Book Traveling Thursday #3 | January 19th, 2017

Welcome back to another Book Traveling Thursday!! 🙂 This is a weekly bookish meme created and hosted by Danielle @Danielle’s Book Blog and Cátia @The Girl Who Read Too Much. It is loads of fun finding book fitting the topic and if you would like to try it out you can find the topics as well as some general information in this Goodreads group! 😄

This week’s topic is A book set in another world and I actually thought this topic would be an easy one when I read it, but while actively looking for a book to use I realized that most of the books I read play in a version of our normal world and that obviously doesn’t count as a different world. But in the end I did find a book that has at least one other world in it! That book being Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini!

Synopsis of Trial by Fire

This world is trying to kill Lily Proctor. Her life-threatening allergies make it increasingly difficult to live a normal life, and after a completely humiliating incident ruins her first (and perhaps only) real party, she’s ready to disappear.

“Come and be the most powerful person in the world.”
Suddenly, Lily finds herself in a different Salem. One overrun with horrifying creatures and ruled by powerful women–including Lillian, this world’s version of Lily.

“It will be terrifying. It was for me.”
What made Lily weak at home, makes her extraordinary here. It also puts her in terrible danger. Faced with new responsibilities she can barely understand and a love she never expected, Lily is left with one question: How can she be the savior of this world when she is literally her own worst enemy?

Original Cover:

So at least I think this is the original cover but I am not 100 % sure. While I do think this cover fits the story it is also a little too depressive for me… I feel like with this cover you just think of the negative sides of the story because it is all so dark and grey.

(Hardcover by Feiwel & Friends, 374 pages)

Cover from my country (Germany):

I actually like both these German covers. The first one is just a pretty, well designed cover, but if I didn’t knew that it was Trial by Fire I wouldn’t have recognized it. The second one I love so much as you will see below. It is the exact same as an American version which I am grateful for!

(Hardcover by Dressler, 480 pages)

(Paperback by Oetinger Taschenbuch)

Favorite covers:

This cover I think has a wonderful color scheme and the design in the background wonderfully represents the different worlds that exist in this series! Also I like the castle on the bottom as well as the fire present there.

(Paperback by Square Fish, 400 pages)

At first this seems like a pretty average and usual cover so I am not even gonna say anything about why it’s awesome, I am just going to show y’all!

(Paperback by McMillan’s Children Books, 373 pages)

Mini-Review Until Ashlyn (Until Her #3) by Aurora Rose Reynolds

Short description:

Dillon Keck knew Ashlyn Mayson was drunk when she suggested they get married. He knew he should have taken her back to their hotel room and put her to bed. Instead, he did what he had been craving to do since the moment they met.

Claim her as his.

Waking up married in Vegas isn’t something Ashlyn Mayson ever thought would happen to her. Having Dillon, her boss, a man she thinks is a dick, insist they stay married is absurd, but every time he touches her, she gets lost in him and wonders if maybe they are meant to be together.

But someone isn’t happy for Dillon and Ashlyn and their new found romance, and they’re willing to do anything to keep them apart. Even commit murder.

(Synopsis from Goodreads)

Find this book on Amazon.com  | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de

What’s it about?

First off some main info:

Author: Aurora Rose Reynolds

Title: Until Ashlyn

Published: December 27th, 2016

Series: Until Her #3

Version: Kindle Edition

Would I recommend it: Sort of as an in-
between book

Rating: 3 Stars

My Opinion:

Sadly I have to say that I did not enjoy reading this book as much as I wanted too. It had some quite good parts but also some that I didn’t like, I guess they just weren’t for me.

Let’s start with what I started with. On Goodreads I read that there would be some accidental marrying in Vegas and I was sold. Add the whole boss thingy – then even more! The premise of the story sounded like it would be a great, fun, enjoyable read, which I like to think I had reasonable expectations for. But, as you can see in the first sentence: I was disappointed. As I said, I liked the idea of the story quite a lot, as well as the actual plot that I found in the book, but what I didn’t like about that was the pacing. I think that the different plot points had a kind-of awkward pacing and also the depth of various plot points, to me, wasn’t chosen too well. I just wished that maybe the author could have payed a little more attention to certain parts of her story instead of just skipping over everything. Another thing that bothered we were the jumps in the plot. Sometimes I couldn’t even understand what was happening and it caused me a lot of confusion. The writing style I found mostly good, except for the already mentioned aspects. One last thing I disliked a little was the female leads family constellation. Honestly, I just didn’t get it!! It felt like every chapter there was another character introduced and at some point I just couldn’t keep up anymore and I have to say that I didn’t care enough to go back several pages just to find some kind of explanation for their appearance. I did like the little crime element a lot and this was really something I wished would’ve gotten more attention, because the parts that she did write on that aspect were absolutely great!

Now let’s move on to the characters. I don’t really know what to tell you guys… There was really little depth to these characters, so that I already barely remember anything about them. Please remember that this is just how I felt and I don’t want to offend anyone! You might feel completely different about it! The female lead Ashlyn seemed like quite a nice girl, she was kind, friendly, and a good person but I really can’t say more about her. Same goes with Dillon. All I know about him is that he is bossy, possessive, but also loving. All in all his character was a little too much to me, at times he was alright and then suddenly it felt like he was suffocating Ashlyn who JUST GAVE IN! She was portrayed as a stereotypical submissive who just does what her “man” tells her to and I just didn’t like that… I also can’t understand why she would stay with him!!

 

So this is my opinion about this book. I am sorry I kept it so short and that it might suck, but in my defense I haven’t written a review in a few months! 😉 Thank you guys fo reading and happy sunday!

Book Traveling Thursday #2 | January 12th 2017

Hello and welcome back to my blog! 😁 It is time for another Book Traveling Thrusday, which is a weekly meme where choose a book fitting the topic. This meme has been created and is hosted by Catia and Danielle and you can find more information, as well as topics in this Goodreads group. Please check out this meme, I find it really interesting and I think it’s a lot of fun finding fitting books! 😊

The topic this week is The First Book I have read in 2017 – so it’s a no-brainer! The book I chose is Under the Lights (Field Party #2) by Abbi Glines and it sadly doesn’t have a lot of covers so there aren’t gonna be a lot of different options.

Original Cover:

I like this cover just fine. It has nice lighting, colors, and the image represents the setting of the story quite well. I love the font used here it reminds me of my High School year in the US, so that’s great. 😉

(Kindle Edition by Simon & Schuster UK, 320 pages)

Cover from my country (Germany):

This German cover I like a lot. Which is surprising as usually I hate German covers since they kinda always mess beautiful covers up. This is such a typical German YA cover and usually I don’t like those but I am fine with this one. I like the color scheme even though the cover overall doesn’t really fit the story.

(Paperback by Piper Taschenbuch, 368 pages)

Least Favorite Cover:

I actually do not have a lest favorite cover her. The third cover that exists is just a version of the original cover with a slightly different lighting.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!! ❤

Top 5 Wednesday – 2017 Debuts I’m looking forward to

Happy Wednesday y’all!! It’s time for my first Top 5 Wednesday in 2017. For all of you who don’t know it, Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Sam @ Thoughts on Tomes, where you get a weekly topic that you have to find 5 books to match. If you’d like to give T5W a try or want to get more information, just check out their Goodreads group! This meme is a bunch of fun so just try it! 😉😁

This week’s topic is Debuts you’re looking forward to in 2017! This one is kind of hard for me since I am not really ever in the loop with anything – therefore not with bookish stuff either – but I’d love to inform everyone about some debut authors 😊 I used this Goodreads list as “research” so  if you want to find some more just go ahead and look there!

The Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles

This one I actually found out about myself – Yay, me! – on NetGalley and found it very interesting, so I am extremely excited to check this book out!

The rest of these books I all found interesting because of their synopsis on Goodreads, so I am not going to write a separate specific reason for the following.

Girl out of Water by Laura Silverman

You’re welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner 

The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz

Caraval (Caraval #1) by Stephanie Garber

Are you excited for any of the books? Which ones are you most excited for?

My 2017 Young Adult Reading Challenge

Let me just start this of by saying that I am not a good social person. I suck at anything including contact with other people. I don’t have a reason why, I try my best, but whatever. Well, to get to the point, I have been seeing all these other bloggers talk about their reading challenges and I never really knew how to be part of one, except for the Goodreads Reading Challenge of course 😅

Well this year I finally gonna do another reading challenge: The A – Z Young Adult Reading Challenge!! For this challenge you just have to find a young adult book for each letter of the alphabet and you may also choose adult books, if there are still more than 50% YA books. You can find out more about the challenge on Goodreads!

So today I just want to tell y’all my plan for this challenge so far. These are a few books I definitely want to read and the rest I still have to fill in. I am totally open for recommendations!

• A – Animal Farm by George Orwell

• B –

• C – A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

• D – 

• E –

• F – Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh

• G – The Gatlon School for Vigilantes by Marissa Meyer

• H – Heartless by Marissa Meyer

• I – It ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

• J – Witch’s Pyre by Josephine Angelini

• K – Illuminae by Aimee Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

• L – Invaded by Melissa Landers

• M – Winter by Marissa Meyer 

• N –

• O – The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane 

• P –

• Q –

• R – Replica by Lauren Oliver

• S – This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

• T – These Broken Stars by Aimee Kaufman & Megan Spooner

• U –

• V – Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter

• W – Wires and Nerve by Marissa Meyer

• X –

• Y –

• Z – 

I know there are still a lot of gaps, but I hope to fill them soon and maybe y’all could help me with that! 😉

Thank y’all for reading and have a great week! ❤

Have you read or are you planning on reading any of these books? What reading challenges are you participating in? Do you have any recommendations for my list?

Wraping Up 2016!

Well that’s it everyone! 2016 is finally over! Honestly I have to say that I am not sad at all to let 2016 go and I am hoping for a better 2017! 2016 basically had everything: (horrible) political decisions, the death of many beloved celebrities, we had terror attacks and natural catastrophes… All in all this year’s had its highs and lows but I have to admit that I think the lows predominate a little.

In my personal life there were a lot of ups and downs as well which I am still trying to deal with. So two of my biggest highlights of 2016 were

• me turning 18 in September! Now I can finally vote this year and am free to do whatever I want!
• starting this blog! I know it might not seem that way since I often don’t post for a while but I love this blog! And even more than that I love the community and every single one of you guys reading ❤

Concerning this blog there is also something I am very proud of. I was brave enough to post a poem on this blog for the first time! I am really shy and don’t have much confidence so posting this was a milestone to me!

Now on to the bad things. I have advanced into my second to last year of school in Germany which already counts into my Abitur (graduation in Germany) and is part of the qualification phase. The idea of how much I should work for school stresses me a lot and combined with the way my brain was already thinking I have kind of slipped into anxiety – which sucks… That is also the reason for me not posting for so long, but I am trying really hard to get my life in order so I can post regularly again! Let’s hope for the best y’all!

But let’s get back to the fun part! 😊 Since I haven’t posted in quite a while there are a lot of books that I haven’t talked about on here, so I’m just gonna go ahead and tell y’all which books I have read since my September Wrap-Up!

5 Stars:

A Veil of Vines by Tillie Cole – This is one of my favorite authors and the book is just absolutely beautiful! It isn’t about heartbreak; it isn’t sad; it’s just a beautiful book about love in a beautiful setting!

Midnight Hour by C.C. Hunter – As above this is one of my favorite authors and her Shadow Falls series is terrific and this book is the perfect conclusion for it!

Lucas (Preston Brothers #1) by Jay McLean – I have been waiting for a series about the Preston brothers since I learned about them in the More Than series. I fell in love with Lucas almost immediately and all the characters are amazing (by that I mean well written, not good people 😉)

Fire in You (Wait for you #5) by J. Lynn – Again: Favorite author, great series, wonderful sequel. There’s really not much more to say than: It’s a great book!

4 Stars:

The Mistake (Off-Campus #2) by Elle Kennedy 

The Goal (Off-Campus #4) by Elle Kennedy 

Dream of You (Wait for you #4.5) by J. Lynn 

Scoring Wilder by R.S. Grey 

A Love like Ours by Micalea Smeltzer 

3 Stars & 3.5 Stars:

Rock Candy Kisses (3:AM Kisses) by Addison Moore

Chaosherz (Die Chaos Reihe #2) by Teresa Sporrer

Him (Him #1) by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

Four Letter Word (Dirty Deeds #1) by J. Daniels

Dirty Shots by Marissa Farrar

The Score (Off-Campus #3) by Elle Kennedy

2 Stars:

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer – About this one I just want to say that it has a great story and meaning but I did not like the writing style at all as it is a prolonged newspaper article, and that is just not my style. But other than that it is a great and meaningful piece.

Books I didn’t finish:

Hit The Spot (Dirty Deeds #2) by J. Daniels  

Aced by Ella Frank and Brooke Blaine 

 

So this was a little something about my 2016 and y’all should be up-to-date now again! 😉👍🏼 Thank you guys for reading and again: Good Luck for 2017!!

How was your 2016? Did y’all read these books? What did y’all think about them?

❤

Book Traveling Thursdays #1 | January 5th 2017

Hi you guys! Happy New Year! I hope y’all had a good 2016 and good luck for 2017!

Today it’s time for a Book Traveling Thursday! This week’s topic is A book you’d like to read again for the first time and I am really excited for this one! Book Traveling Thursday is a weekly meme created and hosted by Danielle and Catia, so go and check out their blogs and their Book Traveling Thursdays! If you want to participate in this wonderful meme as well just check out the Goodreads group where everything about the meme is explained. I hope you’ll try this meme and have fun with it! 👍🏼

For this topic I chose the first book in the Shadow Falls Camp series: Born at Midnight by C. C. Hunter. This series is one of my favorite book series ever! It really is amazing and since it has ended recently I just wish I could relive all the wonderful moments in this series! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love rereading the series and do it all the time but I think we can all agree that it’s not the same 😅

Original Cover:

I really like the original cover of this story a lot. I like that it seems kinda mysterious with the fog and trees and I think it’s good that they basically immediately introduce the main character on the cover. I don’t like the color of the title too much, but all in all I quite like this cover.

(Paperback by St. Martin’s Griffin, 398 pages)

Cover from my country (Germany):

FINALLY GERMANY DIDN’T MESS UP A BOOK COVER!! Seriously guys, in almost every Book Traveling Thursday I see Germany amongst the worst covers and, sadly, I have to agree! But this time I actually like the German cover even more than the original. It just seems more refined and the color scheme is a tad bit lighter, which I like a lot!

(Paperback by Fischer FJB, 512 pages)

Least Favorite Covers:

Russian                              Hungarian                               Czech

I really dislike these covers. I think they either don’t match the theme of the book or have a wrong color scheme. The Czech one I like the least as it makes it seem as if the book is all about vampires, which it’s not…. Compared to those I guess I’m lucky with our German versions of book covers 😅

(Hardcover by Эксмо, 416 pages)

(Paperback by Könyvmolyképző, 440 pages)

(Hardcover by Baronet, 400 pages)

I hope y’all enjoyed this post and I hope I’ll be able to post more from now on! I sure enjoyed writing this post as I missed having this blog so so much!! Thank y’all for your support and I can’t wait to see how everything’s gonna go from now on! ❤

What did y’all think of these covers? Do you know this book and if yes, did you like it?

A Poem

thin like the air she’s falling through

a faint glow’s coming of her porcelain skin

her blue veins are shimmering

through what was once so strong

a barrier to save her

from harm and

from shame and

from hate and

what else?

now the last barrier is gone

she can’t fight it anymore

the pressure was just too much

from the others

the people

who brought her

down!

who never noticed what lies

beneath the surface inside of her

the self SELF-DESTRUCT button

warded by demons that talk her

down!

now the last glow is gone

her aura’s no more

she lost her fight

and then

t h e   g r o u n d

there she lies broken and alone

without any life left

written December 16th, 2015

Beauty and The Beast | Book Tag |

Today it’s time for another Tag y’all! I was tagged to do the Beauty and The Beast Tag by Gretchen @ ChicNerdReads! Thank you Gretchen!! ☺ Please check out Gretchen’s blog, I am a big fan, especially of the poetry she writes! I know people are probably bored by me saying this all the time but …. I do not care at all, her poetry goes straight to the heart!!

 

1. “TALE AS OLD AS TIME” – A POPULAR THEME, TROPE OR SETTING YOU WILL NEVER GET BORED OF READING.

For one I totally agree with Gretchen on the Bad Boy Trope, but I also love “Girl/Boy falls for Best Friends older Brother” situations! I’m a sucker for those books and I don’t think I’ve ever come across one that I didn’t like!!

2. BELLE – A BOOK YOU BOUGHT FOR IT’S BEAUTIFUL COVER THAT’S JUST AS BEAUTIFUL INSIDE TOO

Oh goodness… Usually I do not buy books solely based on their appearance but one I mainly bought for its cover was – I think – Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi, maybe… Of course I liked the Synopsis as well but when I bought the book I found it’s cover really cool and pretty!

3. BEAST – A BOOK YOU DIDN’T EXPECT MUCH FROM BUT PLEASANTLY SURPRISED YOU.

I honestly think that one might’ve been Cinder by Marissa Meyer! I think y’all know by now that this is one of my favorite series, but when I picked it up I thought that I might not like it as it’s Sci-Fi but…. we all know how that turned out 😉😁 The book is absolutely incredible and you can check my review out here!

4. GASTON – A BOOK EVERYONE LOVES THAT YOU DON’T

You know…. I don’t think I have one of those. I usually don’t read the books that are currently “in” because my reading plans are always all over the place 😅 The only one I could mention here is After by Anna Todd but since a lot of people hate this one as well I gotta stick with not having an answer for this question 😅

 5. LEFOU – A LOYAL SIDEKICK YOU CAN’T HELP BUT LOVE MORE THAN THEIR COUNTER PART.

BAMBI FROM THE DARK ELEMENTS!!! I mean Bambi is basically just a demon snake that can turn into a human – she’s a familiar – but I loved her so so much!! I wouldn’t necessarily say I loved her more than the two leads, but I liked her at least just as much…..which is a lot!! 😅 She’s this sassy tattoo/animal/human that brings across so much emotion, irony, and fun without saying a word – for most of the time at least – and her eating a whole person (or a few) helps with liking her a lot as well 😅

(Art Credit: Maria Trepalina)

 6. MRS POTTS, CHIP, LUMIER & COGSWORTH – A BOOK THAT HELPED YOU THROUGH A DIFFICULT TIME OR THAT TAUGHT YOU SOMETHING VALUABLE

Usually books don’t help me through difficult times as I am the type who uses music for that, therefore I don’t have a book for that aspect. I do have a book that taught me something valuable though! Sweet Soul by Tillie Cole! The Female lead in this book is strongly hearing impaired and since she couldn’t afford a proper hearing aid her speaking abilities have suffered as well. Due to that she was bullied a lot which led to horrible things and history will repeat itself…..

I feel like I am not a judgmental  person at all, and “actively” I am not. I would never just go ahead and talk crap about a person without knowing them, but subconsciously I do judge people and I find it horrible!! This book has strengthened my desire to control those subconscious thoughts and keep them from coming out! I personally know how it feels to be judged by people who don’t know you so I found it horribly ashamed when I did it myself! I’m doing a lot better now and I am proud of that!

7. “SOMETHING THERE” – A BOOK OR A SERIES THAT YOU WEREN’T INTO AT FIRST BUT PICKED UP TOWARDS THE END.

Once again I don’t have a concrete example but I think for this one I can go ahead and “judge” 😅 a whole genre…. For me Thrillers are usually pretty slow and in the beginning I’m not really into it but oftentimes that changes after a few murders or psychological torture 😅😉

8. “BE OUR GUEST” – A FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOU’D LOVE TO HAVE OVER FOR DINNER

Winter from Winter (The Lunar Chronicles #4) by Marissa Meyer! I mean come on, she’s a princess therefore has great manners and she is one of the kindest people I have ever read about! And she would probably say the food tasted great even though it was horrible 😅 and then she’d scream at the bleeding walls and I’d freak out – perfect dinner!

I tag:

• Lara @ The Heathen
• Melissa @ Book Nerd Momo
• Brooklyn @ Brooklyn The Bookworm
• Reg @ She Latitude
• Lu @ Girl Who Reads
• Naraja @ Fantastic Books and Where to Find Them

If you have already done this tag feel free to decline, if not I hope you’ll enjoy it!!! 😁

100 Follower Q&A

Hi Y’all, today I’m gonna answer the questions I got after posting my 100 Followers + Q&A post and I am very excited to do so, even though not a lot of people had any questions for me 😅 That makes me even happier about the guys who asked questions though 👍🏼😊  Let’s get right to it!

Questions from Niraja @ Fantastic Books and Where to Find Them

• What’s your favorite part about blogging so far?

Well, honestly I have to say that it’s the community and sharing my opinions on things that are important to me with others who like them as well! I know that’s what everybody always says but it’s completely true! It is why I even started this blog in the first place – to not bother my friends with my love for books anymore and rather tell people who are actually interested in them 😅

• What’s your Harry Potter house?

First off I gotta say that I am not the biggest Harry Potter fan. I like the books and movies a lot, but I am not all up in the fandom. Originally I was gonna say I think I would be that and that house BUT(!!) I decided that I would join Pottermore for this very question! So I went through the sorting ceremony and was sorted into the house I would want to be in……

Ravenclaw

That’s what I call effort you guys!!

Questions from Gretchen @ ChicNerdReads 

• What age did you start reading?

I’m not sure about that anymore but I think around 5 when I was nearing first grade! Maybe already earlier in Kindergarten but if so it would’ve extremely easy books with a lot of pictures and very big writing 😅😉

• What’s a book you would recommend to everyone?!

There are a lot of great books out there but one that I found really deep and great was When We Collided by Emery Lord! (My Review) While I didn’t love everything about everyone in this book I really loved its message and the topics it covered! I think it shows a lot that you cannot judge a person from the outside and even if someone seems weird, rude, or anything else it might not be their fault and they don’t deserve your judgement!! Also it tells people that they have to deal with mental illness instead of ignoring it, which I find incredibly important, as I have my own experiences with mental illness!

 

• Who’s an auto-buy author for you?

Our mutually loved C.C. Hunter of course!!!! Her series Shadow Falls and Shadow Falls After Dark are some of my favorite series and I will literally buy ANYTHING new she’ll put out 😅 I don’t care if it’s about a talking piece of toast – I will read it and I will enjoy the hell out of it!! BTW y’all can find a review of her latest release Midnight Hour here!

 

Questions from Reg @ She Latitude

• What has been the hardest part of blogging for you so far?

The hardest part is what I am currently experiencing. Blogging takes up a lot of time and can become really stressful at times. It takes up time that I currently just don’t have because I have to focus on school and getting good/great grades. That is really hard on me right now and it’s the reason why I’m almost never actively participating in the community anymore and why I haven’t been posting a lot these last few weeks….

• What’s your favorite pizza topping?

I like it pretty simple when it comes to pizza: Just some tomatoes, basil and Mozzarella! And of course I like the basic Pizza Margherita! ❤ 🍕

Thank you guys for reading this post and for asking the questions! Please check out Naraja’s, Gretchen’s , and Reg’s blog – it’s worth it!! They have great content and Gretchen for example is an amazing writer!!

❤