Hey there, I’m Belle! I’m trying to navigate my way around the real world through learning from make-believe ones. Any fictional world suits me fine, whether they’re based in TV shows, movies, or video games. But, my favorite ones to escape to are by far the ones in books 😄.
If you’re anything like me, you may know of Oprah’s billionaire status, book club, and long-running talk show in which she once famously gifted cars to everyone in her audience.
Annnnd… that’s about it.
Until recently finishing her book, What I Know for Sure, I had never consumed any content Oprah-related. Reading a book by Oprah definitely feels like something a put together, middle-aged adult would do, although that’s definitely not what I am 😅. I’m a lost, confused, and (frankly)quite scared young adult, so that’s probably the biggest reason I picked up the book.
Recently, I was scrolling through my notes app on my phone, where I type any thoughts I have while reading a story, and saw that I have notes from books I read back at the beginning of 2018. This is why I should just review books right after reading them 🤦♀️.
I’ve put off reviewing the books for one reason or another, but it’s truly just come to the point where even if I did want to review them, I can’t because 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮. Of course there are the notes I made, but many of them are incomplete and wouldn’t be enough for me to write up a thorough or even mini review.
Hence, my shoddy solution: /modified/ mini review *posts!
*There’s just too many books I never reviewed, so I have to split these up into multiple posts 😬.
Here, you can read my bullet point thoughts as they are in my notes and any quotes I saved while reading each book. In this way, I can finally share the backlog of half-baked thoughts I have on these books, and you can… read them 😅? I’m not sure how this will benefit you all, but hopefully by reading how these books affected me, you’ll get a glimpse as to how these books may resonate with you.
It’s a shoddy solution, but it’s my shoddy solution 😤.:
I barely managed to finish my yearly reading goal of 50 books. I resorted to reading comics and short stories on the last few days of the year—which is fine—but also felt like I was cheating. Honestly, I blame the end-of-the-year reading hustle on the cluster-fudge that was my second semester of school (shush mom, I don’t want to take responsibility). Luckily, the frantic read-a-thons this year were not for naught, and I discovered some new favorites this year: Continue reading “My Favorite Books of 2018”→
(—or happy holidays if you don’t celebrate Christmas 😊.)
It’s been a minute since I’ve done a tag post, so I was thrilled when Jess from Comfort Reads tagged me in this holiday-themed, Christmas Stocking Tag. If you’re like me and like to choose your reads according to the season, you’ll enjoy this tag because the seven questions essentially translate to seven wintry book recommendations. Thanks for tagging me, Jess 😁!
I got tired about moaning about being in a book slump and complaining about how far behind I was on my reading goals. Around that time, booktuber Ariel Bissett released a video entitled “i tried reading before bed every day for a week” where she conducted an “experiment” with three rules:
At 10 P.M., she had to put her phone away and read.
It didn’t matter what she read—she could read anything.
After finished reading for the night, she could not go back on her phone.
She claimed that she had “forgot how to read consistently” and hoped that following the three rules for a week would help her develop that habit again. Watching the video and hearing about her positive results from the experiment inspired me to recreate it for myself. I ended up taking the trial a step further by adding a fourth rule:
4. Instead of using social media to pass time when I was killing time (i.e. standing in line, waiting for a teacher to show up, etc.), I had to read.
By the end of the week, I successfully achieved the objective of reading consistently every night,but not without making a few adjustments.
Goodreads Description: Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?
Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.
The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?
Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.
Indian American Protagonists.
If I had to summarize in two words why I picked this book up, it’d be just that: Indian American Protagonists.
Being half Indian myself, this book immediately sparked my attention when it blew up in the blogosphere last year and people were celebrating it for being a refreshing young adult novel. Because I grew up in such a diverse community with many unique Indian Americans, I was personally keen to see how they would be portrayed in the story. On top of that, I hoped that I could learn something new about the Indian side of my blood—particularly arranged marriages. Maybe it’s my fault for placing so much on the book, but I didn’t love When Dimple Met Rishi.
I am fivebooks behind my Goodreads Reading Challenge.
It’s a little concerning considering that we’re three-fourths into the year and I’m a self-proclaimed slow reader.
This mess all boils down to how unexpectedly busy this first semester of school has been for me. Thankfully, I have few to no academic-related responsibilities this upcoming week, so I can play catch up on my reading goal for this year—again. I’m *trying* to be extra ambitious (but realistic) this read-a-thon since I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to read for recreation this semester 😢.
THE TBR
A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir – I’ve been *reading*(I use the term very loosely) this book since the end of July. I can feel myself losing interest in it, but I want to finally see it through because I was really enjoying the series so far. This book is the second book in the fantasy series, An Ember in the Ashes. I don’t want to spoil anything about the book just in case any of you are interested in or are reading the first book. As usual, I linked all the titles of books mentioned in the post to their Goodreads page for those who want to learn more about them 💫.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – This is actually a re-read, and that’s not something I usually do. This book follows an Andalusion shepard, Santiago, as he journeys to the pyramids of Giza in search of a treasure that he feels is calling for him.
Station Elevenby Emily St. John Mandel – This book has been on my TBR for forever, and I was finally able to pick it up at a book sale last month. From what I understand, this is a science fiction book following five characters and how their lives interconnect through time.
Minority Report by Philip K. Dick – This book is set in a world where the police have a technology that identifies people who will commit a crime before the crime is committed. When the Precrime System pinpoints its creator and police officer, John Anderton, as the next criminal, the whole system is put into question. I picked this book up on a whim at the same book sale as Station Eleven, so I have no expectations.
Well, well, well. Look who’s finally continuing her creativelynamedseries after half a year.
Honestly, you know just by looking at my blog title that anything I name won’t be groundbreaking at all. I’m sorry, future child (aka John Smith).
ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜɪs sᴇʀɪᴇs: There are certain topics, tropes, and types of characters that make me gravitate towards a book. In this series, I’ll share those items with you all in hopes that an author will come across these posts and answer my pleas for more books about these things. Here’s to screaming into the void (because let’s be real, this series is futile.):
It’s largely because I rarely read physical books, and hauls are something I associate with tangible objects (although I know people do book hauls with their ebooks 🙂). However, I visited a giant book sale yesterday and managed to find ✨three✨ books that interested me.
Let me also add that since there were sooo manyyy boooks, I definitely judged them all by their covers, and I judged them HARD.
Since I haven’t post in over a month (school is much more hectic this semester than I expected) and have no spare mental energy to write one of my backed-up reviews (school is also requiring more of my dwindling brain power this semester than I expected), I thought a haul post would suffice. In no particular order, here’s what I picked up: Continue reading “My First Book Haul”→
I’ve had my fair share of tags, but none have ever been the award type. I’ve seen this particular award around quite a bit—The Sunshine Blogger Award seems almost like a rite of passage into the bookish community. So, thank you, Book Orbit, for nominating me! She’s relatively new to the blogging scene so do drop by her blog and say “hi” 😊.
Belle Can Read 