Its been so long I took part in a readathon, I jumped at the chance when I saw Whatever-you-want-a-thon (or Whatever-a-thon for short) doing rounds on Twitter. (you can find the announcement video with all the details here).
I’m part of the team Middle Grade Monarchs, so most of the books on my TBR are going to be middle grade BUT June is also pride month, and there is a HUGE point bonus on reading lgbtq books, so I’ve tried to incorporate some of them in my TBR as well. My goal for this readathon is to read 6 books (which I think I’ll manage, but just barely), but even after removing so many books I really wanted to read, the smallest TBR I could come up with has….drumroll please….10 books! I realize that’s a lot more than my goal, but I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving any of these out. Huh, guess that just means more options for me, right? (says she who is now going to have a difficult time choosing what to read first because there’s no way she can read them all😭). My bookworm tendencies aside, lets move on to see all the amazing books I have on my June TBR!! (as always, you can click on the cover image to visit the goodreads page and add a book to your TBR as well!)
The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill
The House In The Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
House of Hades by Rick Riordan
The Blood Of Olympus by Rick Riordan
Orphans Of The Tide by Struan Murray
Pegasus And The Fight For Olympus
The Unbreakable Code by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
Small Spaces by Katherine Arden
Believe by Julie Mathison
So that’s it. (whoa, this post is a baby compared to my usual posts😂) I would love to hear your thoughts on any of these books in the comments!
So another month gone by! Let’s take a look at my reading, blogging, blog-hopping and other highlights of the month.
April has been, by far, the best reading month this year! I read a total of 7 books, which is pretty impressive considering that I have been trying to level up from my boring 5 books per month since the beginning of this year.
Archenemies by Marissa Meyer [4 stars] Eh, this was one of those books where I was totally lost after the end. I had no idea whether to rate it 3 stars or 4 stars or 5 stars. But finally I settled with 4. At this point of time, I am like – Just tell everyone who Nightmare and Sentinel is!! And if you wanted to keep it secret forever, maybe it could have been unknown to the readers as well? Because it is getting kinda annoying now, to be honest.
The Mystwick School of Musicraft by Jessica Khoury [3 stars] My first audiobook! But what a disappointment the story was. It was too repetitive, to the point that so many things got downright irritating. And the beginning was nice enough, I don’t know what happened after that.
Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception [4 stars] Actually I don’t remember much about this, but I do enjoy a good heist, so that was one of the reasons I gave this 4 stars.
A Wilder Magic by Juliana Brandt [4 stars] This was my first ever ARC!! I got this as a part of a book promo tour I did this month. It was such a beautiful middle grade with amazing platonic relationships. Read my full review HERE.
Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman [4.5 stars] This was easily my favourite book of April. It definitely deserves a lot more hype, I have rarely heard bloggers mention this. There were equal parts mystery, friendship and adventure in Book Scavenger. To read my full review, see my journal spread and play a small bookish game inspired by Book Scavenger, click HERE.
The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman [1.5 stars] Well. I am still debating whether to put up a review for this on my blog or not, since I haven’t really posted a negative review here before, and this is also a very new release. But I did post a review on Goodreads, you can read it HERE.
Misfit (Asura Chronicles #1) by Jo Zaida [3 stars] Another ARC!! So I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had expected to, but it was worth reading anyways. Review to come!
I am proud to report that I carefully followed the posting schedule I had set up for myself last month (except for last week, when I had a blog tour post out of schedule, on a Sunday) throughout the month of April! When I started, I didn’t think I would be able to follow it throughout, to be honest, but turns out I was wrong!
I am not going to link all my posts from this month here, only specific ones. If you would like to see all my posts in April, click HERE.
I have included the links to my posts in their featured images below, so all you have to do is click on the ones that catch your attention!
A discussion post all about book titles! I am quite proud of this one actually, so do check it out if you missed it earlier!
I do love writing 5 star reviews!!
I created a quiz for you to find some great recs!!
I tried to be really active on all of your posts this month, and I think I succeeded to a great extent. I interacted with your blogs wherever I could, and came across some interesting posts in the process.
We hit 100 followers in early April!! This is my first big blogging milestone, so thank you so much for that guys🥰 It means a lot to have you enjoy and appreciate my content.
The Home page of my blog now has a brand new look! I have changed the header image, put in a sidebar and stuff like that.
I received my first ARCs and took part in my first blog tour this month!
April was Shadow and Bone month!!!! (oops sorry for all the exclamations, this just shows how much I loved the show) By now, you all know how much the Six Of Crows duology means to me. If you don’t, IT’S MY FAVOURITE BOOK OF ALL TIME!! So naturally I was excited for the S&B show on Netflix. Though I started watching it only for the Crows, the Alina-Darkling storyline also got me hooked and made me wonder why I didn’t read the Shadow and bone trilogy earlier (I am not going to read it now, I want to know the story only from the show). I finished watching all 8 episodes of S&B in four days, and wow I loved seeing my favourite characters brought to life. The casting was just perfect. Freddy Carter is going to be stuck in my mind’s eye as Kaz forever, and same with the others. I didn’t think it was possible to love and admire Kaz more than I did after reading the books, but this show proved me wrong…my heart went out for him even more!! The ‘No mourners, no funerals’ line was also so perfect when it happened. Jesper and Milo were absolute showstealers!! Okay, not gonna ramble any more, but seriously, go watch it!!
How was your April? Did you watch Shadow And Bone? Have you read any of the books that I read in April? Chat with me in the comments!!
Hello you guys!! Hope you’re having an amazing day so far!
Today’s post is going to be all about Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman, which is a (brilliant, if I do say so myself) middle grade fantasy that I read last week. I didn’t want to write a full review on it because I have no idea what to write so I decided to just to a mash-up kind of thing, which, as the title suggests, includes a mini-review, a Book Scavenger-inspired piece of art, and a fun game at the end! Let’s get on with it, shall we?
A hidden book. A found cipher. A game begins . . . .
Twelve-year-old Emily is on the move again. Her family is relocating to San Francisco, home of her literary idol: Garrison Griswold, creator of the online sensation Book Scavenger, a game where books are hidden all over the country and clues to find them are revealed through puzzles. But Emily soon learns that Griswold has been attacked and is in a coma, and no one knows anything about the epic new game he had been poised to launch. Then Emily and her new friend James discover an odd book, which they come to believe is from Griswold and leads to a valuable prize. But there are others on the hunt for this book, and Emily and James must race to solve the puzzles Griswold left behind before Griswold’s attackers make them their next target.
(If you click on the cover image above, it will take you straight to Goodreads, so you can add this book to your tbr!)
My Rating :
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
The concept of a game with hidden books and clues to find them was so cool! What more could a bookworm like me possibly want? (except now I am left praying that this game existed in real life and I could play it ☹🥺)
I think this story was more plot-driven than character-driven, and though I usually favour the latter, its good to know that there are a whole bunch of amazing plots such as these out there!
I also admire the research the author has put in on different kinds of ciphers and stuff. It really showed, and I like puzzles in general, so I enjoyed reading whatever snippets of information was there about decoding different ciphers.
The character development through the book was executed wonderfully. Emily finally reassessed her priorities (being a good friend definitely beats finding an epic new game😉), and Matthew was a completely different (in a good way!) big brother than he had been at the beginning.
I would definitely recommend this book to all of you bookworms, but if you additionally like a good mystery or deciphering clues, you HAVE to read this!!
(This book is actually first in a series, but it can totally work as a standalone, so for those who avoid series in general, don’t hesitate!)
I think I have mentioned before that I am terrible at all things aesthetic, and that naturally includes drawing. But I had nothing much to do that day, and I had just finished reading Book Scavenger, so I drew a little something in my bullet journal inspired by it.
Yup, it’s our main character, Emily who has found a hidden book wedged between the branches of a tree. There is no exact scene in the book as such, I just invented one, considering that I wanted to keep my work really simple and minimalistic. And to be honest, I actually enjoyed working on this. Who knows, maybe I’ll do this more often!
Time for what you all have been anticipating!! Presenting…Book Scavenger 2.0, created by yours truly!
It is in no way similar to, or as huge and amazing as the Book Scavenger game in the book. It is just a little quiz that I made up. And don’t worry, you don’t have to literally go out and “scavenge” books, all the book scavenging is going to happen in your mind😉
Here’s how it will work :
Below is a link to a Google Form that I have created. When you click on the link, you will be taken to the Form.
I have written the names of three characters each from 8 different books. It could be main characters, side characters, anything.
All you have to do is rack your brain (or maybe Goodreads, though that would technically be cheating😉) and write the name of the book/series in the blanks given
(The books I have chosen are pretty popular to reduce the difficulty level)
All the best, book scavengers!! Click HERE to access the Form.
Have you read Book Scavenger? Is it on your TBR? Do you have any ideas for me if I want to do (very simple) journal spreads for some books?
A Bookworm's Paradise 