Good afternoon, peeps! I feel very rant-y this week, so I decided to leash it all on my Top Ten Tuesday theme, haha! So, turn on your rant-y vibes, because I’ll complain my heart out! Hahaha
As you may know, this meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish =D My theme today is Top Ten Most Frustrating Characters EVER! In no particular order, let’s talk about those people 😉
Good afternoon, peeps! Today I won’t provoke almost you all with the delightful summer temperatures I’m experiencing during my vacation #sorrynotsorryforthebrag, haha!
This Tuesday, I felt like analyzing some of the books’ sceneries I’ve been seeing. I’m an eternal rebel, so my theme for the day is Most Vivid Book Worlds/Settings!
As you may know, this meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish =D
In no particular order, let’s talk about setting and bookish worlds that are just too liveable! #that’snotaword
Good day to you! It is I, the urban legend of book bloggers back once again from the hiatus sea. I’ve realized I never got to do a wrap up for September and we are totally still in schedule for an October one, so why not do both in the same post, right? =D It will save time for everyone, yay!
September
Wrap Up
*titles with links are already reviewed, isn’t this a miracle?!! =O*
So, September was a crazy reading month for me. I do promise I kept my life on its regular tracks and that I didn’t skip work to read as I say that I’ve read 26 books that month.
I’ve broken another reading record, haha!
Unfortunately, I can’t remember if I bought any books that particular month or if I bought something in October, so no Book Hauls =( Sorry, my memory sucks! I used to document each book bought on a word doc, but oh well. I think I’ll go back to it on December, haha!
October
Wrap Up
In October, I didn’t manage to read so many books as in September because of my Game of Thrones Challenge, but I read all the mangas I hadn’t in the previous month in between the bloody pages of GOT, oops! So I’ve read only 6 books… But also 26 volumes of manga, haha!
I have been asked where in all seven hells I have managed to squeeze in so many mangas in the middle of a Game of Thrones challenge, but I’m not really allowed to talk about my time turning abilities? Hahaha! No, seriously, I don’t have a good explanation, sorry =/
Books
Mangas
*I forgone the reading dates because I usually read a manga volume in 20 minutes =)
I promise I slowed myself down on November – we are on the 12th and I’ve only finished three books and no mangas! I’m behaving… For now? Hahaha!
I don’t have anything fancy planned to November yet, but in my TBR you’ll definitely find…
November TBR
After I knock these down, I’ll just be a rebel and fish all the lovely books I’ve received this year from authors and publishers that remain unread for a reason or another and start a slow and steady process of reading and reviewing them all. #ambitious
BONUS: The next reviews you can expect to see here are for the Never Veil series =D
That’s it, guys! Once again, thanks so much for sticking around until the end of the post, I know I have been writing too much, oops! Love you all!
Hello, my darlings! Long time no see, right? Well, October was a chaotic month in all aspects of my life: my work is wreak havocking my brain, my pc screen sat broken for almost three full weeks before I got it back, I was crazy enough to accept a Game of Thrones challenge (more of that in a moment, haha!), I got sick for a whole week and almost had to be interned at the hospital thanks to a never-ending diarrhea… Rollercoaster doesn’t even start to describing my life this year. I’m so ready for 2017 – It has to be better than 2016.
Anyway, I’m here today to share with you the results of my Game of Thrones Challenge!
Game of Thrones Challenge: the results!
On my quick update bellow, I briefly mentioned accepting a challenge from a friend: I would have to read all five books of A Song of Ice and Fire in 30 consecutive days. Now I’ll tell the whole story and a bit of how this craziness went, haha!
First of all: I won the challenge. I started A Game of Thrones on September 27th and finished A Dance With Dragons at 10:37PM of October 27th. Now that the suspense is gone, I begin my tale, haha!
Despite watching several loose episodes of the TV show, I had never shown a true interest in reading the book series. The books are so big and heavy and I’m not really a fan of epics. My cup of tea leans more towards fantasy, YA and New Adult overall. However, my offline bff Jenny (who is already tired of reading her name on my blog, btw) was pinning hard for me to read the books and she knows me well enough: we would be 90 years old in a home, playing bingo all day, and I would still have excuses to dodge reading Game of Thrones. So, she played dirty: she challenged me and bet on it.
She knows I get intimidated by physically big books, so she said not even I could read the five books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series in a month in English (we are both Brazilian girls, so our native language isn’t English, which naturally poses a harder challenge than reading it on Brazilian Portuguese). She also said she would buy me two books if I did it. However, Jenny knows me so well she knew I would also need a threat in case I lost. She loves movies overall, so she stated that, If I couldn’t read the books on time, I would have to shut up and watch a whole movie series of her choice the next time we met.
But Annelise, why is it so bad to watch movies? Movies are nice and cool! Nope, not for me. I’m really a pain in the ass with new movies (new movies = movies that I have never watched, not necessarily “new” movies. I have resistance with old movies too, no prejudices here). I can’t explain it, I just don’t feel like watching 95% of what hits the theaters. The last move I watched on the theater was Finding Dory and, before that, I’m pretty sure it was Maleficent or the last movie of the Hobbit series (sorry, I have a terrible time related memory, haha!).
So, now that you know how bizarre particular I am regarding movies, you may start to understand my dread. I HAD to win, there wasn’t an option for me – the books were just a nice bonus, haha! So, I’ve got myself the 5 ebooks and started my journey though George R. R. Martin’s world.
Here are my stats:
A Game of Thrones: read from Sept. 27th to Oct. 04th
Overall impressions (a full review of the series will be written eventually, haha!): As I had watched several episodes on the first, third, fifth and, later on into the challenge, on the sixth seasons, the first book was just a deeper version of what I already knew. The first thing I did was to harden myself to not like anyone – I did tried to be indifferent to all characters, as “they all die” at some point, haha! As this didn’t work, I changed a bit my tactics to only like people I was sure it would appear on the sixth season – it worked pretty well most of the story, haha!
The reading pace was okay, as there was so much info everywhere and I was adjusting to George’s writing, but I knew I would have to do better than that to win. This is my third favorite book in the whole series so far, haha!
A Clash of Kings: read from Oct. 04th to 10th
Overall impressions: I did pick up my pace in the second book and George helped a lot, as there were so many Tyrion chapters ❤ (Tyrion, Daenerys, Jammie Lannister, Jon Snow and Brienne are my favorite characters in the series, in case you are wondering. I also quite liked Robb Stark, but oh well.) Also, I finally started to like Daenerys on this book, so it was fun.
Oh, and judge me all you want, I was in love with Jamie Lanniester since the first moment he appeared on the first book, haha! Oh, and I need to make a comment about this book in particular: I was still a bit naïve about George’s ways and started it before I went to bed. “I’ll just read the prologue”, I said. Well, the damn thing had 50 pages. I was so mad at the time I took to overcome it that I read the book until chapter 3 before actually sleeping, haha! I was also really happy that a narrator from the previous book was dead, so it meant less people telling the story and things would go faster, right? WRONG. George exchange an okay narrator for two people I didn’t think I knew at the time. It was… frustrating.
A Storm of Swords: read from Oct. 10th to 17th
Overall impressions: I entered in an alpha state to see Jamie winning his own spot as a narrator in this book – also, the battles were really cool.
And the thing which happens to Tyrion was jaw dropping as well – sorry, I know many of you already know all the story, but I’m trying to not give away many spoilers, haha! The only thing that truly got me about this book was the amount of songs in it! I think George likes musicals, haha! I did a similar reading time in this volume, comparing to the previous one (6 days x 7 days), so I felt confident I was going at a pretty good pace despite the crazy schedule.
To be honest, I’ve read 474 pages of this volume on a single Saturday evening – my reading pace is weird, just like the rest of my personality, haha!
A Feast for Crows: read from Oct. 18th to 24th
Overall impressions: Despite keeping up with the amount of time I took on the previous volumes, it felts like AGES before I finished this one. I HATED this volume with a force – you see, there are cool moments, but the narrators are a pain in the ass and none of the people I wanted to see were in this book – interpret this as you will.
Each time I clicked on my e-reader to go to the next page, I kept thinking: one less page to go, we are almost there! This was sad in many levels. Also, I almost had a heart attack on a specific chapter involving one of my favorite characters and it was the TV show fault. As you guys may know/have guessed, there are some plot differences from book to TV show and one of those differences made me crawl out of my skin in fear that one of my fave characters could be actually dead on the book while this person waltzed along the show, haha!
I’m happy to inform it was only a false alarm, but omg. I suffered.
A Dance of Dragons: read from Oct. 24 to Oct. 27th
Overall impressions: yes, my darling. You read it right. It took me only two days and a bit (I started the book in the night of the 24th) to read the last published book in the series. It was that good.
Working was a punishment because it was 7h30min of my day without Game of Thrones in my life. All the doubts I had of not being able to fulfill the challenge during the fourth book vanished and I was left utterly heart-broken as I reached the family trees in the end of my ebook. How was I going to survive without Game of Thrones in my routine? Who would I be after reading this series? I suffered a slight book hangover through the last days of October, haha!
After such long and never-ending volumes full of stuff really cool and stuff I (reader) totally didn’t need to know, I came down to the conclusion any book with less than 1000 pages is a small book. The first sign came with my re-reading of the Never Veil series, in which each book has 250 to 300 pages more or less. If I had properly sat and read them, I would have finished in an hour or so each. As I’m lazy and still a little hangover about Game of Thrones and now I have a decent computer again to play and watch Netflix on a bigger screen, I put my hands on the books only a few times and already felt the pages ending too fast, haha! I’m ruined for life.
That’s it! Now you know a little of what has been going on with me, how my challenge went and I can’t wait to hear the opinions of GOT lovers! Let’s discuss this incredible series, please? Thank you.
Until another time, love you all!
Good night and welcome to a once more late Top 10 Tuesday! I think I’ll stop pointing out that I’m late because it’s becoming a bad habit. Maybe if I don’t point that I’m late, I can get myself back on time…? Anyway, this meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and my chosen theme for the day is 10 Books I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Read 🙂
In no particular order, let’s go!
As punishment for a romantic indiscretion, Lady Christiana is forced to marry a common merchant. But when she meets David de Abyndon, she finds he is no ordinary merchant but a man of extraordinary poise and virility. She senses the most uncompromising of passions behind his cool blue eyes.
This one has been sitting on my shelves for like three years or more now and I never seem to find the time to read it, ugh!
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.
I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while, but never got to it. After reading Jess’ review for it, I’m more excited ❤ [Jess is from the Mud and Stars]
The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away.
This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil.
But when the two girls are swept into the Endless Woods, they find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School For Good, thrust amongst handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are…?
I’ve been meaning to read this book since it freaking came out in Brazilian Portuguese [aka right after the original release]. But I only saw it twice on bookstores: the first time it was when we met and I was penniless (I’m a sadistic for going to bookstores without any kind of money, I know); and the second time I had to leave it on the shelf, along with To Kill A Mockingbird and Falling Kingdoms because I had also found the illustrated Harry Potter… Well, they always say that the third time is the one that counts, right? 😀
Jess Mastriani has never been what you’d call a typical Midwestern teenager—her extracurricular activities, instead of cheerleading or 4-H, include fist-fights with the football team and month-long stints in detention. A part of Jess would like to be the prom queen her mother has always envisioned her being, but another part is secretly counting the days until she’s saved up enough money to buy her own Harley.
Then something happens that guarantees Jess will be one of the in-crowd…at least until her newfound talent ends up getting her dead.
I’ve met this series two summers ago, by chance at a bookstore, and by looking at the last volume’s cover. To this day, I have never seen the first book anywhere (I admit that I didn’t do that much digging…), so it’s not exactly my fault that I don’t have it, right…? Lol Wrong.
And any other book in the Shadowhunters world, by Cassandra Clare
I promise I already bought the ebook for Clockwork Angel. Soon, guys.
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.
This book simply doesn’t sounds as my kind, but I was convinced by an army of lovely bookstagrammers and book bloggers that I should give it a try. And I can’t believe I’m still standing there not reading it, haha!
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol—seared into the chest of a murdered physicist—he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati … the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy—the Catholic Church.
Langdon’s worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair … a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.
I’ve read Inferno some years ago and I can’t believe I still haven’t read the other books in this series lol I’m hopeless.
YES, I KNOW, I DESERVE THE EYE-ROLLINGS!
After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.
Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king’s council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her… but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.
Then one of the other contestants turns up dead… quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.
The reason why I’m not reading this series yet is because I want this edition, with the woman on the cover. I don’t care much for books with illustrations on the cover overall and I don’t like this series illustration covers at all, sorry 😦
Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.
As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must … and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty.
The old gods have no power in the south, Stark’s family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne.
I already bought all the ebooks, made a bet with a friend (hi, Jen!) and still haven’t started those. Maybe on June. June sounds like a good month in my calendar. ~who knows~
That’s it, thank you so much for reading and I hope your eyes aren’t too sore from all the rolling I must have won during it, haha!
Hello, there! Welcome to another rebellious Top 10 Tuesday, haha! This meme is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish and my theme today is Most Intimidating Books and I made a point to choose only titles that are on my TBR. It’s my way to make life interesting, haha!
Seriously, this is huge.
Big and tough.
I have the complete edition, it is heavy.
Honestly, you can kill someone just by throwing one of those on the person.
I read the first one when I was a teenie, so it took me AGES to finish it. Now I feel intimidated by the second volume, that is even bigger, haha!
So. Freaking. Big. Can you tell that I have a problem with physically big books? Hahaha
It is bigger than I expected and I feel lazy just by looking at it. Still want to read it, but oh God.
This baby goes until Season 10 and it is beautiful, heavy and bulky. I can’t wait to read it, I can’t think of reading it. I’m a mess.
I also have the complete edition for this one and omg, how I regret it as a reader. As a collector, I find it beautiful and precious. I’ve read the first one last year and have been slacking around to keep going because THIS BOOK IS HUGE! Seriously, I’m the worst.
Yes, you have read correctly. I don’t know what to expect from a Nicholas Sparks book, as I have never read any. Let’s see how this goes…
Anyway, thank you for reading! Do you find any of these titles intimidating as well? 😀
Hi, there! I was tagged FOREVER ago by my friend Ellen, from the Eveningreads, to do the Summertime Madness Book Tag and I finally did it! Yay! And it is actually summertime on my country, so I guess I’m not that late, LOL! Thank you so much for the tag and for being my friend, Ellen! ❤
Let’s go:
Surprising Lord Jack (Duchess of Love #2), by Sally MacKenzie. I’m totally feeling the summer in this cover ❤
I thought about going with the Middle Earth on this one, but I bet it is more pleasant on Spring time, haha! So, I’ll go with Regelence, a dystopian planet created by J. L. Langley. To see all the Townsends to fall in love personally would be awesome – besides, their palace is amazing, haha!
That would highly depend on the flying time, haha! If it was a 40 – 60 minute flight, as the ones I actually do during vacation, I would go with one of my tbr books like Alice’s Adventures in Underland, from DeAnna Knippling.
If it would be a very long flight with more than 4 hours, it would be Game of Thrones.
To be honest, any book, haha! I’m that kind of person that uses reading for everything: for a break, for happiness, for concentration, for escape of reality, for information, as a weapon… So I just keep reading the one that it’s my current read, haha!
Damon Salvatore because I would have this by my side:
Someone call 911 because I am on fire LOL
Hmm, that’s a tough one! I guess I would choose Kara from Finding Forever (review here!) because she is fun and flirty, two things that go very well with summer, haha!
Anyone that wishes to play along! ❤
That’s it, people! Thanks for reading and this was very fun, thanks again for tagging me, Ellen! ❤
The Book Adventures of Annelise Lestrange 