The Fireworks Book Tag!

Hi, there! I was tagged by my sweet Audrey, from the Forwards and Bookwords, forever ago in the Fireworks Book Tag, thank you! Let’s answer it 😀

1. Screamers: a book that made you want to scream! (in a good way)

Hmm, I would say Viscount’s Wager, from Ava March. Ava sent it to me as an early birthday present and I freaked out both when I won it and when I finished it, haha!

2. Bombers: a book you read before it exploded in the book community

Hmm, I would say The Book Thief and The Vampire Diaries 🙂

3. Banger: a banned book you read

I honestly don’t know, haha! I’m not aware of any banned books in my country or estate, so I don’t think I have read anything banned so far…

4. Peony: a book/author you think everybody needs to read

Emily Rodda, for sure. I loved the whole Deltora Quest saga and now I’m totally digging Rowan of Rin series. Love her!

5. Crossette: a book/series with a complicated plot

The Fellowship of the Ring, first book in the Lord of the Rings saga. Really, I didn’t think it was so entwined when I saw the movies, haha!

6. Diadem: a book/series with amazing central characters

The Selection, by Kiera Cass. I loved America (and I usually have deep issues with narrator characters), Maxton, Celeste and Aspen… Everything!

7. Atches: light your own fireworks by tagging five people

Ellen, from Eveningreads

Erika, from Erika.reads

Kim, from LazyCaramelReads

Jenaca, from jenacidebybibliophile

Bianca, from The Ultimate Fangirl

And anyone else that wants to do this tag ❤ Thanks for reading!

The Ruins of Gorlan, from John Flanagan (Ranger’s Apprentice #1)

I would like to start the review thanking my book jar-box. After many studies, I decided to make my own book jar (it is a box, I’ll have to pay therapy for it if I keep calling it a jar xD) and the first raffled book was this one. My expectations weren’t high, so it was an amazing surprise!

directly from my Instagram profile 😀

Anyway, let’s go to the book: this is the story of Will, an orphan boy who grew up as a protégée in a medieval castle, under the Baron’s protection, among other children. Nobody seems to know about Will’s parentage and, to avoid being mocked by the other orphans of the castle, Will makes up that his dad was a war hero and starts to believe so himself.

When the protégées reach 15 years old, they must ask for a tutor in the castle, to make themselves useful in some way to the feud. Will’s dream is to go to the Battleschool, but Sir Rodney, the captain, thinks that the boy is too thin and weak to that. So, to general surprise, he is chosen by ranger Halt, to be a Ranger Apprentice.

You see, the rangers were seem as some kind of magical people by the people of the feud, so Will is not sure how this will turn out – he only knows that anything is better to spend the rest of his life in a farm.

Halt trains Will to the point of exhaustion, but not in vain: the boy proves himself an excellent apprentice (we soon learn that Halt tends to be always right xD) and slowly changes, realizing that there are more ways to be a hero than to fight.

Mean while, Horace, one of Will’s colleagues, is accepted in the Battleschool and starts to suffer a heavy bullying from the older students. He used to be full of himself and to fight a lot with Will, as both were stupid boys (sorry, but it’s the truth xD), but he also changes. It is amazing how Flanagan can capture and show the effects of bullying. All the symptoms, the fear, the frustration… At first, I hated Horace. Now, I love him, haha!

Both boys exceed in their apprenticing and become friends after an almost death experience sponsored by two angry boars (this is one of my favorite scenes in the book, by the way!). Things would only get dangerous when Halt and Will depart on a very important mission, as one of the greatest enemies from the kingdom is about to rise.

I simply loved it. I love Young Adult Novels and this one surpassed any expectations. The characters are strong, the action is real, the book is fast paced, but not too much that you get lost or miss details and is about the power of friendship. One of my June favorites ❤

That’s it! Thanks for reading 😀 Have you ever read Ranger’s Apprentice series?

Elixir – Hilary Duff

Hello, people! Omg, it’s already Sunday again, so, new to-read of the week day! This time, I chose Elixir, from goodness Hilary Duff, published in 2010 by Simon & Schuster Boorks 🙂

my Hilary collection 🙂

Avulse books or box sets: an existential doubt

If you follow me on my Instagram profile (follow me! :D) or read any of the posts in the blog, you may notice that I collect books besides reading and loving them, LOL. This collecting thing is a bit tiresome sometimes, I admit. This post is full of book lovers problems, be prepared.

my The Selection box X my Tales from the Kingdoms books

I’m mostly unlucky with book boxes. I love them, I find them very beautiful and practical, but I usually already have all or most of the books inside of it to make it worth buying it. It’s so dammed frustrating! They take so long to release those that I already got the separate books instead.

I brought here three examples in my collection: The Selection series, Tales from the Kingdoms series and Percy Jackson main series.

The first series that I started among those three was TFTK, in my book reader. I loved it and needed it, but, short in money that I was, several months had passed before I was able to buy the printed copies as well. I bought Charm on a liquidation, then Venom at a used bookstore and then Beauty, on another liquidation. Some weeks ago, I saw a beautiful box with the three books inside at a bookstore and wanted to be dead. It was the economical edition. Dammit, guys 😦

my babies ❤

The second series was The Selection. I also started it in my book reader after nudges from a friend and read them all in a matter of one week. A few months later, Christmas arrived and I was able to buy them all, in a beautiful box set. Points for me /o/

my other babies ❤

The third series, Percy Jackson, was very similar to The Selection, but I didn’t buy the box, as I didn’t find any; I just bought the five books at once and, again, navigating through an online bookstore, yesterday I found the box edition.

While admiting that buying a book at time has lots of advantages, I like the boxes way better. They usually have something more inside and, even when they haven’t, like my The Selection box didn’t, they still are pretty and good for organization in the book shelf.
Unfortuantelly, here in Brazil, they take too long to publish those and I don’t usually have that patience. The only ocasions that I can manage to buy boxes is when I don’t have money for a long time, like months, and them I go and buy the box set later. Oh, and we never know when a saga/author is going to turn into a box set too ://

There’s also the issue of costs. Even when publishers do release boxes, I usuallyt don’t have the money to buy them, as they have a greater cost at once than buying books separatelly 😦

I’ll remaing in my suffer, as not years of theraphy healed my anxiety with certain topics, but I can say that I’m happy to be buying more and more boxes, even in a slow rythm: today I just ordered online a box set from Collector’s Edition with two Austen romances, one Brontë and Little Women ❤

Resuming: I will keep ranting about how boxes are great and expansive, but I still prefer them and I’m still wanting the TFTK box set, LOL.