Book Discussion: Audio Books

 

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well this lovely Friday the 13th! I have decided to implement a new tradition and watch a Friday the 13th movie when it occurs. Tonight, it's part two. I don't have any fun life updates, but I finished the audiobook version of Jane Seymour by Alison Weir a few days ago. I enjoyed it but didn't have enough thoughts to give it a substantial review. I got the idea for this post, but I haven't had time to sit and write it out until tonight.

I'm relatively new to audiobooks, but I've absolutely loved them for multitasking. I don't have a ton of titles, but my library has been growing steadily since getting into them last year. I've probably listened to books more than I've read this year. 

Discussion Question

Who are some narrators/performers you like listening to if you listen to audiobooks?

I'm listening to the latest Wandering Inn book (The Empress of Beasts). Andrea Parsneau is easily my favorite audiobook performer. I'm amazed at how many different voices she can do, giving each character a unique sound. She's even given character groups from various cities with different accents. I'm extremely impressed by her. She's done work on other LITRPG books, and I'd like to check them out in the future just because she's performing them. 

Another Narrator I've really enjoyed listening to is Michael David Axtell. I've read a few of the books in the Adam Binder Novels by David R. Slayton that Michael David Axtell narrates. He has a lot of voices that keep the books enjoyable. They aren't as unique as the ones Andrea does, but they are still good. 

Rosamund Pike did a narration for Pride and Prejudice, which I loved. She just has this very soothing voice that I love listening to. Rosalyn Landor, who narrated Jane Seymour by Alison Weir, also had a very calming voice. I don't know how often Rosamund Pike narrates books since she's busy with acting, but I'd definitely listen to more audiobooks narrated by her or Rosalyn Landor. 

Those are a few of the narrators I've really enjoyed. Who are some of your favorites? Let me know in the comments!

Book Discussion: Classic Books, which ones have you read?

 Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well and survived Monday. The husband left me unsupervised in Half-Priced Books over the weekend, so I ended up with all these pretty classics. 

I'll be honest: I mainly bought the collections because they were pretty. I am not a big classic reader, as I'm sure you know if you've read this blog before. However, I thought that having these on my shelf might prompt me to read them. The thought was their short; I own them, so why not read them? So far, I'm starting with Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne.

As I discussed these books with a friend, we started discussing the classics we've read. I have read more than I initially thought I did. However, I've also tried to read some and not finished them. Typically, I try to acquire a book from Project Gutenberg (which I typed as Project Glutenberg. This probably means I need to sleep, and I'm also very used to typing gluten.) For those unfamiliar with Project Gutenberg, it is a charity that aims to provide an online library of free books. The books provided have an expired U.S. copyright, so it is typically older volumes of work. The entire project is run by volunteers. You can learn more about the project here.

One of the features of Project Gutenberg is that as a user, you can see the most popular downloads. So last night (or Saturday, I can't remember), I downloaded the previous 30 days. There are definitely some classics that I've read that aren't on here, but I wanted to go through the list and see what I've read or at the very least attempted to read.

I'm curious to know which of these books you've read. Which ones did you like the most? What on here do you want to read? For me, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Pride and Prejudice were among my favorites on the list. I plan to work through several others, like the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.  

Do you find this post interesting, and would you like to see more of them? If so, please let me know in the comments! I always look forward to commentary (as long as it's not spam or phishing, I try to block those if I can.)

Top 100 eBooks on Project Gutenberg last 30 days -8/21/2022

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Read

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Read

History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom by Andrew Dickson White

Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Ulysses by James Joyce

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson

Grimms' Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Did Not Finish

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman- If I have to reread this, I will gouge my eyes out. Three times is enough, thank you very much.

The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka- Read

The Iliad by Homer

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete by Mark Twain- Read

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - I did not finish

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain- Read

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde- I can't remember if I've read this. I have definitely seen the play, however.

Emma by Jane Austen

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie- Read

A Doll's House : a play by Henrik Ibsen

Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne-Read

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The Republic by Plato

Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem

Old Granny Fox by Thornton W. Burgess

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum- Read, and surprisingly dark for a children's story.

A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The King James Version of the Bible

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Odyssey by Homer- I started to read but did not finish. I've always intended to read it all the way through, however.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens- I did not finish; I may try to get through it another time.

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Dubliners by James Joyce

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Moby Multiple Language Lists of Common Words by Grady Ward

Japanese Girls and Women by Alice Mabel Bacon

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

A Pickle for the Knowing Ones by Timothy Dexter

The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving- I think I read this? Can't remember… It may be DNF.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi

Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

Josefine Mutzenbacher by Felix Salten

The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

金雲翹傳by Qingxincairen

Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

The Confessions of St. Augustine by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine

Second Treatise of Government by John Locke

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

An Index of The Divine Comedy by Dante by Dante Alighieri

Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll- Read

The Happy Prince, and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare- I've read some of his plays, if that counts.

Anthem by Ayn Rand

The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

 

Book Discussion: Reading Books You Normally Wouldn't

 

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well and reading lots of exciting things. I was conversing with a friend regarding book discussions (in general, not my posts specifically.) She mentioned that she enjoys conversations because it convinces her to read books she wouldn't have read otherwise. I thought that was an exciting idea for a topic, and I won't be finishing a book any time soon, so here we are. (Thanks, Kathie, for the random comment that started this!)

I'm curious to know, what are some books you have been introduced to by discussing them with others? Did you end up reading it, and if so, did you enjoy it? What was the turning point in the discussion that made you decide to read it? 

Book Discussion

Looking back through my list of books I've read, I think the one that most stands out as something I wouldn't have picked for myself would be When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalinithi. I am really not a non-fiction reader. I read to be entertained and get out of my head for a little bit. As a result, I don't really gravitate towards memoirs. How this book came into my life was actually really weird. I don't know if anyone remembers a few years ago on Facebook; posting book gifting chains was a big thing. How it worked was the first person would make the post, and the first person to comment would send them a book. I don't think it was usually disclosed what book would be sent or why in the post. Anyway, a random friend of a friend I didn't know sent me When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalinithi during one of those chains.

There wasn't really a discussion on my part because of how I came to have the book. However, the person who sent it provided an index card with a note explaining that this was her favorite book. The message made it seem really enlightening and like an absolute must-read. The added bonus of being gifted the book made the decision to read it really easy.

I'm happy that I did read When Breath Becomes Air. Even though it was sad, I found it really inspiring. It's definitely not something I would have even considered if I was picking out a book for myself. I really don't even go through the non-fiction sections if I'm in a book store. I did have the blog back when this happened, so if you want to see my full review on it, you can here. I read this back in 2016, so it's hard telling how bad the post is. I don't typically go back and re-edit or reread my own posts (or haven't lately, at least.) 

Tell me in the comments what your book(s) that you picked up because of a discussion and your thoughts! I love seeing the comments, and who knows, maybe we'll all add to our book lists!

Bookshelf Tour: Physical Books and Kindle Books!

Hello Readers! I hope everyone is doing well, and if you are a mother, had a happy Mother's Day. The husband's aunt and uncle (who we haven't seen in forever) were in the area this past week. We spent a lot of the weekend with them, which was lovely. I did manage to finish a book at some point, either last week or this weekend. I don't really remember when it was. I've been attempting to do a blog post all weekend, but it's just been busy. At this point, a lot of the details are fuzzy for me, so I'll just give a quick couple of thoughts.

The book I read was The Druid by Jeff Wheeler. I slated it for #1 on the 2022 Reading Challenge for a book under $5. It was an Amazon First Reads, so I felt like this counts. It was a shorter story, but I loved it. I thought it had an interesting magic system, and I rated it four stars on Goodreads. I only gave it four stars because there was a lot of the magic system and world that I felt needed to be better defined. I did find out that Jeff has a TON of other books, so now I'm struggling not to binge read those as I want to stick with the challenge. 

I've wanted to do this kind of post for a while now. Since I've had to move a lot, usually the first thing to get sold or donated is my physical books, as they are a pain to move. This is why I mostly gravitate towards Kindle books, don't really do the Book Haul posts anymore, and don't update those posts with what I've read. My husband and I bought our first house back in September. Shortly after Christmas, my husband and his best friend put up a couple of shelves for me in the cutouts near the fireplace. So, in pictures, here's a look at my books. I've also included the screenshots of my Kindle bookshelf, both read and unread. 

I am going to need more bookshelves at some point. My husband has taken up a hobby of going to garage sales and thrift stores and buying used video games. Do you know what else those have? Books. I have acquired so many books. The military-esq stuff is my husband's books. The rest are mine. My current organization system is by height. I try to keep the books in a series together, but there is otherwise no organization. It stresses me out if the books are not by height.

And now on to the chaos that is my Kindle, not including any Kindle Unlimited books I'm currently renting.

So those are my bookshelves. Let me know in the comments if you think there's something I should absolutely read!

Top Ten List: Want to read Topics

I should be writing a paper right now. I had some brilliant idea to go back to school for my Master's Degree, and I have a paper due this week. My upstairs neighbors, however, have decided to blare their music at ridiculous levels, and I can't focus. Also, I don't want to write ten pages about my leadership skills. 

I thought I'd make a top ten list.  I think this one could be kind of interesting. Instead of To Be Read list, or want to read list that's specific to books, I wanted to discuss which topics or people I wanted to read more about (Fiction or Non-Fiction.) These aren't any particular order, I'm just jotting them down as they pop into my head. Feel free to comment with your own lists or suggestions, if you'd like! 

1.) Salem Witch Trials

2.) Different cultures- I'm lumping this as one because otherwise, it will just take over my list, and I'll feel like I left something out. That may have to be a separate list in itself. 

3.) Queen Victoria

4.) Paganism

5.) Sister Rosetta Tharpe

6.) Romanov Family

7.) Joan of Arc

8.) Pre-Medieval times

9.) Women's Suffrage

10.) Catherin the Great

Bonus Topics because narrowing things down to ten is hard:

11.) Jack The Ripper and H.H. Holmes

12.) Mythology- Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse

13.) Medici Family

Feel free to let me know what topics you'd like to read about, any book suggestions you have for me, or something you'd like to see as a top ten or discussion post in the comments!

Top Ten list: Favorite Book Covers

Hi, readers! I hope everyone is doing well and staying sane. I was trying to think of a top ten list to do, and I realized that I had a suggestion from another blog regarding favorite covers, so I thought I'd combine them. The blog the suggestion came from can be found here. This was a surprisingly easy list for me to come up with. I'm guilty of judging books by covers, and this was pretty fun to figure out. Some of these books I've read, some I haven't. Feel free to let me know what your favorite book covers are!

1.)  

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you probably know this is one of my absolute favorite series. Not only is it a great book to read, but I absolutely adore the cover. It's simple, but it still has so much detail. I feel like there are some optical illusions with this cover, and I just enjoy it so much. I could have put the second and third book on the list as well but decided that'd be too easy.

2.) 

I haven't read Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, yet. I'll probably pick it up here soon because I can't stop thinking about this cover. I absolutely love the contrast in it. I've read the book description multiple times, and I don't remember what it's about, but the cover alone makes me want to read it.

3.) 

This isn't so much the cover as much as what the books look like when they're together. I have a Harry Potter set. They're in a Hogwarts chest, and I refuse to actually take them out or read them, so they don't get dirty. When I reread them, I always just read them on my kindle. I love this set, though. I think it's so cool that they form Hogwarts when lined up in order. I need it. 

4.) 

I love this cover. It's more of a tie with #3. I think it's one of the better book covers I've seen. I just wish I would have enjoyed the book more. 

5.) 

I love the color contrast in this cover. I think the black scales just make the dragon's eye stand out. The font is really cool too. I think all of the covers in the series are similar, and it's available on Kindle Unlimited. I need to read the rest of the series.

6.) 

I got Fiend back in the days when I was on websites that provided free books for reviews. I wish I still had the paperback version of this. Not only is the color combination just different, but it had a weird texture. The book is about drug addicts being the only people to survive the zombie apocalypse, and it feels gritty. I've always thought that was kind of unique.

7.) 

I love this series, black and white photography, and creepy things. The entire series is centered around creepy old photographs that Ransom Riggs has acquired over the years. I just really enjoy the black and white contrast on this cover. Plus, it's kind of strange. 

8.) 

This is another series where I could have honestly listed most of the covers in the series. I love the colors on this cover. But mostly, I feel like it looks like a book where you're told not to open it, and all hell breaks loose if you do. I dig the journal vibe. 

9.) 

I just realized I had a missed opportunity to use this on the challenge for a book with a building on the cover. Anyways, I just read this book, and I feel like the cover is an absolutely perfect fit. I think the artwork has a ton of detail, and I love the bloody crown. I think this has a lot of similar vibes as The Red Queen. Maybe it's the red font on silver with the bloody crown. 

10.) 

I think The Hangman's Daughter has a handful of covers, but I love this one. I've read a little bit of the book and then lost it. I keep meaning to acquire it again and finishing it. I just love the red on black with gold details. It has an overall Gothic aesthetic that I absolutely adore.

Book Discussion: What do you like about your favorite genre?

Happy Sunday, Readers. I hope everyone is playing nice and keeping their distance from everyone else. As an anti-social introvert, I've changed basically nothing about my routine. Except now I'm working from home. Anyways, enough about our real-life Dystopian Novel. I haven't done an actual discussion post in a while and thought it would be a good time for one, I keep saying I'm going to do more, but I suck at the follow-through.

Today's topic comes from the Pages Bound blog, which you can find here.

What do you like about your favorite genre?

My favorite genre is most definitely the broad genre of fantasy. If you want to break it down, I really like anything having to do with magic. Witches, Wizards, Magicians? Yes, please. Sign me up. I'm here for it. I love reading about the nuances of the author's version of magic. As an aspiring author, I feel like magic gives a writer a lot of room for creativity and to really bring a unique set of details to their world. One of my absolute favorite aspects in a book about magic has been the Paper Magician series by Charlie N. Holmberg, which is weird because it took me a lot to actually love this series (you can find my review here.) In this particular story, the magicians bond with materials and use that bond to conduct their magic. The Paper Magician is essentially magical origami, and it's whimsical and lovely.

My favorite thing about the fantasy genre, specifically magical sub-genres, is that anything is possible. There are no rules for magic because it's not something that exists in the real world. With magic, the only limitation is one's creativity. While I love other genres, I feel like there's some limitation due to history or realism. With magic, there may be a lot of similar conventions, but ultimately it can be whatever you want it to be.

I'm really drawn to stories about witches, and I think that they're the perfect example of magic being able to be whatever you want it to be. Every witch story you read has differences in the witch's magic. Sure, there are some common ideas, but it's all still a little different. Some witch's use earth magic, some use spells, some make potions. Some channel the magic through wands while others draw it through ley lines. It's all different and very individualized.

Mostly, I think that the possibility of magic is inspiring, especially in crazy times like this. Fairy magic is also a favorite of mine. Take Peter Pan (find the review here), for example, which is fitting that I'm watching Hook one of my all-time favorite movies. Fairies are born from a baby's first giggle, and when Tinkerbell falls ill, the cure is believing in fairies. In magic, anything is possible, and I think that believing in something even if it seems silly is just what we need right now. 

What's your favorite genre and what do you like most about it? Answer below in the comments! Have something book-related you'd like me to talk about? Let me know that too!

Discussion: What themes are you drawn to?

Discussion:

As I mentioned in my last post on The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes (find it here) the character of Desidora gave me an idea for a blog post. It worked out and also coordinates with a reader suggestion for discussions. I'm wondering if there are specific themes within stories or characters that you are drawn to?

I've realized over the years that I'm really drawn to death-related themes and characters. I have no idea why this is. It's not really a new thing for me. Even as a young kid I was drawn to the more morbid things. Growing up I wanted to be Lydia from Beetlejuice (my favorite movie, by the way.) My mom would jokingly call me Wednesday Addams when I got especially morbid. There's even a show with two seasons and a movie that I got obsessed with called Dead Like Me it has Mandy Patinkin (Princess Bride, Criminal Minds) and Ellen Muth who star as Grim Reapers.

I thought that I'd give some examples of books and characters that I've been drawn to, starting with Desidora from the Palace Job. Now let me start by saying that while she was my favorite, she was definitely not the main character of the story. What interested me about Desidora is that she began as a Priestess for the book's God/Goddess of love where she did matchmaking. She was then pulled to become the god of Death. Throughout her scenes in the book, there's a constant struggle between her two personas. On the note of serving Death Gods, one of my favorite books is Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers where the main character is a nun within a convent that serves the books God of Death. I may have to reread this one sometime.

Another Death Character I've been drawn to is Terry Pratchett's character Death in the Disc World series. If you aren't familiar with Disc World, there are about 40 or more books, and there's really no specific reading order. You can read them chronologically or by a list of themes/ characters, one of them being Death. I've read the books involving Death out of order, and I'm most drawn to him in The Hogfather. I don't think I have a blog post for any of these books to link to, but the general idea is that Hogswatch is the Disc World's version of Christmas, and the Hogfather is their version of Santa Claus. The Hogfather has gone missing, and it's up to Death to take up the robes and save Hogswatch. It's highly entertaining.

If you've been reading my posts recently, you'll know I've gotten completely addicted to a series by Neal Shusterman. The series starts with Scythe and is a futuristic Science Fiction where we've conquered death and illness with science and the creation of the Thunderhead. However, for population control deaths still need to happen, and an elite organization called the Scythedom is in charge of "gleaning" the population. The Scythes are supposed to be above corruption and uphold a specific code of honor.

Going further back, there were two series that I really got into that involved two female characters as grim reapers. The first being Death has a Daughter by Candice Burnett. You can check of my review of the second book in the series, Death's Dilemma, here. In this series, Cendal is the first female Grim Reaper and must deal with all that comes with that prestige. There's also a series that starts with Graveyard Shift and is by Angela Roquet. In Graveyard Shift we follow Lana Harvey who is a subpar Grim Reaper in Limbo City, which is a modern collective of all of the afterlives. This one is a humorous paranormal novel that features a lot of different paranormal characters.

I'm not really sure what it is about Characters centered around death themes that grabs my attention so much. I think in a lot of the instances I've mentioned here it's the fact that they are often something more than just an agent of death (or death themselves). Or maybe I'm just a morbid little freak. I don't really deny that one, to be honest.  I'd love to hear what themes or characters you are drawn to in books in the comments below. If you have topics of discussions, you'd like to see me tackle feel free to let me know! I've got a list going that I'm going to try and get through in 2019.

Discussion: 5 Bookish Questions!

Hey, Hey readers! I thought it was long past time to do a discussion post. I think this is going to be a really fun one, and I hope you'll all join in on the fun in the comment section or on the facebook page at LinzTheBookworm.

I'm trying to get better at posting more frequently, and a while back a friend gave some suggestions for discussion topics she'd like to see on the blog. Another friend sent me a few different links to ideas as well. While I was going through them I realized that I probably couldn't do a full post for a lot of them, so I thought I'd do a 5 bookish questions thing.

5 Bookish Questions:

1.) What are your favorite kinds of books you like to read during certain seasons/moods and why? (Requested by a lovely reader, Danielle. Hi!!!) 

• This is an interesting question for me because I don't really change my book tastes with the seasons and moods. My selection of what to read is entirely random at best. I do have some reading trends, but it's more based on what I've already finished reading. I tend to binge read series a lot. I'll think about a character like they're an old friend, wonder how they're doing and what they're up to and pick up where I left off in the series. I'll end up finishing the book and immediately go into the next book in the series because I feel like I need to stay on this adventure with them. I'll do this for a few books and then move on to something else. I will say if I start getting stuck in one genre for too long I'll find myself needing a break. Which is why you'll see a run of urban fantasy type things and then random historical fiction books. 

2.) What do you think makes a compelling romance in a book? (acquired from the list posted here on pages unbound.)

• For me, I think a lot of it's the flaws in the romance being depicted and how deep the relationship actually is. I guess I want it to seem realistic. If the book's central love is primarily based on how attractive someone is and all of the good I'm going to give myself a migraine from how much I roll my eyes into the back of my skull. I want it to be gritty and ugly, and some days it's a struggle to like the other person kind of relationship. I'm actually reminded of the Velveteen Rabit by Margery Williams, and I honestly think it explains what I find most compelling for romances in books. The husband person and I actually had this bit from the book read at our wedding, so it's extremely important to me. “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time.  That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But those things don’t matter at all because once you are real you can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand.”  
• TL;DR realistic ugliness that comes with relationships.

3.) What are some of your bookish pet peeves? (Also from Pages Unbound, see above for the link.) 

• Part of my peeves was mentioned in the above question, actually. If a good chunk of a person's feelings for someone in a book is about their attractiveness and I'm hearing how they're so gorgeous someone is every 3rd sentence I'll eventually just get irate. 
• An extensive vocabulary that's entirely out of place and has shitty context. Yippie Skippy for you. You found a Thesaurus. 
• Books that actually don't need to be a series. It's completely okay to have a single book. Not everything needs to be a 15 book series. 
• Series numbers are not on the books for all series. For the love of everything sane tell me on the dang cover what order in the series it is. My craptastic phone hardly ever works in stores. I don't have the time, energy, or patience to try and pull up a list of the series in a bookstore while I'm shopping.

4.) Do you read nonfiction? Why or why not? (Also from Pages Unbound, see above for the link.)

• I very rarely read nonfiction. It's not something that I am usually drawn to. A good chunk of why I read the things I do is to escape- be it a stressful day, anxiety, or whatever else. I feel like reading nonfiction would defeat this purpose for me. .Nonfiction tends to make me think of educational reading, and as a full-time student, I don't even want to read the textbooks I'm required to read, let alone pick one up for funsies. 

5.)  What book did you receive as a gift that is really special to you? (Also from Pages Unbound, see above for the link.) 

• I have two answers for this. The first is my set of Harry Potter books. My Mother-in-law is a Pre-school teacher and runs the Scholastic Books thing where she works. She had enough points to get this gorgeous set of all of the HP books, brand new, in a Hogwarts trunk. I actually refuse to read the books because this set is pristine. If I want to reread the HP series, I'll pull them up on Kindle, but those beauties they're staying in the trunk on display. Not only is it a really cool set, but it really means a lot to me that she used her points to get me the set. 
• A few years ago, the husband face got me two really gorgeous book editions. One is Wicked and Son of a Witch, the other is Alice in Wonderland. They're large leather (or fake leather, not sure) bound books with gorgeous details. Not only are they pretty but I love anything to do with Wizard of Oz and also Alice in Wonderland. And of course, the Hubs picked them out. 
• I was going to post pictures of both the trunk and the two leather bound books, but I'm lazy and don't want to get out from under my blankets. Using your imagination is good for you anyways.

So, there's my answer to 5 random bookish questions. This was kind of fun, and I still have a decent list of items from different blogs so I may make a few posts like this. I would love to read some answers below, so feel free to comment! If you have any questions or bookish topics you'd like to see me discuss let me know! I'm always open to suggestions, and if there's something you suggest it helps me get more posts out. 

Book Review: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Goodreads Summary: It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?
Goodreads Rating: 3.79 stars with over 186,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Fantasy, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Paranormal
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Good Reads Challenge: 10/30
2018 Reading Challenge: #27, The first in a series you've wanted to start. Find the reading challenge here
Book Haul: Canadian Book Haul
My Other reviews of the Author: Lair of Dreams

Review:

I have wanted to read A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray for so long. It's been on my shelf for about a year, and I'm not sure why it took me so long to pick it up. This is yet another one of her books that I could not put down. It was painful for me to not be able to read it whenever I wanted. Stupid grown-up responsibilities. About half-way through the book, I went ahead and ordered the other two books in the trilogy. The only reason I am not currently upset about having to wait to read the second book is that I started the second Outlander book.
I've already started recommending this book to others long before I finished it. The best and quickest way I can describe A Great and Terrible Beauty is "The Craft meets the Victorian era." Some of the similarities include four unlikely friends who either seek power/ have power. At some point, they use the magic on some of their tormentors. Said power goes to their head. I love the movie The Craft, and I love anything about the Victorian era, so this is a total win-win for me.
I really enjoy the wit and sarcasm in this story. It keeps it exciting and a little cheeky.  An example of this is on page 145, where the girls are reading a mysterious diary that Gemma found.
Felicity stops. "Oh, honestly, this is the worst attempt at a gothic novel I've ever read. all we're missing are creaking castle floors and a heroine in danger of losing her virtue." 
Pippa sits up giggling."Let's read on and find out if they do lose their virtue!" 

This line made me giggle a lot, and I took a picture of it and shared it with a couple of people so they could chuckle as well. The book is filled with lines like that, and it's not from just one character. I think a good chunk of the characters shows some humor like that.

I really adore Gemma as the main character. I thought that she showed a lot of depth and growth. She started out as a spoiled brat and quickly got slapped with reality when her mom died. Honestly, I can relate to that on an intensely personal level. My heart hurt while reading this because it made me think of losing my own mother and my journey with and without her. Aside from the whole special powers thing, she's probably one of the more relatable characters for me personally.

The fact that each of the girls had their own personalities was interesting. I feel like in a lot of books the leading group of friends' characters can get lost. In a Great and Terrible Beauty even though the main four friends were about as different as can be, they still shared a lot. They each had their own secrets, strengths, and insecurities. I was shocked that by the end it felt like they had grown into real friends, even though that is definitely not how it started.
I really don't have anything critical to say regarding this book. I loved it and couldn't get enough of it. Since I'm trying to do discussion questions with each post now, I'm going to use some of the ones in the back of the book. I'm doing this partly because I think they are great questions, but primarily because I'm sluggish and need to do some homework.

Discussion Questions:

1.) The Realms are a place where anything seems possible. Each of the four girls wants one thing above all else: Felicity desires power, Pippa seeks love, Ann wants beauty, and Gemma craves self-knowledge. Does any of the characters achieve her goal by the end of the story? Why or Why not? What would you want?
A.) I would definitely say that Pippa and Gemma get what they want, though not in the way they expect it. I think that Gemma finds out who she is and the events that have led up to her becoming that person by speaking with her mother. Sadly and painfully, Pippa does find love. I think by doing that she was able to make her own choice for the first time in her life, however sad that decision is. I'm trying to think of how Felicity and Ann achieved their goals outside of the realm, but I'm struggling.
I think that I would want success, it's not something I really feel I've achieved as of yet. 

2.) Gemma says of Felicity, "I don't know what power feels like. But this is surely what it looks like, and I think I'm beginning to understand why those ancient women had to hide in caves. Why our parents and teachers and suitors want us to behave properly and predictably. It's not that they want to protect us; it's that they fear us" (p. 207). What kind of power is Gemma talking about? What is it that she thinks the parents and teachers and suitors fear?
A.) I think that she's speaking of being brave and fearless, and given the time, perhaps even it's the fear of a woman being headstrong and able to think for herself. Which on this note, I'm amending what I said in my previous answer of not being sure of when Felicity gained power. Because in this sense, she definitely had it and it'd be a terrifying thing for a woman to have in the 1800s when this book takes place.

3.) "It's a dream, only a dream," Gemma thinks of her sexually charged encounter with Kartik (p. 219). Why do you think Gemma stops the fantasy when she does? Why do you think the author chose to make this scene a dream rather than a reality? Do you believe this makes Gemma's experience any less "real" to her?
A.) I think that this being shown as a dream instead of reality hints towards Gemma being young and naive. Gemma lives in a time where girls are to remain "pure" until they are married. To show it otherwise would make it taboo for the time period that A Great and Terrible Beauty is set in. By making it a dream, it gives Gemma a sense of curiosity about sexual encounters but doesn't ruin her in Victorian Society's point of view.