July Wrap-Up!

Hello! Today I'm sharing with you all my wrap-up for the month of July and I'm pretty excited about it! I didn't read as many books as I had hoped I would but I did read a lot more manga than I have in quite a while so I'm really happy about that. First, we'll start off with the books I read and then venture off into the graphic novels, manga, and end with my TBR that I might stick to so don't hold me to it! I usually don't do good with TBR's but I'll give myself a small one.

So, without further ado, here is my wrap-up for the month! And in case you want to see what books I got this month as well, be sure to check out my July book haul post! Okay, you may continue reading.

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ALL THE BOOKS!!

NERVE by Jeanne Ryan

The Killer In Me by Margot Harrison

Under My Skin by Laura Diamond

The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson #1)

The Dragon Sphere by Abel Gallardo (review coming August 12!)

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GRAPHIC NOVELS!

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North & Erica Henderson (Issue #1)

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MANGA!

High School Debut by Kazune Kawahara (High School Debut #1) - Goodreads

Time Guardian by Tamao Ichinose & Daimuro Kishi (Time Guardian #1) - Goodreads

Princess Jellyfish by Akiko Higashimuro (Princess Jellyfish Omnibus #1) - Goodreads

Knights of Sidonia by Tsutomu Nihei (Knights of Sidonia #1) - Goodreads

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TBR!

So like I said earlier, I've been very bad lately at sticking to any of my TBR lists for the past few months. I've become more of a mood reader which is why I've been a little bit neglective of reading books and instead have been reading more graphic novels and manga lately. I'm still currently in that mood but hopefully, I'll be able to pick up some of these books and finish them before I pick up another graphic novel. All of these books on my TBR were copies sent to me for free in exchange for an honest review so be on the lookout for these reviews if one of these books look interesting to you. There will also be giveaways for some of these!

Dispocalypse by Michael A. Rothman - Goodreads

Red: The Untold Story by Angela M. Hudson - Goodreads

Tenderfoot by Abby Drinen - Goodreads

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So that's it for my little wrap-up for this month! I'm actually quite proud of myself for having read more books than last month even if they were just graphic novels. It also helped me to get caught up on my reading challenge for the year so double yay! 

What books did you all read this month? What book was your favorite read of the month? Please let me know so I can ask you about a million questions about why you loved the book. Read on, bookworms! See you in the next chapter!

July Book Haul!

Hello, everyone! Today, I'm here with my July book haul! I've decided to split up my wrap-up and book haul for this month into two separate posts since I acquired more books than I actually read this month. Yay! Be sure to check back tomorrow if you're interested in seeing all the books I read in the month of July and I'll also be sharing my tiny little TBR for the month of August. 

First, we'll start off with all of the books I bought for myself, beginning with physical copies. I bought I lot more ebooks than I usually do but this month there were so many great sales on Google Books that I just couldn't handle myself. So, anyhoo, here are all the books!

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Physical Books:

Who Could That Be At This Hour? by Lemony Snicket (ATWQ #1)- Library- $1

Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson (KOD #1)- Library- $1

The Ask and The Answer by Patrick Ness (Chaos Walking #2)- Half Price Books- $1

Symptoms of My Insanity by Mindy Raf -Dollar Store- $1

Catacomb by Madeliene Roux (Asylum #3)- Wal-Mart- $8

A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall- Amazon- $4

Isla and The Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (AATFK #3)- Amazon- $4

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And now for all of the ebooks I bought! I'm sorry, the sales were just too good to pass up on. I mean, seriously!

Ebooks:

Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez- Google Books- $2.99

Reawakened by Colleen Houck (Reawakened #1)- Google Books- $1.99

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson (13 LBE #1)- Google Books- $1.99

The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings (The Murder Complex #1) - Google Books- $1.99

A Night in with Audrey Hepburn by Lucy Holliday (Libby Lomax #1) -Google Books- $1.99

Map To The Stars by Jen Malone- Google Books- $1.99

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And now for the books I was sent for review! I was sent these books for free in exchange for an honest review so be on the lookout for the reviews for these if any of them look interesting! There will be giveaways for some of these soon!

Review Copies:

Under My Skin by Laura Diamond

Tenderfoot by Abby Drinen -Review Coming August 29!

Red: The Untold Story by Angela M. Hudson- Review Coming August 31!

Dispocalypse by Michael A. Rothman- Review Coming August 15!

The Dragon Sphere by Abel Gallardo- Review Coming August 12!

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And finally, for all the music I bought this month! As of writing this post, I'm currently listening to an album I bought an hour ago, Whoops. Again, the sales! Thank you, Google Books and Music! You seriously contribute to my losing money on books and music, my two weaknesses. I swear I'm working on holding back every now and then. It's a process. Anyway, enjoy!

Physical CD's:

Thank You by Meghan Trainor (Deluxe Edition) -Wal-Mart- $15

Off The Wall by Michael Jackson- Wal-Mart- $5

Vinyl's/LP's:

Thank You by Meghan Trainor (Deluxe Edition) -Half Price Books- $17

Title by Meghan Trainor -Antique Mall- $15

John Wick Motion Picture Soundtrack- Antique Mall- $20 (my brother bought it)

Pal Joey Sountrack- Thrift Store- $2

Digital Albums:

Michael Jackson Number Ones by Michael Jackson- Google Music- $5.83 (this is the one I'm currently listening to)

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Whew. That was a lot of typing and uploading of pictures. Anyhoo, I hope you all enjoyed my way too big book and music haul for this month. What books did you buy this month? If you have a monthly book haul post, please leave a link below because I would love to check it out! Read on, bookworms! See you in the next chapter!

NERVE: Movie Review!

Rating: PG-13

Release: July 27, 2016

Hello, everybody! Today, I was finally able to head to the theater after long last to not only see a new movie but of course, to see a new book-to-movie adaptation that I've been anticipating for a little while now! I was super excited about this movie after I found out it was based on a book, which you can check out the book review for by clicking the link. So, anyhoo, I just love books and storylines that have to do with games such as Sword Art Online (1st season), The Eye Of Minds by James Dashner, and a few others. I get that players being stuck in a game of a sort isn't the most original idea ever but I still very much enjoy them from time to time.

So, obviously, I had to pick up NERVE and read it because I just loved the synopsis for the book and, well, the movie was coming out soon. I somehow managed to get my brother to read the book after showing him the trailer for the movie and he ended up loving it and we both went to see the movie earlier today and, surprise, I can't decide if I like the book or the movie better. For the first time ever I can't decide if I prefer the book to the movie or not. Like, what is this madness?

There were a lot of changes the movie adaptation made but overall, there was an equal amount of things we both liked about the movie and the book themselves. For starters, even though there were a lot of changes, the movie still kept the main plot points, pace, characters of course, and the themes and dares, even though there were different settings and the dares were different than in the book. Other changes included what our main character Vee is interested in such as in the book, she's set on going to fashion school. In the movie, her passion is photography and she rocks at it. The whole deal with her wanting to go to an expensive art school is still the same, though Vee's family life is changed a bit with her living with only her mom, no dad, and having a deceased older brother.

Some of the changes didn't really seem all that necessary but then again, it added some emotion, drama, and made Vee's character more willing to play NERVE since there was only one source of income and her mother was scared to let Vee go off to an expensive school for fear of not being able to pay the bills as well as still dealing with a death in the family. The dares were different than in the book but I didn't mind it that much since they were more realistic than in the book. The game is played in New York instead than in the original story, Ian's background is a little bit different and his reason for playing NERVE is also a little bit darker but the changes worked with the adaptation from page to screen.

I really liked the casting for all the characters. The pace, romance, excitement, and the overall story was well translated without getting boring or cheesy and the dares were exciting, even having me cringe just watching the characters do some of the dares and almost dying a few times in the process of playing the game. I would honestly go see this movie again since I really loved it despite the ending being totally different than the book and the way NERVE is operated being tweaked a little bit. I loved the book as well and I would say that the movie is good just as it's own thing, maybe not the best adaptation, but well worth watching for sure. I would give the movie about four stars based on just how much I personally enjoyed it. Even my brother, who's very picky just like me about book-to-movie adaptations, really liked it and enjoyed a lot of the changes.

So, do you think you would play NERVE if it was real? Let me if you're a player or a watcher in the comments. Read on, bookworms! See you in the next chapter!

Book Talk #9: The Book That Got Me Hooked On Reading

Hello, everybody! Today, I'd thought I'd share a little bit of a story with all of you guys about how I first got hooked on reading. I've always been a reader ever since I was little but I was never really hooked on it. I usually just read whatever sounded interesting and that led to some books that I now question why I ever picked up in the first place. Like, seriously, I had very little taste back then. 

But, that all changed when I was fourteen and I decided to check out a specific book from the library because I heard that the movie was coming out in less than four months and I thought 'eh, it sounds like it could be cool'. So I grabbed a bookmark, sat down and read the book thinking it would be an interesting book. Little did I know, I'd finished it in one sitting and die for a couple of days before I could get my hands on the next two books.

It was a little book you might have heard of through the grapevine: Divergent.

Before ever reading the book, I had never really read anything along the lines of a dystopia story, I wasn't even entirely sure what it was or meant for a book to be dystopia and not sci-fi. I was like 'what's the difference?' How cute I was for not knowing that. Anyhoo, I thought the whole idea of the book sounded cool, what with the whole faction thing and the fight training. I thought it sounded very girl power. Before I knew it I was tearing through the series all the way until the very end of the last book. Even though my heart was ripped out of my chest and broken into about a billion pieces, I was hungry for more of the dystopia world and traits. Through Divergent, I ended up reading Delirium, Legend, Matched, and a couple of other series. I started falling in love with reading again and before I knew it, I started learning just what kind of books I liked and I wanted to read more and more now that I was excited about reading again. 

Surprisingly, I never ran into The Hunger Games or even Harry Potter. How that happened is still a mystery to me. But, I did end up finding some of my favorite books and series that I still love to this day and to think it all started with one simple book. My parents had to watch my book collection grow a little bigger every day and even dared to ask if I was reading all the books I was buying. How cute. They were just glad that I was doing something productive so they didn't argue when the time came to buy me a couple of bookshelves after my collection was now too large to fit on a cart I bought from IKEA. That, and I think they were interested in some of the books I owned. 

Seven months after reading Divergent I started this little blog and well, you know the story. I wrote reviews, started talking about other bookish things, followed book-to-movie adaptations like crazy, I eventually got more comfortable with blogging and now here I am taking you all down memory lane. Woohoo! 

I think it's crazy to think that I'd been a reader my entire life and found some of my favorite books through randomly picking up books, not really knowing what I liked when it came to storylines. Once I knew what I liked in books and what I loved about the storylines, characters, and the genres, I enjoyed reading a lot more than I did before and found new ways to express my grief, fangirl moments, frustrations, anger, and every other emotion from reading. Not only that, but I made some new friends through blogging and discovered Goodreads and bookstagram and every other bookish community that was just as in love with books as I was. I thought it was something quite amazing, especially since my friends in real life are readers, but we all have very different tastes in books. Sometimes I feel like I can't talk to them about my new favorite book since they've never heard of it or don't like the idea of the story and I'm left to cry about my feelings to a pillow. 

However, sometimes we do end up finding a book we both really love but through blogging and bookstagram, I can easily find at least one other reader that I can discuss the book with, whether that person loved it as much as I did or not. I've even had a couple of bookstagram friends message me to read a book they saw I owned so they could discuss it with someone! I thought that was so cool to be able to just simply message someone about a book and fangirl over it that easily. Not to mention it helped to push me to finally read a couple of books I was still trying to get around to. 

I'm so happy that all it took was one book to get me hooked on reading and I've never been more in love with it in my entire life. I've gotten to make some really good friends, connect with fellow readers and also get to talk about my love of reading and writing to others who are interested in talking about the same things.

Divergent has a very special place in my heart and it always will. If it hadn't been for that series, I don't think I would've realized just how much I love dystopia novels and I hate to think I would still be kind of iffy about reading had I not fallen in love with the books and with reading. The series will always be my favorite trilogy of all time because I love the characters, the storylines, and everything about it, even loving the very last book despite that others don't really care for it. I adore the movies, and I would rant to you guys about the last movie in the series being potentially released as a T.V movie but that would take FOREVER for me to write and you guys to read through. It would end up being a three hundred page book so I'll just leave you with this GIF to explain my thoughts on the subject : 

So, what book do you credit for making you fall in love with reading? I seriously would LOVE to hear your stories about your favorite books and which ones hold special places in your hearts! Read on, bookworms! See you in the next chapter!