Book Review: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (The Winternight Trilogy #1) /★★★★★

Summary: Vasilisa is a creature of winter and nature. When her father brings home a stepmother who forbids her family from honoring household spirits, and a priest arrives who teaches her happy village to fear, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on gifts she has long concealed to protect her family.

You are. And because you are, you can walk where you will, into peace, oblivion, or pits of fire, but you will always choose.

Five-Star Read Predictions

Rachel from pace, amore, libri challenged me to predict my own 5 star reads….and I have accepted! This challenge was started by Mercedes on booktube.  You pick out 5 books on your TBR that you think are going to be 5-star reads. When you finish, you can come back and make a post letting everyone know how you got on.

The Absolutist by John Boyne

In my recent post about books I’m thankful for, I posted a screencap from a conversation with Rachel telling me to read this because it’s painful. And since I live for painful WW II stories, and the last John Boyne book I read, The Heart’s Invisible Furies, was one of the best books I read this year, I would bet a lot of money this will be a 5 star read for me.

Top 5 Tuesday: Female Leads

Top 5 Tuesday is a meme by the fantastic Bionic Book Worm, and it explores a different bookish topic each week. If you’d like to join in on the fun, check out the Top 5 Tuesday July topics! And check out her top 5 female leads!

This post was really fun to write, I love talking about my favorite female characters. It wasn’t hard for me to choose them, though there are many others I could keep the list going on with! So let’s get to it-

The Mid Year Freak Out – Book Tag!

Thanks to Shanah at Bionic Book Worm for tagging me! I’ve fallen behind on tags, but this one looked like a lot of fun and I had the time, so I couldn’t resist doing it right away!

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1 – THE BEST BOOK YOU’VE READ SO FAR IN 2017

This is hard!!! I’m tempted to name several, but I’m going to force myself to go with one, and that’s The Secret History. It was the very first book I read this year, and I did not mean to set the bar for every other book to come in 2017 but I guess I did. I ADORE this book. It excels in every category for me: writing, character, plot, general atmosphere of beauty and tragedy. It’s awful and fantastic and I’ll love it forever.

Book Review: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue / ★★★★☆

Summary: Lib, an English nurse at the end of the 19th century, is called to Ireland to observe a miracle: a girl who has not eaten for months. Lib is determined to expose the lunacy in the situation- but ends up uncovering something darker than she expects.

Other eleven-year-olds knew when they’d eaten and when they hadn’t; they were old enough to tell make-believe from fact. There was something very different about – very wrong with – Anna O’Donnell.

May Recap

This was a very good month of reading! I had a bit of a Shakespeare stint, but the highlight was definitely the Lunar Chronicles, which I’m obsessed with and still not quite over. And to think, for the longest time I thought I wouldn’t enjoy them and refused to read them. I’M DUMB. I love when books prove me wrong.

This or That Book Tag

Thanks so much Hadeer @ hadeerwrites for nominating me for this tag! Go check out her blog, she’s really nice and writes really great and articulate book reviews!

Rules:

• Mention the creator of the tag (Ayunda @ Tea and Paperbacks)
• Thank the blogger who tagged you.
• Choose one of the options, you don’t have to tell the reasons why you chose that but you can also do them if you want to.
• Tag other people to do this tag to spread the love!

This or That?

Reading on the couch or on the bed?
Couch during daytime hours because there’s more sunlight in my living room, and bed at night (because I’ll inevitably stay up too late reading and I don’t have to drag myself to bed if I’m already there).

The Bookish Courtship Tag

I saw Birdie Bookworm do this tag on her wonderful blog, and I thought it looked fun so decided to go for it myself! There aren’t any rules, some fun questions.

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Phase 1: Initial attraction: a book that you bought because of the cover

I distinctly remember being in a bookstore (Borders, RIP) years and years ago, seeing this book and immediately loving the cover. I found the summary interesting but I bought it because I needed to own such a pretty book. Luckily, it turned out to tell an amazing story! I love this book all around.

Book Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress by Marissa Meyer (The Lunar Chronicles #3) / ★★★★★

One sentence summary: Cress, a Lunar hacker trapped in a satellite for seven years, is about to be rescued so she can help can stop a royal wedding- but things go horribly wrong.

“I am an explorer,” she whispered, “setting courageously off into the wild unknown.” It was not a daydream she’d ever had before, but she felt the familiar comfort of her imagination wrapping around her. She was an archaeologist, a scientist, a treasure hunter. She was a master of land and sea. “My life is an adventure,” she said, growing confident as she opened her eyes again. “I will not be shackled to this satellite anymore.” 

Thorne tilted his head to one side. He waited for three heartbeats before sliding one hand down into hers. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “But we’ll go with it.” 

Listicle Tag

Thanks so much to Birdie Bookworm for tagging me in this fantastic tag by Not-So-Modern-Girl! This is such a fun tag! Check out their awesome blogs for more of it 🙂

Rules

• Create your own listicle tag, using the prompt from the person who tagged you.
• Tag the creator of the post (not-so-modern-girl!) so that I can read all your brilliant posts and see how the joy of listicles is being spread.
• Nominate as many people as you want!
• Set those 5 people the subject/prompt of their listicle post!

Birdie’s listicle prompt was to name 5 exceptional book to movie adaptations!

I have to be honest, I’m not much a movie person, and I really haven’t seen many book to movie adaptations that I think have been super great. I am no seasoned movie reviewer. But I will list some ones that I love and that have stuck with me…so this will be more of a sentimental list.

But please, if there are any great movies out there based on books that you think are worth watching, please comment and let me know!!