🌷October Wrap-Up || book blogging has given me superspeed reading abilities?? || ft. GIF-y Love #1

Hello fellow bibliophiles! October is going to be over in less than 24 hours 🚀, (I will now intentionally stop myself droning about how fast October went) but it has been an extremely fulfilling month for me!

I’ve conquered my end of year exams ✏️ (other students out there still facing it, you can do this! 💪), adjusted to the world of book blogging, interacted with so many new bloggers and read more 📚 than my measly amount in September.

Today, I bring to you my monthly wrap-up which I had so much fun writing and reflecting… especially with the new format I will be adopting. It wouldn’t only be about books read but also books hauled, quotes, blogging stuff and random life highlights! I have also linked a lot of blogs through this post for you guys to go check out!

Let’s begin, shall we? 👇

1. Reading 📚

This month was so productive in terms of reading… I read 9 books (on my 9th right now and will finish it today!)! I’m utterly shocked at myself because that is a new record… I think it was the two big series that I read that made me such a ferocious and fast reader haha. I will also be hitting my Goodreads goal of 70 books this year once I finish with the 9th book, something which I am so pleased about.

Cinder (Marissa Meyer) [The Lunar Chronicles #1]

Genre(s): Fantasy, YA || My Rating: ★★★★★

Cinder, if you haven’t already guessed is a retelling of Cinderella And Marissa Meyer changes everything, morphing it into something Cinderella-like but not yet stunningly captivating. I mean, Cinder is a cyborg!

This was a re-read for me and at a very apt time… I was going through a lot of stress and thus immersing myself in one of my favourite books 😍, being wow-ed by the world building 🤩 and connecting once again to the characters 🥰was just a great comfort.

We Were the Lucky Ones (Georgia Hunter)

Genre(s): Historical Fiction || My rating: ★★★★½ || My Review

We Were the Lucky Ones is a historical fiction set in WW2 with the typical plot line of “trying to survive”. What made it stand out from the rest was the deep, endearing theme of family 👨‍👩‍👧 that shone through this book. The family in here is just huge with each their own tribulations and burdens but how they treasure each other is so sweet. This was both a devastating 😭 and happy 😢 cry read!

Daisy Jones & The Six (Taylor Jenkins Reid)

Genre(s): Historical Fiction || My rating: ★★★ || featured in 6 books about music that will resonate with you

I remember this being such a hyped up book! But I have mixed feelings 🤔 about it. While the musical aspect on this book was captivating, the plot and the story was rather repetitive and predictable 🥱 with the same characters grumbling about the same things etc… so I became quite bored by the middle part. However, I think it did pretty well considering it was in an interview format… so 3 stars!

The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King & The Queen of Nothing (Holly Black) [Folk of the Air #1, 2, 3]

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Genre(s): Fantasy, YA

TCP: ★★½ || my review __ TWK: ★★★★ || my review __ TQON: ★★★½ || my review

As you can tell by the ratings, book 1 was a disaster 😤 but the other two books saved the game🏅! This was my first series on fae and thus I was hooked by the world building 🌏. The plot in books 2 and 3 were impressive and the romance… *squeals*🤪. The only drawback would be the lack of emotional connection to any of the characters. But I still enjoyed the Folk of the Air series as a whole!

A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin (Sarah J. Maas) [ACOTAR #1, 2, 3]

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Genre(s): Fantasy, YA

ACOTAR: ★ || ACOMAF: ★ || ACOWAR: ★

I am so thankful that I was gifted with book vouchers this month, it being my birthday and that an online bookstore was having books at more than 50% off. Thus I bought…

*drum roll please*

18 books. 📗 📘 📙

However, I don’t want to bore you all with 18 books so I am just going to share my top 3, some of which are highly anticipated and recommended by you guys!

I will also be sharing book reviews of other bloggers that pushed me to get them.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (V.E. Schwab)

Genre(s): Historical Fiction, Fantasy

I think all book bloggers have come across this book. It is about a girl who makes a bargain such that she can live forever but won’t be remembered. It’s been described as an emotional story that will haunt you, plus it’s a mix of my two favourite genres! 🌠

Reviews of this book I loved:

alex @ the scribe owl || becca @ toastie books || belle @ this belle reads too || holly @ the caffeinated reader || tilly @ the biblioshelf

Skyhunter (Marie Lu)

Genre(s): Fantasy, YA

Because I loved Warcross so much, and was drawn to the morally grey-ness in The Young Elites, I just had to get this. (And that cover…*stars in eyes*)

Reviews of this book that I loved:

abby @ beyond the read || ashmita @ the fictional journal

A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)

Genre(s): Contemporary Fiction

This sounds like such a sweet story , exploring the life of a curmudgeon… and I have heard loads about Fredrik Backman so I eagerly got this.

Reviews of this book that I loved:

brodie @ brodie’s bookshelf || mrs d @ the balanced bibliophile

You might want to skip this section if you have’t read A Court of Mist and Fury. Not big spoilers but be safe!

The Court of Dreams. The people who knew that there was a price and one worth paying, for that dream. The bastard-born warriors, the Illyrian hals breed, the monster trapped in a beautiful body, the dreamer born into a court of nightmares… And the Huntress with an artist’s soul.

A Court of Mist and Fury

Yes, ACOMAF as taken over my mind. I just loved the newfound family and this quote describes them perfectly of their imperfections and yet how much they care and work together to achieve a better world is so endearing… 😻

2. Blogging 💻 ⌨️ 🖱

As of now I have been blogging for a month and a half and it’s becoming to feel like home. I loved interacting with so many bloggers over the past month and finding out so many new blogs which are really inspirations for me and enjoyable to read.

(click on the images which will direct you there!)

 

 

2b. BOOK MEMES/FEATURES I participated in that I would highly recommend 🔖

🌻 Just Some BiblioPhilic Things

JSBT is a weekly feature hosted by my friend, Riddhi over at Whispering Stories. A prompt will be given each week where bloggers can share to their heart’s content. I loved all the prompts and had so. much. fun. doing it!

• here is how it works!
• one of my jsbt posts

🌻Top Ten Tuesday

TTT is a weekly feature where a prompt will be given and book bloggers can list their top ten! It is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

• here is how it works
• one of my ttt posts

3. Random Life Highlight of October

my attempt at a notion home page

This month, I discovered the magical and wonderful thing ✨ on the Internet. It soothed my messy mind and somehow cultivated something decent out of my non-artsy-at-all soul. The wonder is notion, which is a organisation website/app I instantly fell in love with.

Huge shoutout and gratitude to Linda@dusts of magic for introducing me to this… I found her pages so pretty and her tips saved my clueless-about-all-things-tech self. Please do check out her post here!

4. GIF-y Love #1

GIF-y Love is a new feature created by my friends Nehal and Tiction over at Books and Words and Fictionally Crazy respectively! 😆 Every Wednesday, they will publish a prompt and we have to respond with a gif. Sweet and simple, isn’t it? You can find out more about GIF-y Love here.

Sorry, Nehal and Tiction that I am so late but here is my response!

The Prompt for the Week: Idk 🤷‍♀️

And that was my October… if you’ve read till here, thank you so much… here’s some virtual love for you: 💗❤️

How was YOUR month? Any good books? Have you read the books I hauled? What bookish memes/features do you participate in? What do you think of Cookie Monster’s confuddled face?

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