I like to procrastinate reading by watching videos about people who are reading.
It’s truly a strange world we’re living in.
I’m sure some of you have also caught yourself in the same loop. You’re searching for a new book to read, watch some book recommendation videos, find a book to read (!!), and… continue to watch booktube videos.
The cycle is inevitable.
(Lol. Okay, Thanos.)
Anyways, here are some of my favorite booktubers to watch while I procrastinate 🎉:
Goodreads Description:An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.
Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
After putting this book on the back-burner for over two years, it has officially made it to my all-time favorites list.
First off, it was not what I was expecting at all. I committed the age-old crime of judging Station Eleven by its cover and, based off the (truly minimal) stars on the front, I assumed the story would take place in space. That, plus the fact that Station Eleven sounded like a space station (which I technically wasn’t wrong to believe), the book gave me the impression of being a space opera. While that wasn’t the case, I was pleasantly surprised that the book was so much better than my initial estimation of it.
I know some of you are thinking, “But, the book is clearly not about space in the synopsis,” and, I agree. Buuuut, 𝘐 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘴𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘺𝘱𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩𝘩. We’ve already established that I’m a sheep.
My bookish habits have gone through a fair amount of change these past few years, largely due to the blogosphere.
Sometime between scrolling through all the book blogs and seeing many similar-themed posts, my brain reached a tipping point and was rewired to think more like the rest of the blogging community (🐑 <— me, a sheep). There were some bookish things that I refused to accept until you all, without meaning to, knocked some sense into me. Here are five bookish things I’ve changed my mind about (thanks to you all 🥂!):
A few weeks ago, I was tagged by Hannah at But First, Fiction in the Zodiac Challenge (thank you! 💕).
I learned that she’s long overdue for a re-watch of The Emperor’s New Groove and The Princess and the Frog(which, let’s be honest, we all are). Also, she taught me that there’s a word for sidekick?!
𝓓𝓮𝓾𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓰𝓸𝓷𝓲𝓼𝓽 is a thing, everyone.
It’s hard for me to get behind zodiacs especially when, as a Virgo, I’m painted as perfectionist—something that’s only true about me in a limited number of cases. ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ɪ ᴀᴍ ᴀɴ ᴀsᴛʀᴏʟᴏɢʏ ᴀɴᴅ ᴢᴏᴅɪᴀᴄ sᴋᴇᴘᴛɪᴄ, I am a Disney fanatic and will gladly take this opportunity to share Disneyish facts about me ᵀᴴᴬᵀ ᵞᴼᵁ ᴾᴿᴼᴮᴬᴮᴸᵞ ᴰᴼᴺ’ᵀ ᴿᴱᴬᴸᴸᵞ ᶜᴬᴿᴱ ᶠᴼᴿ. So, let’s get started!
Goodreads Description: Lois Clary, a software engineer at a San Francisco robotics company, codes all day and collapses at night. When her favourite sandwich shop closes up, the owners leave her with the starter for their mouthwatering sourdough bread.
Lois becomes the unlikely hero tasked to care for it, bake with it and keep this needy colony of microorganisms alive. Soon she is baking loaves daily and taking them to the farmer’s market, where an exclusive close-knit club runs the show.
When Lois discovers another, more secret market, aiming to fuse food and technology, a whole other world opens up. But who are these people, exactly?
How do I even begin to write a review for this book?
The most basic and superficial description of this novel is that it is a book about baking bread. Your initial reaction to this statement might be to dismiss this book, and I get it—who wants to read a story about bread? Nonetheless, Sourdough won the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction, a point that prevented me from disregarding the novel and ultimately made me decide to give it a shot.
Angie Thomas’ new book On the Come Up tackled numerous issues scarcely addressed in young adult (YA) fiction.
Drug abuse and recovery was one controversial problem the book touched upon. In my recent post, Why I Don’t Always Review A Book, I expressed that I tend to shy away from discussing books that cover topics that I feel like aren’t my place to input my views or that I’m not completely informed about. Addiction seemed like one of those topics I would usually steer away from. However, drug abuse—specifically rehabilitation—was the subject matter of my undergraduate research and is something that I feel very passionate about.
So, what exactly is the point of this post?
I wanted to relate my knowledge to the drug abuse element of On the Come Up to offer you all a different perspective on addiction and its treatment.
In celebration of March being Women’s History Month, I aimed to exclusively read female-authored books for the thirty-one days.
With the exception of one book, I made good on my goal and ended up having my best reading month this year. It’s really not much of a feat considering how busy I was in January and February and the complete disregard of my TBR pile that ensued. But, I’ll accept anything remotely close to win—it keeps me motivated 😅.
If you read my Women’s History Month Read-a-thon, you’ll know that the majority of the novels I read last month were young adult (YA) contemporaries. It wasn’t on purpose. ɪ ᴅɪᴅ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀ ʙᴏᴏᴋ ʙʏ ᴏᴘʀᴀʜ. I think it just played out that way because I’m a giant mood reader, so I peruse the blogosphere when picking out my next reads. That results in me repeatedly reading YA since I mostly follow YA-oriented book blogs.
Don’t get me wrong though, there’s nothing wrong with YA. In fact, I made this conclusion after my read-a-thon:
There are so many brilliant women contributing their powerful thoughts for a more competent, diverse, and tolerant society—and there’s no place where it’s more apparent than YA bookshelves.
Is having a backlog of books to review the opposite of a TBR 🤔?
If you saw my recent post, /Modified/ Mini Book Reviews, you might remember that I’m REALLY behind on book reviews. In it, I quickly ticked off one reason (which I’ll re-enumerate in this post) for this setback. However, I know I can’t be the only book blogger with this problem and wanted to further investigate how this issue arose. So, here are some reasons I don’t always review a book:
Weather wise, it personally doesn’t feel like spring where I am. It’s hot, muggy, oppressive and the only “animals” giving birth in this heat are mosquitoes.
Is it obvious I’m in the tropics?
But seasons aren’t just defined by the change of weather they bring. Seasons can stir feelings and emotions in us—like how summer enacts idleness or winter intensifies our desire for affection. In the case of spring, this season offers us a clean canvas in which we feel like we can start afresh.
I’m ɢʀᴀᴅᴜᴀᴛɪɴɢ from university in a few weeks, so while the weather doesn’t align with the scientific definition of spring, my state of mind and wary eagerness for new beginnings is definitely clinging to the idea of spring.
For this *Top 5 Wednesday, I tried to choose books that inspired me to change in any way or taught me something that I was able to utilize to enhance some part of my life. In retrospect, it seems that self-help books and coming of age stories scream spring to me 🙂: Continue reading “5 Spring Reads”→
Belle Can Read 