The Reader Problems Book Tag

1. You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next?

It’s so tough. So. Tough. Usually I will get the book on my kindle and then when I finish a book, I’ll go through my library on my kindle and see what I feel like reading. I do try to plan my books especially when there are new releases but I usually fail at that so I just don’t bother.
2. You’re halfway through a book and you’re just not loving it. Do you quit or are you committed?

Well I mean I’m halfway through. I might as well finish it right? I guess it depends on how much I dislike it. Usually if a book is bad I’ll DNF about 20% through.
3. The end of the year is coming and you’re so close, but so far away on your Goodreads reading challenge. Do you try to catch up and how?

I’m actually currently 12 books ahead on my reading challenge and I’m reading my 100th book now but okay. Let’s say I’m not doing well. I would definitely try to catch up by reading shorter books. Perhaps even novellas if it’s really bad. I won’t give up though. Never give up.
4. The covers of a series you love do. not. match. How do you cope?

Oh god. That’s so horrible! But honestly if I love it a lot I won’t be too fussy I suppose. It would irk me a lot but I can handle it.
5. Every one and their mother loves a book you really don’t like. Who do you bond with over shared feelings?

Mel! Mel and I tend to share a lot of our feelings over books and 85% of the time, if I hate it, she hates it. And vice versa of course.
6. You’re reading a book and you are about to start crying in public. How do you deal?

If no one I know is around, I’ll let it out and just cry. If I’m with people I know, I’ll either stop reading if it’s really bad or just hold it in.
7. A sequel of a book you loved just came out, but you’ve forgotten a lot from the prior novel. Will you re-read the book? Skip the sequel? Try to find a synopsis on Goodreads? Cry in frustration?!?!?!?

I hate it when that happens. But I’ll never re-read. I hate re-reading because let’s face it, I have nearly 900 books in my TBR list and I add new books everyday. I don’t have time to reread. So I’ll just go into the new book and fumble around in the dark till I find my way. It’s usually not that hard.

A tip in case this happens though is to Wikipedia the book. Wikipedia usually has full plots including spoilers so you can refresh your memory like that.
8. You do not want anyone. ANYONE. borrowing your books. How do you politely tell people nope when they ask?

I’ll tell them that it’s my brother’s and that he doesn’t want to loan it to them.
9. Reading ADD. You’ve picked up and put down 5 books in the last month. How do you get over your reading slump?

I know I’m a big advocate on just putting down the books and waiting till you get your groove back but I am bad at that. I usually just keep reading till I just stop being in a slump.
10. There are so many new books coming out that you’re dying to read! How many do you actually buy?

Every single one. Duh! Do you really not know me?
11. After you’ve bought the new books you can’t wait to get to, how long do they sit on your shelf before you get to them?

I usually read them instantly. I’m a book blogger. I need to be reviewing and talking about these books the second they are out or I’m no longer relevant. Plus I’ve waited so long already. Why would I waste more time?

xoxo

Finding Hope by Colleen Nelson

Hope lives in a small town with nothing to do and nowhere to go. With a drug addict for a brother, she focuses on the only thing that keeps her sane, writing poetry. To escape, she jumps at the chance to attend Ravenhurst Academy as a boarding student. She’ll even put up with the clique-ish Ravens if it means making a fresh start.

At first, Ravenhurst is better than Hope could have dreamed. She has a boyfriend and a cool roommate, and she might finally have found a place she can fit in. But can she trust her online boyfriend? And what can she do after her brother shows up at the school gates, desperate for help, and the Ravens turn on her? Trapped and unsure, Hope realizes that if she wants to save her brother, she has to save herself first. – Goodreads

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*An advanced copy of this book was given to me by the publishers to read and review. However, all opinions are my own*

This little book popped up out of nowhere. I’ve never heard of Colleen Nelson and I obviously have never read any of her books. But one day I got an email saying that I got approved for this novel and I thought why not. I mean it was half the size of my usual novels, I had a readathon coming up and it actually looked quite interesting.

So the book is narrated from two point of views. We have Eric who is addicted to Meth and various drugs and who has been kicked out of his home and school because of it. Then we have Hope. Hope is Eric’s sister who is starting out at a new boarding school and who is trying to leave behind the stigma of having a drug addict for a brother.

So let’s start with the simpler narrator. Hope. I actually thought that I might like Hope. She seemed relatable and very much like she was a good kid that got handed a bad set of cards. But then she got infuriating. Now the book is a good 5 months away so I don’t want to give too much away but basically she gets in with the ‘mean girls’ of the school and they try to get her to do bad stuff to her roommate (think cutting her hair while she is asleep kind of bad). I’m not going to tell you what exactly happened with that but I knew from that moment that Hope was absolutely horrid.  I instantly hated her and nothing that she did from that point on mattered because I hated her with a vengeance. It might be because I was bullied as a kid but Hope was unforgivable.

Then we have Eric. Eric has a very sad backstory. His real dad died when he was very young and his mom remarried. Eric had a bright future until he was raped which is when he started his descent into drugs. Going into the who and when might be too much of a spoiler so I’ll hold back but the whole rape part just made me so incredibly upset. In the book, Eric mentions at one point that his rapist got to go on and have a wonderful life. He got to walk away unscathed. But for Eric, that one day ended his life. And that made me think a lot about rape in general. For one person, it’s a few minutes of ‘pleasure’ and dominance. Then they get to return to their lives. But for the victim, it’s a few minutes of hell. And then it doesn’t end. Those few minutes more often then not ruin a person’s whole life. I don’t know. I just never thought of it that way before and it made me so angry.

Now I have no tolerance for addicts who refuse to get help. I don’t care what you’re addicted to. I simply have no tolerance because addicts don’t just ruin their own lives. They ruin the lives of the people around them. And I think that’s just unforgivable. So it was very difficult to like Eric. He did a lot of horrid things and he was very unlikable. But at the same time, you think of what led him to where he is and you feel sorry for him. At times it was like Jekyll and Hyde.

The story as a whole was good. It was unique in that I’ve never read a book from the POV of a Meth addict. But it was also predictable. I saw a lot of the twists well before they happened and that was quite irritating because I could just see them digging themselves into a hole and I knew what was happening but the characters were just so dense. And I guess that’s why it lost 2 stars from me. I was just so angry throughout the book it was unreal.

Other then that though, it was an interesting and very quick read. It was honestly not bad. I mean I did enjoy it. It’s just that the characters did things that made me angry.

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My Rating: 3/5 Stars

Date Of Publication: 12th April 2016

I’ve Opened A Shop!

“Find a problem and solve it”. 

It’s always bothered me that when it comes to bookish merch, you always see the same things. It’s always Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and John Green. Always. It’s so hard to find merch from authors who may be lesser known or even who have books out that might be popular in the book community but who haven’t hit the bulk of people around the world just yet.

And it’s so sad. Because so many of these books have beautiful quotes and life changing storylines. So many of these books can beat out a John Green book in every way possible. But they just don’t have movies out. They just aren’t front and center in a bookstore. They just aren’t popular enough to warrant someone trying to make bookish merch about.

So I saw that problem and I decided to try and fix it. I did some research and found that for me, the best thing I could do would be to work with Redbubble. Redbubble is a beautiful site that allows designers to design whatever they want and then upload their designs to their website. You will then be given a space on Redbubble’s website for your shop. So you can control prices, what goes up and basically everything. And the best part? Redbubble handles your customers. Redbubble will put your designs on your t-shirts and cards and they will deal with the money and the shipping. Of course that does mean that you pay them a percentage of what you earn off of each sale but you have to admit. It’s a pretty good deal.

So I decided to start a shop on their site. I still am not too sure what I’m doing. I mean I’m no designer. I’ve studied photoshop and illustrator and I have done a lot of design in my course but I wouldn’t say I’m that great at it. So I really don’t know what I’m trying to do here. But all my life, I have believed that you just need to start. Doesn’t matter if you’re good at it or not. Doesn’t matter if you plan to stick to it or not. Just start. Because you’ll never have the opportunity to learn and fail and succeed if you never start.

So I am very proud to present to you my first book merch shop! I’m currently selling everything from stickers to throw pillows to t-shirts to cards and they all have quotes on them from amazing books. You can go over to see my full range. You also can sign up on Redbubble and follow my shop so that you will get informed whenever I put out a new design.

My designs are quite basic right now but I’m working on making them even better. I actually was waiting to put up more designs before I told you guys about it but then today I received my first sale and it was so amazing because I hadn’t even told anyone about my shop yet. I got so excited I nearly cried. So I decided that I had to tell you guys already because I didn’t want to keep it a secret anymore.

Rebubble has very reasonable prices and international shipping so I hope you guys can support me by going over and buying something even if it’s just a sticker. If you can’t, then I would love it if you simply followed my shop or if you told a friend who might be interested in my items.

I love you all very much. Thank you for helping me make this possible.

Find my shop here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/camilliadeborah/shop

xoxo

Reading Slumps And How To Get Over Them

I have just had the most physically and mentally draining 2 weeks of my life and I am so happy to be finally out of it. So you may have noticed that I kind of disappeared for a while not only on this blog but also on Goodreads and my other social media. The reason was because I started school again as you guys know and I haven’t had the easiest time settling back in this time round. I was very stressed and anxious about the workload and my friends and I guess that led to me getting quite sick. So I guess with all that combined, it was no surprise that I fell into quite a bad reading slump.

So what exactly is a reading slump? Quite simply, it is quite possibly the two worst words in a book lover’s dictionary. Basically it is a period of time when you feel unmotivated to read and you feel awful because you aren’t reading and overall it’s just an horrid time. There isn’t really any particular reason why people fall into slumps because quite frankly anything can trigger one. It could be because you are reading a bad book or because you are reading too many books at once or simply because your life is in so much of a chaos that reading becomes something that feels like a bit of a chore for that period of time.

Whatever the reason however, we all want to get out of our slumps as soon as we possibly can so as a experienced slumper, I am here to bring you 3 tips to get over a slump as well as to share some of my favourite ‘get out of a slump’ books.

1) Stop reading

What? I know. Stopping reading seems counterproductive doesn’t it? But you have to remember that sometimes you have to admit defeat and stop trying to resurrect a dead horse. If you’re struggling with reading and starting to get upset over the fact that you are reading slower, then its a sign that it’s time to put down the book and go do something else for a while. Now this may last a few hours or a few days. Go with the flow. It’s okay to stop reading for a few days. The world won’t cave in. When you stop reading, usually you’ll slowly find yourself starting to crave a book. When you feel that, go ahead and pick up a book and you’ll find that you will be on your way out of the slump.

2) Figure out what’s wrong

Sometimes it can be hard to see why exactly you are having a problem until you are out of it. But try to think. Think about what’s new in your life. Walk backwards and try to remember what you were reading when you starting having to re-read passages and when you started wishing you could be doing anything but reading. Identifying the problem is a very effective way to get yourself out of a slump.

For example, once I identified that my slump was caused by readjusting back to school and getting sick, I was able to see things a bit more clearly and it helped me bounce back much faster because I was able to separate the problems. It stopped being, “Oh I’m so unfocused and lazy and I should be ashamed of the fact that I’m choosing Youtube over a book.” and it became, “Okay. There are a lot of things happening in my life right now and it’s okay that I can’t read right now. When things calm down it will be better and I’ll be back to reading. It’s not me.”

3) Pick a light read 

Everybody knows that when you’re in a slump, you usually need an awesome and epic book to drag you out. But I find that usually these epic books are rather thick and content heavy. Two things you don’t want when you’re in a slump. So stick to the light contemporary reads. The books that you know you will love. It doesn’t have to be epic but if it makes you laugh and it’s easy to read, it’s perfect.

Here are a couple of books I recommend for getting out of a slump:

1. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (Let’s be honest. I will never not recommend this)
2. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
3. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
4. On The Fence by Kasie West
5. Carry On by Rainbow Rowel

Basically just read Rainbow Rowell and you’ll be good I promise. Rainbow is literally queen of the book world. If she can’t get you out of a slump, nothing will my friend.

I hope these tips helped you especially if you are currently in a reading slump. If you are in one, remember that it’s not a failure on your part. Everybody has these periods where they just can’t read no matter how hard they try.

I’ll see you guys soon!

Xoxo