Saturday's Quote #2

Hello there. I have designed another quote picture that I want to share today. I decided to call these posts 'Saturday's Quote' and I will try to upload one every now and then on Saturday. I had so much fun doing the first one that I couldn't wait to try again. 

I chose one of my favorite quotes from Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, a book I absolutely adored, for this week's post. It's a rather negative quote in my opinion which is why I didn't want to use too many happy and bright colors. But anyway, here it is:

I'm really happy with this one too and I'm even more proud of the fact that I used Photoshop to create it. I took over my boyfriend's computer for a couple of hours and tried to teach myself how the program worked, but of course my boyfriend had to help me (a lot). 

Soo... what do you think?

Top Ten Tuesday #5: YA Romance 101

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Hello there. This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is Top Ten Books That Would Be On Your Syllabus If You Taught X 101, and I decided to go with YA Romance. I picked ten different 'kinds' of romances, that aren't necessarily my top favorites, though. I hope this is okay and not bending the rules too much. 

The Insta-Love

First off, something I do not recommend including in your book: Insta-love. It's extremely annoying most of the times and tolerable at best. The book I chose for this is Ignite by Lily Paradis. On page 7, the main character has already fallen madly in love with a random guy she just met, who made her loose the ability to speak and think. Oh, how I hated that. But to be fair, the book got better after that, so if insta-love is something that doesn't bother you, you should consider picking it up.

The Love Triangle

Another classic in YA romance and another thing I recommend you avoid: the love triangle. I don't think anyone actually likes these, but I, for one, don't particularly hate them. They can be done well, in a way that doesn't bother me. As an example, I have chosen a series where I actually enjoyed the love triangle: The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare.

The Slow Burn

Maybe this is just personal preference, but something that is all too rarely done in my opinion is a good slow burn romance. It's the exact opposite of the aforementioned insta-love, where the characters develop feelings over time rather than at first sight. If you are interested, I would recommend I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios, a wonderful example of slowly developing love story.

The Drama Queens

While they're mostly annoying, overly dramatic love stories can be entertaining sometimes. One of the examples where all the drama, and I mean there is a lot, didn't even bother me is Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire. I guess you'll just have to make me ship the characters so hard that I can overlook all the drama and just want my happily ever after. 

(I cheated a little because Beautiful Disaster is very clearly a New Adult book, so don't read it if you're not ready for that!)

Hate Turns to Love

You know when you hate someone with all your heart but for some reason you end up falling in love with them? Yeah, me neither. Even though I don't think it will ever happen to me, I love reading these kinds of stories. A good example would be the Shatter Me trilogy by Tahereh Mafi.

The Heartbreaker

Love is beautiful and usually it's a happy thing, especially in books. But then there are the ones that leave you crying, like full-out sobbing. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, for example. I seem to like torturing myself, because these kinds of books usually win me over easily. I guess, any book that makes me feel such strong emotions deserves to be a favorite.

The Pretended Romance

As far as I know, this only ever happens in books too, but I kind of really love it. You know, when there's some weird coincidence and the characters end up in a fake relationship that then somehow turns into a real one. My YA example for this would be To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han and, if you'll allow me to cheat again, Faking It by Cora Carmack is a great New Adult example.

Forbidden Love

Sometimes love isn't easy. For example, when you fall in love with the 'wrong' person, someone you should never have fallen for. Your predestined enemy. Someone from from the wrong social circle. Honestly, there are too many examples. The one book I would recommend for this kind of romance is The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski. 

The Unfortunate One

Sometimes, everything works out perfectly for the characters and the happily ever after comes so easily, thanks to lots of lucky coincidences. And sometimes it really doesn't. You know, the ones where everything goes wrong, that keep you on the edge of your seat because of a thousand of misunderstandings and unlucky events. Like with Allyson and Willem in Just One Day by Gayle Forman.

The Perfect One

Finally, if you just want to get the whole romance part perfectly right, you should have a look at the always wonderful Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Not only are the characters perfectly imperfect, their friendship and later romance develops naturally, without the help of any lucky but unlikely coincidences that for some reason keep bringing the characters together.

What books would you suggest for any of these categories?

Top Ten Tuesday #4: Auto-Buy Authors

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Hello there. It's time for another Top Ten Tuesday post (I should really do these more often!). This week's topic is auto-buy authors. I couldn't think of ten, so here are my top eight (I even tried to put them into some order):

8. Stephanie Perkins

Stephanie Perkins writes the cutest love stories and I can't wait to read more of her. I don't know if I would necessarily pick up something other than YA contemporary by her right away, but I think I would definitely give it a go. Once she comes out with more books (ones that I like as much as Anna, Lola and Isla), she might even climb higher on my list.

7. Cassandra Clare

I know some people are annoyed with Cassandra Clare for always coming out with new stories of the Shadowhunter world, but I'm not one of those people. Like with Stephanie Perkins, though, I don't have an unconditional love for everything she writes, but I'm rather just very fond of everything she writes, which is why she isn't higher up in the list.

6. Morgan Matson

Morgan Matson is my go-to summer author. I love all her books and I will buy each and every one she will release in the future. For now, I'm going to try to catch up with what she has written under her penname 'Katie Finn', but until next summer, I will need a new Morgan Matson book.

5. Gayle Forman

Another YA contemporary author, I know, I know. What can I say, I just love YA contemporary. And I especially love Gayle Forman. Most of her books are just 'good' (i.e. four star reads) for me but then there was Just One Day that changed it all. Gayle Forman definitely has to thank that duology (or better, herself for writing that duology) for being this high in my list. I will keep reading everything Gayle Forman comes out with until I find something I like as much as Just One Day.

4. John Green

I read all the John Green books at the end of 2013 and since then, I've been waiting. With him, I will hit that preorder button as soon as I hear a new book is coming out.

3. Sarah J. Maas

Of course, Sarah J. Maas has to be on this list. It's not a secret how much I love all her books and obviously I will buy anything she releases.

2. Laini Taylor

To me, Laini Taylor can do no wrong. With her writing, even a story that I might not 100% be interested in is a must-read and I will buy them all.

1. Rainbow Rowell

Of course, Rainbow Rowell had to be at the very top of this list. Fangirl is my favorite book of all time and I loved all her other books only slightly less. I can't imagine Rainbow Rowell to ever write something I wouldn't like. To show you how sincere I am, I will tell you a little secret: As I said, Fangirl is my all time favorite book. And if you've read it (if not, what are you doing?), you'll know that a lot of the story is centered around Cath's fanfiction of Simon Snow. I actually only read those parts once and whenever I reread the book (which is a lot), I tend to skip them. Because Simon Snow really didn't interest me that much. But now Rainbow Rowell's Carry On is coming out soon(ish), a story only about Simon Snow. The logical conclusion would be that I, since I wasn't all that interested in the Simon Snow snippets in Fangirl, would also have no interest in reading Carry On. But that is only accurate if we ignore the fact that it's written by Rainbow Rowell. Which, of course, I can't and which is why I have Carry On preordered anyway and I'm counting down the days until its release. So yeah, I love Rainbow Rowell.

So that's it for this week's Top Ten Tuesday. I hope you are having a wonderful day!

What are some of your auto-buy authors?

Do we share any?

Saturday's Quote #1

Hello there. I'm here today with something slightly different and new. I, like a lot of other people, love quotes from books. And when I read one that I really like, I write them down in a notebook so that I can read them again and again. They're usually not the most meaningful ones, but the ones that I, for some reason, couldn't get out of my head. Of course I also like to go through the goodreads quote section to find new ones that I missed in books that I've read, and I write those down as well. So over time, I have accumulated a number of book quotes in my little notebook.

I also like to go through tumblr and Pinterest to look for pretty quote pictures. I've always admired these and I've wanted to maybe print one that I really like and put it up in my room. So far, that hasn't happened yet. 

But today, for the first time, I thought, why not try it out myself. I'm not the most creative person and I don't even own Photoshop or anything like that, so I just experimented a little with PicMonkey instead. Usually, when I try things like that, I have such high expectations that I'm always really disappointed with the result and it makes me realize that I really am not very talented in anything creative. But today, for some reason, I'm so pleased with the result that I even wanted to share it here. 

So this is the picture I created of a Dumbledore quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

As I said, I'm really happy with how it turned out, even though it obviously still doesn't look quite as cool as some others that I've seen. It might just be a one-time thing, but maybe I'll decide to make another picture of a quote at some point. It did take me quite a bit of time to create this one, so I don't want to say that I'm going to post one every week or so. I don't even know what I'm saying, I just really wanted to share the picture. And of course, I hope you like it too.

BookTube-A-Thon Wrap-Up

Hello there! I'm here today with my (as always slightly late) BookTube-A-Thon wrap-up! Let's see how my sister and I did with all the reading challenges.

Karin

Challenges:

1. Read a book with blue on the cover: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

2. Read a book by an author who shares the same first letter of your last name: The Raven Boys

3. Read someone else's favorite book: The Raven Boys

4. Read the last book you acquired 

5. Finish a book without letting go of it

6. Read a book you really want to read: The Truth About Alice

7. Read seven books

Page count:

60 (The Wrath & the Dawn)

+ 199 (The Truth About Alice)

+ 268 (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)

+ 408 (The Raven Boys)

= 935 pages

To be fair, I only finished The Raven Boys today, but I'm still counting it (otherwise I would've failed even worse and we don't want that, right?). I honestly thought I would do much better than this but, if you compare this post to my mid-week update, I hardly read anything in the second part of the week, even though I would've had much more time then.

Valérie

Challenges:

1. Read a book with blue on the cover: The Fault in Our Stars

2. Read a book by an author who shares the same first letter of your last name 

3. Read someone else's favorite book: Just One Day 

4. Read the last book you acquired: The Heir

5. Finish a book without letting go of it

6. Read a book you really want to read: P.S. I Still Love You

7. Read seven books

Page count:

152 (The Heir)

+ 337 (P.S. I Still Love You)

+ 313 (The Fault in Our Stars)

+ 304 (Just One Day)

= 1,106 pages

My sister did a little better but she also only managed to complete four challenges. At least, compared to the mid-week update, she managed to read two more books in the second part of the week. But then we're going to have to be honest here again: She hasn't quite finished Just One Day yet.

Okay, so as you can see, we didn't do very good. And the fact that I only now counted the pages so that we're basically including two more reading days than all the other people, I guess we completely, totally failed. But these things happen, right? What I am taking from this experience is that I'm too much of a mood reader for read-a-thons. This doesn't mean that I won't ever participate in one again, because it was fun. But I just can't force myself to read and I don't want to. I only want to read when I feel like it so that I can get the most out of it. And I think that's okay.

Did anyone else completely fail the BookTube-A-Thon?

Please, so that I can feel better?

BookTube-A-Thon Mid-Week Update

Hello there. It's Wednesday, so it's already half-time for the BookTube-A-Thon. My sister and I did a little recap today of how well we're doing so far and I want to share it with you.

Karin

On Monday, I finished The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh. I had actually hoped to finish this one already on Sunday so that I could get started with the books I had chosen as my TBR for the week right away, but that obviously hadn't worked out. I'm just going to add this to my page count but I'm not going to count it as one of the seven books for Challenge #7. I then picked up The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu and luckily ended up finishing it that night as well.

Then on Tuesday, I started The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon which I finished today. I'm planning to start The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater next, which I'll hopefully fly through. I'm happy with what I've read so far but I'm not doing quite as good as I would've hoped.

Challenges:

1. Read a book with blue on the cover: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

2. Read a book by an author who shares the same first letter of your last name 

3. Read someone else's favorite book

4. Read the last book you acquired 

5. Finish a book without letting go of it

6. Read a book you really want to read: The Truth About Alice

7. Read seven books

Page count:

60 (The Wrath & the Dawn)

+ 199 (The Truth About Alice)

+ 268 (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)

= 527 pages

Valerie

My sister finished The Heir by Kiera Cass on Monday and then started P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han in the evening, which she finished on Tuesday. She then started The Fault In Our Stars by John Green today.

I'm trying very hard not to be bothered by the fact that my sister is actually doing better than me even though she never normally reads as much as I do. But to be fair, she also finished school this summer and now has nothing to do all day before leaving for England in September. And I'm at work all day ,so of course I can't read as much. But still.

Challenges:

1. Read a book with blue on the cover

2. Read a book by an author who shares the same first letter of your last name 

3. Read someone else's favorite book

4. Read the last book you acquired: The Heir

5. Finish a book without letting go of it

6. Read a book you really want to read: P.S. I Still Love You

7. Read seven books

Page count:

152 (The Heir)

+ 337 (P.S. I Still Love You)

+ 156 (The Fault in Our Stars)

= 645 pages

So that's it for today's update. If you are also participating in the BookTube-A-Thon, good luck, and I hope you are doing good so far.

July 2015 Wrap-Up

Hello there, I'm here today with my (quite late) July Wrap-Up.

What I Read

I read a total of nine books in July, which is okay. But considering that July is usually my best reading month of the year, I'm quite disappointed by this number. At least, the reading month was good quality-wise; lot's of five star reads! But anyway, here's what I read:

• Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson, ★★★★★
I really enjoyed this book and wrote a full review here. Morgan Matson has never disappointed me and has definitely made it onto my list of auto-buy authors. Her books are all perfect to read during the summer and Second Chance Summer was no exception.


• The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski, ★★★★★
I was very positively surprised by this book. I've had it on my shelf for almost a year but never actually picked it up for some reason. I regret it now, believe me. I loved the story and the characters of The Winner's Curse and had to continue on with the second book right away.


• The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski, ★★★★★
The sequel definitely lived up to my expectations, even though it broke my heart a little with every page I turned. I need to know what's going to happen next and can't wait for the third book! If you haven't started this series, do it right now. I promise you won't be disappointed.


• Vicious by V.E. Schwab, ★★★★★
Another amazing book that I read in July. Everyone seemed to love this book and from reading the synopsis, I just couldn't really imagine why. I understand now, believe me. Vicious was a fantastic book, very unusual but perfect in its own way.


• I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios, ★★★★
I wrote a full-length review about this one as well, which you can have a look at here. This was almost a five star read for me and I would highly highly recommend it to everyone. Not your typical YA contemporary but that was exactly what I loved so much about it. And the romance. Don't get me started on the romance *swoons*.


• Angelfall by Susan Ee, ★★★★
Angelfall is another book that I've had sitting on my shelf for almost a year. When I now finally picked it up, I got really attached to the story and couldn't really stop until I had read the entire trilogy.


• World After by Susan Ee, ★★★★
The second book in this trilogy was just as good as the first one. I love the characters of this series but there were some plot holes in the story and I wasn't very intrigued by the apocalyptic world that Susan Ee had created but overall, this were solid four star books for me.


• End of Days by Susan Ee, ★★★★
A good conclusion to a good series. I somehow wasn't too happy with the ending but overall I liked the third book as much as I did the first two.


• The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden by Jessica Sorensen, ★★★
The only book I read in July that I didn't like that much. Jessica Sorensen's writing was a little too much for me and everything was just very dramatic. This is probably why many people don't like New Adult but it has never bothered me before. With this book, however, it was just too much and I considered putting it down a few times. I'm glad I made it through, though, and the ending was the reason I ended up giving it three stars. It annoys me that I'm actually curious as to what will happen next because I don't think I will ever feel like picking up the sequel.

That's it for the books that I read in July. It was a really great reading month quality-wise (lots of five star books!), so I'm happy with that.

What I Bought

I bought seven books this month, which is quite a lot but I just don't have my desires under control.

• Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell – Exclusive Collector's Edition!
Of course I already own a copy of Fangirl but I just couldn't resist the beautiful Collector's Edition covers any longer. Plus, I 'only' had the paperback edition and hardcovers just look so much nicer on my shelves. And Fangirl is like my favorite book of all time, so I kind of justify buying the same book twice with that.


• Snow Like Ashes by Sarah Raasch
I have almost bought this book so many times and now it finally made it into my hands. I'm excited to read it at some point because I've heard really good things about it. Somehow, the synopsis sounds intriguing and not interesting to me at the same time. Hopefully, I will be positively surprised by this one.


• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
I did not like Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater but since this series has way better reviews, I thought I would give Stiefvater another try. I'm planning to read it this week for the BookTube-A-Thon, but we will see.


• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
I feel like everyone is talking about this book and it sounds pretty epic, so I bought it! Can't wait to see what it's all about.


• World After by Susan Ee
As you already know, I have already read this book but of course I needed a physical copy of it so that Angelfall wouldn't be so lonely.


• End of Days by Susan Ee
I had hoped this would arrive before I finished World After, but no such luck. I ended up finishing the ebook a few days before the actual book arrived but it still looks pretty on my shelf with its two friends, so it was totally worth it.


• Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headly
My most recent purchase and therefore also on my TBR for the BookTube-A-Thon. Honestly, I just love feathers and after reading two good reviews for this book, I couldn't withstand the cover any longer. Now I'm just hoping it will be as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside!

August TBR

Except for my BookTube-A-Thon TBR, I haven't really thought about what I want to read this month. I do want to read more books than I did in July, though, so hopefully I will manage that.

On the Blog

This is very disappointing, I only uploaded three posts this past month. I really hope to post more from now on and I'm blaming my various vacations for the disappointing result. Anyway, here's what I did manage to write:

• Review of Second Chance Summer
• Top Ten Tuesday #3: Last Books That Came Into My Possession
• Review of I'll Meet You There

Other exciting things happening in August

NOTHING. I'm working all month and don't have much planned. But two of my friends are getting married which is super exciting. One wedding was last Saturday and it was so much fun and the bride was so beautiful and everything was perfect. I'm definitely not planning on getting married anytime soon myself, but I do love weddings. The next one will be this Saturday and I'm looking forward to that a lot as well.

That's it for my July Wrap-Up. I hope you had a great month with lots of sunshine and happiness. 

What's your favorite book that you read in July?

Anything exciting going on in August?

BookTube-A-Thon TBR

Hello there. As you might know, the BookTube-A-Thon starts tomorrow and even though I don't actually have a booktube channel, I decided to participate and post about my progress on my blog, because why not? If you want to know more about the read-a-thon, go have a look at the official youtube channel and twitter. Basically, the goal is to read as much as possible in one week (August 3 - August 9) and there are seven reading challenges to try to accomplish. I chose the books I want to read around those challenges and could even convince my sister to participate as well, so here are our TBRs:

1. Read a book with blue on the cover

Karin: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I've already read this book in school once but didn't enjoy it very much. Now I've decided that I want to give it another chance because I think I just didn't really understand a lot the first time I read it and this should be different now.

Valérie: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Can you believe my sister has never actually read this book before? I couldn't, so I told her to read it since it also goes perfectly with the challenge.

2. Read a book by an author who shares the same first letter of your last name 

Karin: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Valérie: The Archived by Victoria Schwab

3. Read someone else's favourite book

Karin: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

All of my friends that actually like to read usually get their books from me, so I've already read all of their favorites. So for this challenge, I had a look at the favorites shelves of some of my goodreads friends, and Jess over at My Reading Dress had marked The Raven Boys as one of her all time favorites. She told me before that I shouldn't give up on Maggie Stiefvater after not liking Shiver, so this seems like a great opportunity to take Jess's advice and give Stiefvater's books a second chance.

Valérie: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

My sister wanted to read my favorite book but because she already has read Fangirl, I had to choose one of my (many) other favorites.

4. Read the last book you acquired 

Karin: Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

Honestly, I simply bought this book because of the cover but now I guess I'm going to read it sooner than I thought.

Valérie: The Heir by Kiera Cass

This is the last book that she borrowed from me (before putting together this TBR), so I think it counts.

5. Finish a book without letting go of it

Karin: Die Physiker by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Obviously, I chose a short one for this challenge. This is a German play that I read in school and absolutely loved, so I thought a reread was in order.

Valérie: Die Nase by Nikolaj Gogol

Another very short classic, this time from a Russian author. I read this for school as well and recommended it to my sister because it's a fun and short read.

6. Read a book you really want to read

Karin: The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu

I've had this book for quite a while and really want to read it. I always thought that this would make a great read-a-thon book because it's pretty short. Now that I'm finally participating in a read-a-thon, I just had to read this book.

Valérie: P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Like me, my sister loved To All The Boys I've Loved Before but unlike me, she hasn't read the sequel yet but really wants to.

7. Read seven books

Karin: When You're Back by Abbi Glines and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I highly doubt I'm actually going to complete this last challenge but I chose two additional (rather short) books.

Valérie: Saga Volume One by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Graphic novels are obviously a great choice for read-a-thon and my sister chose rather big books for the other challenges, so this works great for her.

That's it for our BookTube-A-Thon TBRs. Obviously, these aren't set in stone and we might change them up a little during the week. I really want to fulfill the first six challenges but I most likely won't manage to read seven books due to work and other things. This is the first read-a-thon I'm participating in, so hopefully it will be lots of fun and get me to read more than I usually do. I will try to upload update posts throughout the week (maybe even daily) to let you know how my sister and I are doing with the challenges.

Are you participating in the 2015 BookTube-A-Thon?

If yes, what are you going to read?