Author: Miss Known

And so it has come to an end. After 3 years, I finished the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (AGGGTM) series by Holly Jackson. This has been a roller coaster to say the least. My adventure began with the first book, playing armchair detective and loving every bit of it. But then I was surprised by how different the second book was. The formula wasn’t the same, and the character started to change. It was a book that really caught me by surprise. And then it was time to conclude the story with As Good As Dead (AGAD). Title: As Good As Dead Author: Holly Jackson Series: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #3 Publication year: 2021 Length: 14 hours 18 minutes Genre: Mystery, Thriller, YA Pace: Medium Story focus: Plot & Character It was a hard book to read. I’m not going to lie. I struggled a bit …

The Hardest Reading Challenge You’ve Ever Done is over!!… It ended two months ago, but oh well… I’m just now sitting down to write about it. My last update wasn’t very merry. Then I proceed to do a period of rereading for 3 months, give or take. Since rereads don’t count towards the HRCYED, I had nothing to update you on. So I stayed quiet. Knowing that the challenge would be over when the calendar changed to July, I focused on the challenge one last time. And, at the very least, try to finish the books that I bought specifically for this readathon. But did I accomplish that? Before doing my last update on HRCYED 2024-2025, the Hardest Reading Challenge is back for round 2. That’s right, HRCYED 2.0! I’m already two months behind on the announcement, although I couldn’t pass up doing a shout-out since more people are discovering …

It doesn’t even seem real that I decided to embark on this journey three years ago this month. While this is in no way a project or a challenge I’m actively pursuing, I still want to see what’s on the other side. And it will take whatever time it takes. I want to be more intentional with my purchases. To be on top of the books I really want to read. I don’t want to own a graveyard of books, I think I’ll like. I want to find that out instead of keeping guessing. Over time, my approach to this challenge has changed. From a more strict strategy to incorporating other challenges like The Hardest Reading Challenge You’ve Ever Done, HRCYED for short. I went from book-buying bans to adding too many books to my TBR, from great reading months to reading slumps. But all of this is with one …

With the new Netflix adaptation, which I haven’t watched, The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin is now even more popular. If you enjoy reading sci-fi, then you probably heard people talking amazingly about this book. At least, I did. I had The Three-Body Problem on my radar for a very long time. So long that some promo images of 1899 made me question if the two stories were at all related. Sadly, they don’t. So, I will continue to live without a second season of 1899 and a grudge about it. Title: The Three-Body Problem Author: Liu Cixin Series: Rememberance of Earth’s Past #1 Publication year: 2006 Length: 13 hours 26 minutes Genre: Hard Sci-fi, Mystery Pace: Medium Story focus: Plot I knew barely anything about this book series. I know what the three-body problem is, but I had no idea how it would connect with the story. So I …

It has been a few years since I first read Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. To be honest, I don’t remember much. I know I liked the final chapter, which brought the story to a close in a heartfelt way. Apart from that, I thought it was maybe average. That was until I reread it. My mood reading is often influenced by other media I consume throughout the day. Coincidentally, on Max, they released a new adaptation of this story. And I loved it! I liked it so much that I had to pick the book back up again to refresh my memory. You see, this first season is only half of the story. Only next year (probably) will I see the ending of Tita’s life story. That’s too much time to wait for. So I went back to the shelves. To my surprise, I really enjoyed this …

How often do you reread books? How often do you read the books you love again? I asked these questions recently, and the answer was rarely. Last year, I only reread 1 book, and the year before, I reread 5 books. In 2022, I reread only 3 books. In 2021, I reread 2 books. And in 2020, none. In total, in these 4 years, I read 193 books, from audiobooks to ebooks and not forgetting comic books. From almost 200 books, I only reread 11. But this isn’t a problem. It’s not written anywhere you have to reread books. You don’t even need to reread a book in a series to continue it. Rereading is a choice based on the type of consumer you are. And I love revisiting stories I like, so why don’t I do it more often? I’ve already realised that I love to rewatch shows and …

I could do a standard review for The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore by Laurie Gilmore. I could, but that doesn’t mean I will. This book is a good premise to dive a little into the state of literature in this digital era, where reading has become an aesthetic, publishing nothing more than a marketing contest, and books don’t equal reading quality. I’m guessing you’ve probably heard of this book or at least of the first one in the series, The Pumpkin Spice Cafe. This is one of those TikTok sensation books that consequently travels around all the online book communities, so far and wide that physical bookstores have sections dedicated to the books from TikTok. Because of this, I was well aware of the existence of this series and had no intention of reading it. But when you are gifted the book… oh well… since other people insist, I guess I’m …

This post will be a little different. Usually, I keep my updates of the project TBR Zero separate from the monthly update of HRCYED. However, since I’m changing my approach to the readathon and don’t have much of an update for January, I believe it’s best to join the two. Firstly, time to look back on my progress on the TBR Zero project. October 2024 With Becca and The Books announcing the last Spookoplathon (not set in stone), I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to join. I can’t resist a readathon. I’ve been over this. Readathon exists. I join. On my first roll, the dice were in my favour and gave me The Stranger by Harlan Coben to read. I didn’t waste much time with it and quickly finished the book. I was familiar with the story since I saw the mini-series on Netflix. And while I prefer the …

I’ve been promising a post exploring my thoughts on readathons for a while. I’m a serial readathon starter. If I find one, I’ll likely participate in it. If I finish it tough, that’s another story. But first, a brief explanation of what a readathon is for those who might not be familiar with this communal part of reading. A readathon (like the name suggests) is a reading marathon. The objective is to read as much as you can for a set time, for example, 24 or 48 hours, a week, a month, or a year. Usually, a readathon has a theme. It can be based on genre, diversity, age range, a book series or a single book. Readathons became quite popular online since they are a collective effort. You can do one on your own, although it can be very motivating to do it with others. Suddenly, what is a …

Ever since I read Deep Work by Carl Newport, I have embarked on a journey to try out the four philosophies. After going through the rhythmic, bimodal, and monastic philosophies, it was time to experiment with the last one: the journalistic philosophy. Newport says this is probably the hardest philosophy to reach deep focus because it requires some training. What’s particular about it is the lack of a schedule. In this philosophy, you work whenever you can and try to use every moment possible. Very much like a journalist who writes at any opportunity they can. To test this type of schedule, I needed a plan. I knew I had to set some rules to guide me, or else I would do nothing. But how do you schedule something that is supposed to have no schedule at all? Well, I tried. The journalistic philosophy I encountered difficulties since day one. …

New Year, same challenge. It’s the Hardest Reading Challenge! December wasn’t as packed with reading as I was anticipating. It’s that time of year that quickly slips through the cracks, and once we realise it, it’s Christmas, then New Year, and December is over. It also doesn’t help when these holidays fall in the middle of the week. It was a very confusing time. But we are now in a new year, which means there is a lot more reading to do. The Books Towards the middle of the month, before all the mayhem started with the holidays, I did the 24-hour challenge. The hardest part was to read the 300-page book. I started with one by a Portuguese author é urgente amar (it’s urgent to love) by Pedro Chagas Freitas, and I was not enjoying it. I thought about dropping it and trying to read something else. However, I …