Three Books To Get You Feeling Festive | Blogmas Day Two

Happy Holidays Babes! One of my favourite things in the whole wide world is reading. I love snuggling up in bed with a good book and reading until I can't stay awake anymore. I also love Christmas and guys, I know this isn't very ground breaking or surprising, but Christmas themed books are the bomb yo! Seriously though, they always make me feel all warm and fuzzy, which is perfect for when you're all cosy in bed! Here are the three books I'll be reading this Christmas;

➳ Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson & Lauren Myracle

➳ Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachael Cohn & David Levithan 

➳ My True Love Gave to Me by twelve authors whose names I can't be bothered writing, LOL! 

 Dash & Lily's Book of Dares 

I read this at the beginning of the year and it's about a boy named Dash who finds a notebook in his favourite bookshop. Inside is a clue that will eventually lead to a way of contacting the owner. Dash and Lily embark on a series of dares and challenges throughout a Christmas ridden New York City. 

This book is really fun to read and the characters are quite sarcastic and quirky. I loved reading about what New York is like during Christmas and all the different ways people celebrate it. 

Let It Snow

I read this book around Christmas last year and it was so perfect for getting me into the holiday spirit. It tells three separate yet intertwining stories about love on Christmas Eve during a snow storm. The stories are cutsey and romantic and make you feel like getting stuck in a snow storm wouldn't be such a bad thing. 

My True Love Gave To Me

This is the only christmas book I haven't previously read as I didn't last year and wanted to wait until this December to read it. It is a compilation of twelve holiday stories and I'm really excited to read it. 

Let me know in the comments what you'll be reading these holidays, and let me know what you think of these books. xx 

Monthly Reads x

Okay. So you know how I was gonna do a monthly update on the books i've been reading. No, you didn't? Well I forgot too apparently. Anyway I though I'd give you a little update on the books I read in May. 

As you can see from the pic above I read Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by David Leviathan and Rachel Cohen and Firecracker by David Iserson.
While I enjoyed reading all these books, I can't say that I really loved any of them. 

Eleanor and Park was probably my favourite of the three, but that being said I found Eleanor's character quite annoying. Just open up girl! And that ending though. If you've read it you know what I'm talking about. 

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, mainly because it wasn't really dares they had to do, more like a scavenger hunt. Nevertheless it was a cute story and I really liked Dash and Lily's characters and the way they interacted with each other.

Firecracker was quite interesting to read. I liked how it was different from the other two as it's main focus was on the character development of Astrid Krieger. But I was quite annoyed with how the blurb sold the book as a story about a girl who lives in a rocket ship and has to go to public school for the first time. The whole rocket ship was referred to like a whole three times. But I did really like the progress from where Astrid's story started to where it ended.

Of these three books I was more emotionally invested in the lives of Eleanor and Park than Dash, Lily and Astrid's lives, but they all tell good stories 

If you've read any of these books let me know what you thought.

Books of 2014!

     This year it was my goal to read 50 books that I've never read before and yesterday I completed that goal. The majority of the books I read can fall into one of 3 categories; fantasy, YA contemporary and dystopian fiction. So I have categorised and ranked all the books I read this year except 5 which didn't quite fit into the categories. I also read quite a few books that belonged to the same series and so in those cases I just bunched them together to make it a bit easier. I hope you like my list and discover a a new favourite book! 


Fantasy 
1. Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus, book 5) by Rick Riordan 
2. Bloodlines series by Richelle Mead 
3. Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
4. Finnikin of the Rock (Lumatere Chronicles, book 1) by Melina Marchetta 
5. Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White
6. Slaves of Socorro (Brotherband, Book 4) by John Flanagan
7. Mortal Instruments series (books 4-6) by Cassandra Clare
8. Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins
9. Shadow Throne (The Ascendance Trilogy, book 3) by Jennifer A. Nielson 
10. Shadow and Bone (The Grisha, book 1) by Leigh Bardugo 
11. The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare 

YA Dystopian 
1. Pivot Point series by Kasie West
2. Legend series by Marie Lu
3. Fifth Wave series by Rick Yancey
4. Maze Runner Series by James Dashner
5. Delirium (Delirium, book 1) by Lauren Oliver
6. Taken (Taken, book 1) by Erin Bowman


Contemporary
1. Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson
2. Panic by Lauren Oliver
3. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell 
4. On the Fence by Kasie West 

5. Paper Towns by John Green 
6. The Distance Between Us Kasie West 
7. Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
8. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart 
9. Looking For Alaska by John Green

On The Fence Review

Charlie is a tomboy. She has no mum, a police officer dad and three brothers. Well four if you count Braden, her next door neighbour. But when Charlie is forced into taking a job at a clothing store and is persuading into becoming a canvas for make-up tutorials a bit of girly-ness begins to rub off on her. And her life begins to change. 

When I started this blog in January I had never read a book by Kasie West. I have now read three; Pivot Point, Split Second and On the Fence and it’s pretty safe to say that i’ve become quite the Kasie West fan. I absolutely love the way in which Kasie writes relationships (of all sorts, not just romantic ones) and On the Fence was no exemption to this. I absolutely enjoyed reading about her relationships with her brothers and Braden and how became friend people she previously thought were polar opposites to her. All of the relationships felt natural and realistic but still interesting and amusing. On Goodreads I rated On the Fence 4/5 stars.

I also loved Charlie’s character development. Through her new job Charlie grows and becomes more of herself than before. I often don’t like it when characters change and aren’t at all themselves anymore, but in On the Fence Charlie is still the same person there is just more to her and she is able to be open with her feelings and becomes less of the tomboy stereo-type. 
This was particularly good as I didn’t like the way Charlie was presented at the start of the book. Kasie made a real effort to describe how much of a tomboy Charlie is and often it felt like the book was telling me this rather than showing this to me. Not that Kasie didn’t back up what she was saying with actions. 

It was really interesting to read about Charlie while she was with Evan because in those instances she changed herself to be someone he would like and I’ve seen my friends do that and found it quite relatable and showed how insecure Charlie really was. 

The fence chats between Charlie and Braden were so much fun to read, even when Charlie was being a bitch. It did bother me though that Charlie and Braden made the same mistake twice where one was trying to talk about their feelings for the other, and the other was trying to talk about Charlie’s mum. Miscommunication pisses me off in books/movies/life. Just listen to what they’re saying, not what your going to say! 

Overall this is a really great summery read.

Thanks for reading. xx 

Since You've Been Gone Review

I generally read book series rather than stand alone books, but after reading the Legend series by Marie Lu, which I did enjoy, I was a bit sick of drawn out plots and more specifically, trilogies. So I headed to Goodreads and stumbled across Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson, and it seemed to be everything I was looking for. A quick read with a fun plot. The only problem was that this was three months ago and the book was only released a few days ago. Needless to say I had a lot of anticipation for this book and I’m happy to day that it didn’t disappoint. 

The story followes Emily who is a very shy and socially awkward girl who is best friends with Sloane, who is glamorous, daring and charismatic. They have the perfect summer planned, but everything changes when Sloane and her family disappear without a word. Until a letter from Sloane arrives in the mail, containing only a summer bucket list for Emily to complete. 

This book is so good and in so many ways. The characters were probably my favourite aspect about this book as they were beautifully developed and very relatable, even if their names weren’t to be envied. (Sloane, Frank, Dawn? Really?) Names aside, I really enjoyed the way in which Emily’s perception of other people changed over time, particularly Frank and Sloane. At the beginning you see through Emily’s flashbacks that it was always Sloane and Emily not the other way around, with Emily going along with whatever Sloane wanted to do. But as the book goes on Emily’s thoughts and memories of Sloane become more aware of who Sloane was and she realises that her best friend isn’t perfect and that she doesn’t have to be like her. I really liked the way in which Morgan Matson did this as Emily didn’t like Sloane any less after these realised this, but simply became more sure with who she was as an individual. Emily also realises that Sloane needed her just as much as she needed Sloane and I found this really sweet and realistic, as we often don’t realise how much we mean to others as others show affection in different ways to us. 

I loved how through the List Emily was able to make new friends, grow more confident and feel as though she belonged somewhere. Because even when she was with Sloane Emily wasn’t entirely comfortable in group situations. I also really enjoyed how Emily’s perception of Frank changed as she got to know him and how their relationship developed. 

This book was often quite funny and had me laughing out loud more than once, which is something I always appreciate in a book and attributed to my love of the characters and their relationships.

I also loved it how Emily wasn’t too obsessed with completing the List and how it didn’t become her whole life, but helped her find a new life with new friends. I loved the pacing in this book, nothing felt rushed, nor did it feel like it was dragged out.

Overall I rate this book 9 out of 10 and it is perfect if you’re looking for a simple summer read, although I read this in winter… Ooops! x