Thursday 30 August 2018

Blog Tour: Sadie by Courtney Summers | Review Rant


Release Date: 4, September, 2018
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Pages: 320
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Rate: 4/5

Synopsis

Courtney Summers is already known for her well written and dark young adult novels, earning rave 
starred trade reviews on every book. With a fierce and independent female lead, SADIE (September 4, 
2018; Wednesday Books) continues in this vein told in part as a podcast, similar to Serial, about a 
missing girl determined to avenge her sister’s death. A propulsive and harrowing read that will keep 
you riveted until the last page, Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. 
Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. 
But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is 
determined to bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him.
When West McCray—a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America—overhears 
Sadie's story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he 
tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it's too late.
As the pages turn, your heart will be in your throat the whole way. SADIE is darkly delicious and addictive, the perfect 
fall read. As a major Editor's Buzz Book Pick at BEA, Summers’ thriller will be the book to read this season, and in a 
creative twist, the first YA thriller podcast. THE GIRLS released the first episode on August 1st bringing SADIE to life in a 
new way by picking up the script content from the book and using the under-explored content area in the podcast area 
of teen listeners. Combining a haunting novel and additional material through the podcast, Summers has changed the 
way readers experienced books.

REVIEW

Sadie had a rough childhood. She had a pretty close bond with her sister until she gets murdered. With no parents, she sets off to find her beloved sister's murderer.
OH MY GOD!!! This book was so effing gripping! I was hooked from the start. Sadie is a very bad-ass character. She struggles alot throughout the novel. From having an abusive childhood to now being on the run leaving behind everything to find her sister's murderer. West McCray along with May Beth Foster start trying to find Sadie. May Beth is a friend of Sadie's dead mother & her guardian. The story is written in a very cinematic manner. This was my first read by Summers & I really enjoyed her writing. The pace of the novel is kinda slow but who doesn't love some torture when it comes to thrillers/mystery books.
Overall, I would highly recommend reading this extremely astounding read by Summers. You're in for a crazy ride!


Courtney Summers

Courtney Summers was born in Belleville, Ontario, 1986. At age 14, she dropped out of high school. At age 18, she wrote her first novel. Cracked Up to Bewas published in 2008, when she was 22 and went on to win the 2009 CYBIL award in YA fiction. Since then, she’s published four more critically acclaimed books: Some Girls AreFall for AnythingThis is Not a Testand All the Rage, as well as an e-novella, Please Remain Calm which is a sequel to This is Not a Test



Sunday 26 August 2018

The VB Chats: Josh @ Beards & Books


Josh is a 26 year old booktuber from the UK. He loves talking about books and makes interesting fun bookish videos on YouTube. 

Q 1: Tell me something about yourself. 

Answer: I'm 26 based in Gloucestershire in the UK, proud owner of a Bulldog, big gamer, I come from a creative family where my older brother is a professional bass player and my younger brother is training to write screen plays.


Q 2: How did the idea of booktubing come to you?
Answer: After a reading slump hit me in my early twenties, I wanted to read more but didn't know where to begin so I started watching more and more booktube channels. 
After a while all I could talk about was books so after plenty of planning (and internal deliberation) I decided to try and start my own booktube channel, luckily for me the channel has been growing really well and I've met some great people!


Q 3: Your 5 favourite booktubers.



Answer: There are so many great channels but my favourite would have to be Read With Merina Rey, she's been so supportive of me and my channel since day one and I consider her a great friend.
Other channels i'm a big fan of would have to be -
Leighanne's Lit, For her brilliant Stephen King videos and Horror recommendations.
nosaferplace because she's super friendly and she recommends great YA books!
Bull City Reader, Preston is one of the booktubers who I talk with the most and he has a really interesting channel. His videos on indie and unpublished authors have introduced me to books I might never have found without him.
Last but not least I would have to say Books With Emily Fox, Emily's channel is the one that got me into booktube and her fantasy recommendations got me out of my reading slump!

Q 4: Tips for newbie booktubers?
Answer: Try to enjoy it, starting a channel is hard I wont lie, its time consuming and its hard when your new to YouTube but if you talk about something you enjoy that passion will come through and before long you'll have people coming back for all your videos!
Social media is key, when you start a channel and you start with zero subscribers its hard to bring people to your channel, social media is key to spreading your name.
Finally and most importantly, enjoy it! Have fun and make your videos into a hobby, the more pressure you put yourself under the less natural your videos will be ðŸ˜Š


Q 5: Your 5 favourite books.



Answer: Now thats a tough one and it will probably change by this time next year,
I would have to say, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Game of Thrones A Clash of Kings by George R.R Martin, The Martian by Andy Weir, IT by Stephen King and a more recent read The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.

Thank you so much Josh for being on the blog! :) It was nice knowing you! You all need to check out Josh's fun-filled channel ❤ Get to know him more:

Twitter
Instagram
YouTube



Sunday 5 August 2018

How I Accidentally Started My Book Blog

Hi Guys! Today I wanted to share a mini story about how I accidentally started my book blog. This was the evening of 30 May, 2014. I don't really remember how I actually discovered Blogger... :p I had no idea what a book blog was.


I just randomly started ranting about myself & OH MY GOD that post was so embarrassing. It's still up on my blog & IT'S JUST SO BAD! 🙈


Nonetheless, I felt like a legend after posting it... XD Dumb ME!!!


After that I started posting my book reviews & GUESS WHAT!! Instead of writing how the plot, characters & writing in the book was like... I wrote the whole plot in the review . ______ . Like I just used to write what happened in the books including the ending too... Me looking at my old posts like:


After that I made a Twitter account & discovered more book blogs.I thought I was the only book blogger in the whole world.. :) 


I have come a long way now lol.. Learnt so much stuff!! It's just funny thinking about my funny past blogging self :D

Tell me guys! How did you all actually started book blogging? Were you dumb as me too? 🙈 (I don't think so lol XD)






Wednesday 1 August 2018

Review Rant: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo


Release Date: 6, March, 2018
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 368
Genre: Contemporary
Rate: 5/5

SYNOPSIS

A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.

So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

REVIEW

This powerful book revolves around  Xiomara Batista. A girl with so much hidden inside of herself because of her society's pressure. She doesn't want to abide with the rules of her religion. Her life changes after she joins her school's slam poetry club. But will she be able to ever enjoy her life without any fear of her society or parents?
OH MY GOD GUYS!!!! This book is dirty emotional. I 75% of the time was relating with Xiomara although I am not Dominican or a Christian. How her mother was never really supportive of her poetry & how she abused her literally tore my heart apart. Her mother was forced to marry her father. Something that happens in my country alot. Xiomara's relationship with her brother was kinda cute. BUT MY MOST FAVOURITE PERSON WAS Cardidad. Her best-friend. As much as religious as Cardidad was, she was extremely nice  with Xio at the same time. Xio's boyfriend Aman was another extremely nice & understanding character. Xiomara's teacher didn't let Xio's flame of poetry quench. She was with her all the time. It was so beautiful to see Xiomara's character growth. She becomes such a fearless & an amazing person & learns to fight everything.
Overall, I would highly recommend this beautiful diverse read by Acevedo. Trust me, you all are gonna love it!


Tuesday 26 June 2018

Blog Tour: Dawn Of Legends by Eleanor Herman | Guest Post

Today, I have one of my favourite authors on my blog with the announcement of her fourth & final book in her The Blood Of Gods & Royals series! I am so excited for Dawn Of Legends! <3

The End of the Adventure


All good things must end, including book series. Including my book series. Dawn of Legends is the fourth and final book in the Blood of Gods and Royals series, an epic Fantasy adventure of a teen Alexander the Great and his friends, set in the eastern Mediterranean of the fourth century B.C.
Suddenly I find myself faced with this question: What do I do when the people I have lived with every day for four years suddenly go away? It’s like leaving your friends after high school graduation, going off to different colleges, different lives, and knowing you will probably never be close with them again. There’s an emptiness. A loss. I square my shoulders, lift my chin, and take a firm step into the next stage of my life with confidence, grateful I have experienced these people who have helped me feel and grow and learn, but also sad that things have changed, and they will never be the same again.
The irony is that I had to work hard to lose them in the right way. After four novels in which our six main characters meet, interact, and spread out to Egypt, the Persian Empire, and Tunisia, facing monsters, magic, and daunting odds of success, I had to bring them back together again. For The Big Battle. Alexander was a master warrior and strategist, after all. The novels are sprinkled with exciting battles: fighting the Aesarian Lords, pirates, even Egyptian statues channeling the spirit of an ancient general. Now Alexander and his friends needed a Big Battle as the climax.
Additionally, my two favorite Fantasy series are The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and I learned a lot from their endings. In the climax of The Lord of the Rings, most of the characters come together for the final battle against the evil forces of Sauron. In The Deathly Hallows, Harry, Ron, and Hermione meet up with all the other characters at the Battle of Hogwarts. I knew that in Dawn of Legends, I needed to get my characters back together to fight the hideous Spirit Eaters in one huge, final, epic battle.
But I had to do more than line up soldiers on the battlefield. For instance, in creating the ending, I needed to remember that we don’t always get what we want. In real life, not everyone is blessed with a happy ending, the girl or boy they want, and all their dreams fulfilled. In Fantasy, some of them don’t even get to live. If I made the ending too rosy, smart teens would call BS faster than you can say “The End.” Especially when characters fight bloody battles with other warriors and monsters, it just wouldn’t be realistic if all of them emerged unscathed. And so I had to kill one of my main characters. And it was horrible! I think a part of me died with that character, whom I will always love and mourn for a life cut brutally short.
Teens already know that life gives us cuts and bruises along the way—they’ve experienced it themselves, after all. And they also know that sometimes, when we lose the dreams we had, we find they really weren’t right for us anyway. Any satisfying ending—whether of a book or an entire series—needs to reflect these truths. Even if the characters have magic powers, even if horses fly and men of smoke waft over battlefields, the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and choices must feel authentic, granular, gritty.
And so the battle happens. And so someone dies. And others rise to new heights of courage. And it is gut-wrenchingly real.
But the epic Fantasy story doesn’t end at the conclusion of the Big Battle. There is the after-story, where the hobbits return to the Shire, transformed versions of themselves, and have to get used to the lives they used to have, lives they are now too big for. It’s Harry, Ron, and Hermione crafting paths for themselves after the battle, after so much loss and change. Though we only see them nineteen years later, married with kids, we can imagine the difficulty they had at first, giants squeezing back into small, normal lives.
At the end of a much-anticipated holiday feast, someone has to push away from the table first, perhaps with a stack of dirty dishes in tow. The excitement is over, and life goes back to normal. Though in an epic Fantasy series, it can never be normal again, right? Our heroes put on socks and go to jobs and pretend they are the same, but they know, and we know, they will never be the same. And in sharing their stories, we will never be the same.
In the reality check of the after-battle, it’s time to look back to the very beginning of a series to understand trajectories: the meandering paths that took Frodo, Harry, and their friends from the commonplace to self-sacrificing heroism. Alex’s path, for instance, takes him from boy to man in the space of a year, from a somewhat immature prince to a true king. His best friend Heph leaves his vanity and insecurity behind and grows into his adult self: reliable, loyal, and finally realizing with a shock whom he loves more than anyone else.
Alexander’s rebellious half sister Cynane, who always envied boys and men for their freedom and military opportunities, accepts herself for who she is, and along the way finds a surprising true love and the right path to combine it all. Katerina, uncertain which man to marry, has her choice made for her, and then realizes it is not what she chooses at all. Jacob, patient, strong, and kind, never wavers in his love for the only woman he has ever wanted and finds his path in courage and service. And Zofia, who has transformed from petulant princess to courageous mother, finally understands what true love means.
These are people as real to me as my friends and family. They are people I have nurtured and admired and sometimes disliked but always understood, people who have grown in ways that shocked me. As I move on to other writing projects, Alex and Heph, Kat and Cynane, Zofia and Jacob diminish in my reality a bit more each day. And I, too, must squeeze my epic Greek Fantasy self into a life that is far smaller without them.

Eleanor Herman


Eleanor Herman is the New York Times bestselling author of Sex with Kings, Sex with the Queen, Mistress of the Vatican, and King Peggy. Obsessed by all things royal and historical, she lives in McLean, Virginia with her husband and four extremely dignified cats. Legacy is her first novel.

Dawn Of Legends 


Royalty is born. Legends are made.
The epic scope of Outlander meets the shocking twists of HBO's Game of Thrones in the riveting conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Herman's Blood of Gods and Royals series, Dawn of Legends!
Prince Alexander of Macedon has battled both men and monsters, but his final war will determine his fate…and the future of mankind. While Macedon’s enemies close in from all corners of the earth, Alexander must fulfill one last prophecy that dictates only he—and he alone—can ensure humanity’s survival against the age of the deadly Spirit Eaters.
As the threads of fate draw Alexander closer to his destiny, an exiled queen will meet a runaway princess, a young sorceress will set the final path of her heart, and generals will choose their final battles. Before the light of victory can shine, enemies must become allies, Death must be tamed, and hearts must break.
Who will rise and who will die? All is revealed in the epic finale to New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Herman’s rich and fantastical Blood of Gods and Royals series. 

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Best of luck to Eleanor Herman!