ARC Review: ReWired, by S. R. Johannes

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Genres: Young Adult, Thriller, Mystery

Goodreads  / Amazon

I have received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

ReWired tells the story of Ada Lovelace, a teenage girl whose real life sucks. Her best friend has committed suicide a few months ago, and she’s been depressed. Online, she’s Dark Angel, a sharp-minded hacker who does hacking challenges with the Orwellians. When she gets busted by the FBI, she is sent to ReBoot, the camp for recovering technology addicts her friend also went to – right before she killed herself. Ada thinks the key to understanding what happened is in that place, where each person seems to know more than they are willing to tell.

The Sunday Snuggle W8/2018 #TheSundaySnuggle

Hello readers!

This week was complicated mentally for me. I got a bit worse, then got one of my medication dosages changed and now I’m hoping it’ll work better. I did lots of effort this week to be social (fellow anxious people: do you also do ridiculous things like keeping your very warm jacket on inside places because you’re too worried about getting stuck in it while trying to get it off and embarrassing yourself? Anxious life is something), and I think it worked more or less.

On better news, I got those two amazing books (and the gorgeous The Kite Runner bookmark!!), a Bloomsbury Modern Classics edition of The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks.

Discussion: My No-Buy List

Dear readers,

I am creating a no-buy list, of authors I never want to buy books from because of my principles. I am aware this is difficult – the separation of art and artist is a difficult conversation and it’s not my intention with this post. I would like to make sure I have all the information I need before buying books and make sure I don’t forget someone I wouldn’t like to buy books from.

I’ll add it to my Bullet Journal lists, which I carry with me when I go out anyways, so it’s easy to check before buying! Paper Fury has a great discussion in this post about this theme.

ARC Review: The New Dark (The Dark Times Trilogy #1), by Lorraine Thomson

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Genres: Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult, Fantansy

Goodreads  / Amazon

I have received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had to battle through this book to get it finished. It’s 221 pages long, but to me it felt like it would never be over. I wanted to give this book the fairest chance possible, but it didn’t work too well.

The New Dark tells the story of Sorrel, a girl living in a post-apocalyptic settlement of Amat, where there is no electrical energy, no currency, no internet. Those things are from the time Before. When she survives an attack by mutants and hides from them, a chain of events gets started – and she must be brave and face dangers if she wants to see her little brother Eli and her friend David ever again.

The Sunday Snuggle W7/2018 #TheSundaySnuggle

Hello readers!

There’s not much to tell from this week, it was rather uneventful. It has started snowing so much where I live, which is perfect for staying home and reading, and a bit less perfect to go to work and the gym and so on. I ended up reading quite a bit because my anxiety was being a drama queen, and thus I worked shorter hours this week. So I managed to get some reading done, but of course I then went to Netgalley and got a few more books, so I am back at 71% and have to read another 10 books to go over 80%. Will I ever learn?

Is it worth getting a Kindle Unlimited subscription?

Dear readers!

I have used Kindle Unlimited once about two years ago, and I read some really great stuff there and some really bad stuff too. Thinking about that, plus the fact that I am in a book ban (again…) and I realized that Kindle Unlimited was a loop hole on my ban (hehe), I decided to try it for the 30-days free trial period! But then I had around three thousand ARCs to read, so I only read a few books on the free trial month. Then, for the sake of committing to blogging (just kidding, there were books I wanted to read hehehe), I stayed for another month.

My Experience

I really like using the this subscription, as I love reading thrillers, and there’s a few classics in there too, plus lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Audiobooks, and it’s quite nice that I can switch seamlessly from ebook to Audiobook with this. I will probably not use it EVERY month, but there’s a lot of good books on the list and I will be using it from time to time. During this experience I read 10 books. A few other I ended up getting from either Netgally or Edelweiss, so I could definitely have added easily another 5 to this list if it wasn’t for that!

Valentine’s Day: A Romance Books Discussion

Dear readers,

Happy Valentine’s Day! In my country, this is celebrated on June 12th, but since my boyfriend is European, we also celebrate it on February 14th. Do you have a Valentine’s Day tradition? I have to say I don’t have any… we both kind of keep it low key and maybe give each other chocolate or go out to have dinner… but nothing too much.

Anyway, if you have been reading my blog for a while, you probably know I’m not a big romance reader. I’ve never read a Nora Roberts, a Danielle Steel or a Nicholas Sparks book. I don’t mind reading romance in books, but I don’t particularly seek them out. Normally, my favorite romances are also from another genre, like fantasy. This comes probably from my own prejudices regarding the romance genre, for which I am not proud of (see what I did there?? No?? See the gif below then).

Review: A River in Darkness, by Masaji Ishikawa

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Non-fiction, Memoir

Goodreads  / Amazon

Half-Japanese and half-Korean Masaji Ishikawa lived a poor and hard life in Japan with his family, angry at his violent father and feeling like an outsider. Then, when he’s thirteen, his family moves to North Korea, in search of a better life – the promises of free education, abundance of jobs and free access to doctors lures them. They soon find out the depth of the lies of the propaganda, and life gets much, much harder. Masaji tells the story of his life in “paradise on earth”, and its brutality, the endless hunger, poverty and cruelty and his escape 36 years later.

The Sunday Snuggle W6/2018 #TheSundaySnuggle

Hello readers!

This week has been much less productive reading-wise than the last one, mainly because I’m increasing my work hours, but I’m still very satisfied with it! I finished a book that I need to return to the library (in three weeks… but my anxiety convinced me I needed to finish it IMMEDIATELY or I wouldn’t make it to the deadline… yes, I know, anxiety logic) and generally am heading again to 80% approval on Netgalley! Just a few books more to go (like… 10…)!

As said last week, we got a few new shelves, and organized the bookshelf, which now has exclusively books! Looks so empty at the moment because I have maybe 30 books on the place I stay during the week for work, and also because it’s only the books I bought since my boyfriend and I moved in together three years ago. On the right are the my TBR books and it looked so scary to realize it occupied 4 cubes, which is the cubes for authors starting with A, B, C and D together…

ARC Review: Hidden Seams, by Alessandra Torre

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Romance, Erotica

Goodreads / Amazon

I have received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In Hidden Seams, Marco has just inherited a billion after ten years of selling his reputation, and realizes now just how lonely he really is. Avery works with money laundering, trying to get enough money to support the immigrant women who depend on her to find shelter and a decent job. She is determine if the man who used to publicly date Marco was his father, and he is determined to not let her ruin his legacy. When they meet, however, the intense passion between them is something they can’t fight.