#BooktoberFest Day 4: Books + Animals

I have two dogs, who I like quite a bit. However, they were sleeping unflatteringly on the couch and weren’t being photogenic enough for this day’s challenge.

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This is my horse. His name is Daniel. I would very much someday like to have a real horse, but for now he’s a great substitute.

Horses make me think of faerytales and magic and wonder and adventure. So for this challenge, I chose to include Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine, a book about…writing..magic…, How to be a Princess, recently published by Disney, and my new Enchanted Forest coloring book by Johanna Basford.

All sorts of mystical splendid things are in the pages of these books, and I prefer to gallop through them.

Happy reading!

>Megan

#BooktoberFest Day 3: Quote from my favorite author

My favorite author is C.S. Lewis. He has a way with words that I can only dream of one day sharing.

I probably have more than one favorite author, but he is one who will never be booted off that list.

A quote (not my favorite, I could never pick a favorite, please don’t make me try) of his that I love is as follows:

I think this needs no comment. 🙂

Happy reading!

>Megan

#BooktoberFest Day 2: A book that made me cry…

Really? The day after being forced to choose my favorite book I have to think about a book that made me cry? Come on.

This was another somewhat hard one! I cry easily. I swiftly fall for characters and my little book heart is devastated when things happen to them. So the book that I chose for a book that made me cry (one of so, so many) is…

Off the Page by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer

This companion series is a must for fangirls. Please read it. It is magical and funny and adorkable (not a typo) and absolutely splendid! This is a book in which the reader of a book and the book’s main character fall in love. I can name at least…every book nerd I know who has daydreamed of this in some capacity in their life. And it does not disappoint. Read the first one too (Between the Lines), it is just as good; this one is the one that tugged at my heartstrings the very most.

Happy reading!

>Megan

#BooktoberFest Day 1: My Favorite Book

Woohoo! One day in and it only took me until almost 10pm to complete the first task!

Really, this is a genuine accomplishment. Especially since the first challenge was “my favorite book.” Um. Am I the only one who thinks the worst question you can ask a book collector (read: nerd) is which of their books (read: children) is their favorite? I joke a little, but this was a ridiculously hard question. So I went with my most recently discovered favorite book which is…

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

Oh, how I do dearly adore Anne-with-an-E Shirley! I’ve only loved these books for a few years because I didn’t read them as a child (seriously not sure how I missed this, but it wasn’t intentional), but I want to read them again and again. Anne’s perpetual optimism and whimsy are contagious and loverly. And this is one of the absolute most beautiful book covers ever to exist.

There we have it! Day one: CHECK. That feels good. We’ll try again tomorrow! Check it out on Instagram, too (@serendipity_lit) 🙂

Happy reading!

>Megan

Booktoberfest Challenge!

I love challenges. I rarely complete them, but boy, do I love pretending like I will.

I follow a lot of bookish Instagram accounts. I like getting book recommendations and justifying my TBR list by the fact that it’s not as long as some. I’m sort of joking.

Anyway! School has gotten so crazy lately that I have hardly had any time to read. *GASP* I know. I don’t like it either. But I want to write about books…even though I’m not currently completing them very quickly. So I’m going to be doing this Instagram Booktoberfest Challenge with Blots&Plots (adorable, go find her, love her, she’s great) and a bunch of other fantastic nerds like me. I have an Instagram account for this blog (@serendipity_lit) but I’m going to do the challenge on here as well. That way I can write about books that I’ve already read and not get put horribly behind on my homework. Excellent solution, if I do say so myself (and I so do).

The challenge starts on October 1st and this is where I’ll be. I’m overly excited. We’ll see how long it takes for me to get distracted. I’ll be needing coffee. Wish me luck. 🙂

See y’all Thursday! And happy reading!

>Megan

Review: Lost Children of the Far Islands

Do you like mythology and folktales, particularly of the Irish variety?
Apparently I do, but I didn’t know that until reading this book.

Lost Children of the Far Islands by Emily Raabe is a middle-grade novel about three siblings who discover a very important secret about their family: they are of the Folk. Gus, Leo, and Ila are suddenly thrust into a new world where myths may not be myths and magic is real. Gus and Leo approach their 11th birthday, after which everything will change. There is something out there, something rooted deep in their old family stories, that threatens their lives and everyone in them. The Brennan siblings must figure out how they work together and how to be the heroes in their own tale.

This story was charming! I read it in nearly one sitting and I was along for the ride from the beginning. Gus and Leo are 11 years old in most of the story and their little sister Ila is significantly younger. The sibling relationships were so realistic: they fought, they miscommunicated, they made up, and they figured things out. My favorite character was Ila; she was so gosh-darn adorable and I could picture her perfectly!

As for the plot itself, I predicted the ending very early in the story, but it is a middle-grade story so I was not expecting a mind-blowing twist… I love middle-grade books. But I don’t go into them with super-high expectations. They’re cute and satisfy my need for cute and easy reads. I was not overly impressed by this book, but I did like it. I think my 11-year-old self would’ve had a fabulous adventure with this book!

I give this book a 3 out of 5 stars; I had fun reading it, I would recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy and predictability, but it is aptly categorized as middle-grade.

Happy reading!

>Megan

Review: Just One Day & Just One Year

If the phrases “emotional rollercoaster” and “wanderlust” appeal to you, keep reading.

Just One Day and Just One Year by Gayle Forman make up a duology that took me quite some time to finish. Mostly because the end of Just One Day broke my little book-heart to pieces.

This series is about Allyson and Willem, who embark on a spontaneous adventure through Paris…for one whirlwind of a day. And things go really super well and everything is wonderful and then…something happens. And for one year, they are apart. The first book follows their one day together and the following year from Allyson’s perspective. The second follows the following year from Willem’s perspective. As a reader, you MUST read both (in my opinion) to get the full effect of their lovely story.

First thing I’ll say: I loved the writing in these books. I have read a lot of books (read: some might say too many… and to them I say hush), and a very small number of them have been as immersive as these. I could, and did, read these for hours on end and not notice time pass. Gayle Forman drew me in from page one. I greatly enjoy the idea of traveling, and this series has amplified that desire. I couldn’t get enough. And when the first book ended…

*deep breath*

The cliff hanger. Sort-of-cliff-hanger. I don’t know what to call it, but it left me excited and scared to pick up the next one. My biggest fear was that the little question at the end of the first book wasn’t going to be answered in the second and it would end at the same question and I would have no idea what to do with myself other than curl in a ball and question Gayle Forman’s quest to destroy her readers. I speak in run-on sentences sometimes.

I loved these books. The characters were wonderfully flawed and their love story was unexpected and took twists and turns and loop-de-loops that gave me the best kind of literary motion sickness.

I give these books an easy 4.5 out of 5 stars (losing the half a star for some inappropriateness that I personally think is uncomfortable).

Wishing you all double happiness. Read these books and smile when you get my reference.

Happy reading!

>Megan

TBR Madness!

I cannot be the only bookworm with this problem.

I want to buy books; I collect them. But I can’t afford all the books. So I buy some of the books. I add the other books to my TBR list. Then I need to read all my unread books that I own, and somehow also read all my TBR list books. And I can’t justify one over the other.

The more time I spend trying to read my unread owned books, the longer my TBR list gets.
The more time I spend trying to read books off my TBR list, the more unread books I accumulate on my shelf.
So I end up with a wonderfully intimidating mass of books to read and never enough time.

I know. It doesn’t make sense. And it’s a problem.

Then September rolls around and publishers say, to paraphrase JessetheReader on Youtube, “Let’s release all the books at once and make our readers cry because they can’t read all of them.” Stinkin’ publishers. Who I actually love oh-so-much.

Why are books not free? There’s no logical reason for them to be…but my reason is “I want a library in my house but books are expensive and I need a house to put them in and that costs dollars, too.”

I’ve decided that if it comes down to it, I’ll just build myself a house out of books and literally live inside my stories.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Book Outlet is calling my name.
(Hear that? That’s the sound of my wallet crying.)

Happy reading!

>Megan

Review: Starry Night

I’ll openly admit I mostly bought this book for the cover.

Just take a look and go ahead and try to deny its beauty. You can’t. I needed this book on my shelf.

And yet, having read it, I’m not so sure how I felt about it. This book is about Wren and her very dramatic friends who go to a grand New York City party and…things happen. People meet other people, people fall in love, and people apparently go a little crazy. And the story is about Wren trying to navigate through all the shenanigans that she and her friends have gotten themselves into, and the consequences.

I had pretty sky-high expectations for this book: the cover is gorgeous, the whimsical synopsis drew me in. I liked the story, I really did! But the writing style is what makes me squirm just a little. I’m not sure I can pinpoint what it was that got under my skin, but something was just off. The dialogue at times seemed robotic… If I had to find a comparison, I’d say it read like a very detailed script for an old sitcom: everything very exaggerated and highly dramatic, things escalate quickly, and the plot isn’t always believable with the twists and turns it takes. It was awkward to read.

At the same time, I liked it. I liked the story and how things were resolved and the imperfectness of the story and its characters in general. I would recommend it… with the warning that it doesn’t read like most YA novels, but you just have to separate yourself from that.

I’d give this book 3 out of 5 stars. I can see this book as a movie, the way it’s written, and the story kept me wanting more, but it was too awkward to read.

Happy reading!

>Megan

The Feels: #BacktoHogwarts Day

Now that it’s been a few days, I think I’m emotionally stable enough to write this post.

I am a muggle. Gosh darn, that’s hard to admit.

I am part of the Harry Potter generation and Harry Potter is part of me. September 1st, two days ago, the Hogwarts Express departed at 11am from King’s Cross Station and every member of the Potter fandom checked their mailboxes one more time for that large envelope with the green ink and inexplicably specific address and sighed when, once again, there were none to be found.

I was introduced to Harry Potter when I was about 11 years old by a kindly neighbor. It couldn’t have been more perfect. And since then, I’ve read each of the books at least twice, and most of them at least five or six times. (How can someone read the last book more than twice?! Too many emotions. But those are feels for another day.) At one point in middle school, my mom confiscated my books because I wouldn’t read anything else. No, I’m not kidding.

I love the world, the characters, the magic, the adventure, the shenanigans, and every little detail of this series and I owe Jo my entire personal library for the rest of my life for the impact this series had on me. I will never stop reading these books. I hope to be 99 years old one day and reading them to my grandchildren.

After all this time? My fellow Potterheads know the answer to this question.

James Sirius Potter, I hope Hogwarts is ready for you.

As for myself, I’m still holding out that I’m a squib.

>Megan