artsy musings of a bibliophile

Monthly Recap: August

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Personally, August turned out to be pretty low key. Just the way I like my life. Also, I bought a lot of books which felt great but right now I’m almost broke which ha ha.

LIST OF NEWSWORTHY


Summer Days and Unrest
It truly felt like it was summer because we went on a weekend getaway in the beginning of the month, there were days where all I did was listen to tons of music, or read, and blogged. Life is good, yo despite all the terrible happenings in the world. It took 51 days for long-term ceasefire to be declared in Gaza then the Ferguson incident happened and now things in my country aren’t so well politically which is pretty sad. And oh, we celebrated its Independence Day on August 14th.

Yes, mountains are truly exquisite.

Books Make Me Wanna Die
Waiting for books to release is so hard because half the time I don’t know what to do with myself and half the time I feel like a zombie because damn, I want to eat that flesh err I mean read ’em books. Mainly Sarah J. Maas’ Heir of Fire and Maggie Stiefvater’s Blue Lily, Lily Blue. Susan Ee’s Angelfall #3. AC Gaughen’s Lion Heart.

wordmark.it
This is such a cool find! Basically, you type on some test and load all the fonts saved on your hard drive and wordmark.it displays how each font looks.

TV WATCH

Still didn’t watch all that much TV this month except Teen Wolf which is still going great. Need to catch up, though.

MOVIE WATCH

I managed to watch 25 movies this year which is a feat considering I haven’t been in the mood for them for a good part of the year.

The Lego Movie (7/10) – It was good but not as good as I was expecting it to be.

Captain America: The First Avenger (7/10) – Well, that ending took my by a hell of a surprise.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (8/10) – *sobs quietly*

LIST OF READS

Wow, I read only five books but it seems like I read more. I blame The Assassin’s Blade and World After because so, so good.

The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas
World After by Susan Ee
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Boomerang by Noelle August
The Jewel by Amy Ewing

LIST OF BLOGPOSTS

So I don’t think I’ve posted this much in a month since err, 2012? Feeling pretty good, though so can’t complain.

I interviewed Amy Zhang whose debut Falling into Place is releasing on September 9th.
I posted my review of The Assassin’s Blade by Sarah J. Maas.
I posted my review of The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings.
I posted a top ten Tuesday lists of 2014 series I’m not sure I want to read and books I’ve been pushed (and pushed) to read.
I posted  about popular Pakistani authors in celebration of my country’s independence day.
I posted my review of Talker 25 by Joshua McCune.
I posted my review of Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.
I posted about how struggle is pointless when it comes to books. Nemi agreed with me.
Meg tagged me to do the emoji book tag. I had much fun.
I posted my review of On the Fence by Kasie West.

LIST OF BOOK BUYS

I bought a lot of books this month mainly because I was in a mood to buy all the books.

World After by Susan Ee
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Sabriel by Garth Nix
Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff
Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen
Boomerang by Noelle August

I can’t believe 2015 ARCs are already out. I’m crazy excited for Red Queen, though but I’m really hoping to cut down on ARCs next year because I wanna read what I wanna read.
Wildlife by Fiona Wood (this was a Read Now on NetGalley and I just got weak for a second there)
Req Queen by Victoria Aveyard
A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas
The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

I won Cynthia Hand’s Unearthly trilogy over at Lizzy’s blog sometime ago and they finally arrived!
Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
Hallowed by Cynthia Hand
Boundless by Cynthia Hand

PLAYLIST

I didn’t listen to new music as much as I listened to favorites particularly Fall Out Boy and Lana Del Rey.

Hilary Duff is back! // Broods finally have an album out and it’s really good. // Nick Jonas can sing and I’m still in shock.


How was your August? Do you like the inclusion of photos? Heee.

Review: On the Fence by Kasie West

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KWOtF

ABOUT THE BOOK

On the Fence by Kasie West
young adult contemporary romance published by HarperTeen on July 1st, 2014

For sixteen-year-old Charlotte Reynolds, aka Charlie, being raised by a single dad and three older brothers has its perks. She can out-run, out-score, and outwit every boy she knows–including her long-time neighbor, and honorary fourth brother, Braden.

But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn’t know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at a chi-chi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world of makeup, lacy skirts, and bedazzlers. Even stranger, she’s spending time with a boy who has never seen her tear it up in a pick-up game.

To cope with the stress of faking her way through this new reality, Charlie seeks late night refuge in her backyard, talking out her problems with Braden by the fence that separates them. But their Fence Chats can’t solve Charlie’s biggest problem: she’s falling for Braden. Hard. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

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The Emoji Book Tag

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I’m an emoji abuser and when Meg tagged me to do the emoji book tag, I couldn’t resist because moar heart eyes for me. I think the tag started on YouTube back in June.

I’ve mainly stuck to the best books I’ve read since 2013 because then it’d have been too hard to choose.

Victor Vale makes me go like this whenever I think about him. He’s such a genius and his habit of blackening his parents psychology books is just gaaah. No words only heart eyes emoji faces.

Because my face was constantly flushed while reading about Ronan and Kavinsky and revving engines and molotov cocktails. AND PYNCH. Obviously. Hot stuff.
Laini Taylor’s Days of Blood and Starlight is my favorite from the trilogy because there’s such a dark undertone to everything that’s been happening. I relate the book to a crown because it’s royal stuff.
I loved Richelle Mead’s Spirit Bound the best from the series because Dimitri and Shadow Kiss is a close second because Dimitri but that book is more a crying face emoji.
Yes, there were tears in the shape of The Assassin’s Blade because Sam Cortland. Also, Celaena is such a badass but sometimes she makes me sob because pain. All hail Sarah J. Maas.
I adored the friendship of Emily and Sloan and Frank Freakin’ Porter in Morgan Matson’s Since You’ve Been Gone.

I lost my mouth while reading Susan Ee’s World After. Those locusts feel so freaking real and then there’s Paige. And then there’s Raffe and his bat-shaped wings. Penryn being a badass and Penryn’s mother being badass-er. And tears and just- of course, I lost my mouth. 

Exactly. I died. I’m writing this post from beyond err- somewhere. Seriously though, if you’ve read Leigh Bardugo’s Ruin and Rising you know what I mean. Sturmhond and the Darkling and the amplifiers and- *dies again*
I’m tagging Eve (whenever her blog happens), Lillian and Sandra with the tag. Basically, the tagged person has to choose five to ten emoji that they associate with certain books.

The Musing Mind: Struggling… Struggling is Pointless

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Ponderings with little bursts of cartoon art.

pointless struggle [ˈpointlis ‘strəgəl]: the state between wanting to stuff one’s face with a book  (or a series or a genre or a- you get it) and booking a flight to Antarctica to get away from said book (or a series or a genre or a- you get it). 

Also, being a reader.

Being a reader is hard and me being a reader is harder. I may not be Nemi but Nemi is pretty much me.

See, it’s pointless. (Source)

There are all kinds of feelings associated with reading and as the years pass, so does the need to extend the feeling of anticipation. Of prolonging the foretaste. I would know this since I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows two years after its release (which means I read it five years after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). That’s some struggle, huh.

Also, muggles everywhere. (Source)

However, it gets complicated because the more books I read, the more books I want to read. And so the struggle begins. And never ends.

Pretty much. (Source)

What is better, though? Reading a book for the first time ever and falling in love with it or rereading it over and over and over?

Seriously, which one? (Source)

If a book is good, the first instinct is to keep reading it until it’s all over. However, when it is all over and it was phenomenal, then a feeling creeps up on the reader. The feeling that it was all over so soon and I should’ve waited and oh my God, what did I just do? Cue book hangover and the aftereffects of pulling so many facial muscles.

Cyan: What are you reading? Nemi: My diary from the 10th grade.
Words just got superfluous. (Source)

Sometimes the struggle is all about a genre. Can’t get enough of a genre? No problem, just embrace it in any way possible.

Books infiltrate everything. (Source)

We struggle when someone questions our love for fictional characters because their existence is irrelevant.

Nothing is typical when we heart eyes characters. (Source)

However, it’s a good idea to not interrupt a reader when they’re reading because then they probably struggle with doing something much more vicious than Nemi. Trust me, you don’t want to add to it.

Some people never listen. (Source)

Sometimes we are the books.

Too many books will do this to your brain. It’s awesome. (Source)

But we love our books. Sometimes a little too much.

Avoid? You mean deprived. (Source)
This kind of struggle is also real but it’s a beautiful kind of struggle and it never fails to fascinate me.

Can’t say this enough. (Source)
What kind of struggles are pointless for you? Don’t you just love Nemi? I know I do.
P.S. Yes, the title is all Tangled.

Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

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SPAATFK

ABOUT THE BOOK

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
young adult contemporary romance published by Dutton on December 2nd, 2010
first book in Anna and the French Kiss companion series

Anna can’t wait for her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a good job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she’s not too thrilled when her father unexpectedly ships her off to boarding school in Paris – until she meets Étienne St. Clair, the perfect boy. The only problem? He’s taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her crush back home. Will a year of romantic near-misses end in the French kiss Anna awaits?

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