Frozen Book Tag

I saw this tag on Book Princess Reviews, and it’s right up my ally. Frozen might be my favorite Disney movie. I love the music, I love Anna, I love the sisterhood theme, I love how it kind of makes fun of the old Disney movies. Did I mention I love the music? When we went to see it in theaters and we heard the intro-song my husband and I looked at each other and said “We may as well leave, it’s not going to get any better than that.” Then it DID.

Anyway, I love Frozen.

This tag was created by Book’s Buzz way back in 2014. So here we go!

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Let it Go

A book you wouldn’t mind parting with

That’s easy! Last year around Christmas-time I got gifted The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I read it last summer and it was not my cup of tea. Next time I clean out my bookshelf it’ll probably go the Half-Price.

Review: Shadow and Bone

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Series: Grisha Trilogy
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy
Maturity Level: 4
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

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Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.

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You guys, I had so many mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand, Bardugo created a one-of-a-kind Russian-inspired fantasy universe. I loved the setting, the language, the magic (science?), and the terrible Unsea. And sand skiffs, kind of a sleigh/ship hybrid, YES. On the other hand, it was the same old plot we’ve read in every other young adult fantasy. Girl is chosen, girl gets taken away for long training sequence, girl becomes the mightiest of all, girl has epic showdown. There were so many cliches and so many tropes. Ugh.

What’s In My Bookshelf Tag

It seems like a million years ago that Naty tagged me in a Tag she created herself, the What’s In My Bookshelf Tag. I really really enjoyed it, but she tagged me after I went back to work from maternity leave, and safe to say I didn’t have a lot of time for blogging. So now I’m finally getting to it! Thanks for the tag Naty! If you’ve never visited her blog, you should, she rocks!

Rules:

• Link back to me so I can see everyone’s answers! (Naty’s Bookshelf)
• Also link back to the person who tagged you!
• Name one book for each category; try not to repeat books to make this more fun!
• Tag at least 5 people

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A Library Book

I currently don’t have any library books, I’ve been working on my Christmas gift/Reddit Gift Exchange stack. But later this week (maybe tomorrow???) I’ll be heading to the library to check out Shadow and Bone and it’s sequels. I typically read an old YA series I never got around to during summer vacation!

My Summer Reading List

IT’S SUMMER VACATION!!!!!!

Being a teacher is rough, but I have to admit, summer vacation is an awesome perk. Don’t get me wrong, I’m probably going to be doing a lot of work this summer lesson planning and stuff, and I’m taking care of my sweet baby too, but it’s definitely going to be better than getting up early and going to work every day.

My plans for this summer include:

• Reading
• Getting back into excercising
• Reading
• Zoo trips on Mondays
• Reading
• Possible beach trip
• Did I say reading?

Last summer I probably read about twenty books. And while I think I’ve got a little more on my plate this summer and won’t quite be able to manage that, I’m really looking forward to what I have coming up.

What’s Ahead in 2018

I’m not a huge planner. In the past the things that I’ve planned have always seemed to … not work out. You can plan and plan and plan, but inevitably something doesn’t go the way you thought it would, and you have to re-do EVERYTHING. So I’ve sort of stopped planning. I keep ’em vague.

I DO like goals. That’s different. But let’s not go into that, lol.

All this to say, I don’t really have a plan for this blog going into 2018. I’m just going to do what I did this year: do whatever I want and see which direction it goes.

But there are a couple of things that are solid and (probably) going to happen, so let’s take a look at those.

Goodreads Challenge

Setting my goal for 30 books. This is a lot less than 2017, but there’s a few good reasons.

1. Giving birth and maternity leave. I’m trying to be realistic here.
2. As you’ll read below, there’s a couple of behemoths on my list. Like, 800 pagers. They’ll slow me down quite a bit.
3. I can always bump it up, but not down. I mean, you can, but how would you live with yourself?

*Side note* I love how goodreads is like, “You’re on track!” even though I’ve read 0 books. Bless January 1st, lol.

The TBR Tag

Hello everyone! I am writing this on vacation, but I’ve done such a good job of scheduling posts that by the time you see it I’ll have been back for a couple of days. Note to self, pre-scheduling is good but doesn’t leave much room for flexibility…

Thanks to Krista and Dawlyn at Little Blind Book Finds for tagging me! They are pretty much my favorite duo on the internet, and we basically like all of the same things, so if you’re reading this you should go check them out now!

Also, if you are reading this and saying to yourself “What the heck is ‘tbr’??” don’t you worry for a second! I totally feel you! TBR means to-be-read, and that acronym essentially doesn’t exist outside the book communities online, so there’s no reason you should know it. I’m sad to say it took me a good month into blogging to figure it out.

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How do you keep track of your TBR pile?

I am on goodreads, which is a great place to keep track of the books I want to read, especially since I can’t afford to just go buy them all. However, I do have a dresser in my bedroom with some rather  pretty bookends on top, and I keep any books I’ve purchased but haven’t read yet on there. Which lately has gotten to be pretty small.