Thoughtful Thursday, Harry Potter Edition

Hey Lovely Readers!

I've been kind of thinking about re-reading the Harry Potter series, again, and was looking at some of my favorite quotes from the books.  I grew up with this series, and it made me love to read so it will always have a special place in my heart, just like many Harry Potter fans.  I always get the question "who is your favorite character?" to which, I never have a good answer.  So here are a few of my favorites.  I think I'm going to add more later on another post, there's just so much to talk about!

I like Dumbledore for all his wit, and wisdom.  I feel like he's been another father figure in my life, and has just taught me things through the pages of the books.

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live"
-Albus Dumbledore
"Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it."
-Albus Dumbledore

I like Hermione because, she is smart and strong-willed.  Both of these things are reasons why I like, and look up to her.

“At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in, they got in on pure talent.”
-Hermione Granger
“It’s best to know what the enemy are saying,”
-Hermione Granger

Then I also like the twins, Fred and George.  The fact they add comic relief to the whole story makes my heart happy.

“We’ll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat.”
-Fred and George Weasley
“Give her hell from us, Peeves.”
-Fred and George Weasley

Thank you for reading!  I hope these brought back some good Harry Potter feels for you too!

Love, Stephanie

Lady Midnight Spoiler Free Review

Lady Midnight
By: Cassandra Clare
My Rating: 5/5

GoodReads summary:

“In a secret world where half-angel warriors are sworn to fight demons, parabatai is a sacred word.
A parabatai is your partner in battle. A parabatai is your best friend. Parabatai can be everything to each other—but they can never fall in love.

Emma Carstairs is a warrior, a Shadowhunter, and the best in her generation. She lives for battle. Shoulder to shoulder with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, she patrols the streets of Los Angeles, where vampires party on the Sunset Strip, and faeries—the most powerful of supernatural creatures—teeter on the edge of open war with Shadowhunters.”

My thoughts:

I have to get one thing off my chest before I say anything else about this book.
*Looks around cautiously*
I haven’t read The Mortal Instruments series yet.
I know! I’m awful, and I should have read those first, but you guys, I missed the boat when they first came out and don’t have the time to commit to reading them right now.

With that being said, I loved this book.  I wasn’t worried about things being spoiled too much because that has never been a problem for me.  I have been known to skip ahead and read the last chapter a time or two as well.

This is my first book by Cassandra Clare, and I’m sure it won’t be my last.  I loved her writing style, and her story building is incredible.  Her characters were good, and fun to read from.  Sometimes she would change points of view in the middle of the chapter, which threw me off a little at first, but once I got used to it I went with it just fine.

This book had a little bit of everything, it had action, mystery, and a little romance.  I also like how she showed a little mental illness in her book.  It wasn’t thrown in your face saying look at this guy he has a mental illness!!  It was done tastefully and I enjoyed watching the characters learn and grow with the book.

If you’ve been putting this book off because its size, I highly recommend you pick it up and start it today!!

Love,
Stephanie

The picture is a link to the Amazon page where you can buy Lady Midnight, and if you happen to buy from that link I do get a small commission.  Thank you for your support! 

Series I have yet to read

Hey Fellow Readers!

Today, I'm going to throw myself under the bus and call out popular series I either haven't finished, or straight up haven't started yet.  Hopefully this will give me the motivation to finish these this year!

Unfinished

Daughter of Smoke and Bone series
By: Laini Taylor
Books of the series I've read: Just the first one.




The Lunar Chronicles
By: Marissa Meyer
Books of the series I've read: Just the first one again.




The Hunger Games series
By: Susan Collins
Books I've read: Actually most of the series, I got partially into Mocking Jay, got mad and stopped reading.

Not even started yet

Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children
By: Ransom Riggs



Throne of Glass Series
By: Sarah J. Maas





The Mortal Instruments Series
By: Cassandra Clare



The Maze Runner series
By: James Dashner




I've heard some great things about these and want to love them too!  The Lunar Chronicles is probably at the top of my list right now.  Have you read all of these, or are you like me and have more reading to do?

Thank you for reading and your support!

February TBR

Hey Fellow Readers!

I thought I would do something I have yet to do and share my TBR (or my To Be Read) for the month!  I normally go to the library every few weeks or so to pick up more things to read.  This month will be no exception, I do plan on reading a couple more, but have yet to pick them up.
The first two books I have picked out to read are from the library.

The first one is:
between shades of gray
By: Ruta Sepetys

Here’s the synopsis from GoodReads.
“Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.”
I haven’t read a lot of historical fiction, but I have heard great things about this one so when I saw it I thought this would be a good place to start.

Next I have:
I’ll Give you the Sun
By: Jandy Nelson



Here is another synopsis from GoodReads.

“Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah’s story to tell. The later years are Jude’s. What the twins don’t realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.”


Finally one from my own unread bookshelf!

The Unnaturalists
By: Tiffany Trent


Very short description for this one from GoodReads.

“In an alternate London where magical creatures are preserved in a museum, two teens find themselves caught in a web of intrigue, deception, and danger.”

This book looks like it combines a little bit of steampunk with a little alternate worlds.  I’m pretty excited to get into this one.  I mean look at the cover! I’m such a sucker for a pretty cover.

Are any of these on your TBR?  Have you read these and wanna talk about them?  Let me know in a comment!  Thanks for reading!

Thoughtful Thursday #5 Reading Habits Book Tag

Hello fellow readers!!

This Thursday I thought I would do something a little different and do a book tag that I've seen floating around recently!  I don't think I was tagged by anyone specific but this looked like fun.  I'll put a clean copy down in the comments, so if you want to do this it'll be easy.

The Reading Habits Book Tag

1. Do you have a certain place at home for reading?
 Normally I just read where I feel comfortable at.  During the day I will tend to sit in the living room where there's a lot of natural light.  Then at night I like to read in bed, or in my reading nook.

2. Bookmark or a random piece of paper?
To be completely honest, its normally a random piece of paper.  I do have a few pretty bookmarks I like to use, but 9 times out of 10, I can't find them.

3. Can you stop reading anytime you want or do you have to stop at a certain page, chapter, part, etc.?
I normally have to stop at a new chapter.  Its just so satisfying to mentally check off another chapter from a book.

4. Do you eat or drink while reading?
Probably more than I should!  I always have a coffee in my hand in the morning, then in the afternoon you'll probably catch me with some tea.  I just love caffeine.

5. Can you read while listening to music/watching TV?
Normally I can.  I never catch what's happening on TV or what music is playing because I block pretty much everything out, but it's nice to have that extra noise one in a while.

6. One book at a time or several at once?
I'm guilty of reading more than one book at a time.  I'm honestly trying to get better at it, there's just too many good books I want to read!!

7. Reading at home or everywhere?
Everywhere of course!  I always have my book I'm currently reading with me.  You never know when you'll have some free time!

8. Reading out loud or silently in your head?
Silently, unless I need to share something with my boyfriend then I'll read it out loud as dramatically as I can.

9. Do you read ahead or skip pages?
Me? What? Never!!  Okay fine, I will sometimes.  I always keep reading when I do though!

10. Breaking the spine or keeping it new?
This one is kind of tricky.  I normally have library books in hand so those spines are already broken.  With my own books though, like my manga, I tend to try not to break them.  Full novels however, I do break them a little.  I like them to have a "read" look to them.

11. Do you write books?
Nope, and I really don't have any plans to.  I don't have the patience to do all the editing.
 
Thanks for reading!
Now it's your turn!  Answer these questions so I can see if we have anything in common!

Stephanie

These Broken Stars
By: Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
My Rating: 4/5

I have to say I loved this book.  I went into it with an open mind and without much knowledge of what happens other than the main girl has red hair and is wearing a pretty dress on the cover.  (I know, how dare I be sucked in by a pretty cover, again)

I had heard a few people mention it was a good science fiction, young adult, fantasy novel, so of course I was intrigued and picked it up.  The whole book is written from two different and switching points of view.  At first that caught me off guard, but I loved the differing views on what was happening around them.  I can only assume the co authors did these in turn, each writing a chapter then the other writing the next from the other view.  They blended well and it never seemed to be disjointed at all.

**I may get a little spoilery here so you've been warned**

Lilac and Tarver find themselves on a seemingly abandoned but terraformed planet.  They each are the last person they would want to be stuck with alone, but they have no other choice.  Lilac is the daughter of the wealthiest and most powerful man in the universe.  Tarver is a lowly country boy turned war hero.

They are traveling across the galaxy on the Icarus which is the largest ship of its kind which struck some people as too Titanic-like but I didn't quite get that.  I was more afraid of the mythology behind Icarus and how he flew too close to the sun.  Just as I was about to look up about Icarus, my fears were confirmed.  Suddenly they are pulled out of hyperspace and in the panic, Lilac and Traver end up in the same escape pod.

As they travel across this (mostly) abandoned planet they must learn to work with each other to survive.

I loved how their relationship grew.  It felt so natural to me and I couldn't stop reading to find out what happened to them. Need this book in your life? Amazon is pretty great for that, and if you buy through my link I get a small commission, so its a win-win!

A Book Review: The Martian

The Martian
By: Andy Weir
My Rating: 5/5

Guys, stop what you're doing at this very moment and go read this book!  Yes, even if you're in the middle of reading my review, I'll wait.

*Waits patiently on you*

Okay, now that you're done, we can get into the review!

Mark Watney, botanist, engineer, and first man to be alone on Mars.  After a severe dust storm forces the crew to evacuate Mars, Mark finds himself alone on the surface clinging to life.  His crew believing him dead flee from the red planet just before their only form of escape fatally tips over.  Having made it safely onto their escape ship, the whole crew wishes there was something more they could have done to save him.

Mark is on his own.  The first step was to grow some food.  Being a botanist did come in handy on Mars!  To grow food, Mark needed to "make" more water.  This is where the book lost me a little.  I'm sure someone else could read this and understand just fine, but it just went slightly over my head.  With some potato plants growing he started to use his engineering skills.  Mark starts brewing up ideas for communication.

After about a month of mourning, NASA takes a look at Mars. They would have to make any images they found public, so for obvious reasons they were very hesitant.  With a nudge from an administrator of NASA Venkat finally caved and gave him the satellite time he was after.  They expected to find a body, but instead they found Watney alive!  There was no way to communicate with him, but they knew he was alive and were working on a way to get to him.

Mark planned to travel to the Pathfinder site.  NASA lost contact with that rover long ago, but he's an engineer, fixing things is his job.  All he knows is if he can make it there he may be able to communicate with Earth, and let someone know he is still alive.

Its been a long time since I've actually wanted to read a book so full of suspense.  After seeing the movie, and hearing such good things about the book I talked about it so much I got it for Christmas. (Thanks Issac!!)

I have so much that I want to say about this book.  I'm a sucker for anything written in journal format and most of this book was done just like that.  Watneys humor kept me laughing through the darkest parts of his journey.  It kind of made me want to be an astronaut.  Kind of.

Stephanie Need this book for yourself? Here's a link to its Amazon page! I do get a small commission if you use my link so it's a win-win! Thank you for your support! The Martian Amazon Page