Read This Month

May

1. Winter (Series Finisher)
2. Stuff Matters
3. Hyperbole and a Half
4. Miss Mayhem (TBR)
5. Thorn
6. A Mad Zombie Party (Series Finisher)
7. Stars Above (I only read some of them)
8. Saga volume 5, graphic novel
9. An Ember in the Ashes
10. Oliver Twist (CftM)
11. Summer I Turned Pretty
12. School Spirits
13. Half Lost (Series Finisher) REVIEW
14. The Heartbreakers
15. Forest Born (Series Finisher)
16. See How They Run
17. Howl's Moving Castle

Bookshelf Organization

As I stated in a previous post, this is the post for how I organize my books on my shelves. I recently moved and switched shelves. My previous post about it can be found here, which is from over a year ago.

It has 9 shelves and I have organized them in sections. In each section the books are in an alphabetical order by the author, or if not I'll mention it.

The first three shelves are series that I have read and finished. Then the pile, with the pictures on top, are series I won't be continuing (yet I still want to keep them, mostly because I think they ended well and don't need a next book).

The fourth shelf on the left has stand-a-lone fantasy and magic books and next to them are suspence & mystery ones. Then the pile with the picture on top is my TBR. (Since the pile only has one left you can't exactly see how they would be organized, so I added the way I do it at the vvery end of this post). And the ones on the side are my TBR classics.

The fifth shelf is series that I am in the middle of. And then the pile on the right, on the same shelf, with a picture again, is series that I should finish. The difference with the shelf vs. the pile is that the ones on their side could be finished (the last book has been published).

The sixth shelf is for classics. On the right side are classics/award winners I've read, and are ordered by their publication date. On the left side are bindups of classics (of which from some I have read all and from some I have yet to read any).

The seventh shelf has lighter reads (as in it would be weird if one of the characters got shot for instance).
On the right side of the white block are "fluffy" books. And on the left side are "non-fluffy" books.
The eigth shelf, on the left, are Donald Ducks and my Roald Dahls. And in the middle (right of the white block) are my non-fictions. Then on the very right side are books I'm planning of getting rid of.
The ninth and last shelf has childrens books and some photo albums.


TBR pile: This is the section which is not organized by the author but by the date I have gotten them.
Books from my librarys/sisters/brothers shelves & classics I haven't read yet.
Then my "actual" TBR which is devided to four sections: last books in series, continuation books in series, first books in series & lastly stand-a-lones.

Any questions? Do ask.,

Sally

Half Lost : review

Sally Green
><><><
*This book was sent to me by Penguin Random House UK, through a GoodReads giveaway. But these are my honest opinions on the book!*

This is the third and LAST book in the trilogy, so there might be spoilers for the first two books!
But for this last book I will notify you before spoilers. Goodreads' link to the first book: Half Bad

The first book was good, like I really liked it. I felt that the second one on the other hand suffered from second-book syndrome... I think I'm in the minority here - on GoodReads the second book has the highest ratings in the series. So I was really hesitant in picking this third one up, but that is exactly what I did this week.

> Overall I do recommend this book trilogy if it seems like your cup of tea. But if you just want a really good series and not necessarily something along these lines, I'm not too sure how you would like 'em.

><><><

> So I gave this book 3.5 stars and decided to do this the way that BooksandLala does in her review videos!

So I'll tell 3.5 things I liked about the book and 1.5 things I didn't like.

+1 | In regards to the author Sally Green, I like her writing style and amount of conversation, descriptions and ability to write a good story. Also I really appreciated the fact that she could get dark with the story, and you really don't see that in other YA books.

+2 | World & world building. I LOVED how for the characters, the world they live in is normal. See in fantasy books we tend to follow a character for whom the world is new to them. It is of course a fantastic way to delve into a fantasy world, and it makes it easy for the reader to understand the magic - along with the main character that is. BUT since this is the last book and we are familiar with the world, I found it very interesting to see how the characters are when they think the magic is normal. You with me? Their instincts were different because they were so used to a world of magic, and that was really fascinating.

+3 | Emotionally I wasn't that attached (read the -1 point) BUT I didn't know where the story was going, which was really refreshing.

+0.5 | It had a couple of really good and memorable scenes, that I think bumped the book up the .5! If you're wondering what they are, they are mentioned at the bottom after the spoiler warning.

-1 | Characters & Relationships. I've had mixed feelings for Nathan through all three books and also for some reason in this last book, I had issues with Gabriel as well. I don't think it was about their personalities or how they delt with situations, which makes my dislike for them weird. I simply can't put my finger on what I didn't like about them...

-0.5 | Revenge was made a big thing for Nathan in the beginning but I really didn't like how that proceeded. And that's just a minor thing that bothered me.

RANDOM NOTES:

Also a random thing, can we talk about the randomness of the title capitalization! It just felt so weird looking at titles with no capitalizations. Was that only me? Also the same was with Nathans "animal version" - no manners (that is no grammar rules).

And isn't it weird that the hunters carry phones even though they know some withces can hear them? They ought to have heard from someone that Nathan can!

!! SPOILERS !!

Favourite scenes:

>"You suit the chains Clay"

>Scene with the stick/wand (if you've read it you know what I'm talking about!)

>Also, loved the scene where Gabriel and the others have fun in testing out the protection spell.

Read on,

Sally

The Bookshelf

Book Tag

This tag was created by Natalie and can be found here.
I moved recently and had to organize my books again, since I changed bookshelves, and decided to do this.
          Some "rules":
              The book (s) you answer with must be from your bookshelf.
              And include a picture of your bookshelf if you'd like to and if possible

Your bookshelf

1) Describe your bookshelf & where you got it from?

>My father actually built it :)

2) How do you organize it?

>I'm currently doing a separate post for this, since it has a lot of sections, so look out for that! I'll post it next week :)

3) Thickest book? (pages)

>My William Shakespeare collection (link here). 1200 pages
>For the ones I've read it would be Winter with 824 pages.

4) Thinnest book? (pages)
>How to be an Alien, 48 pages

5) Birthday gift
>Latest was the Roald Dahl box set

6) Smallest book? (Hight & Width)
>I've got lots of mass market paperbacks,
but my copy of Peter Pan suprised me when it came (it is the height of a mmp but wider, and adorable) :) link
and my copy of Lord of the Flies suprised me as well (the width of a mmp but taller) link

7) Biggest book? (Hight & Width)
>The hard cover of A Court of Thorns and Roses really suprised me! It's taller than my Barnes&Noble 
leather bound editions!
>For paperbacks it's Thorn, which is taller than most of my hardbacks!

8) From a friend?
>Latest one was probably Sapphire Blue

9) Most expensive book?
>I'd say around 20euros maybe?

10) Last book you read?
>A Mad Zombie Party & currently I'm reading An Ember in the Ashes

11) First one you read?
>Actually read by myself probably one of the Ella books by Timo Parvela, a Finnish author

12) More than one copy
>For around 10 books I have the same book in both Finnish and English, e.g. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

13) Complete series
>Well lots, but the one with the biggest amount of books in the series would be Serenity, the graphic novels (it has 10)

14) Newest addition
>Dreams of Gods and Monsters

15) Has been on your shelf FOREVER
>Elli norsutyttö, a childrens book that my Grandmother used to read to me

16) Most recently published
>Half Lost

17) Oldest book (as in the copy)
>The Advventures of Tom Sawyer, 1944, Finnish edition

18) Book you won
>Half Lost, GoodReads giveaway

19) Hate to let out of your sight (aka wouldn't let someone borrow)
>I actually don't mind lending my books, I like them to look worn and well read :)

20) Most beat up
>The Tom Sawyer book (as in question 17), it is literally together only by duct tape

21) Most pristine book
>See How They Run, it is quite new and I have yet to open it

22) Book from your childhood
>Babe by Dick King-Smith, when I was young I actually read it every summer for around 7 years in a row

23) Book that's not actually your book
>School Spirits, it's my sisters


24) Special cover (e.g. leather bound, soft, fuzzy, etc.)?
>Hans Christian Andersen, Barnes&Nobel leather bound edition

25) Favourite cover

>I really LOVE my Harry Potter editions! I chose to go with the signature editions when I bought them.
>Also I really LOVE my Hunger Games foil editions






26) Has been on your shelf the longest and you STILL haven't read?
>Well actually since I'm doing the TBR thing I've talked about (you can read about it from here)
So the answer is Forest Born, which I got last summer

27) Any signed books?
>Nope

And I had to add some

28) Any trinkets on your shelves?
>I have some pictures on them

29) Any book related trinkets somewhere else than your shelves?
>The time turner from Harry Potter and a potions glass bottle

30) Do you own any books you hated/part of a series you won't continue?
>I used to keep even the ones I hated but I've gotten rid of them recently, though I do own some first books in series which I won't continue (but in most cases I liked the book and thought it ended well and works as a stand-alone) like e.g. Boy Nobody and Every Day

Read, read, read,

Sally

Bookish Buzzwords

& Auto-Buy Authors

Bookish buzzwords? >If you hear a book discribed with a particular word you immediately want to read it
Auto-buy authors? >If a certain author publishes a new book you want to read it
                                    (even if you don't know a thing about it)


Bookish buzzwords:
Fairytale retelling (mythology not really)
        e.g. The Lunar Chronicles
Goose-Girl retelling
        e.g. The Books of Bayern book 1: Goose-Girl, Thorn...
Royal in hiding/royal marriage for power
        e.g. Kiss of Deception, Book of Ivy
Agent boarding-school
        e.g. Etiquette & Espioange, Gallagher Girls
Team of genius agents
        e.g. The Naturals
Assassin/thieves (with this, since there are so many books with them, I usually want some other aspect to be in it as well)
        e.g. Assassins Curse, Graceling, Throne of Glass, Poison Study...
Heists
        e.g. Heist Society, Six of Crows

Auto-buy authors (and how many I've read by them):
Katie West (contemp. ones) 3
Ally Carter 10
Veronica Roth 3 (only one series is published so we'll see if it remains as one)
Kerstin Gier 4
Stephanie Perkins 3 (same as Roth so we'll see)