January Wrap Up // Good Reads and Re-Reads

Monthly Wrap Up is where I wrap up my reading, book hauls and other loves I have discovered by the end of the month.

TTT // Fictional Characters that I can Relate To

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme was a freebie, so I decided that you all must hear about some of the fictional characters that I relate to. I am rarely able to pick favourite characters from shows and books, but I often find that even long after a show or a book series has ended, some characters just stick with me. So although these character aren't necessarily all of my favourites, I do love them.

Do I need to be reading the newest and most popular books?

I was looking at the nominees for the Goodreads Choice Awards in December when I realised that out of all 400 books listed between the categories, I'd only read 1. Out of the 3 I've now read, only Red Queen was a winner. I began to wonder: am I not reading good enough books?

TTT// 10 Books that are New to the Queue

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is 10 books I have recently added to my TBR:

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson

Title: The Art of Being Normal
Author: Lisa Williamson
Genre: Contemporary
Warnings: Bullying, mentions of mental health
Rating: 4 stars
Goodreads Review | Book Depository

Read as part of the Diverse Reads Book Challenge and the LGBTQIA Reading Challenge. An ebook copy of this book was provided to me via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Whilst David is being tormented by school bullies, Leo comes to his defence. Over detentions and tutoring sessions, the two become friends and find that they have more in common than anyone would think.

Cover Palettes // The Bone Clocks

I like the phrase 'don't judge a book by its cover'... except when it comes to books. I shamelessly judge books by their covers all the time. The job of the cover designer is to make you want to pick up the book before you know anything about it, and sometimes I end up buying books even when I know next to nothing about them just because of the cover art.

Getting The Bone Clocks was one of these times. The bright colours are so striking against the black background and the artist included key details from the book across the cover, really maximising the use of space. As I read the book, I loved to spot the subtle links between the cover and the story, highlighting that even seemingly irrelevant objects play a greater role.

Have you read The Bone Clocks? Do you prefer the illustrations on the hardcover copy or the paperback?

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TTT // 2015 Releases I Didn't Get a Chance to Read

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is my top 10 2015 releases that I didn't get a chance to read:

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine // Everything I could ever want in a book

Title: Ink and Bone (The Great Library #1)
Author: Rachel Caine
Genre: Fantasy
Warnings: Violence
Rating: 5 stars
Goodreads Review

This is not just some other book about books. This is so much more.

In Jess' world, the Library of Alexandria never fell. The printing press was never invented, and owning private books is punishable by death. The Library rules all knowlege.

I have longed to read this book since I saw it mentioned on tumblr months before it even had a cover. The Great Library of Alexandria is a fascinating piece of ancient history. It's destruction was a huge loss of culture and knowledge, but Caine shows the extreme of how our world would be had the Library never been destroyed.

7 Fictional Worlds I'd Love to Live In

Fantasy is an incredibly wide genre, but one consistency within it is that fantasy requires an immense amount of world building. You cannot have a good fantasy novel or television series without an epic backdrop. Some settings are so incredible that you can't help but want to be absorbed into them and live the lives of your favourite characters (just without the whole end of the world, fight to the death and all that jazz). These are my top 7 fictional worlds I'd love to live in:

Top 10 Tuesday: I Resolve to Read these 10 Book Series by the end of 2016

Top 10 Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week I will list 7 book series that I resolve to start, and 3 that I resolve to finish:

To Start:

Music Match Monday - The Night Circus

Music Match Monday is a feature hosted here at Astronomical Books where on the first Monday of every month I match the lyrics of a song to a book and explain why they go together so perfectly.

The Philosopher's Stone // My Return to Hogwarts

Title: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter #1)
Author: J.K. Rowling
Genre: Magic / Adventure
Warnings: -
Rating: 5 stars
Goodreads | Book Depository

2016 is the year I return to Hogwarts. It is my final year of high school - the year where things become hectic and studying intensifies. With everything changing, re-reading the Harry Potter books just felt right.

I fell in love with Rowling's world of magic much later than many of my friends. I did not read all the books until a few years ago. But somehow Harry Potter still had enough magic to captivate even a latecomer such as myself.