Weekly Recap: 1/24 - 1/30

My Super Exciting Life  This week was, thankfully, mostly uneventful. I walked a few puppies, which was honestly so much fun. If I could walk dogs every day forever and get paid for it, I think I'd be happy. On Monday I headed over to Epcot for the afternoon and had lunch in Paris. After riding a few rides and roaming around the World Showcase I headed back home. I'd be lying if I said I didn't adore living close enough to Disney World to visit for a couple hours at a time! I continued to binge read fantasy books this week, catching up with The Remnant Chronicles. I'm finishing up the third Grisha book now and then I suppose...

So what is dystopia, really?

It has recently come to my attention that either I am really confused about what qualifies as "dystopia" or a lot of other people are. Here's what I think of when I picture dystopian fiction: Each of these books is sci-fi(ish), about people in the future dealing with crazy governments and dire situations, which is the loose definition I had in my mind. But there are so many seemingly random books tagged as dystopia on Goodreads that, as one of the hosts of the 2016 Dystopia Reading Challenge, I felt I had to dig into this a little further. Google defines dystopia as "an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically...

Book Review: The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson

Title: The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles #1) Author: Mary E. Pearson Publication Date: July 8, 2014 Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.  Pages: 489 Add to Goodreads Reviews for book 2 & book 3 Checlie's Review A princess must find her place in a reborn world. She flees on her wedding day. She steals ancient documents from the Chancellor's secret collection. She is pursued by bounty hunters sent by her own father. She is Princess Lia, seventeen, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan. The Kingdom of Morrighan is steeped in tradition and the stories of a bygone world, but some traditions Lia can't abide. Like having...

Waiting on Wednesday #86: Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

Happy Wednesday, fellow book lovers! This week's "can't wait to read" is: Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye Publication Date: March 22, 2016 Reader, I murdered him. A darkly brilliant Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre from the Edgar-nominated author of The Gods of Gotham. Like the heroine of the novel she adores, Jane Steele suffers cruelly at the hands of her aunt and schoolmaster. And like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked - but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors. A fugitive navigating London's underbelly, Jane rights wrongs on behalf of the have-nots whilst avoiding...

Top Ten Tuesday #80: YA fantasies I need to read

Today's Topic:  Top Ten YA Fantasies I REALLY need to read If you stop by my blog often, you may have noticed I've been on kind of a fantasy binge... But there are just SO MANY more out there that I need to read!! Here are the ten I want to get to first!          Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes Graceling by Kristin Cashore The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo          The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen Seraphina by Rachel Hartman Uprooted by Naomi Novik Walk...

Book Review: The House by Christina Lauren

Title: The House Author: Christina Lauren Publication Date: October 6, 2015Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young ReadersPages: 384 Add to Goodreads Gavin tells Delilah he’s hers—completely—but whatever lives inside that house with him disagrees. After seven years tucked away at an East coast boarding school, Delilah Blue returns to her small Kansas hometown to find that not much has changed. Her parents are still uptight and disinterested, her bedroom is exactly the way she left it, and the outcast Gavin Timothy still looks like he’s crawled out of one of her dark, twisted drawings. Delilah is instantly smitten. Gavin has always...

Weekly Recap: 1/17 - 1/23

My Super Exciting Life  Well, this has been an interesting week! I walked some dogs this week and that was super fun! I'm still in training at this new job, but I feel like I'm going to fit in just fine. I get to hang out with dogs! They get me. In other news, I checked out the library (finally)! I was honestly really impressed with the YA selection in the two Orlando branches I visited. That being said... the branches I went to were kind of sketchy. Luckily, I found out the Orlando library delivers to your house!! WHAT?! The only other semi-interesting thing that happened this week was a quick trip to Magic Kingdom on Wednesday....

Smuggler's Bounty Resistance Unboxing

Happy Saturday, fellow book bloggers!! Today I'm doing something a little unusual on the blog and I'm pretty darned excited about it! I am unboxing my first ever Smuggler's Bounty subscription box. If you don't know anything Smuggler's Bounty, it's the official Star Wars subscription box by Funko. Unlike other subscription boxes, this one is only sent every two months. The first box was sent in November and the theme was The First Order. I missed out on that one, but I knew I had to get my hands on the Resistance box! Warning: this post will be picture-heavy! My box arrived on Friday afternoon and I giddily ran to my apartment and had...