2020 O.W.L.s TBR

Hi, bookworms! This has been a... rough few weeks. As someone who struggles with an anxiety disorder, I've been having a difficult time trying to find things to keep my mind occupied while also not being able to focus on anything. I've seen this read-a-thon around before but never wanted to participate. Now it feels like just the thing I need to get excited about! For those that don't know much about this challenge, you can find all the information on the website here. I love that you can choose what magical career you want to have! Once you choose your career, you'll see which O.W.L.s you have to pass. Then you can find...

Weekly Recap: 3/22 - 3/28

HAPPENINGS OFF THE BLOG Hi everyone! Well, things have changed a lot since my last recap, haven't they? For starters, I've barely been around the blog. Things have been overwhelming so I've just been trying to focus on keeping myself cool, calm, and collected. First things first, Kovu went to see his specialist this week and was promptly hospitalized again. Not at all what we were expecting, but after many tests we did finally get a diagnosis of a liver shunt. It sounds scary, but it can be fixed with surgery! He meets his surgeon this week and then hopefully a week after that he'll have his surgery. You guys please keep your...

All this free time and nothing to do

Hi, everyone! I've almost started this post more than once over the last few days but I'm never quite sure where to go. As we're all very aware, the world is a bit nuts at the moment. I'm staying home except for to take my dog to his appointments, which he can't miss - we're trying to find out why he's always so ill. I've spent the last several days playing video games (Animal Crossing, anyone?), watching Netflix (sort of), finding things to clean, and not quite reading. Something interesting that I've found about this new situation we've found ourselves in is that I've had a very hard time finding ways to fill my time. Although I'm already...

Top Ten Tuesday #276: Spring TBR

Today's Topic:  Spring 2020 TBR Happy Tuesday! This week is one of my favorite, easiest topics: a TBR list. I have to say, it took me a bit longer to find ten I was really excited for this time around. I'm not sure why, but spring feels a bit slower this year. Still, there are quite a few great books coming out and MORE THAN ONE is dystopia!  A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown Agnes at the End of the World by Kelly McWilliams The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant The Dark Tide by Alicia Jasinska The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty The...

Top Ten Tuesday #275: Favorite authors on social media

Today's Topic:  My Favorite Authors To Stalk On Twitter Happy Tuesday! I am so excited about this week's topic because over the years I have become officially obsessed with Twitter and my favorite thing is following authors who are genuinely great people. These are ten of my favorite accounts to follow in no particular order! Some standouts are Rosamund Hodge, who not only wrote some of my favorite books, but also convinced me to watch I Am Dragon, and Kiersten White, whose daily adventures are endlessly entertaining! Jay Kristoff | Sabaa Tahir | Briann R. Shrum S. Usher Evans | Rosamund Hodge | Leigh...

Weekly Recap: 3/1 - 3/7

HAPPENINGS OFF THE BLOG Hi everyone! I HAVE GOOD NEWS! Well, good(ish)? Kovu seems to be very much on the mend. He went to see his regular vet on Thursday for follow up blood work and x-rays. The x-rays showed a lot of improvement in his lungs and the blood work showed that, while his white blood cell count is still high, it is definitely responding to treatment. He is still anemic, which we'll have to recheck. For now he has two more weeks of antibiotics and he's been eating and playing and yay!! I'm so relieved and sincerely hoping nothing else goes wrong. Not much else has happened in our boring lives this week. We've been...

2020 Retellings Challenge First Quarter Update

Happy March, bookworms! Welcome to the first quarter update and link-up of the 2020 Retellings Reading Challenge! I hope you've all made some great progress and read some amazing retellings so far this year! As a reminder, this challenge is still open to join! To get started, I'll share my progress for this quarter: WHAT I'VE READ    This quarter I didn't get a ton of reading done, but I did find some incredible retellings! Blood Heir is a retelling of Anastasia and, while its first ARC did come with some controversy, I thought the end result was really good. Echo North, a retelling of East of the Sun and West of the Moon,...

Book Review: Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer

Title: Echo North Author: Joanna Ruth Meyer Publication Date: January 15, 2019Publisher: Page Street Publishing Co.Pages: 389 Add to Goodreads Echo Alkaev’s safe and carefully structured world falls apart when her father leaves for the city and mysteriously disappears. Believing he is lost forever, Echo is shocked to find him half-frozen in the winter forest six months later, guarded by a strange talking wolf—the same creature who attacked her as a child. The wolf presents Echo with an ultimatum: If she lives with him for one year, he will ensure her father makes it home safely. But there is more to the wolf...

Top Ten Tuesday #274: Single word titles

Today's Topic:  Five Star Books With Single-Word Titles Happy Tuesday! This week I chose my top ten five star reads with single word titles! Not surprisingly they're almost all fantasy and several are retellings! I almost feel like some of these are cheating since they're clearly two words combined into one, but I'm fine with that! XD   Angelfall by Susan Ee Caraval by Stephanie Garber Cinder by Marissa Meyer Dry by Neal Shusterman & Jarrod Shusterman Everless by Sara Holland Heartless by Marissa Meyer Nevermore by Kelly Creagh Splintered by A.G. Howard Stain by A.G. Howard Wintersong...

I tried ordering from used bookstores. Here's how it went!

In the last few years I have made an attempt to buy books from places other than Amazon for obvious reasons. I've tried making more trips to local bookstores. Unfortunately, my local options are Books a Million and a used paperback store that only seems to sell books from the 90s. Of course, I've often bought from sellers on eBay and Amazon Marketplace, but I'd heard good things about World of Books and Thriftbooks and decided to give them a shot. ATTEMPT #1 Title: The Gathering Dark Store: World of Books USA Condition: Very Good As you can clearly see, this was NOT a book in Very Good condition. The spine was broken in too many...

Weekly Recap: 2/23 - 2/29

HAPPENINGS OFF THE BLOG Hi everyone! Well, I'm here to report that this week was no less hectic than the last several. On Monday Kovu was acting weird (for him) and that night we ended up going to the ER. When I left at midnight they'd discovered an extremely high white blood cell count but didn't know where the infection was. The next morning they called with the news that he had aspiration pneumonia and would need to stay another night. Now he's back home and seems to be on the mend (KNOCK ON WOOD), but he goes to his normal vet tomorrow for more testing to make sure. So, could I please just get a break? I am exhausted. I feel...