This blog turns 1 year old! + An A to Z of me

You heard it right, last week was my first blogging anniversary! I have been blogging for one whole year now guys!! (well technically not a full year, since I took a few months to figure out how everything works before I started posting actively, but you get the point).

One year since a barely-teen decided she could not hold all her thoughts in that overfull mind of hers, stumbled upon wordpress and created a little space of her own, where she could talk all day about the thing she loved most – 📚books📚. (will she stop talking in third person now? Yes, she will.) So that’s how A Bookworm’s Paradise came to life. I had never ever ever dreamed that I would actually get such a wonderful audience like you all, and that I would actually commit myself to my readers like I have. It’s amazing, right? I know I don’t say this very often, but I feel at the top of the world whenever any of you take some time to read and appreciate my content.🥰 It is YOU who have made this journey possible, because I would have quit a long time back had it not been your encouragement.

Okay, that’s enough cheesiness for today (I spoiled the moment, didn’t I? You had just begun getting all puppy eyed). So I was thinking about it the other day, and I realized that most of you don’t know much about me apart from the fact that I am a bookworm (and you just need to see my website’s name to know that much). One year’s a long enough time to get acquainted, but now we should be friends, right? And friends should know little things about each other. That is why, today I will be introducing myself from A to Z, meaning that I will have a word beginning from each letter from A to Z, which describes me, or is a particular favourite or something along similar lines.

This idea is not original, I saw this post over at Asic’s blog and requested their permission to do a similar post. So without any further ado, lets get started!!

My zodiac sign is Aries, and I am what you’d call a typical, hardcore Aries! Competitive, aggressive, bold, will-say-it-to-your-face, impatient, impulsive – that’s me!

Duh. So obviously you know this, but books complete me and make me who I am.

I love chocolate!! Who doesn’t? But dark chocolate is the closest to my heart!!

I often zone out and day dream about the most ridiculous things. Seriously, my train of thought is not one anyone would like to travel by.

Most of you may know this as a faction from the Divergent series, but it is a real word and it means to have or show great knowledge or learning. While I would not like to say that I completely match the definition, I think out of the 5 factions in Divergent, this one would be the best fit for me.

Fire is my element, which is pretty obvious, since I am an Aries and I am so hotheaded and short-tempered. One touch and I ignite…

I think I have mentioned before that I really enjoy learning new languages. While I might be casually teaching myself other languages, German is the one I have been seriously pursuing. Not bragging here, but I gave the Fit 1 exam when I was 11, while the appropriate age for it is 15. And even now, I am learning the A2 level (from a European teacher!) alongside students double my age. So yeah, I like to consider myself kinda fluent in German.

History nerds, raise your hands! *raises both hands* Unpopular opinion among my peers, but I really like history in general. In school we had been studying Indian history for the past 3 years, and while I liked that, this year we have French, German and Russian history and that is so much more interesting! And also, historical fantasy is one of my preferred book genres.

My MBTI is ISTJ, but tbh I did not need that personality test to tell me that I am an introvert. Many of you would find it hard to believe that I have only one IRL friend who is actually a real friend of mine (not a “badminton friend” or “a classmate friend”), and I haven’t talked to even her since almost a year (I have Covid to thank for that). Hence proved that I am terrible at making friends and a completely antisocial person.

I am often very quick to judge people and I am so stubborn that I am not very likely to change my judgement of anyone. Just another glimpse at my ISTJ personality.

My Kindle has been my constant companion during the lockdown, as most of the books I have read in the past two years were e-books. My Kindle (not really mine, I share with my dad) is a regular old paperwhite with a dark blue external cover.

While I have absolutely zero musical talent, I do have a knack of memorizing lyrics of songs I hear, and I hardly ever forget them. This includes both Hindi and English songs.

March is my favourite month of the year. I love the March weather, and my birthday fall in March too!

I am a nature lover. It does help that my house faces a big trove of tall trees, and I have the most amazing view from my room window or my balcony. I took up bird watching as a hobby quite seriously last year (yup I have these hi-fi pair of binoculars which can sometimes show me even the eggs in the different nests!) and though I quit a couple months back, I still am very interesting in casual bird spotting and plant growing and other similar stuff.

I am a pretty good observer and often pay attention to small details which are mostly overlooked by others. But then again, at other times I am so focused or distracted that I don’t even notice what someone is doing or wearing 🙃

Aha, another one of my many interests! I enjoy writing huge codes and working out logic and debugging my programs. I also used to take programming courses before the lockdown and made a pretty impressive multi-functioning robot (I used Arduino, if you’re curious)

I like doing quizzes in general, but history quizzes and math quizzes (and of course, quizzes on books!) are particular favourites of mine!

I like to think of myself as a rational, practical and logical person, as I generally look for reasons behind things and try to verify stuff with facts rather than assumptions.

Okay so you certainly don’t need another reminder of how much I love the SoC duology, but it can’t not be on a list of my favourite things, right? It is a big deal for a book to make it to this list, and that’s how much I am obsessed with this.

I hate travelling. I don’t like eating anything that’s not homemade, or waiting for hours in airports or train stations, or dragging my suitcase behind me, or sleeping in an alien bed. I also get homesick really soon (no place like home, right?) Add to all this the fact that I am terribly motion sick, whether I am in a car or in a plane. That means, I can’t read while travelling!! Do you even need another reason?

I pride myself on being absolutely fair and unbiased in all situations. I play by the rules and don’t like somebody who doesn’t.

No not the icecream flavour. I do not like wearing dresses or wearing makeup. I have never worn heavy jewelry or put on nail paint in my life. A plain-Jane if you want, but I have no problem with it.

I think I win over people quite quickly (especially my school teachers lol) with my oh so charming words and often succeed with getting someone to warm up to me. A useful skill for getting out of trouble, right? I really hope my teachers don’t find out about this

I have had a love-hate relationship with the colour yellow. When I was little, yellow was by far my favourite colour. But something changed and about 3-4 years back, I started really disliking the colour. At present, my feelings toward yellow is almost neutral.

And that was me in 24 words! (Yeah, I couldn’t find anything that started with an x and z). Hope you got to know me a little better after reading this!

Can you pick up some words that describe you? Let’s chat in the comments!

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May Wrap-Up // ft. lots of books, blogging slump and blog redesign!

Hello guys! Hope you had a wonderful month and read some amazing books (what more could a bookworm possibly want?).

I always enjoy writing my monthly wrap-up posts, and this time it’s no different. So grab some snacks and get comfy, because this is going to be a long post (as usual😉). And if you’re on WordPress Reader, please click here to enjoy better formatting!

Believe me when I say that May was an A M A Z I N G reading month, in fact, it has been the best one so far this year! I read so much more than I usually do (thank you, summer vacations🤗).

I read 8 books and a total of 3516 pages in May (compared to 2410 in April and 2059 in March) and though this may not seem a huge number to most of you, it is a big deal for me!

Let’s take a look at all the books I read this month. I will be putting the cover images, the title and author, my rating, a mini-review and link to my full review. (click on the cover image to visit the goodreads page of any book that catches your eye!)

The Flame of Olympus  (Pegasus, #1)
The Shadow Watch (The Shadow Watch #1)
Six Bad Boys

The Flame Of Olympus by Kate O’Hearn [4 stars]

For a book based on Roman mythology, this book did a really good job at not info-dumping all the names of the Roman gods, their life at Olympus etc. And it certainly was a surprise that most of the gods at Olympus were killed or captured right at the beginning of the book (yes, I’m not kidding) so that the story could focus on Emily and Joel rather than the gods. The ending (and the story in general) was quite predictable, but it is a middle grade after all, so that’s acceptable.

The Shadow Watch by S.A. Klopfenstein [3.5 stars] FULL REVIEW

I received a copy of The Shadow Watch for a blog tour I was part of this month. I found it to be a typical YA fantasy in a lot of ways. But it was definitely worth a read, to know why, do have a look at my full review.

The Six Bad Boys by Enid Blyton [4.5 stars] I talked about this here

I reread this in May for the umpteenth time in my life. In my discussion post on the role of fictional parents (linked above) I talked about The Six Bad Boys and how it is an extremely important book for coming-of-age children as well as new parents, and how it makes my all emotional every time I read it🥺

The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1)
Supernova by Marissa Meyer

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan [4 stars]

I am buddy reading the entire Heroes of Olympus series with my amazing friends Cass and Nefeli! To be honest, I have always been a little skeptical of Rick Riordan books, but I have to admit, The Lost Hero was pretty good. Jason always seemed a little distant, Piper really needed to sort out her priorities, but Leo pretty much made the book for me.

Malamander by Thomas Taylor [4.5 stars ] FULL REVIEW

Ahhh my second ever audiobook but my first audiobook love😍 (don’t ask me about my first one, it was meh). It was a roller coaster ride of a book, with the narrator increasing his pace and making his voice more urgent and making my heart beat faster as I waited for something to happen and then jumped out of my skin at the narrator’s perfect but ear-splitting imitation of a desk bell (yeah, that actually happened once). Seriously, go read Malamander.

Supernova by Marissa Meyer [4.5 stars ] FULL REVIEW

Whoa whoa. This book was PACKED. It was full to the brim with action, secrets, pressure, redemptions and what not. I think Supernova would have got full 5 stars from me had it not been for that epilogue. But focusing on the good things, I would say, read the Renegades trilogy for the last book guys!!

The Son of Neptune (The Heroes of Olympus, #2)
The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3)

The Son Of Neptune by Rick Riordan [3 stars]

Idk why exactly, but I liked this one a lot less than The Lost Hero. I understand the Romans are more disciplined and harsh and stuff, but I wanted this book to be entertaining and light, like The Lost Hero. If my mental image of The Lost Hero is a fluffy peach teddy bear, The Son Of Neptune looks something like a dark foreboding castle. Just me? Okay.🙃

The Mark Of Athena by Rick Riordan [4 stars]

Ahh definitely better than The Son Of Neptune…but remember when I said that Jason always felt a bit distant in my mini review of The Lost Hero? Well, take that feeling and multiply it by 10, that is how Jason was in Mark Of Athena (atleast give the guy a POV, man!) Otherwise, it was all good and I cannot wait to start House Of Hades!


So this month I took part in Wyrd and Wonder, and they had a bingo board! Here’s how my completed bingo board looks like –

The one month I decided not to follow my blogging schedule, I face a blogging slump and go on accidental week-long hiatuses (moral of the story – blogging schedules are very important). Nevertheless, I did have some posts already planned, so it wasn’t that bad.

Some of my favourite posts from May are:

Discussion Post: Role of Parents in MG and YA fantasy (Part 2) + 8 book recommendations with active parent roles!

Book Review: Malamander by Thomas Taylor

Into The Mist || A short story penned by me

Okay, now for the big news. *holds breath* I REDESIGNED MY BLOG!! *lets out the breath in a whoosh* (okay I realize a lot of you have already noticed that, but…now its official, you know?) Of course I didn’t do it all alone. A big thank you to Evin @A Curly Sue’s Ramblings for helping me in setting up the new theme! So what are you guys waiting for? Go check out my new home page HERE!!

In other news, it was my first blogging anniversary on 27th May! (I have a post for that coming up soon) This blog is now 1 year old, you guys!!

A regular feature of my wrap-up posts, this section is all about promoting other bloggers’ content!

REVIEWS

Ritz @Living, Loving and Reading reviewed These Violent Delights and made a playlist!

April @Booked Till Midnight shares her thoughts on King Of Scars!

Jan @The Doodlecrafter reviewed Rule Of Wolves!

Lia @Chain Of Books reviewed The Immortal Game as part of a blog tour!

OTHER POSTS

Nehal had her first blogging anniversary a few days ago! (can’t believe we both started our respective blogs only 10 days apart!)

Aria @Book Nook Bits discusses age categories in books!

Veronika @Wordy And Whimsical recommends books with the found family trope!

Maya @Pretty Little Scribbles did a character case study!

And that’s a wrap! A pretty eventful month, don’t you think?

Let’s Chat!

What did you read in May? Found any new favourites? Have you read any of the books I mentioned? Do you like the new blog design? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!!