Hello readers!
So this week I reached 600 followers on WordPress! These past months it’s been difficult to do the more social part of blogging, namely commenting on other people’s blogs, self-promoting and so on, which I believe strongly affected the rate at which my followers numbers grow: in May I reached 500, and now only in September I get to 600. Do you guys have the same experiences with book blogging? I post with the same frequency as before, so surely my reduced growth comes from my lack of socialization online (which I will improve upon, I promise). After reading this post from Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books (also linked below!), I’m thinking it probably has something to do with the fact that I stopped taking part in memes & tags so much as before. As I schedule my posts WAY in advance (I have drafts for posts all the way to February next year and could easily disappear for a month from WP and only my Sunday Snuggles would be delayed), it’s difficult for me to follow those too closely. There’s no way I can conciliate a healthy lifestyle + a full-time job + reading a lot + blogging without scheduling things in advance. What do you think?
Do you feel like Instagram is a useful book blogging social media, by the way? I have been considering deleting my account, for a few reasons: so much work to get lighting etc, needs to be updated constantly, doesn’t get me significant clicks to my blog, is more “popular” if you have lots of hardcovers and natural light (which I don’t), stagnant number of followers. However: I love photographing books. I started a poll on Twitter about it, to see what other people think about Bookstagram:
I received this from Netgalley:
Interesting Reads Around the Web
Camillea Reads – If You Liked TO KILL A KINGDOM…You’ll Love…
Drizzle and Hurricane Books – Why are book tags and memes so popular?
Diary of a Bookfiend – Review: All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Buzzfeed – 20 Amazing Bookstores From Around The World
Buzzfeed – 23 YA Books That You’ll Absolutely Want To Pick Up This Fall
Audible US – Links to free books recommended by TED-ED on your free trial
Beware of the Reader – Wanted: Young Man for lead role in YA Story. Requisite: see post for details.
Bookish Videos
My Readings This Week
I finished this week The Psychology of Time Travel, this wonderful, wonderful book. I was not so sure how I felt about a time travel book (the only one I liked so far was Timeline by Michael Crichton), but this book is so good! There’s enough science for my taste (I prefer my sci-fi to be hard rather than soft), but not so much that it’s dry and boring. AT. ALL. There’s so many twists, so much mystery, I loved this so much. 5 stars!
I finished Deathless as an audiobook this week! If you remember, last week I almost DNF-ed it, but after that first 25% the story gets so much better. It’s dark and magical and definitely not YA. This has lots of abusive relationships and violence (it’s partly set during WWII), but it’s also kind of beautiful. If you loved Wintersong or ACOTAR, you’ll like this one! 4 stars.
For no other reason than curiosity, I picked up Bobbi Brown Beauty Rules on Scribd. I am a makeup lover, but haven’t been that excited about it until I was an adult. So I thought it would be interesting to see what advice she had for teens, especially because I was one at the time of the publication of the book. I gave this three stars because there are very nice tips sometimes and cool tips for different skin types. I had never seen a beauty advice for Middle Eastern or biracial girls – although I know those things now, it would’ve been nice to know them as a teen. But it was also full of advice I didn’t agree with at all – a lot of criticism of girls with piercings and tattoos, the girls on the photos were mostly conventionally beautiful… etc. So 3 stars.
I also picked up The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy! I’m so, so happy to go back to this world, although I wasn’t too impressed with The Gentlemen’s Guide… it was fun, but not exceptional. But I have HIGH hopes for this sequel, so let’s see where this goes!
I also read All Systems Red this week! The audio narration itself wasn’t the best – not that it was bad at all, but it could’ve been a bit quirkier for me, but I LOVED the story! It’s a quick, fast-paced cool story about a self-aware droid (who calls himself Murderbot!) and it’s like C-3P0 telling a story about rogue droids, murder and general sci-fi goodness. Highly recommend! 5 stars!
This book kept me awake for far longer than I should have Wednesday night. An Extraordinary Union is a historical fiction romance, set during the Civil War, Elle is a spy for the North disguised as a slave in the South, and Malcolm is a detective pretending to work for the Rebels. This book is so full of important discourse about slavery, racism, sexism, the complexity of war, objectification and so much more. And then the romance didn’t captivate me much in the beginning – there was SO much power imbalance – but I grew warmer and warmer towards it and by the end I was having goosebumps. I love this book now and I added another two books by Alyssa Cole to my TBR. I liked this one far more than A Princess in Theory. 5 stars!
I picked up How to Survive the End of the World (When it’s in Your Own Head) as an audiobook as well, and I am loving this so far!! If you loved Furiously Happy, I’m sure you’ll love this too. I laugh out loud while listening to this in the morning and getting ready, which definitely brightens my day a bit.
Congratulations 💕 on reaching 600 FOLLOWERS 💕
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Thank you!!
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Congratz on 600. All systems red is great, the second is good too. I still need to read the third.
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Oh yay!! I will pick up the second one in the next months, great to know it’s good!
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It does go a little off course from the first, so don’t expect the same people. None the less it was great the new people. Added more scope to the world being built
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Sounds quite cool!
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Deathless seems like a good read for the kind of weather we’re having! I’ll save it for October 🙂 Instagram is a lot of hard-work and while I do want to get more followers there, I feel more pressured. Between IG, Twitter, and my blog, I really don’t know how to divide & balance my attention! I’m going to hold myself less accountable on IG because I’ve been losing the joy for it.
Thanks for linking my post! And congratulations on reaching 600!!
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I agree about Deathless!! Although here in Germany Summer is going strong this week… weird.
Me too! I used to love taking pictures for IG, but not so much anymore! Maybe I’ll not deactivate it, but just stop posting regularly, One definitely can’t keep up with Twitter, IG, blog, life…
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I’m so jealous of your ARC for A Curse So Dark And Lonely. It’s one of my most anticipated reads right now – that isn’t a sequel – and.. well, the publisher told me to request it on NG so they’d approve it and they declined me. [Insert me pretty much crying when I found out.]
ANYWAY.
Congratz on the 600 followers! I have to say, my followers count has been slacking as well these last couple of months. Maybe it also has something to do with holidays / exams and stuff like that. People simply go less on the internet when they don’t necessarily have to escape school, I think? [At least I know I was like that back then, haha.]
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Makes sense that people will follow fewer blogs during the holidays… no idea! I honestly still think it’s my lack of socializing with the bookish community, but well!
Hummmm is there a way I could send that to you? I’m not the smartest cookie when it comes to eARCs. I’ll check this week if I can copy the file and send to you 🙂 I remember reading about your issue, so I totally think they were going to send the eARC to you but something went wrong.
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You can only try so hard. We do have lives outside of our blogs after all, haha. 🙂
I’ve no clue! I saw your mail – THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT – and I’ll check it out tonight!
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Living outside our blogs is a wild concept. I shall try to use it. xD
Great!! I hope it works!
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Hahaha!
Really keeping my fingers crossed
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Congrats on 600!!!!!
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