s not in one of your favorite genres? Hmmmm. This is an interesting question. My favorite genres are fantasy and contemporary, which covers most of my favorite books. OH! Duh. My favorite book not in one of my favorite genres is The Falls by Ian Rankin, which is crime fiction. I love this book and all of Ian Rankin’s books. I like crime fiction, but I’m particular about it, and I don’t read as much as I should.
3. What is the last 5 star book you read? Audiobook: I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson, which is incredible. Physical: Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley.
4. What book are you most excited to read during the read-a-thon? I’m reading a mix of comics and books, so the comic/trade I’m most excited to read is Loki: Agent of Asgard, Volume 1 and the book I’m most excited to read is Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu. Or Tiny Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day. I’m excited about everything I’m reading; that’s why I picked them out!
5. What book do you recommend the most? I feel like I could ask my readers what book I recommend the most and they’d be able to answer for me, but it’s The Humans by Matt Haig, which I recommend to every single living person I can.

Bloggers’ Book Club – May Read

Hi everyone! I’m sure you’ve seen a post or two from me about the Bloggers’ Book Club I started a few months ago. We’ve just chosen our read for May, and I thought I’d post about it to see if any of you wanted to join us!

I am excited to tell you that we’ll be reading ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS TO THE UNIVERSE by Benjamin Alire Sáenz for our May read! I’ve been wanting to read this one for months, so I’m really looking forward to it! You can find the book on Goodreads to learn more, and you can purchase ​the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, The Book Depository, or even better – check it out at your local library! (None of those are affiliate links – I don’t have that – I just wanted to make it as easy as possible for everyone to find the book!!)

 

If you haven’t yet joined the Goodreads group, make sure you do that! This is where we’ll be having most of the discussions about our reads, as well as updating you on chatroom discussions and conducting our polls to determine monthly reads. The discussion thread for Aristotle and Dante is up! I’ll send out information about when we’ll be doing our two live discussions in a chatroom in May. This is when we’ll get more in depth about what we’re reading!

If you have any questions whatsoever, please do not hesitate to contact me. If you are unable to participate in this month’s read, that is totally fine! I hope you can participate next time. I would LOVE to have any of you lovely people join us!

Happy reading,

Stefani

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Comics for Readers who would LIKE to try them

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. For today’s theme we had to choose a topic and give ten books for readers who liked that topic (Ten Books For Readers Who Like _________). I’ve decided to put a little spin on this and I’m going with:

Ten comics for readers who would like to try them

I know it’s kind of cheating, but as I did my freebie TTT post on Reasons to Read Comics, I thought I’d actually give you some comics to read! Please note that I have only been reading comics for approximately seven months, so my list is obviously not exhaustive nor am I say I’m an expert comic reader. If you have more suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments! I’m always looking for more to read. I’m going to link to some of my reviews, but I kind of cringe at them now – my comics reviews have improved as my reading and understanding of them have grown. These are in the order in which I first read them:

Saga – When I first told my branch manager at the library (who is a HUGE comics reader) that I wanted to try comics, he shoved the first trade of Saga at me. The very first line was “Am I shitting?” and I cracked up. Saga is a huge, sweeping fantasy about a war between a planet and its moon and the consequences of two people falling in love when they shouldn’t. But it’s also offensive, hilarious, weird, and super awesome. I know have Saga on my pull list at my comic book shop. [volume 1] I [volume 2] I [volume 3]

The Walking Dead – I love TWD so much that it had its own reason on that TTT post I linked to above. I devoured all 20 (at that time) trades – including buying several that were not in my library’s system because some jerk stole them – and I’m pretty sure it was the first comic I added to my pull list. It’s incredible, you guys. [volume 1] I [volume 2] I [volume 3]

Batman: Arkham Asylum – This is one of those books that as you read it, you feel as if you’re going crazy with the characters. I’m still (six months later) not really sure what I even read, but I love it. It’s also illustrated by the absolutely amazing Dave McKean who creates dark, bizarre, incredible illustrations. My super newbie review is on WPR.

Batman and Robin – Okay, I’m going to attempt to tone down the obsession here because I could go do a whole post about how much I love Damian Wayne, you guys. In case you weren’t aware, that’s Bruce Wayne’s son, and he’s the focus of this Batman and Robin series I’m talking about. He’s such a sassy, stubborn, smug little punk, but he also just wants to live up to his dad and he loves his dog and…ugh. I love him. And not in a weird way. Just in a “I completely love this character and Patrick Gleason draws him SO perfectly” kind of way. He’s such a fun character to read each month.

Bodies – This mini-run from Si Spencer and Vertigo just ended and I’m still a little sad because of that, BUT this series is a whirlwind of craziness, timelines, open-mindedness, and I would highly recommend it. Seriously, the trade comes out soon and you need it. You can read all of my reviews for all eight issues (as well as my interview with Si) on WatchPlayRead.

Chew – So I’ve only read the first ten issues of this one (waiting on my hold to come in!), but it’s so freaking weird but totally awesome, you guys. It’s about a guy who can tell where ANYTHING came from and what happened to it right before it died – so when he eats chicken he can how it died. Doesn’t that sound sucky? Yeah. BUT then he gets recruited to work in this special police department where he takes “samples” of PEOPLE to find out how they died. EW. But it’s so funny and odd too.

Wild’s End – Marketed as a mix of War of the World and A. A. Milne. If that doesn’t sound like something you want to read, just move on to the next one. If you stuck around, WHAT?! Doesn’t that sound amazing?? It was. It was only a six issue mini run but it was full of so much Britishness and I just love it.

Through the Woods – I reviewed this one on the blog. It’s creepy and dark and so so good.

Thor – The new Thor is a freaking woman, ladies and gentlemen (mostly ladies)! If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, boo on you. It’s a really cool story so far and I’m enjoying seeing new Thor and male-Thor who’s no longer worthy of Mjolnir duke it out.

Superior Iron Man – Tony Stark’s mind has been messed with and his already present arrogance and intelligence have been amplified. He believes he needs to make the world a smarter and more beautiful place – by hooking SanFran’s residents on a drug that makes them smarter and prettier. Fun times.

Do you read comics? What other books would you recommend? If you are interested in seeing more comics I’ve read, you can head over to WatchPlayRead to read my reviews. 

The Bloggers’ Book Club

Hey guys! Remember how I posted a few weeks ago about the possibility of an online book club for any and all bloggers?

Well, it’s HERE! April at Bookishly Speaking and I have created the Bloggers’ Book Club, and after a poll between the members who’ve already signed up, our first read will be The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons! I would absolutely love if you joined us. Head over to the Goodreads group and sign up! We’ll be starting our discussion of the first book on March 1 – but don’t worry if you can’t get the book in time! No spoilers will be placed in the discussion without a spoiler tag so you can join in whenever you’re ready. We’ll also be having two live chats in a chatroom during the month where we can get more in depth with our discussions.

Don’t want to read The Glass Arrow? That’s okay! You can skip this month and join us in April. Feel free to put forth a title in the thread for April suggestions or email us at thebloggersbookclub [at] gmail [com]!

I hope to see you in the Goodreads group!

A little more information for you:
– You’ll be able to come and go as you please – don’t have time to read the book this go around? No problem! We’ll let you know what the next book is and hope you can join us then!
– ANY blogger can participate – not a book blogger? Doesn’t matter as long as you love to read!
– All genres will be read – we don’t want to exclude anyone by focusing on only YA contemporary or only fantasy books. We’ll be taking turns with all of the genres so that everyone will get a chance to put forward their favorites.

Waiting on Wednesday: Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between by Jennifer E. Smith

Not sure why this didn’t post yesterday. Sorry, guys! Here’s my WoW post a day late!

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine in which we share a book that we are eagerly anticipating!

I know Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between doesn’t come out for a LONG time, but I wanted to get you excited for a new Jennifer E. Smith book and let you know I’m giving away a copy of her book The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight over on Twitter. All you have to do is retweet this tweet and follow me for a chance to win!

Publisher: Poppy

Author: Jennifer E. Smith

Release date: September 1, 2015

Synopsis from Goodreads:

On the night before they leave for college, Clare and Aidan only have one thing left to do: figure out whether they should stay together or break up. Over the course of twelve hours, they’ll retrace the steps of their relationship, trying to find something in their past that might help them decide what their future should be. The night will lead them to friends and family, familiar landmarks and unexpected places, hard truths and surprising revelations. But as the clock winds down and morning approaches, so does their inevitable goodbye. The question is, will it be goodbye for now or goodbye forever?
This new must-read novel from Jennifer E. Smith, author of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, explores the difficult choices that must be made when life and love lead in different directions.

Why I’m excited: This sounds absolutely adorable but also full of hard decisions and difficult situations. I love that Jennifer E. Smith’s books are always much deeper than you might expect from a sweet book, and I’m sure I’ll love it just as much as her others. Looking forward to meeting Clare and Aidan! Plus, I love the title and that cover!

If you don’t want to wait to read one of Jennifer’s books, why not enter my giveaway for a copy of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight over on Twitter?

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Problems

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Today’s theme was:

Ten Book Related Problems I Have (could be serious or fun!)

Finding time to actually read – I have two jobs, a blog, a website I write for, and I also have to eat and sleep. Finding time to read is sometimes really difficult but extremely necessary for my mental well-being.

Book hangovers – do I really need to explain this one? We all get it – that inability to start another book because the one you just finished left you in shock, awe, confusion, horror, happiness, whatever.

Not having anyone to gush to about a book – sometimes you’re the first of your friends to read a really good book and you just want to talk about it, SPOILERS included, but you can’t. That stinks.

Book pain syndrome – or BPS for short. This is what happens when you spend hours reading a book in the same position on the couch or bed or floor or what have you. Your neck can only bend certain ways, your legs go numb, your arms are tired of holding the book. It hurts.

Wanting to read ALL the books at once – I have WAY too many books I want to read and I just want to read them all RIGHT NOW.

What to read next – of those hundreds of books I want to read, picking which one I should read next is one of the most difficult decisions I’ll make that day.

Book buying bans – I’m currently in one of these. Sort of. I’ve bought one or two, but I’ve been pretty good at not buying several books at once. Living 45 minutes from the nearest book store probably helps.

Getting interrupted

Source

When the audiobook skips – I check out audiobooks from the library. On disc. Sometimes 72565 people have checked it out already and it’ll skip in the middle of the fifth disc, 35 minutes from the end after I’ve listened to it for 5 hours and 14 minutes and I HATE this.

Racing through a book only to discover the sequel isn’t out for a year – I’m looking at you A Darker Shade of Magic

What are your biggest book related problems? Link me up to your TTT!

ARC Review: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

A Darker Shade of Magic was my first V.E. (Victoria) Schwab book, but you can bet that I’ll be reading all of her others as soon as humanly possible.

Author:  V.E. Schwab
Genre: Young adult, fantasy, science fiction
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: February 24, 2015
400 pages, hardcover

Check out the full synopsis on Goodreads.

NOTE: I was provided with an e-ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Tor Books for letting me read and review this! (I’m pretty sure I was only supposed to get the 30% preview, but THANK GOODNESS I GOT IT ALLLL)

I’ve been sitting on this review for a couple of days now attempting to figure out how to express my love for A Darker Shade of Magic. I haven’t read a fantasy/sci-fi/magic book that I loved this much in a long time. It’s got all things I ever wanted in a book without ever really knowing I wanted those things. “Cross-dressing thieves”? Got it. Wannabe pirates? Yep, there’s that too. More than one London? Of course! And all kinds of magic including unique and wonderful types? YES.

A Darker Shade of Magic is full of unparalleled world-building and fantastical characters, places, and ideas. I honestly can’t think of another book to compare it to, and that is awesome. It’s really dark and complex but with an unexpected bit of humor from its characters that kept it being too much. Like with Lila – I dare you to read this book and not think she’s incredible. She’s a thief and a wannabe pirate, and she’s such a badass. She’s tough but emotional, and she won’t give up until she sees the world. Lila also thinks things like, “Why anyone would ever pretend to be weak was beyond her (ARC Loc. 729)” – and if that doesn’t make you like her, I don’t know what will.

Then there’s Kell. Oh, Kell. He’s a…magician, able to control all of the elements and also able to cross between the worlds, which he does as an ambassador to Red London. He’s exactly the kind of hero I want in a fantasy, you guys. I love a hero who’s not perfect, who’s complex and layered. I love a hero who might be more dark than light, maybe even a little rebellious. That’s Kell. He’s ridiculously charming and incredibly loyal. Kell is “built like an afternoon shadow, tall and slim (ARC Loc. 530), and he’s also got a pretty amazing coat. Yeah, I’M DONE FOR.

Let me talk about the Londons (yep, plural) because it is so intriguing. We’ve got Kell’s Red London, which is so magical that it glows red. Then there’s Holland’s (not necessarily the bad to Kell’s good he comes across as) White London, ruled by twins who are chill-inducing in their scariness. We’ve got Lila’s Grey London, which is basically our world but it does have its own magic – look out for a pretty cool pub in all the Londons. Last, but not least, is Black London, and though we don’t see it, it’s my favorite because it gives us black magic, a character who’s not really a character. It may be (sort of) invisible, but it manipulates the characters and plot. It’s scary, interesting, and so so cool. One other character I loved was a prince described by Victoria Schwab as “A royal who is equal parts Prince Harry and Jack Harkness” and that is the perfect description. He’s magnificent, of course.

The amount of times I had no idea what was going on or I was surprised by a twist or a new development was astounding. ADSOM kept me on my toes and on the edge of my seat. I wasn’t really prepared to love this book as much as I did, but now it’s got a piece of my soul and it isn’t letting go.

The bottom line: A Darker Shade of Magic is a gripping, thrilling, wonderful adventure. The world-building, writing, characters, Londons, and magic are all incredibly done. I can already tell this will be one of my favorite reads of 2015.

Rating: 9 – practically perfect

First Monthly Link Up for My WatchPlayRead Reviews! – January 2015

I was supposed to be (according to my own schedule, not anyone else’s) posting a review of Jasmine Warga’s debut My Heart & Other Black Holes today, but for several reasons I can’t. I haven’t been able to write it because I will probably be sucked up into my own black hole if I try to write about it this week (not in a great place this week) and because I just haven’t had time. SO instead, I’m going to do a link up for WatchPlayRead. Some of you might know that, in addition to my blog, I write comic reviews over on WatchPlayRead. I know a lot of you aren’t interested or don’t read comics, so I don’t post many of them here, but for those of you that do, I decided to start a monthly link up to all the reviews I’ve done on WPR that month. Feel free to check them out and any other posts on WPR – we do a mix of books, comics, video games, movies, and nerdy products. 🙂

I started off the year with a review of Capture Creatures #1, a quite young all-ages comic featuring barely any creatures in the first issue but lots of exaggerated fun!

Next up was Feathers #1, another all-ages comic from BOOM! Studios (probably my favorite comics publisher – or at least closely tied with Image). Feathers (cover to the left) is a fun adventure comic for fans of Peter Pan or fairy tales.

Then I reviewed Bodies #6 – I’ve been having a love affair with Bodies for six months now and it’s coming to an end soon. I’m not sure how I feel about this as I mostly don’t want it to end but I can’t wait to see how it all comes together. (Bodies #6 cover to right)

After Bodies #6, I reviewed the Cutter mini-series from Image and it wasn’t that great. Mostly like a bad slasher film.

I reviewed the Memetic run from BOOM! Studios (do you see a pattern?) next. It’s all about a killer meme, you guys. How could you not want to read it? I also posted this review on the blog, so you might’ve seen it.

Reyn #1, from Image Comics, is an accessible, fun fantasy comic with a self-sufficient, awesome female character and some lizard men. Also, it has lizard dudes. (Cover to left)

And finally, I posted a review of Creature Cops #1 yesterday. It wasn’t for me but it might be good for you.

I usually post 2 reviews per week, sometimes more but sometimes less. I love being able to talk comics, and I’m sure you’ll find my reviews are just as passionate as they are here. If you are interested in reading comics or already do, make sure you head over to WatchPlayRead to check out my reviews (and everyone else’s! We are all pretty cool over there).

I hope you all have a wonderful Friday (TGIF!) and I’ll see you tomorrow. 🙂

The TBR Tag

I was tagged by the wonderful Rachel at Confessions of a Book Geek AND Brandie at Brandie is a Book Junkie to do the TBR Tag! Thanks, lovelies!

1. How do you keep track of your TBR pile?

Goodreads mostly. I have a “to read” shelf and a “physical books I own TBR” to keep track of books I own and want to read and those I don’t own but would either like to own or just read.

2. Is your TBR mostly print or eBook?

Print. I mostly only use my Kindle for e-ARCs. I have a couple of books on my Kindle I’ve bought because they were really great deals, but I prefer physical books 9.5 times out of 10.

3. How do you determine which book from your TBR to read next?

I’m a bit of a mood reader, so I mostly just pick up the book I feel like reading. However, I also have a lot of e-ARCs that I try to read at least a couple weeks before their release date, so I have to factor that into my reading schedule.

4. A book that’s been on your TBR list the longest.

I bought this book in 2013 while I was working at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It’s signed and everything. I just haven’t read it. Why haven’t I read it??

5. A book you recently added to your TBR.

    

Bought: The 100 by Kass Morgan / On GR: Confess by Colleen Hoover

6. A book on your TBR strictly because of its beautiful cover.

I don’t tend to buy books just because of their cover. I like to at least read the blurb if not a few reviews. But my favorite cover that I physically own but haven’t read is a tie between

        

7. A book on your TBR that you never plan on reading.

Probably none. I don’t buy books I don’t plan on reading. If I don’t like a book, I will either DNF it or give it to someone else.

8. An unpublished book on your TBR that you’re excited for.

Pretty much everything on my 2015 releases shelf, but a few I’m really excited about (I obviously don’t know how to pick only one):

     

9. A book on your TBR that basically everyone has read but you.

         

10. A book on your TBR that everyone recommends to you.

See above.

11. A book on your TBR that you’re dying to read.

ALL OF THEM?! Here are three I wish I was reading RIGHT NOW SIMULTANEOUSLY.

        

12. How many books are on your Goodreads TBR shelf?

General “to read” shelf – 363. “Physical books I own TBR” shelf – 73, and this needs to be updated. CUE ANXIETY.

As always, I’m leaving it up to you to participate or not. This was a lot of fun (and anxiety inducing!), so if you guys feel like participating, DO IT! Link me up! 🙂