Unboxing | Books that Matter: Earth is my Sister | October 2021

What a lovely box this one was! The first box I’ve received with the new BTM branding, this was a very enjoyable package to open. Let’s get into it!

My GIANT October 2021 TBR | can I complete two readathons?!

It’s October! The season of cosiness, autumn, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and plenty of Gothic, spooky books.

This month, I am actually posting a to be read/possibility list, because I want to participate in two readathons, and therefore there are lots of books I want to complete. So far, I’ve read two books in October (though none are on my TBR…), so I’m already doing quite well I think!

Monthly Reading Wrap-Up | September 2021

The ninth month of the year is, somehow, over!

September was somehow more hectic than August, and I had my most disappointing reading month of the year so far, reading only 3 books. Whilst the books were really enjoyable, I do wish I had made reading more of a priority and read more books this month! That’s definitely one of my goals for October: to make time to read.

Why Do I Suck at Finishing Series?

I love reading series; I think the fact you can be so fully immersed into the world is wonderful, and there is so much scope for world building. Think of the things you’re still learning about the novel and characters in the final novel that you never even thought about in the first!

img via pixabay, morningbirdphoto

The majority of the series on my shelf have been read… apart from the final novel. It’s always this last volume that I have trouble finishing. Why is that?

Monthly Reading Wrap Up | August 2021

How do the summer holidays always go by so fast?! Even though I am now a teacher, not a student, it still feels like the last day of school was just yesterday!

In August, I did not read as many books as I wanted to. Thought I thought it was going to be a relatively quiet month, August turned out to actually be rather hectic and busy. I did a lot of adventuring and day trips, as well as a couple of overnight trips; I finished my Masters, and my first edited novel; and I had a good time! Maybe August wasn’t as productive and book-filled as I’d expected, but sometimes that’s not a bad thing.

Brighton Book Haul!

I swear, I only went in for, like one book. Maybe two, at a push. Certainly not the *cough* five I came out with…!

I haven’t done a book haul on this blog for a while, but these books seriously excite me, and I want to share them with you!

Book Review | Bunny by Mona Awad

Trigger Warnings for this book: bestiality, murder, rape, assault, mental health, self harm.

Samantha is not the typical student you would on the famous Warren Creative Writing MFA, especially as a scholarship student. She is ostracised by the rest of her all-female cohort, a group of women who call one another “Bunny” and hug for too long. Then Samantha receives an invitation to their “smut salon”. As Samantha is dragged deeper into their sanctimonious world, the edges of fantasy and reality begin to blur, and the Bunnies push her to the edge.

Books I Would Like to Read in August!

I stopped doing TBRs a while ago, simply because I wasn’t reading the books I listed! Now, I write down 3 books I would like to get to each month in my reading journal, and most months I get to at least 2!

However, I thought I’d share some of the books I would like to read this August. As a teacher, August is my summer holiday, and even though I have things to do and a book to edit (!!), I’m hoping to have a couple of hours a day to read.

Monthly Reading Wrap-Up | July 2021

Another month is over in 2021, and I can’t quite believe how fast it’s going! The first four months of the year crawled by at a snail’s pace, and now they’ve flown by!

July was quite a busy month for me. I finished my first year of teaching (my training year, but it was also a full year!), went to stay with my partner, had a mini-break, and attended my first wedding reception as an adult! It was a blast, and I had a really lovely month, especially the last few weeks of it.

Unboxing | Books That Matter: “Herland” | July 2021

Books That Matter delivered another stellar box this month, and even though, for the first time, I already had the book, I was still very excited to open it.

“Herland” was themed around feminist utopia and dystopia. In recent months, pop culture has seen the rise of dystopias once again, with the likes of books released in the pandemic as well as hits such as The Handmaid’s Tale. I think it’s a really interesting theme to have a book box themed around, especially a feminist one like BTM.