young adult

Top Ten Tuesday: 2016 Releases I Meant To Read (But Didn’t Get To)

10th January 2017 by Gemma 4 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. More information, plus future topics can be found on this page. This week was ‘2016 Releases I Meant To Read’.

I thought I’d do these prompts at least once (or twice?) a month since I seem to fare better at having one on instagram. Maybe it’ll make me a more regular blogger!

So I kept my ears quite close to the ground last year when it came to new book releases, and I have more than a handful of books published in 2016. Unfortunately, I still haven’t figured out how to balance reading with bookstagram and blogging, so I didn’t manage to read most of them (although I’m sure most readers always feel they haven’t read as much as they would have wanted in a year). I have to re-think my book purchases for this year, which is a post for another day!

Anyway, here are some of the books that were published in 2016, and I will hopefully get to tick them off the TBR list before the end of this year. …

Anticipated Reads for Spring 2017 – Part II

29th December 2016 by Gemma 3 Comments

Back again for the rest of the books slated to be published here in the UK for the rest of spring 2017! If you missed yesterday’s post for the Jan-Feb 2017 releases, you can make your way over by clicking here.

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Anticipated Reads for Spring 2017 – Part I

27th December 2016 by Gemma 3 Comments

While trying to ignore the fact that the flat is getting overtaken with books (no more shelf or stacking space!), I’ve looked through the books coming out for the first half of 2017 and listed down those that tickled my fancy. I can’t say I’ll be able to read them all, since I’d have to buy them first and that, plus the space issue…erm. But we’ll see how long my self-control lasts, eh?

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On The Nightstand: A Gathering of Shadows

14th April 2016 by Gemma Leave a Comment

A Gathering of Shadows is the sequel A Darker Shade of Magic written by V.E. Schwab. It also appears to be the second in a series of three books¹, because three is a magical number (also refer to recent popular book and movie success The Hunger Games, and somewhat less successful Divergent series).

It picks up from the end of the last book, four months after Kell and Lila parted ways in Red London. Kell has no idea where Lila is or what has happened to her; he just assumes she has gone off to board a ship to explore more of the world as she had told him she wanted to do. Meanwhile, he is slowly unravelling being cooped up inside the castle, his movements limited and monitored by the king due to the events in the previous book.

And now here I must cut off the rest of the post with a warning: there will be a few spoilers underneath, at least regarding character development. I will still try to keep most of the plot unmentioned.

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On The Nightstand: The Graveyard Book

28th December 2015 by Gemma Leave a Comment

Gosh, it has been awhile, eh? Between comings and goings for work holidays and stressing over the wedding, I did not have much time to sit and make up a nice post (other bloggers would know how much time it actually takes to put one of these together!). Then when I was ready to do so, I was struck by the dreaded reading slump, and was stuck uninspired with any book I pick up — Sense & Sensibility and We Have Always Lived in A Castle could not pull me in how ever much I tried. It wasn’t that I did not want to read and I was forcing myself; I very much wanted to read something, but nothing was just clicking! That happens to a lot of readers too, right?

Anyhow, the book that broke my slump came at the most random moment — I was out shopping for Christmas presents and was at a Waterstones looking for stocking fillers, when I felt my tummy calling for lunch. I did not want to sit through a meal looking at my phone, so I determinedly tried to find a ‘lunch book’. Nearly went for a John le Carré, but found The Graveyard Book at the ‘Books for Syria’ pile. Loved the cover, loved the little blurb at the back (which is a dying thing at the moment — another rant for another day), so went straight to the counter and bought it! It’s not exactly a Christmas read, but I couldn’t care since I was just so glad I can get rid of this slump!

Neil Gaiman, author of this lovely novel, said that it was inspired by watching his then two-year-old son riding his tricycle between gravestones in the sunshine. This is in stark contrast to the boy in the book, Nobody Owens, who plays around his world — the graveyard — when the moon is high. Known to the “community” as Bod, his playmates, teachers, and guardians are otherworldly, incorporeal beings, and he is taught that there is great danger to himself beyond the gates of the graveyard.

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