Holiday Colouring Book Review!

Hello friends!

Last year, I received an advanced copy of an adult colouring book for the holidays called “Keep Merry and Color On”! Needless to say, it was super cool, but I wanted to wait until I completed most of it to post my full review. So, that’s what I am going to do today!


Some pages I coloured:

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I had so much fun colouring in all of these festive pages. It puts you into the mood and spirit of the holiday times! Sometimes my Mom would also join me in colouring! It was very simple to colour in this book with others as the pages are ready to rip out neatly. Some of the pages took longer to colour and were more complicated, while others were easier and more simple. Every page was black and white, leaving the colour ways and creativity to you. While some pages were mostly christmas themed, others were more geared towards general winter and holiday times. Overall, I would recommend this book to everyone in the mood for some fun holiday times, and I think it would also be a great stocking stuffer!


I hope you all enjoyed a different type of book review! Thanks to Raincoast Canada for sending along this cool book! You can pick up your own copy of “Keep Merry and Color On” here!

Good Night Book Owls!

December 2016 TBR!

Hi everyone!

To kick start my Holiday Reading 2016 series, I will be sharing with you my December to be read pile! Since I have barely read anything this whole year, I have only decided to chose three books, but they all sound great.


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A few months ago I received this book from a publisher, so I plan on reading it this month! It is a shorter novel, therefore I can read it as soon as possible.

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I bought this book many months ago, but I never ended up reading it. It sounds SO good! You can read the synopsis here. I can’t wait to start this book.

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I received this book from Raincoast Canada, and I requested it because it sounded different than anything I had ever read.

BONUS:

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It is currently November 28, and I am currently reading this novel. I will be finishing it within December, so technically I will be reading this before the books listed above.


Those are all of the books I plan on reading this month. Let me know what books you plan on reading in the comments below!

Don’t forget to follow me on twitter for all Reading, Reading, Reading updates!

Good Night Book Owls!

HOLIDAY READING YEAR THREE!

Hello bookish friends!

Oh boy, have I missed you! For the past year, I have been blogging on my MLB Blog, which has pretty much consumed my entire life, read all of my baseball posts here. By surprise, Reading, Reading, Reading has had more views than ever, even though I’ve made less than 20 posts this year. If you are new to my blog and have been catching up on my old posts, well hello there!

I have finally figured out a schedule that I will be following for this blog in the future. I am thinking of making one post a week on Wednesdays, and then in December writing my Holiday Reading series, but we will see how this works out.

If you are not aware, three years ago I made a blogging series called “Holiday Reading”. The only thing that consists of it is posting daily, and all of the content has to have some sort of a holiday theme. I didn’t realize that I have been doing this for the past two years, so I figured that I couldn’t stop the tradition now!!

Therefore, I have compiled a ton of blog posts (that are already scheduled) to post for the 2016 edition of Holiday Reading! Normally, I will include a schedule of the post’s for the series, but I have decided to keep them all a surprise.

I have many book reviews to post for books that publishers have sent to me over this past year, so you will be reading a lot of book reviews!

I hope that you will all enjoy the 2o16 version of my Holiday Reading series! You can read the 2014 and 2015 “Holiday Reading” posts, too!

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter to see the inside scoop on all things Reading, Reading, Reading!

Good Night Book Owls!

Eight Books I Would Buy This Second If Someone Handed Me A Fully Loaded Gift Card!

Hi everybody!

Turns out there is a post coming out today because I had to flip flop a post on my MLB blog!

I was looking door a book tag to write today, but I stumbled upon My Little Book Blog, and she did this post for a Top Ten Tuesday. It looked super fun, and I totally took the inspiration from her post, which you should totally check out here!

Lately, I haven’t been buying a ton of books, although I do have 2 Chapters/Indigo gift cards… See I can control myself!! Anyways, I have a few books on my to-buy list for this fall, and do intend to buy them sometime soon.

Here are the eight books I would buy if I actually used the gift cards I own (LOL!)…

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Like any good student, the first book I would buy and will have to buy very soon is the original edition of Romeo and Julliet. I am reading this for my english class in a few weeks, and on the indigo website it’s only $5.99!

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Again, like a good student I would also buy The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, as I am also reading this for that same English course. I am also probably going to buy the Sparknotes edition with it!

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The next book I would buy would probably be Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I have been meaning to buy this book forever and just have never gotten around to it. I will soon, I promise.

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I am also counting pre-orders in this just because some of my most anticipated reads still haven’t come out yet! One being Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige. I loved the first book in the Dorothy Must Die series (the other ones I have quite a different feeling on)! Hopefully this book is super good, and I look forward to reading it!

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Then of course, who would I be if I didn’t mention Heartless by Marissa Meyer?! I am a HUGE fan of The Lunar Chronicles series! Once I found out that Meyer was coming out with another book I wanted it immediately. To think that it’s going to be a different take on Alice in Wonderland just makes me want it more and more!

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I would also want to buy the newest Harry Potter book, entitled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I have yet to finish the original Harry Potter book series, but plan on doing it sometime in this lifetime! I want to make sure I have this book incase I get the sudden urge to binge read all of them!

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The next book I would buy is Miss Peregrine’s home for Peculiar Children: Graphic Novel Edition. I am going to read the Miss Peregrine’s Trilogy (hopefully) in October for Halloween, and the graphic novel would be great to go along with the other 3 books.

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Since I am a die hard sports/Blue Jays fan, I really want to get this book and see if I can learn anything new about the Blue Jays, that I may not have known before!

That is all for today’s post! If you had a fully loaded gift card, BUT could only buy ONE book using the money on it, what would it be? Let me know in the comments below! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter, as well as like my page on Facebook!

Good Night Book Owls!

 

The Versatile Blogger Award!

Hi everybody!

Today I will be writing another Versatile Blogger Award post! I love doing these types of posts because I love reading other people’s as well, and whenever I get nominated for one, I like to give recognition to the person who nominated me. If you’d like to read my last Versatile Blogger Award post, click here!

This time around, I’d like to thank the lovely Rachel, over at Book Review’s and Stuff for tagging me!

The rules are as follows:

  • Thank your nominator
  • Share the award on your blog
  • State 7 things about yourself
  • Choose 10 new nominees who have fewer than 300 followers
  • Notify them via social media (I am SUPER BAD at this one haha!)

Seven New Things About Myself:

  1. I am not just a book blogger, but I am also an MLB Blogger over at https://alyssacohen.mlblogs.com!
  2. This September, marks my journey into High School! I plan on making some cool posts related to high school (and of course books) in the future!
  3. This past August, I visited New York City for the first time and I am super happy I got to do so! I saw two broadway shows, and actually gave the playbills to one of my broadway crazy-obsessed friends named Naomi (she’s currently sitting next to me as I write this).
  4. I recently (temporarily) cancelled my Netflix subscription, because I haven’t been using it much as of lately, but for the time that I did have Netflix I fell in love with Grey’s Anatomy! It’s amazing! I still have to watch season 12, but I will soon!!
  5. Two of my role model’s have there birthday’s on May 27 (my birthday), as well as May 28! Isn’t that crazy?
  6. My least favourite subject is Gym, which is weird because I am really into watching and blogging about sports, but I got into watching them at a later age, therefore I had already deemed myself as non-athletic. But, I always try my best!
  7. I recently have been obsessed with white original converse (not high tops), and I wear them nearly everyday!!

Nominees:

If I didn’t nominate you and you want to do it, feel free to say that I tagged you and send me a link to it!

There may or may not be a post on here tomorrow, but if there isn’t one, there is probably one on my MLB blog!

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter, as well as like my page on Facebook!

Good Night Book Owls!

September 2016 TBR

Hi everybody!

It has been quite a while since I made a proper blog post, but I am glad to say I am (finally) back! Most of my life this summer contained watching, blogging, and tweeting about the Toronto Blue Jays, as well as volunteering at a local dance camp. I also visited New York City for five days in August which was incredible, and I am still debating on whether or not to make a blog post entirely on that, let me know if you’d want to see it. Last week began my new journey of high school, and it is going very well! I feel like my life is falling into place, and I can’t wait to see where the next four years of my life go!

Before we begin this blog post, I have a few thank you’s and minor updates. Firstly, I’d like to wish a warm welcome to the few people who have followed my blog recently. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on all of my posts! I’d like to thank all of you for coming back and visiting my blog frequently, even though there have been no frequent posts. I am on track for more viewers and statistics than last year, which completely blows my mind! You guys are amazing! A few changes will be happening as I come back to blogging. Firstly, I have started up my newsletter again and actually sent out one on Saturday, which informed all of my newsletter subscribers about myself blogging again. Make sure that if you are not already subscribed that you do so, by either visiting the homepage of my blog and filling out the form at the top that asks for your name and email address, that’s the main way to subscribe. Or, you can click this link and subscribe here! Secondly, in my newsletter I mentioned myself making daily posts. I am now adjusting that. I will be making 5 posts per week, but there are no specific days for them. You will probably be seeing weekly posts on Monday and Saturday, but the other 3 days I am not sure about. This will also depend on my MLB blog schedule, which I plan on posting on at least once a week. When I post on that blog, you will NOT be seeing a post here, but you will more then likely be notified the day before on if you will see a post the next day or not. Lastly, I may or may not be switching up the theme for this blog, but for now I will have to think about it. Wow, that was a lot to say! Now let’s get into the TBR!

Lately, I haven’t been reading what so ever! I think I’ve read about 12 books this year, which is terrible. I really just haven’t been into reading to much, and I blame that partially on not blogging about books, because that is where my motivation to read majorly comes from. For these reasons, I am only choosing 3 books to read this month, but I am very excited about all of them.

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Scythe by Neal Shusterman is definitely on the top of my to-read list this month. It sounds incredible, and like a book that I would enjoy. I haven’t read a good fantasy-esque book in a long time. The plot in this book sounds like nothing I have ever read, and I can’t wait to read it. I received this book courtesy of Simon and Schuster Canada to read and review, so expect a review the week of Scythe’s publication date!

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The Diabolic was actually on my most anticipated book list of 2016 and I can’t wait to dive into it! I received this book over at Simon and Schuster Canada to read and review as well, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. The image above I actually just cut and paste from the Fall 2016 newsletter that was sent to me. The tagline above sounds so interesting, and it was marked as there most anticipated Fall release. I sure hope it lives up to its standards and doesn’t disappoint!

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Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter was given to me at the Raincoast Teens Preview for Spring/Summer 2016 books. Since I am such a big fan of folktale/fairytale retellings, I was very happy to see this ARC in my swag bag. Vassa In the Night is a retelling of the old russian folktale of “Vassilissa the Beautiful”. I am not sure what the folktale is about, let alone what this version is all about, but I am very intrigued by it and will be reviewing it as soon as possible!

I hope you all enjoyed my September 2016 TBR! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter, as well as like my page on Facebook!

Good Night Book Owls!

ARC REVIEW: Genius by Leopoldo Gout

Hi everyone!

As I’m writing this, it is actually Christmas Eve. You read this right! It is currently December 24, 2015! I received in ARC of Genius by Leopoldo Gout just about 2 days ago and absolutely devoured it! I figured instead of waiting 6 months until the week of its release, I would write and schedule the post to go up in about 6 months. Can you believe that I’m actually graduating this month?! It’s crazy, and I can’t wait to see what my life will be like by the time this post is up. Anyways, let’s get on to the review!
Summary:
Trust no one. Every camera is an eye. Every microphone an ear. Find me and we can stop him together.

The Game: Get ready for Zero Hour as 200 geniuses from around the world go head to head in a competition hand-devised by India’s youngest CEO and visionary.
The Players:
Rex- One of the best programmers/hackers in the world, this 16-year-old Mexican-American is determined to find his missing brother.

Tunde-This14-year-old self-taught engineering genius has drawn the attention of a ruthless military warlord by single-handedly bringing electricity and internet to his small Nigerian village.

Painted Wolf-One of China’s most respected activist bloggers, this mysterious 16-year-old is being pulled into the spotlight by her father’s new deal with a corrupt Chinese official.

The Stakes: Are higher than you can imagine. Like life and death. Welcome to the revolution. And get ready to run.
Review:

This book was absolutely breath taking. It had me hooked on literally every page. I went to sleep reading this book and woke up to finish it. The story is insane! I love the cover and the inside illustrations/art. There are a ton of diagrams and beautiful full colour art. I love books that involve a contest or a game. Such as The Hunger Games or some people would also consider Divergent in that section of YA books. The whole premiss of the Game and how it was sort of mysterious was very intriguing. Once you get an invitation to The Game, you accept and pack. No money is needed and most everything is there for you. The building that The Game is held in sounds huge and spectacular. Although, I was slightly disappointed with the world building aspect. There wasn’t much of a description of the building or place they were in. I guess that was part of the mystery aspect! The characters were so amazing and I felt a connection with the three main characters, Rex, Tunde and Panting Wolf (whom you will find out her shortly). The mystery of Painted Wolf was very intriguing and during the whole book I felt that she was developing more and really finding herself. The ending is absolutely breath taking, but in some ways a bit short. I would have loved more of an explanation as to at some of the things happened the way they did. But don’t you worry, this book is part of a trilogy! I can’t wait to get my hands on the next one, although it probably won’t be out until 2017!

Overall:

I absolutely loved this book and gave it 4.75/5 stars! I would recommend it to any science/sci-fi or math lover. A lot of complicated terms are used, although all of them are explained.

I hope that you all enjoyed this book and will pick it up today!

Good Night Book Owls!

Square Root of Summer Review + Q&A!

Hi friend!

A few weeks ago, I decided to apply to join the Square Root of Summer book tour, run by Raincoast Canada! Today I and Liz @ Midnight Bloom Reads have our stop/posts on the blog tour!

The Square Root of Summer was a book I had heard of before Raincoast. I believe it was recommended to me on GoodReads, and I decided to add it to my TBR list. When I heard I could be a part of the blog tour, I jumped on the chance and decided to join in!

The box the book came in was soooo cute, and I read the book in a quick matter!

Let’s get started with the review!


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Synopsis:

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It’s a little bit like a black hole. It’s a little bit like infinity.
Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she’s hurtled through wormholes to her past:
To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn’t even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her best friend Thomas moved away and left her behind with a scar on her hand and a black hole in her memory.
Although Grey is still gone, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie’s past, present, and future are about to collide—and someone’s heart is about to be broken.
With time travel, quantum physics, and sweeping romance, The Square Root of Summer is an exponentially enthralling story about love, loss, and trying to figure it all out, from stunning debut YA voice, Harriet Reuter Hapgood.

Review:

This book was such an incredibly powerful novel. It really shares how love and friendship can change you and make you crazy!

What I loved most about this book was the characters. I really liked Gottie, especially the nicknames she was given from her family and friends! Gottie was funny at times, especially in the beginning when she was comparing her life to math, more specifically wormholes. This made her different then many other YA characters, especially because her qwerks were lovable, not annoying. Another character I really enjoyed reading about was Thomas. Thomas and Gottie had a special connection throughout the entire book, and I really enjoyed reading about them when they were together. Also, can we mention that Thomas moved to Toronto, Canada for 5 years before coming back to England to spend the summer in Gottie and Ned’s (Gottie’s brother) house. The stereotypes were so funny and they gave me a good laugh!

One of things I enjoyed reading were all of the flashbacks from Gottie. The ones I liked most were the ones when she was recounting her times/memories with her grandfather Grey. You could tell that she had another special connection with Grey, and missed him dearly.

Other then the relationships between characters, this book had a lot of time traveling involved. As someone who knows absolutely nothing about time travelling, Harriet made it really easy to understand, which I was very grateful for! The time travelling added a really neat touch to the novel, that most authors would never think of doing. I think that that aspect really enhanced the book, rather then made it difficult to understand.

The book is set in an English small town/countryside. The town was so cute, other then that I really don’t know how to describe it! There was a “home-ie” feeling to it that not many books have, as many authors don’t pay close attention to a setting, unless the book is dystopian! Gottie’s dad “Papa” took over the bookstore that her grandfather Grey owned.

And like any feel-good contemporary there is a lot of good romance, which ended up being really sweet and cute!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and gave it 4/5 stars!


I had the opportunity to ask Harriet a little question, and here is her response!

What inspired you to write The Square Root of Summer?

I started writing the book so long ago it’s hard to remember the original spark of
 inspiration. My grandmother had died and I had a really hard time dealing with it, and
I wanted to write about that – a summer story about grief, because I love books set in
the summer holidays when there’s no school structure or timetable or familiarity to
each day, and time slips into a different groove. I went away to a cottage in Norfolk
to think about it and ended up using that as the setting – something about the sea and
the countryside and solitude combined to create this lonely tone. And the last conversation my grandmother and I had had was about quantum physics, so the book ended up being a continuation of that conversation.


I’d like to send a heartfelt thank you to Raincoast Canada and Harriet Reuter Hapgood for giving me the oppurtunity to participate in this blog tour, as well as giving me an ARC of the book!

Check out all of the other amazing blog tour posts for Square Root of Summer here:

Alexis @ Inside the Pages Book Reviews
Ryley @ Ryley Reads
Jenn @ Lost in a Great Book
Christine @ Padfoot’s Library
Liz @ Midnight Bloom Reads
Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit
Melissa @ YA Bookshelf
Ambur @ Burning Impossibly Bright

Use the hashtag #SquareRootofSummer on Social Media to discuss this amazing book!

Thank you all so much for reading! Let me know if you enjoyed this book/plan on reading it in the comments below!

Good Night Book Owls!

Mothers Day Book Recommendations!

Hey everyone!

Happy Mothers Day!!!!

My family and I always celebrate Mothers Day together, and I really enjoy the time we always have together. My mom is one of the best moms out there, and I don’t know what I’d do without her! My mother is the person that made me love reading and I will always thank her for that!

Today, I am going to be recommending some amazing books that I think you should give your mom for mothers day!

First, I want to share with you the book that I’m giving my mom for mothers day!

I received this book from Penguin Canada to give to my mom for mothers day! Yesterday when I was in Indigo, I had my mom read the synopsis of this book, and she said it sounded really interesting! I’ll let you know if she likes it!

My mom and aunt have read this book, and they both loved it! It’s been an adult bestseller and its been featured by many book stores, so I assume its really good!

My mom read this book last year and absolutley loved it, as did I (read my book review for it here)!

Those are my top 3 book recomendations for Mothers Day! Let me know what books you’d get for your mother in the comments!

Good Night Book Owls!

Flawed by Cecelia Ahern (ARC Review)

*I am one day behind on my posts, so another post will be going up earlier today!

Hi everyone!

Today, I am going to be posting a book review from the book that I received at last years TeensRead Winter/Spring Preview! I received This Is Where it Ends from last years event, and I just realized I never did a review for it… I will have to post it one day! Anyways, this years TeensRead Fall 2016 Preview is this upcoming Saturday (May 7), and since I received this book last year and just read it, I figured it would be fun to write a review for it today!

Let’s get started!

Synopsis:

You will be punished…

Celestine North lives a perfect life. She’s a model daughter and sister, she’s well-liked by her classmates and teachers, and she’s dating the impossibly charming Art Crevan.

But then Celestine encounters a situation where she makes an instinctive decision. She breaks a rule and now faces life-changing repercussions. She could be imprisoned. She could be branded. She could be found flawed.

In her breathtaking young adult debut, bestselling author Cecelia Ahern depicts a society where perfection is paramount and flaws lead to punishment. And where one young woman decides to take a stand that could cost her everything.

Review:

This book was very, very good! I received a tweet at the end of last years event, asking for someone to trade their ARC copy for another book, but I never ended up trading it away, and I’m glad I hadn’t!

The book started off like an interesting contemporary novel! There were a few interesting things about the society, but overall the way it was introduced, sounded like a YA contemporary! Plus, the cute romance scene with Celestine’s boyfriend Art was SO CUTE!

But then, let’s just say all hell broke loose!

So many odd things happened to Celestine, and I could never imagine going through what she went through!

The town/city where this novel takes place was so interesting to read about! There were so many different rules as to how the city/citizens could operate, but they all had a back story to them. Again, I couldn’t imagine anyone/myself living through these rules. Especially now in our society, where everyone is welcomed.

The characters were so intrucuit, and Cecelia wrote them so descriptively and with such character that I could really understand them. Sometimes authors will right there characters very “naive-ly”. They will have a very bland personality. It almost seems as if one YA character will have the same traits as another, but there are written by a completely different author and in a completely different world.That being said, these characters were very different from ones you may find in other YA books. Sure, the main female character was brave and heroic, but instead of her trying to be heroic she stood up for something without thinking of what her actions could lead to. Plus, she ended up getting in trouble for her heroic ways!

Although, during some parts of the book it was very hard for me to understand where exactly they were as well as what exactly was going on.

The ending was incredible, especially because I didn’t realize this book was the first of a trilogy…!

Overall:

I really enjoyed this novel and gave it 4/5 stars! It wasn’t the best book I ever read, but it certainly was a good one!

That’s it for today’s book review!

Let me know in the comments if you’ve read this book, and what you thought of it!

Good Night Book Owls!
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