July Wrap Up

Happy August 1st everybody! Did you know today’s Switzerland’s birthday? Seriously, we’re celebrating Switzerland National Day today so raise your glasses! :D

It’s been awhile since my last wrap up and maybe some of you have noticed that there were some ups and downs in my life the past few months, but I’ve finally come back to blogging! Sadly, there aren’t all too many books on my list in July. Hopefully, I’ll get to read more in August.

BOOKS READ

A Thousand Pieces Of Me (Firebird #1) by Claudia Gray 4.5 ★

COMICS READ

 

1. Aquaman, Volume 2: Black Manta Rising by Dan Abnett 4.5 ★
2. Green Arrow, Volume 1: The Death and Life of Oliver Queen by Benjamin Percy ★★★★

2016 READING CHALLENGE UPDATE

Read 10 new Comics (TPB)
Progress: 24/10 (240 %)

Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge
Progress: 12/26 (48%)

TV SERIES HIGHLIGHTS

    

The less I read, the more tv shows I watch. After I was done with all of my exams I fell in kind of a reading slump and started tons of new series instead. I finally finished the last season of Baby Daddy and I can’t believe this witty and fun show has come to its end. I watched the entire first season of Famous in Love in two days (don’t judge; I’m pretty sure you’ve all gone through such a phase too some time in your young adult life). And here’s my proudest achievement: I watched all six seasons of Game of Thrones in three weeks!! Hell yes, I finally caught up with all the episodes and got so obsessed with it. Now I have to patiently wait for every episode once a week. I don’t believe I could have done this for 6 years straight, the series is way too good for all that waiting! I also marathoned through Iron Fist which was good and started The Bold Type which I’m not-so-patiently waiting for the new episodes to come out. I really can’t deal with all the waiting. How do you guys handle that?

CINEMATIC HIGHLIGHTS

Finally I got to see Homecoming!! I love Tom Holland’s Spiderman and can’t wait for many many more movies with him in them. I’m really happy about finally having a witty, child-like Peter Parker.

BLOG RECAP

❥ I finally returned to the blogging community with My First Blog Post In Like Forever

❥ I started cleaning out my Goodreads TBR shelf with Down The TBR Hole #1 which is an awesome meme that I'm going to do on a regular basis now.

❥ And I signed up for #TheReadingQuest which is a reading challenge in August-September I'm pretty excited about

NEWS AROUND THE BLOG

‣ Maybe some of you have noticed I created new headers for my blog post. I haven’t liked the layout of my blog for quite some time now and this is the first step in changing it for the better. I’m going to try out some different styles and other things around the blog until I feel at peace again.

I'd like to know

So what have you been up to? Are there any book reviews or other blog posts of yours you’d like to share with me? Are you having a great summer? What was on your reading list for July? Tell me everything in the comments! I’d love to hear about it!

#TheReadingQuest Sign Up

I love reading challenges. I can’t get enough of them. Though a lot of times I do not finish them. This time I intend to participate until the very end and actually keep up with all my reviews and reading updates.

The lovely Aentee @ Read at Midnight organised this challenge and the amazing CW @ Read, Think, Ponder created the stunning artwork.

This reading challenge starts on August 13th and ends on September 10th. It’s perfect because the first week I’ll be on vacation and have a lot of time to read some books at the beach (in Korfu, Greece *.*) and when I come back I’ve got nothing planned so far which equals even more time for reading.

This is my character ID card. At the end of the challenge I'll hopefully have a lot better stats than now. 

These are the four characters you may choose from. I’m going to pick Mage. The stats everyone starts with are: Level 1, EXP: 10, HP: 10.

+EXP: each finished book +10.
+EXP: each finished graphic novel / manga +5
Book by marginalised author: +20.
Finish quest: +50.
Every additional quest: +30.

+Level: every 50 EXP.

+HP: every 10 pages +1.
+HP: every 20 pages +1 (graphic novels / manga)
Tweeting #TheReadingQuest +1. Max +20.
Photos #TheReadingQuest +1. Max +20.

Isn’t this quest board amazing? Here is my temporary reading list. This might change throughout the challenge.

A book with a one word title

	I can’t even say how many years this book has been hidden in my bookshelves. I loved the TV series Bones and I started Kathy Reich’s series about Temperance Brennan a few years back, but never got all too far. Maybe this book will appeal more to me.

A book that contains magic

	I don’t know which book I’m going to read for this part yet. But I’ve got a couple of books to choose from. I guess this will depend totally on my mood.

A book based on mythology

	I’m really excited about this one because I absolutely love Rick Riordan and can’t wait to continue with Percy Jackson’s adventures. This time featuring Apollo.

A book set in a different world

	I read A Court Of Thorns and Roses last year and didn’t enjoy it all too much, but I’m willing to give the series another chance. I hope I like the sequel better.

The first book of a series

	This book has been waiting patiently on my bookshelf for over two years now. It’s high time I finally start reading it. And it would finally be my first book by Rick Riordan that isn’t based on Percy Jackson.

So yeah. This is the end of my sign up! I’m really excited about this and can’t wait for the challenge to start. If you’d like to participate too then sign up here.

Are you going to participate or have you already joined this challenge? What books are you going to read and do you have any other recommendations for me? I’d love to hear about it so tell me in the comments!

By the way: I'm looking for somebody to do the Multiplayer (Buddy Read) challenge here. Is anybody interested? Let me know! :)

Down The TBR Hole #1

After seeing this meme that I've never heard of before on Chelsea's blog RomWeasley I immediately knew, I'd also want to join in on the fun.

I believe every reader knows the curse of the never-ending to-be-read list. Either in physical form, on paper or online - we’ve all got one. With time my goodreads TBR list has totally gone wild. I can’t even remember putting half of those books on the list. This needs to change and I want to seriously sort it out.

The lovely Lia @ Lost in a Story thought of this “meme” and it goes down like this:

• Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.

• Order on ascending date added.

• Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books

• Read the synopses of the books

• Decide: keep it or should it go?

Lia’s doing this on a weekly basis, but I can’t commit to that right now, so I’m just going to say that I’ll do this from time to time (who knows, maybe in the end I even do end up doing it every week which would be even more awesome!). Currently my to-read shelf on Goodreads contains 227 books. Hopefully I can narrow it down a little.

#1 The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

	The synopsis of this book actually still sounds very interesting and just like the kind of book that I would enjoy. Verdict: remains on Goodreads shelf

#2 Unravel Me

	Unravel Me is the second book in the Shatter Me series which is why I’m going to take it off this shelf. I’m going to get rid of all the sequels to series I still feel unsure about. It’s enough to have the first book in a series on my tbr shelf I believe. Verdict: remove from shelf

#3 The Evolution of Mara Dyer

	This is the third book in the Mara Dyers series. I’m unsure about this series, but I’ve got the first book on my tbr to remind me about it. Verdict: remove from shelf

#4 The Red Pyramid

	Rick Riordan, one of my favourite authors. Not even going to think about this. My plan is to read all of his books, but so far I’m not doing a very good job at following up with this plan. Verdict: remains on Goodreads shelf

#5 Lies Beneath

	I’m fascinated by mermaid tails and I’ve read rather a poorly amount of books about them. The plot sounds really intriguing and I’d definitely forget about this book if it weren’t on my tbr list because I haven’t heard from any of my friends that they’ve read this one. Verdict: remains on Goodreads shelf

#6 The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes

	As much as I’m a Sherlock fan, I believe that I can remove this from my shelf savely. It’s a classic so I’ll definitely discover it in a bookshop by chance one day so I don’t need a reminder. Verdict: remove from shelf

#7 Love, Tanja

	I haven’t read a lot of autobiographies and I haven’t been keeping up with Tanya’s youtube videos. I’m not sure if I’d really enjoy reading this although Tanya is an awesome young woman! Verdict: remove from shelf

#8 Nightmares!

	I’ve actually already started reading this book one or two years ago, but I never got very far. So it doesn’t really belong on this shelf. I do own a copy so I believe some day I'll get back to it. Verdict: remains on physical tbr pile

#9 Shades of Earth

	This is the third installment in the Across the Universe series. After checking out the first book in the series I decided to add that one to my shelf instead because it sounds really interesting. Verdict: remove from shelf

#10 Ketchup Clouds

	Reading the synopsis made me realize that I put this one on my tbr rather for the cover than the actual story. If I come across this in a bookstore I might pick it up, but I don’t feel a deep urge for it to stay on my shelf. Verdict: remove from shelf

So this has been a great start for my new project! I removed a total of 7 books and only added 1 new book to my Goodreads TBR shelf. Not shabby, right? I have a good feeling about this and am definitely going to continue with this every month.

If you’d like to join me / us in this or have already started then let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear about how you guys handle your tbr piles/lists/shelves. Do you have a clear overview or have they gone out of hand, too? Do we have any books in common on our TBR lists? Do you have any other ways of keeping your tbr lists accurate? I'd love to hear more about that if you do!

My First Blog Post In Like Forever

Hey there fellow Bookworms and Book Bloggers!

I know it’s been a while and I’m not even sure anybody’s still hanging around this blog, but I just wanted to let you know:

No, I didn’t get swallowed by a beast or thrown into the sea by a long lost evil twin sister (you get extra points if you get those references) and I hope neither of those things will ever happen to me.

I’d like to sum up the past couple of months and explain why I’ve been absent, so you’ll understand that I didn’t just ditch my blog without a “good” reason.

1. University stress

So in mid February my second semester at Uni started and I was just as invested in it as the first semester (actually even more so). I got swamped up in all my work right away and barely had time to read any comics on the way to lectures. The freetime I did have, I spent dancing or sleeping (whilst watching series - win-win I would say). Then when the end of semester exams came up it all started to fall apart. I was really stressed out, spent every waking minute studying (emphasis on the dying part) and in the end it wasn’t enough. More about this further down in the text..

2. Work

Next to my academic studies I also had an energy-consuming job where I spent as many hours as possible to earn money for you know … BOOKS! (Which just stacked themselves up on my floor as I currently have not one single space left on my shelves.)

3. Dance

In addition to my job and Uni I continued with my full-time dance training (5 times a week á 3 hours a day). Guess who’s starting therapy now for her back problems. But I'm pretty sure that this is going to sort itself out quickly so I'm actually looking forward to all that back-muscles-workout.

4. Summer Holidays

So as I hinted at above, turns out all my hard work during the semester wasn’t enough, and I failed my exams. Which means I can’t study computer science anymore. At the beginning of my summer vacation I was dreading those results and trying to distract myself with things to do (festivals, concerts, cinema & friends). Then when I got the bad news I needed further distraction because at the beginning I just couldn’t cope with that. Now things are turning upwards again and I’m looking at other options. But basically, I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

5.  Dissatisfaction

Although I managed to read quite some books and comics through this time (I squeezed them in whenever possible, every 5 minute break was worth opening a book) I never got to actually writing the reviews. I made tons of notes and squiggles everywhere, writing down my thoughts because I knew this would become useful later when I’d finally have time to write them. But every time I went on my blog I was so dissatisfied with how it looked I just couldn’t bring myself to post something.

What's going to happen now?

I was - well, let's change that to am kind of fed up with myself for not blogging in such a long time. First of all because of the commitments I made with NetGalley. I read most of those books and graphic novels I signed up for, but didn’t review them yet (which is really unfair and I apologize to the publishing companies who gave me access to all those ARCs and reviewer copies!!). I definitely plan on reviewing every single one of those copies, but it’s going to take time because I don’t want to just post the reviews on my blog and be done with it, I'd rather give it a little more time and put enough energy into writing the reviews those books deserve.

So whilst I’m going to write those reviews one by one, sometimes two by two, I’m also going to overthink my blog website. I’m kind of tired of the layout, but am not quite sure yet what to change, so I'm going to have to spend a lot of time and energy on deciding that.

I’m really going to try to keep up blogging because it was something I really loved and put so much time and effort in it and don’t want to throw away. I hope this will help distract me even a bit more from all the happenings in my live right now and maybe help me decide on what I actually want to do.

I’m going to take things slow though. I do not want to be overwhelmed with my blog again and lose interest after a short time and go on another hiatus. So I’m going to do this in a pace that I’m comfortable with. There may be one post every day, maybe even two posts a day, but it might even be just one review a week.

So here’s to a new blogging start! (I’m actually taking a sip of Rosé right now in celebration! Oh and by the way: I turned 21 this month! So I’ll have to go and change my bio up a little, too).