2015 Bookish Resolutions: The Results Are In

So about a year ago, I decided to post some bookish and blogging new year's resolutions for myself.  Some goals I achieved, and some I didn't.  Either way, I'm happy with how my reading life has gone this year, and I'm looking forward to what I can read next year!  Here are my goals and how I went with them.

The Christmas Tag

Happy Christmas Eve everyone!  I hope that your Christmas is special and filled with joy and happiness.  Today I'm doing the Christmas Tag which I found on thequietpeople.com.

Let It Snow Review: Let It Stop

Sparkling white snowdrifts, beautiful presents wrapped in ribbons, and multicolored lights glittering in the night through the falling snow. A Christmas Eve snowstorm transforms one small town into a romantic haven, the kind you see only in movies. Well, kinda. After all, a cold and wet hike from a stranded train through the middle of nowhere would not normally end with a delicious kiss from a charming stranger. And no one would think that a trip to the Waffle House through four feet of snow would lead to love with an old friend. Or that the way back to true love begins with a painfully early morning shift at Starbucks. Thanks to three of today’s bestselling teen authors—John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle—the magic of the holidays shines on these hilarious and charming interconnected tales of love, romance, and breathtaking kisses.  Synopsis from Goodreads

My Favourite Genres For Christmastime

As you know, Christmas is coming up.  Usually, I like to read books to get me into the holiday spirit and for that, there are two genres that just feel right for this time of the year.  So today I'm going to share my thoughts on those with you, as well as some recommendations!

TBR Failure: Spring Cleaning Reading and TBR Jar Wrap Up

At the beginning of September, I wrote a post entitled Spring Cleaning Reading.  The intention was to read a bunch of sequels and books I own but had not read over the spring time.  At the start of the year, I created a TBR Jar and wrote a post about it.  The intention with this, was to pick a book from the jar each month and read it.  (Almost) every month with my monthly wrap ups, I also include a TBR (to-be-read) for the next month.  The intention with that is to actually read the books that I list.  Now, let's get into why none of this is working for me.

Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read For The First Time In 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

This week's topic is meant to be New-to-Me Favourite Authors Read for the First Time in 2016, but since I'm very picky when it comes to choosing favourite authors (last year I only included 5 authors because of this), I've scratched the 'favourite' part. This list is more like author's that I have loved from this year, but may not yet be favourites - especially those who I have only read one book from.  As usual, these are in no particular order.

Changes (And Would You Be Interested in Guest Posting?)

Hi everyone!  Hopefully you've noticed that my blog is looking quite a bit different!  I've been sitting on this new design for about a week, waiting for the right time to put it into place, and I've decided to implement it today.

Florence by Ciye Cho - A Beautiful Underwater World

*I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review*

Seventeen-year-old Florence Waverley is out of her depth. Literally. Kidnapped and taken below the waves to the mer world of Niemela, she is the ultimate gift for merman Prince Kiren: a human familiar tied to his side. But nothing is what it seems amid the beauty and danger of a dark ocean.
Every Niemelan has a role to play, from the mermaids who weave towers out of kelp to the warriors who fight sea monsters. But in trying to survive, Florence will end up in the middle of a war between the mer and the Darkness. A conflict that will push her between two brothers: Kiren, the charmer inexplicably drawn to both her and the monsters; and Rolan, the loner who has been pushing her away since the day they met. But in order to take a stand--and find out where she belongs--Florence will have to risk it all: her life, her heart... and her very soul.  Synopsis from Goodreads.

My Embarrassing 19 Years of Life

Hi everyone!  It’s my 19th birthday today, and in light of that, I thought I would share some things about myself.  Here’s the first thing I’m sharing: my favourite part of the girly magazines I used to collect were the pages where people shared their embarrassing moments.  It brought me so much happiness to see that I wasn’t the only one that failed at life.  So today, I’m hoping to bring that same happiness to you.

November Wrap Up + Meeting Sarah J. Maas

I'm here again with another Wrap Up - I know everyone says this, but really this year is moving way too fast.  I don't know what's going on with time.  There's no TBR this month because lets face it - I never stick to them.  I'll have a post up in the next week or so about just how well my Spring TBR went, so I guess I'll discuss that further then!

Mini Reviews feat. Sweet Damage and The Accident Season

Hi everyone!  The mini reviews I'm sharing today are both for mysterious and strange books so it was a little difficult to share all my thoughts without venturing into spoiler territory - but I've managed to do it!  Mostly.  As usual, there are some blank spaces enclosed with these brackets '[ ]' that you can highlight over to view spoilers that I couldn't help but mention.  I hope you enjoy these reviews!

Note: I'm thinking of phasing out the 'mini reviews' thing soon, because it seems that every time I post them, the reviews get a little longer!  Let me know what you think!

Fall Time Cozy Book Tag

So I went missing for several weeks again.  I feel like this keeps happening, and I'm really sorry about it.  I think I might have to start scheduling breaks so that I stop getting burnt out.  When I stop blogging I also tend to avoid blogs altogether because that brings on the guilt, so sorry I haven't visited anyone's blogs recently.  I have over 200 posts to catch up on, but I will do it!

Anyway, today I have the Fall Time Cozy Book Tag.  I was tagged by the lovely Noelia @ A Day In Bookland and although it is spring in Australia, I'm doing it!

The 5 Star Book - Another Illuminae Review

As you may know, a couple Friday's ago I went to a book signing for Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (I made a recap post over here).  Anyway, I wasn’t sure when I was going to pick it up but last week I decided I was in the mood for a sci-fi and just started reading it.  I finished it less than a day later.  This book has got some insane hype surrounding it over the last few months - I don’t have a single friend on Goodreads who has given it less than 5 stars - and in my opinion, it unquestionably deserves that hype.  Now, onto the review.

October Wrap Up and November TBR

Happy November everyone!  I hope October was a great - and spooky - month for you and that you're looking forward to the month ahead.  October was pretty good for me, since it meant the end of my first year of uni (hooray!) and the start of my *cough* 5 month long holidays.  I also read some really good books!  And here they are!

Halloween Master Post

Happy Halloween and welcome to my Halloween Master Post - otherwise known as I-Didn't-Know-What-To-Do-For-My-Halloween-Post-So-I-Did-Everything!  I'm going to be sharing all things Halloween-y, including lists of scary books and movies, a costume idea (though I must admit it's a bit late for that), and some recipes!

Mini Reviews: Lips Touch: Three Times and Cry Blue Murder

Today's reviews are for a couple of shorter books that I feel aren't very well known, and I think they should be!  They're both books that I picked up on a whim - one I chose whilst I was at the library picking up another book and another I picked because of Goodreads' recommendations feature, which I hardly ever use to be honest.  Anyway - ON TO THE REVIEWS!

Illuminae Book Launch - Event Recap!

This Friday, I was lucky enough to attend a book event in my area (a very rare thing) - The Illuminae Book Launch.  In case you haven't heard, Illuminae is a book co-written by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (both Melbourne authors - yay!).  It's a YA sci-fi written in different documents - for example, emails.  If you want to know more, check out the book's Goodreads page (linked above).  I'd heard nothing but spectacular things about this book, so I was super excited to be able to attend this event and get myself a copy of the book.

The Bedtime Book Tag

Today I'm doing the Bedtime Book Tag.  No one tagged me, but I saw it on Paper Fury and I liked the questions, so I'm doing it.  So yeah, that's all there is to say really.  On to the questions.

My Ten Bookish Wishes

I'm so very excited about today's Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish) topic.  So excited in fact, that I wrote this post up two weeks early.  Also, I know I'm going to have an exam on this day, so it'll make me feel better to have something already prepared.  So, the topic - it's 10 Wishes I'd Ask The Book Genie To Grant Me.  I've thought long and hard about my answers to this, and they're not in any particular order, but here they are.

My Most Watched Childhood Movies

As you probably know, (or guessed - I don't know how long you've been around here), I mostly talk about books on this blog.  In real life though, I get easily attached to basically any fictional thing.  Aside from reading books, I also love watching TV and movies.  I've got a Letterboxd account and a Trakt account (basically Goodreads for movies and TV shows, respectively).  I recently watched Christine's video, Movies I Grew Up On, and was inspired to write this post.

Mini Reviews ft. The Naturals and The Heir

Today's mini reviews, if you haven't guessed already, are for The Naturals and The Heir.  I was going to have a review for An Ember in the Ashes, but I realised that everything I had to talk about were spoilers.  All I have to say about that now is go read it, and then come back and talk with me about how awesome Helene is.  She is probably one of my favourite female characters ever.  Anyway, on to the books I'm actually reviewing...

Book Haul

I'm here today with a book haul.  This is all the books I've got since my last book haul, which was back in May.  I've obtained a total of four books - so not that many, but I figured, enough to make this post!

The Wrath and The Dawn Review

First of all, I wish to acknowledge that I have no banner for this post.  I tried so hard to make a nice one, but everything I came up with was, quite frankly, an eyesore.  So even though this post looks a little naked, I'm going to soldier on!

The Wrath and the Dawn is a retelling of A Thousand and One Nights, and follows, in third-person, a few perspectives - the main one being that of Shahrzad, a strong, independent woman.  Shahrzad's kingdom is ruled by the Caliph, Khalid, who marries a woman each day and has them murdered the next.  After her best friend becomes a victim of this ritual, Shahrzad volunteers to be Khalid's next wife, determined to have revenge.

September Wrap Up

Hi there!  It's me, Sabrina.  There's a few things I want to talk about in this month's wrap up, but I will start with what books I read (and didn't read).  I've had a fairly pathetic month, having finishing only 3 books, one of which I read mostly in August.

Spring Cleaning Reading

So I've been thinking, I have a lot of sequels to get to.  It happens surprisingly often that I start a new series and never continue on with it because I see a new, shiny book that I want to pick up.  I've decided that for spring, I'm going to get onto continuing series that I stopped - a take on the idea of spring cleaning.  Since I live in Australia, spring starts in September, and at that point, I'm going to start clearing out my unfinished series (that I want to continue, of course) along with the books that I own, but have yet to read.  So without further ado, here is the longest TBR list in history!

August Wrap Up

So maybe August wasn't my best month in terms of blogging - okay, it definitely wasn't - but I did have a fairly good reading month!  I read eight books and I'm currently in the middle of some others.  Here's the books.

Little Update

This is just a quick little update to say that I'm going to be away from blogging properly for about another week!  I've already been gone for two weeks today, but I'm going to be taking more time off.  Unfortunately a lot has come up with uni (I have over 5 assignments and assessment tasks over the next couple weeks) so I'm just not able to commit to posting regularly.  In saying that, I have two posts in mind that I'm hoping to get out before the end of August - so we'll see if that happens!

I know that I'm really slack with constantly posting - I think I've taken at least a week off every month this year - so sorry about that.  Hopefully you will forgive me :P

I'm still reading blogs and books, but after long days of uni work, I just haven't felt up to writing posts myself.

I promise I'll be back soon!

Top Ten Most Read Authors

I wasn't going to do this week's Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish), because I just did last week's, but then I decided I really wanted to and so here I am.  I could swear I already did a similar post to this, but I can't find it, so I guess I didn't!  Anyway, these are the top ten authors that I have read - including children's books (that I have recorded on Goodreads, since I'm going off their automatically generated most read authors list) and also shared pseudonyms.

5 Problems I Have When Review Writing

I'm not exactly new to this blogging thing anymore (though sometimes it feels like it), and I've begun to notice that I consistently have the same issues when I'm writing my reviews - and a lot of them are to do with my memory.  You'd think that would encourage me to write my reviews a lot quicker than I do...  Anyway, I'm thinking that maybe if I acknowledge these problems, I am one step on the way to fixing them...?

Mini Reviews ft. Wonder and Wildlife

These are my thoughts on two books I recently read, and surprisingly, they're both contemporary and I liked them too.  I'm a little concerned that my reading tastes are slowly shifting, since I've lately been more interested in contemporary, realistic fiction rather than fantasy.  We'll see what happens.  Anyway, on to the reviews.

Top Ten Retellings

This week's Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish) is to do with fairytale retellings.  I admit that I haven't had all that much experience with fairytale retellings.  So, I've decided to do a top ten list of retellings - so, not necessarily fairytales - including both books I have read and books that I want to read.  And I've included a couple of movies.  The point is, my list is a mixed bag.

July Wrap Up and August TBR

The start of July was slow for me, since I had camp for a week with barely a second to breathe, not to mention read.  However, books started piling up for me from the library forcing me to read faster and the end of the month really picked up.  Here's hoping that next month is more consistent!
These are the books I read:

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

I'll start off by saying that it has been a long time since I've read and truly enjoyed a dystopian book.  I've been avoiding them like the plague because I had just read way too many over the last few years and their synopsises were starting to sound the same.  Thankfully, this book has broken the cycle of disappointment.

How Fast Do You Read?

For some of you, this may seem like an easy question to answer, but for me, it's difficult.  You see, the pace I can read at, is generally not the pace that I do read at.  Let me explain.

Mini Reviews ft. Vanishing Girls and Unspoken

Here's a couple mini reviews.  The format is a little all over the place because I decided I didn't want to make any more of these "My Take" picture things, but I still had one left over that I had pre-made.  So, sorry about that, but I'm sure it won't be too disrupting.

Books I'm Waiting For From The Library

I didn't put a TBR in my last wrap up post, so today I'm going to share with you the books that I'm waiting for from my library.  I've put all these books on hold, and now I am in the queue for them.  I'm actually really excited about all these books, so that's good too!

TuesT&T - 172 Hours on the Moon and My Irrational Fear of Outer Space

Tuesday Thoughts and Talks is hosted by Sherry at Bloggity Blog.   The aim is to get people to think beyond the story and discuss a topic related to it.  Today I'm basing my post off the things I got thinking about whilst reading 172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad - mostly how stupidly scared I am of space.

The Dragon of the Month Club by Iain Reading - Excerpt

You might remember that I little while back I read a book called Kitty Hawk and the Curse of the Yukon Gold by Iain Reading.  If you don't remember, I really enjoyed it, and you can read more of my thoughts in my review.  Well anyway, now the author has a new book (February 2015) out called The Dragon of the Month Club, a young adult fantasy novel.  I was invited by Kelsey @ Book Publicity Services to share an excerpt and some other info about this book, and having liked Kitty Hawk, I'm sharing with you this information!

Grim - Edited by Christine Johnson

Today (in case you somehow haven't already picked up on this), I'm reviewing Grim, a collection of short stories by popular YA authors which are all fairytale retellings.  I'm going to share my feelings towards each of the stories without being too specific about their contents.  Overall, I found this book to be forgettable, but there were a couple of stories that will stay with me.

Top Ten Hyped Books I've Never Read

This week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is ten books that are hyped up, but I've never read them.  I'm not entirely sure if all the books I've listed are widely considered to be hyped, but in my perspective they are!  Also, there are plenty of hyped books I haven't read that I'm never actually planning to read, so I've tried to get this list to stick with books I actually have intentions of picking up in the future.

June Wrap Up

It's that time again.  It always comes around so fast!  My reading was really great at the start of the month, but towards the end I really dropped off.  I'm actually currently on camp, if this scheduling worked, so maybe I finished another book this month, but I don't think so.  Anyway, I read 7 books this month and here they are:

My First Blogoversary + Giveaway [CLOSED]

Life Updates!

I have a boring post today!  Well, I hope it's not too boring.  First of all, I haven't blogged for two weeks.  I'm not sure what happened, I just didn't feel up to it.  I finished all my exams, and I just had a week of an intensive unit - basically I went into uni and had lectures from 9 'til 4 each day.  So I guess being exhausted had a lot to do with it!

The Friday 56 - Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice.  All you have to do is turn to page 56 of a book, and share a sentence of two from that page.  This week, I've been reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.  I'm enjoying it a lot so far.  It's a lot more funny than I was expecting, and I'm finally understanding why everyone seems to hate the movie so much!

No Readathons For Me

This might seem like a strange topic, but it's true: I've never participated in a readathon.  Mostly, this makes me sad, but sometimes I think that it's for the best.

The Half Way Mark

In January, I decided to post a list of things that I wanted to do this year in terms of my reading and the blog.  Since it's June, about halfway through the year, I thought I'd go back and assess my progress.

Soundtrack Saturday - Penryn and the End of Days

It's been a little while since I've participated in Soundtrack Saturday, created by Erin @ The Hardcover Lover.  I've been running low on song options to be honest - I felt like I was picking the same artists every week.  Okay, I have been picking the same artists every week.  I was also worried that my choices weren't justified enough.  But I've decided that I don't really care about that anymore and so this week I'm sharing a soundtrack that I've put together for the Penryn and the End of Days trilogy by Susan Ee - otherwise known as the Angelfall books.  Which I love.  Also the last book came out and I've read it but I promise there will be no spoilers in this soundtrack because I'm not going to explain my choices.  Also, as usual, some of these are a bit of a stretch, however I've tried to put the songs in some kind of an order!

Mini Reviews ft. Cinder, Siege and Storm and End of Days

I haven't posted any reviews for a really long time, so today I'm catching up a little bit.  Hopefully I'll get back into review writing soon.

Also, I'm doing something a little different this time with my mini reviews, I hope you like it!

Top Ten Books I Would Love To See As Movies Or TV Shows

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted every week by The Broke And the Bookish, and this week's topic is ten books you'd like to see as movies or TV shows.  I love both these things, but sometimes the thought of a favourite book being adapted to the screen scared the hell out of me rather than makes me excited.  Especially after some movies adaptations I've seen in the last few years.  Having said that, here's some books that I think would make amazing movies or TV shows.