Life Update and Readathon announcement: #sequelfebruary

Okay guys, I know I disappeared for over a year but I’m back! Why did I disappear for so long you ask? Lots of reasons! In the beginning of 2017 I fell into a giant reading slump that lasted through March…3 MONTHS YOU GUYS! My Grandmother got into a terrible accident in late March and spent 2 weeks in the hospital until her body gave in to her injuries. She was the strongest woman I knew, and her and my Grandpa were the reason I am the obsessive bookworm I am today. Me and my husband also bought our dream house in May, and spent the entire summer remodeling it. But that’s not all folks! The main reason I wasn’t reading as much or blogging is because I spent most of 2017 pregnant. Yes, you read that right, I had a perfect baby boy late August and he’s been keeping me and my husband busy ever since.

Meet Liam Oliver! He just turned 5 months old and he’s the sweetest, most amazing, and most handsome baby boy that has ever lived. I will fight anybody who disagrees because he is absolutely the greatest baby, ever. He is currently snuggling on me as I write this post and I honestly could not be happier.

So 2017 was an insane rollercoaster of amazing highs and terrible lows. My family experienced a few losses but we also gained a few new members. Me and my husband moved into our forever home and had a baby! My sister also had a baby 5 weeks before me. It was a crazy year and sadly my reading and blogging life suffered, but I’m back and I’m so excited to see what 2018 has in store!

Now, enough of my weird rambling about the craziness that was 2017. The main point to this post is I’m hosting a readathon! I was perusing my shelves the other day, trying to get together my February tbr, and I realized that I had a ton of sequels I was so excited to read but have put off for one reason or another. There are 8 challenges for this readathon and you have all of February to complete them! The readathon starts at midnight on February 1st and ends at midnight on February 28th. You can double up on challenges, or even triple up. Heck, if you have a book that checks off all of the challenges then more power to you! I will not judge if you just plan on reading one book. I personally am hoping to get to at least 4 books but I am really wanting to read 8.

Here is my tbr:

1) Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor- a sequel that has been sitting on your shelf for years

2) The Speaker by Traci Chee- last sequel you bought/borrowed, underrated series, cover in your favorite color

3)Blood of Wonderland by Colleen Oakes- sequel that is a retelling, underrated series

4)The Wish Granter by C. J. Redwine- sequel in a series you are giving a second chance

5)The Great Pursuit by Wendy Higgins- underrated series

6)Spindle by E. K. Johnston- cover in your favorite color, retelling

7)Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco- most anticipated sequel

8)The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin- one of your favorite book baes (Noah Shaw, obviously)

There’s my planned tbr! Since the readathon is a month long I have about 10 other sequels that will complete the challenges. I almost never stick to my planned tbr especially during a readathon! A girl needs her options, amiright? Let me know if you want to join in! I’ll be most active on Instagram for this readathon. Post to #sequelfebruary if you want to join me, it’s going to be fun and I’m so excited to interact with you guys!

Advertisement

Book Tag Tuesday – Winter Wonderland Tag

Another week, another tag Tuesday! I wanted to do something that stuck to the Winter season, and this tag seemed like fun. It was created by JackEatsLife on Youtube.

 

1. What book is so happy and sweet that it warms your heart?

This time last year I read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell for the first time and it absolutely gave me the warm fuzzies. I’m actually wanting to reread it again soon. It’s the perfect winter read, and so easy to relate to.

2. What is your favorite book with a white cover?

The limited edition of Heartless by Marissa Meyer that was in the November Owlcrate. It isn’t my favorite book, it is amazing though because Marissa Meyer is queen, but this is my favorite white cover.

3. You’re sitting in a nice comfy chair, wearing a onesie, with a lovely warm hot chocolate but what MONSTER read are you reading?

If I’m reading a monster book, it’s probably going to be a paranormal book. Usually vampires are my choice of monster. And what better vampire is there to read about during the cold winter months than Edward Cullen himself? *forever swooning* please don’t judge me.

4. It started snowing so you decided to have a snowball fight! What fictional character would you love to have the snowball fight with?

Emily and Frank from Since You’ve Been Gone would be so much fun to have a snowball fight with! I just love both of their characters so much, and I feel like I would be good friends with them. Or, maybe I could set up a snowball fight between the Shadowhunters from The Mortal Instruments and Celaena Sardothien and her group of badass friends. That would be fun to watch. Not participate in, but just watch.

5. Sadly, your fire is beginning to go out. So what book would you tear the last few chapters out to throw into the fire?

Oh goodness, I may get some hate for this BUT I would have no problem using Paper Towns by John Green and Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares to keep a fire going. #sorrynotsorry

 
6. What book is so close to your heart that you would gift to someone this Christmas who hasn’t read before but wants to get into reading?

Harry Potter! The whole series. Please read it if you haven’t! It’s the nearest and dearest series to my heart. No book in the world will ever give me the same feelings the Harry Potter series does. Also, The Book Thief. I recommend this book to every living soul that asks me for a recommendation. I will never stop recommending this book.

 

If vampires are your favorite monsters, YOU ARE TAGGED!

If you have not read The Book Thief, YOU ARE TAGGED!

If you just want to do this tag for the fun of it, YOU ARE TAGGED!

Happy Tuesday darlings.

Friday Reads – Dec.9th

Happy Friday, lovelies! It’s the weekend. We finally have a chilly day here in Southwest Florida, and I seem to be coming down with a cold, boo! So I’ll definitely be spending this weekend curled up with a good book, or two.

One of my goals is to finish up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Heartless by Marissa Meyer today (I have less than 100 pages left in both).

Once I finish both of those books I plan to move onto Black Ice, Stealing Snow, and Winterspell.

 

I know I won’t finish all three of these books by Sunday night, but a girl can try. Right? What are you reading this weekend? Let me know in the comments below!

 

Top 5 Wednesday – Books You Finally Want to Read in 2017

Top 5 Wednesday is an amazing group on Goodreads. It was started by Lainey at Gingerreadslainey and is now run by Samantha over at Thoughtsontomes. This is a fun way to talk about things we love and hate, and things we love to hate. I strongly encourage you to join in! This weeks topic is books you finally want to read in 2017. Being readers we are all way too familiar with the ever growing TBR (to be read) pile. New books are released weekly that we want to read, which moves older books on our TBR down the line. Here are the top 5 books I keep meaning to read but just have yet to get to:

5) Passenger by Alexandra Bracken. This book was HIGHLY anticipated by me last winter, but I just never got around to reading it! I love anything to do with time travel, and that cover is stunning. Hopefully I’ll get to this one in January.

4) Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.This one I don’t hear about too often but when I do hear someone talking about it they’re usually gushing about it. It has a solid 4 star rating with 45.5k ratings on Goodreads. Burial Rites is a historical fiction following the last woman to be sentenced to death in Iceland in 1829. I’ve had this one sitting on my shelf for a few years now but 2017 is the year I WILL pick it up.

3) The Martian by Andy Weir. This book. I have been dying to finally read this book. I have heard that Mark Watney is one of the funniest narrators in fiction, and I need to experience his character for myself. I did see the movie and it quickly became one of my all time favorite movies, so naturally, I need to read the book now. I think I keep putting this one off because I have heard it’s a bit heavy on the science, but duh, it’s about an astronaut trying to survive alone on Mars while NASA tries to bring him home. Mark Watney, I’m coming for you, soon… hopefully.

2) The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry. This book has one of the most beautiful covers I have seen in my life. Honestly. The colors are stunning, and the design is gorgeous and I will not lie, it’s what drew me to this book in the first place. And then I read the synopsis. It sounds like magical realism, with a touch of time travel. Also, it’s been blurbed as Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife. Sign me up, please!

1)  What We Saw by Aaron Hartzler. This book is so very important. From the moment I heard about this book I knew I needed to own a copy. This debut novel bravely takes on the topic of rape culture and how our society is so quick to blame the victim. Rape is not a topic covered in YA too often but it is so important to discuss, and it is so important for teens to know the difference between consensual sex and rape. We’ve all seen that girl at a party get way too drunk, and we’ve all heard stories being told about that girl afterwards. This novel shows the damage of slut shaming and victim blaming when we should be standing up for the girls (or guys) who become victims of sexual assault, and instead punish those who violate another human being’s body. I think I’ll make this the first read of 2017. Just talking about it is making want to pick it up this very second.

If you have read any of these books let me know what you thought in the comments below! If not, let me know which book is top of your TBR for 2017.

Top 5 Wednesday – Favorite Villains!

Top 5 Wednesday is an amazing group on Goodreads. It was started by Lainey at Gingerreadslainey and is now run by Samantha over at Thoughtsontomes. This is a fun way to talk about things we love and hate, and things we love to hate. I strongly encourage you to join in! This weeks theme is favorite villains. Everybody loves a good villain right? Without the villains there would be no stories!

5) Aidan (Illuminae). Okay, I know he’s just a computer but Aidan was such a well written villain and somehow you started feeling sorry for him. I grew quite attached to his character and I kept having to remind myself that a) he’s the bad guy and b) HE’S A COMPUTER!

4) Maven (Red Queen and Glass Sword). LOL Oh, Maven. Where to begin. Dude, I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU. I have shipped Cal and Mare from their very first meeting, but I was rooting for Maven to prove me wrong. I adored him at first, I thought “Look Mare, he’s so sweet. And not betrothed to a psycho who wants to eat you for breakfast.” But no, Maven had to ruin everything by being the absolute worst.Ugh, BOO.

3) Joe (You and Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes). Joe is psychotic. Joe is a stalker, and a murderer. Joe is also absolutely hysterical and I kept laughing out loud at his inner monologue and I actually found myself rooting for him. Rooting for the man who was stalking a girl, ended up dating said girl, and then ruining her life basically. There is a lot that goes on in this novel, none of it is good, Joe is absolutely pure evil, but oh man, I LOVE JOE. It makes me question my sanity how much I laughed at Joe and how I kept thinking “OMG. Just kill this person already.” Well played, Ms. Kepnes. Well played…

2) President Snow (The Hunger Games trilogy). He is just the perfect villain and you just can’t help but hate him. Everything about him. There is not a single redeeming quality in that man and that makes him such a perfect villain.

1) Queen Levana (The Lunar Chronicles). The most vile, most evil of all the villains on this list. She even had a full novel dedicated to her back story which just proved how evil Levana truly is. Sure she had a tragic back story, a lost love, an evil older sister but even with all of that you still don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for the woman. Marissa Meyer knows exactly what she’s doing when she writes her characters, and boy oh boy, she did a fantastic job writing this Evil Queen.

Book Tag Tuesday: All I Want For Christmas

It’s Tuesday lovelies! That means time for a tag. I was recently searching for a holiday themed tag and found this fun Christmas tag from A Thousand Lives of Daisy on youtube. If any of your answers match up to mine, YOU ARE TAGGED! Tell me in the comments what your favorite book to read around the holidays is. I’m looking to add to my Christmas list, and my ever growing tbr.

 

What fictional character do you want Santa to leave under your Christmas tree?

Can someone please put Jem Carstairs under my tree please? He’s just the most precious and I would be forever grateful.

What character do you want to kiss under the mistletoe?

Rhysand from ACOMAF for obvious reasons. Sorry Feyre, but girl needs to share

You write your Christmas list for Santa, what are the top 5 books on it?

Most of the books on my most wanted list are not yet released, so I’m going to go with 5 series that have been completed:

The Firebird trilogy by Claudia Gray

The Darkest Minds Trilogy by Alexandra Bracken

The Bronze Horseman Trilogy by Paullina Simons

The Prisoner of Night and Fog duology by Anne Blankman

and the Splintered series by A. G. Howard

It’s secret Santa at Hogwarts, what do you most want to receive?

I would love to receive an invisibility cloak. And I would absolutely use it to sneak into the library at night. #dontjudgeme

You get to spend the day with the characters and movie adaptation actors from one fandom, what do you pick?

The Hunger Games! Of course. For two reasons mainly, Finnick Odair, and Sam Claflin. Also, can I just be Jennifer Lawrence’s bff? That would be great, thanks.

What fictional animal would you like to replace Rudolph and be able to meet on your roof?

Buckbeak. Or one of Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons. Either of those would be pretty sweet.

You invite 10 fictional characters to your New Year’s Eve party, who do you pick?

The Golden Trio (Harry, Ron, Hermione), Cath from Fangirl (so we can fangirl together, obvs), Aelin Galathynius (because she’s so badass and it would be fun to watch her interact with everyone else), and the whole squad from the Lunar Chronicles, which brings me to about 13 guests. Oh well, rules were meant to be broken, right?

 

What character would make a good Santa? (Doesn’t have to be appearance, personality counts too)

Oh! Aelin/Celaena. Girl loves to shop, and chocolate, and dresses. I love all of those things too! I can picture her being the one who gets the most amazing gifts just to one up everyone else.

Follow me on Bloglovin’

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I love Bloglovin’ and how it makes it easy to follow blogs from all over the internet. Come follow me there and see what books and bloggers I’m loving lately!

The Book Blogger TMI Tag

I was looking for a tag to do so my readers could get to know me and I stumbled across this fun tag at Spines and Covers blog. If you want to do this tag, you are officially tagged!

How old are you?

I turned 27 recently and still not sure how I feel about it.

What book are you reading?

Heartless by Marissa Meyer (aka: The Queen of Retellings)

and Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter

What are you wearing?

My pjs. High school gym shirt and husband’s pajama bottoms. Super comfy is how I like to keep it.

OTP?

(One True Pairing, for those who don’t know.)

Am I supposed to just pick one? Like how?

Tessa and Jem (the Infernal Devices), Rose and Dimitri ( Vampire Academy), Elena and Damon (the Vampire Diaries, and no I am still not over some recent events), Hook and Swan (Once Upon a Time). ❤

Blogger or WordPress?

I’m new to blogging guys! But WordPress because that’s what I’m using.

Going outside being active or staying in and reading a book?

How about being outside reading a book? Or being active outside while listening to an audiobook? I’ll take either of those options.

What is the last book you read?

Sweet Peril by Wendy Higgins

What is the book you’re going to read next?

I’m hoping to finally get to A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, but that could change.

Ebooks – yes or no?

I borrow Ebooks from the library all the time. If I’m not sure I’m going to love a book I’d rather borrow it through my Overdrive app, and if I do love it I buy a physical copy for my shelves.

Where do you prefer to read?

In my backyard! But the hot Florida sun makes it unbearable to be outside most of the time so my couch is my second favorite spot.

Who is the last person you tweeted?

I don’t tweet. I do Instagram though! Follow me @manduhpaigereads. (shameless self promotion)

Whose blog did you look at last?

Spines & Covers. It’s where I got this awesome tag from!

Who is your favorite blogger?

I’m completely new to blogs in general so please leave some suggestions in the comments for me to follow! Thank you in advance.

Who is your favorite book-tuber?

Way too many to name but some would be jessethereader,  bookables, booksandlala, betweenchapters, polandbananasbooks, abookutopia, and thoughtsontomes. They all rock!

What do you do when someone tells you reading is boring?

I just brush the haters off, man. Don’t let the non-readers get you down!

Who is the last author you spoke to?

I’ve never had a conversation with an author except through comments on Instagram here and there. Specific shout out to Kendare Blake for commenting on one of my photos of her newest novel, Three Dark Crowns.

Who is the last person you texted?

The hubby, aka my forever bae.

Who is your all-time favorite book character?

Well let’s just ask another impossible question! All time favorite? Ugh. Can I say everyone in Harry Potter (minus the bad guys, especially Dolores Umbridge). And the whole crew in the Lunar Chronicles! They’re the real squad goals.

UKYA or USYA?

USYA because I do live in the US, but I will say some UK covers are absolutely stunning, so there’s that.

What is your preferred drink whilst reading?

Coffee, hot tea, alcohol to numb all the feels.

If you hated reading, what would you be doing instead?

LOL that’s a fake scenario. That scenario doesn’t even exist in the game of What If. But to be a good sport I would say photography. I love shooting people (with my camera, I feel like I have to clarify that) but lately I spend most of my non-reading free time taking photos of books.

How many bookshelves / bookcases do you have?

5 of all different sizes. It’s nowhere near enough.

If you had the choice to meet all of your favorite book bloggers or all of your favorite authors, which would you pick? You can only pick one.

All of my favorite authors of course! I would even be happy with just meeting J. K. Rowling or Sarah J. Maas.

Insta-love: yes or no?

No. Never insta-love. I can’t even think of an example where insta-love was done well and didn’t cause me to roll my eyes so hard into the back of my head I ended up with a headache.

Favorite author?

Too many to name. But I’ll just say J.K. Rowling, Sarah J. Maas, and Marissa Meyer. That’s barely the tip of the iceberg though my friends.

What is the number-one book on your wishlist?

At the moment it would have to be the illustrated edition of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Have you seen it? Forever swooning. And need it, like yesterday.

Do you prefer books with female or male protagonists?

I do prefer female protags because I am a female and it’s easier to relate to for me. BUT some of my favorite books have male protags so I really am not picky either way.

What is the last song you listened to?

Bartender by T Pain. Because sometimes I want to only listen to songs from my high school years and Spotify makes that easy.

 

Which do you enjoy reading more – negative reviews or positive reviews?

Negative! I am really good at picking out books I’m going to love so I almost never post negative reviews, but boy oh boy, I do love reading negative reviews. I even love reading negative reviews on my favorite books.

Who are you going to tag?

If you are wearing pajamas, consider yourself tagged!