Good night! Thursday is #DustOffYourBookshelf day over my blog and I officially give up on trying to post it on the mornings, haha! This is a meme hosted by my dear friend Mandy, from The Reading Diaries. Make sure to check her blog if you haven’t ❤
Da Rulez:
Dust off your Bookshelf was originally created to share books that have been on my “to read pile” for a long time. Some so long I’ve forgotten that they are there, and have purchased duplicate copies. Each week I will share on my blog as well as Instagram a new title. Some may be newer and some so old I have forgotten they are there. I do have issues with buying books and never reading them. I’m hoping that by share them I will be motivated to read them. Plus it’s always fun to find new books hiding within the bookshelves. Feel free to join in and share on Instagram or your blog. Just let me know so I can check out your choice this week too. Just use #DustOffYourBookshelf
My chosen book
This time I thought of Queen of the Damned, from Anne Rice. I’ve read Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat in a roll, but it took me some time to be able to buy Queen of the Damned. When I got it, my hype with Anne Rice had descended to a human non-fangirl level and it has been sitting on my shelf for over 6 years now…
Did you ever wonder where all those mischievous vampires roaming the globe in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles came from? In this, the third book in the series, we find out. That raucous rock-star vampire Lestat interrupts the 6,000-year slumber of the mama of all bloodsuckers, Akasha, Queen of the Damned.
Akasha was once the queen of the Nile (she has a bit in common with the Egyptian goddess Isis), and it’s unwise to rile her now that she’s had 60 centuries of practice being undead. She is so peeved about male violence that she might just have to kill most of them. And she has her eye on handsome Lestat with other ideas as well.
Now it is condemned to wait the good will of my book jar-box or a book club reading, oops!
Good day to you! Our day starts with Top 10 Tuesday 😀 This meme is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish and as if I wasn’t a rebel before, now I reached a whole new level, haha! Besides choosing to show you guys my 10 favorite covers within my 2015 reads, I also made it 18 covers because it was IMPOSSIBLE to narrow this down, haha!
Lest’s go:
Venom, from Kristin Middleton
The Gentleman and The Lamplighter, from Summer Devon
Hi, there! It’s Saturday and I couldn’t be happier! Besides eating my uncle’s famous barbecue today, this means that I’m going home tomorrow! Yay ❤
Today’s tag I saw at my friend Kim’s blog, The Spines Breaker. She didn’t tag me, but I liked this tag a lot and decided to do anyway 😀
Phase 1 – Initial Attraction: A book that you bought because of the cover?
The Awakening (Darkest Powers #2), by Kelley Armstrong. The hardcover volume was 7 dollars when I found it and I couldn’t resist, haha! Only later at home, I saw it was the second volume of the series and had to buy the ebook for the first one, haha!
Phase 2 – First Impressions: A book that you got because of the summary?
Angel Time (The Songs of the Seraphim #1), by Anne Rice. I found it highly interesting 😀 Let’s see if it will meet my expectations, as my last book from Anne Rice was a huge fiasco.
Phase 3 – Sweet Talk: A book with great writing?
The Night World series, from L. J. Smith. Seriously, I love this woman’s writing style! You can check my reviews for books one, two and three 😀
Phase 4 – First Date: A first book of a series which made you want to pick up the rest of the series?
Cemetery Tours, from Jacqueline E. Smith! It was so good and the end had such a cliffhanger that I almost cried in relief because I already had all three published books with me, haha!
Phase 5 – Late Night Phone Calls: A book that kept you up all night?
My last one was Shearwater, from dear Derek Murphy ❤ Such a wonderful book!
Phase 6 – Always on my mind: A book you could not stop thinking about?
Fangirl, from Rainbow Rowell. Even now, it still fills my head, as I’m dying to read Carry On!
Phase 7 – Getting Physical: A book which you love the way it feels?
Widdershins, from Jordan L. Hawk. All the feels, all over the place, haha!
Phase 8 – Meeting the parents: A book which you would recommend to your family and friends?
Pride and Prejudice, from marvelous Jane Austen. So far, I convinced 4 people including my mom to read it, haha!
Phase 9 – Thinking about the future: A book or series you know you will re read many times in the future?
All In With The Duke, from my loved Ava March. I can’t breath without this book in my life, seriously.
That’s it! Thanks for reading 😀 If you find this tag as fun as I did, don’t hesitate on doing it! You can say that I tagged you 😉
Hello, again! I know I am a little late to do this, but better late than never, haha! January is going to be insane for me, as my younger cousin is going to be here until Sunday and next week I may start a course – more info as my life goes, haha!
But I’m blabbering, let’s do this:
December Wrap Up
I’m very proud of my reading month! I’ve read 11 books!! =O I’m still wondering how I did it, so I can repeat the dose this month, haha!
Book of Opera, from Arthur Jacobs and Stanley Sadie
The Other Side of Midnight, from Sidney Sheldon
The Devil’s Advocate, from Morris West
Vixen 03, from Clive Cussler
The Name of the Rose, from Umberto Eco
Lie Down With Lions, Ken Follett
An illustrated guide to Dresden
Amar se Aprende Amando, from Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Antologia Poética, from Vinicius de Moraes
Antologia Poética, from Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Dona Flor e seus Dois Maridos, from Jorge Amado
Tieta do Agreste, from Jorge Amado
Tenda dos Milagres, from Jorge Amado
A Moreninha, from Joaquim Manuel de Macedo
I know, I know. So many books, haha! I can explain 🙂 14 of my won books were at my uncle’s place, waiting for death. Yeah. So I won a cattle with lots of books and selected the ones that seemed promising 🙂 I wish I could have saved all books that were there, but there were some destroyed ones by the time, others that I knew for being a bore and some that weren’t my thing at all… Anyway, at least I could save some of them, haha!
Freebies that I got this month
Anywhere But Here (The Starborn Ascension Book 1), from Jason D. Morrow
Beyond Secret Worlds: Ten Stories of Paranormal Fantasy and Romance
The Ducal Gift and The Christmas Carriage, from Grace Burrowes
Soar (The Empire Chronicles Book 1), from Alyssa Rose Ivy
Hidden (Dragonlands Book 1), from Megg Jensen
Aloha Texas (Aloha #1), from Chris Keniston
Binarius: Episode I (The Binarius Series Book 1), from Kendra McMahan
Globalização, Mídia e Ética, from Erasmo de Freitas Nuzzi and Clovis de Barros Filho
So, the #12daysofbooksmas2 readathon came to an end yesterday and here I am to collect war spoils and bury the dead, haha!
I’d like to start this report saying that this was my first readathon in life, so I didn’t really knew what I was doing, LOL. As I had 10 days, I thought it would be nice to pick a book for each day (spoiler alert: no, it wasn’t). As those 10 days preceded Christmas and my family’s trip, I thought I had the eternity to read the books that I wanted (spoiler alert pt. 2: no, I hadn’t). And as we had to read a total of 1.200 pages, I was insanely worried that I would never be able to read so much in practically two weeks (spoiler alert pt. 3: I was, haha!).
Keeping all of these impressions on mind, add the information that I graduated in Journalism to the mix. You may reach the conclusion that I have no time space notion, that I can’t do math to see that 1.200 pages totalize approximately 5 books of 300 pages each and that I just didn’t know what I was doing. You are totally right, haha!
But let’s go to the actual report:
Read books:
Cemetery Tours series, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]
Between Worlds, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]
After Death, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, from Anne Rice [review here]
Once upon a time, there was a princess that had been granted with everything: beauty, kindness, money and education. Cursed from birth, the princess fell in a deep sleep after stinging her finger in a spinning wheel. A hundred years shall pass before a brave prince was able to awaken her from her fate.
This is the story that you know. What you don’t know is how Beauty was awaken.
Or how her real curse began in the moment she opened her eyes.
The Analysis
Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂
I bet you were expecting my scandal gif after such a story, right? Oh, well. The perspective of the story is a scandal. The real thing, not so much.
You see, I bought this book in June of this year and was pinning badly to read it. I love the whole fairy-tales gone bad wave and didn’t even knew that Anne Rice already attempted that more than twenty years ago. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t what I got. I’ll be more specific in my disappointment during the review, but I don’t see the point of talking and talking about a book that I didn’t enjoy, so I’ll try to keep this short 🙂 I still love Anne Rice, but this was just… Wrong. Two stars that shall be justified in the following lines.
The narrative was third person, but only from Beauty’s point of view. There are two chapters were Prince Alexi narrates mostly of the events in first person, but it was for contextualization’s sake, not a rule. I like third person narratives, but it got boring not having a break from Beauty’s fears and sufferings. Scene and action describing is one of the strongest points of Rice as an author, for good and bad. There were several scenes where I’d rather have been left in the dark, but oh well.
The plot was simple and, in my humble opinion, awful. As I said before, nothing prepared me for this book and I had a completely misjudged idea about it. It’s partially my fault, as it was written in the back cover of my edition that this was a “polemic fairy tale”, with “a sensual world, made of forbidden dreams and dark desires, in which traditional notions of domain and submission and gender preference are tossed to the wind”*. Again, I should have seen it coming, as I read Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat. Nevertheless, I MANAGED TO BE SURPRISED, UGH.
It was totally the wrong book for me. I’m not a fan of BDSM on a regular basis, I don’t like books like 50 Shades of Gray, I can’t stand any book that says that is cool for an individual to humiliate themselves for the sake of pleasure. To see women to be beaten up, men being raped and liking it… This is not my thing. I’m too serious about both pleasure and pain to unite both. I have to see that I already didn’t like 50 Shades of Gray when I read it, but this book puts E. L. James and Mr. Grey in the nursery. I already mentioned here once or twice how I can’t stand vulgar sex scenes, the ones made solemnly for the sex itself, without any emotional attachment behind it, out of boredom (and I’m not even talking about love, you see, I’m talking about true desire). I hate them and this book, for me, was a giant almost non-stop sex scene with barely a story behind it. I’m sorry if you read this book and you liked it, or if you like this kind of genre.
I won’t lie, I had my moments with this book. The characters were an interesting part. I liked Prince Alexi, for instance. He is nuts, but who wouldn’t be after all of his “learning”. Beauty was a disappointment in her own way. What I really like is how Rice manages to extinguish gender preferences and prejudices about who will you love. This is an aspect that I already loved in Interview with the Vampire and it kept me captivated on this book as well, despite everything. This is how love should really be: just free. Why does it matter if it’s a boy or a girl? No one in Rice’s books bat an eyelash for two boys together or two girls together, because they are people before being males or females. Honestly, society should learn a thing or two with her.
On the other hand, Rice’s too free love gets on my nerves, as you can’t ship any couple together, because they change their minds about partners more times than they change clothes. They claim that they love them all, but Johnny Deep once said something on this line: “If you are with someone and falls in love with a second person, choose the second person. If it was true love with the first, you wouldn’t have fallen in love again.” I agree with him on this one. You have to admit, at least to yourself, what do you want.
I really wanted to tear this book apart, as it crushed so many of my personal beliefs, but I read it, had my good moments with it and intend to read the next book in the series. Why? For the same reason that the book got 2 instead of 1 star: it picked my curiosity. Things were so absurd when it ended that I felt the need for understanding. I need to read the next book to try to figure out Beauty’s mind. I should totally have gone to psychology school instead of Journalism, haha!
That’s it, thanks for reading 🙂 Once again, I apologize if something that I said may look offensive, that wasn’t my goal while stating my opinion, haha!
Hi, there! Good morning and Happy Friday! Friday is always happy, but okay, haha!
I’ve got exciting news! (cof not really if you follow me at Instagram cof) I’m going to be participating of the #12daysofbooksmas2 readathon! 😀 I was invited in by my lovely friend @thepagemistress and this will rock!
from @thepagemistress Instagram account!
Here we have the rules:
Read a book with red or green on the cover
Read about book that’s on your end of the year tbr
Read a book that takes place during the holiday season
Read a sequel
Re-read a favorite book
Read a book with a movie adaptation (and watch the movie)
Read a total of 1,200 pages!
This is going on from December 11th-22nd
This readathon has also a photo challenge, but I’ll only do it at my Instagram account, so follow me there if you want to see what I’m about, haha!
Cemetery Tours series, from Jacqueline E. Smith (514 pages, both books that I own. Talked about it here and, besides being my currently-reading, this is my sequel of the list!)
Emma, from Jane Austen (currently-reading, my red book and book with a holiday season, haha!)
I know I am being too hopeful, but it’s my chance to knock my tbr pile of December for good, haha! Let’s see how I go! Oh, and I know there’s no signalized book with movie adaptation, I didn’t decide yet which one I’ll be reading, haha! Oops 🙂
That’s all about the readathon, for now! I’ll make another post about this when it’s over, talking about how it was my first readathon ever! ❤ Thanks again for inviting me, Lindsey, and thanks to you, that is reading the blog 😀
Hello, there! Today there is a NEW SECTION OPENNING AT THE BLOG, OMG!
But why? Oh, you see, I’m not the kind of person that, upon asked, can easily say that just likes one book of X genre or one author from Y genre. I simply can’t, I don’t know how to choose, so I created this section lamely called TOP 3. Every two weeks, I’ll select a topic, like today’s Vampire Books, and talk about three elements of it 🙂 Let’s get started!
TOP 3: Vampire books
Demons of the Ocean – Justin Somper (Vampirates #1)
Twins, Connor and Grace, find truth to Vampirate shanty their father sang to them before he died, after they are shipwrecked and separated. Connor, aboard a pirate ship, learns to swordfight. For Grace, aboard a ship of vampire pirates, danger is great. What will it take for them to find each other?
What I thought: This book series is meant for elementary school individuals, but I don’t care. I didn’t finish it, but no other series had such perfect elements or major cliff hangers than this one. Besides, are you a cowboys person? Or a pirates person? Maybe you may prefer vampires? You have all three on these books, so you, like me, is safe.
A Pirate Cowboy Vampire for me, waiter!
Interview with the Vampire – Anne Rice (The Vampire Chronicles #1)
Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.
What I thought: I had a strong vampire phase on high school, as it was when the Twilight movies erupted and all, so I read lots of books from this theme then. This was one of them and it is FREAKING AMAZING. I love gay romances and the way that Rice plays with the reader about the Louis/Lestat relationship got me hard, haha! I need to keep reading this series, as I only read this book and The Vampire Lestat, but I already can say that I love Anne Rice and she has the best vampire couple in town, haha! Ps: I prefer to pretend that the movie never existed, as I don’t agree with casting matters, sadly. Sorry, Brad and Tom. I’m fine with Kirsten, though.
Thanks, sweetie ;D
The Awakening – L. J. Smith (The Vampire Diaries #1)
Searching for the ultimate thrill, she vowed to have Stefan.
Stefan
Haunted by his tragic past, he struggled to resist her passion.
Damon
Driven by revenge, he hunted the brother who betrayed him.
The terrifying story of two vampire brothers and the beautiful girl torn between them.
What I thought: Worst blurb ever. I’ll do a decent review for this book series in 2016, but it is awesome. 5 out of 5 stars! I know many people prefer the TV show (which is totally okay, as it gave us Ian Somerhalder, among other hot men), but I love the book series to this day! I read it on high school, months before the TV show was out and I became oh-so-obsessed.
I don’t know what came into me, sorry, but even after watching the series (which is amazing!), I still love the books.
That’s it! Thanks for reading! Which is your favorite vampire book or series? 😀
Hi, there! Omg, December is really here! I am sooo happy! ❤
November was a slow reading month for me, as I finished my dissertation and had my finals, but I got to read something 🙂 December will be a better month, as I’ll be on vacation after December 04th, haha!
WRAP UP
I’ve read 8 books, 4 mangas and 1 comic book in November.
BOOKS
A Arte de Editar Revistas, by Fatima Ali (Brazilian Portuguese book meant for my dissertation, so I won’t review it)
The Complete Essays, by Michel de Montaigne (college reading, also won’t be reviewed even that it was very good)
My haul for this month was almost non-existent again. My family has been going through difficult times, so I’m trying not to be a burden, haha! I got some freebies from Amazon and won a giveaway, so this is my haul:
Hello, everyone! I had to do a post here about my June book haul, as I went a little crazy this month… I bought 15 books, OMG! Hahaha!
Anyway, those are the new kids in town:
. Paris Secrets, from Zoé de las Cases
A beautiful coloring book that stole my heart ❤ I already did some of the coloring, check it out:
. The Little Prince, from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
This edition has a beautiful hard cover and features an illustrated biography of the author, it’s awesome ❤
. Deu no New York Times – Larry Rohter
This is a Brazilian journalistic book, gift from my bff @jenny.miers. It’s an analysis of how Brazil is viewed by outsiders, very cool. Thanks again for the gift, by the way 😀
. The Burning Bridge (Ranger’s Apprentice #2) – John Flanagan
I just finished reading The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice #1, review here!) and I fell madly in love with it. I had to get myself the next one, haha!
. The Heir (The Selection series #4) – Kiera Cass
my baby ❤
As a good fan of The Selection, I couldn’t resist to this beautiful hard cover Brazilian edition (even though my whole collection is in English and that I want to read The Heir in English as well xD)
. The Scarlets (The Asylum series #1.5) – Madeleine Roux
I went mad reading Asylum and Sanctum earlier this year and Catacomb, the third book in the series, won’t be out until September, so I have to hold my fire for now with the spin offs, haha!
. Austenland – Shannon Hale
my baby with one of my favorite necklaces ❤
This book has a funny story. I bought the second volume of the collection by accident (from the series saw the cover and bought it), but I didn’t have read the first and I’m very methodic. So, as soon as I could, I purchased this and started reading it (it was before my book jar-box thing xD). You can see my full review here!
Ps: here’s the next book, that started all of this:
. Pokémon Official Guide to Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby
I’m still trying to be the greatest Pokémon Master since the 150 first ones, so I felt I needed this to keep going on my mission, haha!
. Grey – E. L. James
This one I have to admit that I’m VERY curious to read. I’ve read Fifty Shades of Gray to do a book report for my college and I hated the main character. I always caught myself wondering what Christian would be thinking to fall for someone so obnoxious. Now, I will find out, haha!
. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty – Anne Rice
I’m a great fan of Anne Rice’s works, but I only learned about this book recently (like two or three years ago, when the whole fairy tale gone bad thing exploded). I LOVE fairy tale gone bad books and I think Rice’s will be a blast, once she is the master of the supernatural world ❤ You can check here more reasons to read it, haha!
. Great Women Writers Box
Another funny story, haha! I love to sign up for newsletters and, while checking one of them, from a local bookstore, I saw this beautiful box set with four books inside for an awesome price. Bought it in the act, haha! We have Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights 😀
. Emma – Jane Austen
I am full of funny book stories this month, haha! My book jar-box told me that I would be reading Emma after I finished Ranger’s Apprentice #1. The thing was I only had it on a beautiful large and not at all logistic edition of the complete works of Jane Austen. My dad, seeing my distress in the first day reading the book, took me to the bookstore and told me to look for an edition of Emma that I could read, LOL. I love my dad ❤
Ps: this was the other edition:
That’s it, guys! This was my June book haul, thanks for reading! Which books did you buy this month? 😀
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The Book Adventures of Annelise Lestrange 