If you liked this book, try this board game! feat. @cliosboardgames

Hello readers!

It’s December, and for the past two years it’s been tradition that Clio’s Board Games and I write a post together. We’ve known each other for years now and have been gifting each other books and board games for just as long. You should definitely check out Clio’s blog if you like board games, if you’re interested in history and if you like sassy, well-written posts.

I think these kind of posts are really cool to have around Christmas time, because a lot of us are wondering what to gift someone who has a hobby that you’re like “hummm I don’t want to give a book to a person who reads so many books, I’m not sure if they’re read this already” and such, so it’s a nice option to give a board game based on their literary tastes! This has worked super well for me so far in real life.

Here are the other posts we wrote together:

Bookish Boardgames Recommendations #1 + a guest!

If You Liked This, Try This! – Books and Boardgames Edition

And on Clio’s blog you can see what I wrote, giving book recommendations based on board games!

Without further ado, I’ll give the word to Clio 🙂

If you liked this book, try this F/F book!

Hello readers!

I really enjoy posts of “if you liked…, then read…”, so I thought it would be a nice idea to spread some F/F love and recommend some books based on other books you guys may have liked. Some correlations are more obvious than others, and I normally try to match books by the feelings they gave me as well as the plot, where possible, but you’ll see me matching fantasy with scifi, contemporary and fantasy… to me, if they had the same energy, they’re a match.

If you liked Sadie, by Courtney Summers…

…try Missing, Presumed Dead, by Emma Berquist!

This is a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. They are both YAs with girls who are after revenge, and are full of anger. While Sadie is a contemporary thriller that goes dark in a painfully realistic way, Missing, Presumed Dead has ghosts and some romance thrown in. It’s dark and gritty, but not in the same way as Sadie, and it’s not as heart-breaking, in my opinion. But if what you liked about Sadie was the main character being driven by rage for the murder of an innocent girl, I think you will enjoy this F/F pick!

Listening to Audiobooks While Working Out & Running

Hello readers!

I’ve been quite terrible at keeping up with my workout schedules lately, but I’m still running about twice a week, and hopefully now that things have quieted down in my personal life, I can go back to kicking ass regularly!

I’m not the best multitasker ever, as I’m more of a focus-on-one-thing-at-a-time kind of person, but I loved the idea of listening to a book while working out and getting TWO things done at the same time, so I tried it out – here’s how it went!

The first book I listened to while working out was Skin Deep, which I listened to while on the treadmill. If you don’t know, I love running but I suck at it, and I’m pretty new to it, too. My main issue back then, and even now, is endurance – running for a sustained period of time. When I started, I did mostly walking at a fast pace and short periods of running in between, on the treadmill, and even that can be challenging for a beginner, so I thought Skin Deep helped keep me distracted, and I was so tense I ended up doing more running between walks than in other days. So, success!

My Favorite F/F Book by Genre

Hello readers!

Today I have a post I’m quite excited about! I realized a few days ago that I actually don’t have any posts on F/F books, although I have been reading those a lot more lately and have about 10000 on my TBR. So I put a poll on Twitter and for this first post about F/F books I will be posting my favorite F/F book by genre!

Okay so I got inspired by @wlwnovels and want to do a post on my favorite F/F books, but I don't want to do a GIANT post yet because I have so manyyy F/F on my TBR that I want to do some sort of Masterlist at a later point.

How should I do this first post(s)?

— Naty's Bookshelf 👩‍💻📚 (@natysbookshelf) August 7, 2019

I’d love to get recommendations on other F/F books you guys loved! So if you see a book I list below and think “you know what, if you liked this book I’m sure you’ll like this one too”, let me know in the comments!

Also I will be changing my posting days a little – I’ve been doing Tuesday, Friday, Sunday so far, and I think I’ll keep Sundays because I’m going to go back to my Sunday Snuggle posts soon, but I am changing Tuesday posts to Monday, and Fridays to Wednesdays, because I constantly get late on answering comments and I think spreading those out through my work week makes it easier to stick to a routine than on my weekends. It’s not as easily spread out as I’d like, but I want to keep the Sunday Snuggle posts, so this is what I’ll be doing 🙂

Books my Sister and I Have Recommended Each Other and Loved

Hello book lovers!

Today I’m coming with a new maybe-series with someone who’s been my best friend for as many years as I remember: my sister. Meet Ale (pronounced: ah-LE)! We have created anime avatars at https://picrew.me/image_maker/43383 to make this post a little bit cuter and also show off a bit of our personalities 🙂

Ale & I loved reading all things Agatha Christie as kids and constantly took a bunch of those books and exchanged them during family trips, so we have a good idea of what the other person will like, so it’s no surprise that some of our recommendations to each other have become favorites! Without further ado, our favorite recommended books:

Ale’s Favorites

More Audiobook Recommendations

Hello readers!

It’s been a while since my Audiobook Recommendations post, so I thought I’d give you a few more recs! I listen to audiobooks a lot, and these are some that I thought were done really well!

I read mostly thrillers on audio, so most of my recommendations will be thrillers!

Thrillers

Jar of Hearts, by Jennifer Hillier

January LaVoy is my favorite narrator, so I will gladly recommend basically any audiobook she narrates. This one was no exception – Jar of Hearts was very popular when it came out, and although I ended up giving it 3 stars, most people I know loved it. AND the narration is fantastic.

The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn

This book is just fantastic, and the narrator does a pretty good job, too! My sister recommended this one to me and boy, was she right.

Lying in Wait, by Liz Nugent

There are three POVs and three narrators to this book, which always makes me happy. I love different narrators! One of them has quite a thick accent, which for me was not so easy to understand, and talks in sort of a monotone, but the others are really good, especially Lydia.

Choose a Movie or Animation and Get a Book Recommendation #1

Hello book lovers!

I’m not a big person for movies, I surely enjoy watching them but I hardly ever do. It’s difficult for me to actually love a movie, but those I do… I watch over and over. I actually have a surprising soft spot for rom coms. And an unsurprising soft spot for nostalgic Disney movies that transport me to my childhood. Apart from The Butterfly Effect, which my sister loves but I never managed to finish because it made me AGONIZE, I love the movies below and I think some of you might too!

If you like I Give It a Year…

…read:

If you loved this movie for its emotional punch and truthful take on a marriage that might or not work out, After I Do is such a great read.

Psychological Thrillers to Read if You Loved “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn

Hello readers!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was such a phenomenon when it came out, and it’s still one of the best-selling thrillers ever. I loved it so much, and it got me addicted to psychological thrillers! Thinking about that, here are the psychological thrillers that remind me of Gone Girl and will give you the same vibes of a grey-moral character, manipulative villains, almost perfect crimes and mind-blowing twists!

If you loved Gone Girl…

You may also like:

Based on a True Story by Delphine de Vigan

This is not exactly a thriller, although it’s categorized as such. It’s a contemporary, charming and elegant, beautifully written – and chilling. Delphine merges fact and fiction in this book, telling the story of how she met L., a sophisticated woman with whom she develops a complicated relationship. But what are L.’s motivations? Where did she come from?

Book Recommendations for 20-Somethings

I’ve been seeing lots of discussion on Twitter about the lack of New Adult books out there and how a lot of NA books get marketed as YA so that it gets read at all. So, after reading this recommendation list by Book Riot, I thought it would be interesting to come up with a list of my own.

I don’t really have lots of self-help (I’ve seen lots of those on other lists like this) because I don’t read those much. I have on this list romance, contemporary, fantasy and classics. Maybe a nonfiction or two. So, without further ado, here are some books I recommend for 20-somethings!

The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

This is a classic that keeps getting recommended to people, especially women. I agree with that assessment – many people would benefit from reading this gorgeous book. Sylvia Plath has a beautiful writing style, but more than that, she captures the emptiness that a lot of people feel, that distance between oneself and others. It’s not an upbeat book, but a great read that will get you thinking.

My Boyfriend Recommends Me Books

Hello readers!

My boyfriend and I love reading, and it’s not unusual for us to spend a long time discussing what we’re reading, passionately disagreeing about Homo Faber, raving about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s books and so on… so it’s quite usual that we suggest reading material to each other. So I asked him to put together a few of the books he’s been suggesting to me the past few months into a post! I’m still deciding which (if any) I will add to my TBR, but I’m quite tempted.

A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin)
One could say a great many things about A Game of Thrones. It is epic, smart fantasy with a strong touch of realism in its world-building, its characters, and their relationships with each other. It’s a page-turner. It’s a work that makes you question who you are rooting for and why and therefore makes you think about your assumptions and values. But as Game of Thrones has been the biggest hype of the last seven years, one can just as well be silent and expect everybody else to know what it’s about. Naty has already vowed to pick up the books once all of them are published. By GRRM’s current writing pace, I would estimate she still has time until 2030 to read other things. Like, for example…