One of the top apps for the past few years to learn any language is Duolingo. People seem to be obsessed with this smiley-faced-but-actually-wants-to-murder-you Owl. While I’m on my long journey to learn Japanese all by myself, I want to try the more hip and helpful free apps on the market. To be completely honest, I just haven’t found the right app or source that allows me to learn the way I want, so meanwhile, I’ll be trying everything. After A LOT of Duolingo memes, I decided to finally sign up. I was determined to see what all the fuss was about. And… I never got so mad with an app in my life. Seriously, it was nerve-racking! At first, I was trying to understand exactly how everything worked. I took the initial test to evaluate my level of Japanese since this wasn’t my first rodeo… It got me nowhere! …

Time to take off with another sci-fi book. Today is time for Fearless by Allen Stroud, where space opera meets murder in zero-g gravity. Many thanks to Anne Cater, the publisher, and the author for allowing me to take part in this tour. Author: Allen Stroud Publisher: Flame Tree Press Pages: 368 Genre: Sci-fi, Mystery Publication: 8th September 2020 Synopsis: AD 2118. Humanity has colonised the Moon, Mars, Ceres and Europa. Captain Ellisa Shann commands Khidr, a search and rescue ship with a crew of twenty-five, tasked to assist the vast commercial freighters that supply the different solar system colonies. Shann has no legs and has taken to life in zero-g partly as a result. She is a talented tactician who has a tendency to take too much on her own shoulders. Now, while on a regular six-month patrol through the solar system, Khidr picks up a distress call from …

The book to read this summer is here! The Truants by Kate Weinberg is the mystery book to take to the beach and get lost while laying on the sand. My many thanks to Anne Cater, the publisher, and Kate Weinberg for allowing me to be part of this tour. Author: Kate Weinberg Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Pages: 352 Genre: Mistery, Contemporary Publication: 1st June 2020 Synopsis: Jess Walker, the middle child of a middle-class family, has perfected the art of vanishing in plain sight. But when she arrives at a concrete university campus under flat, grey, East Anglian skies, her world flares with colour. Drawn into a tightly-knit group of rule-breakers – led by their maverick teacher, Lorna Clay – Jess begins to experiment with a new version of herself. But the dynamic between the friends begins to darken as they share secrets, lovers and finally a tragedy. Soon Jess …

Summer has come early this year, and while I’m sweating over here, I might just sit down with some ice-cold tea and write about every book I read in May. Wrap-Up I was expecting to finish A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin in the first week, but no. I left it there on my nightstand, judging me, while I was happily doing a puzzle and listening to The Final Six by Alexandra Monir. Although the audiobook wasn’t long enough so I could finish the puzzle, and ended up listening to the sequel The Life Below as well. By then, I had completed the puzzle, and I could go back and finish GoT before doing anything else. The Final Six is a sci-fi dystopian story about a group of teenagers selected to go to space training camp. Earth is dying and Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, might be …

The days might be cloudy and rainy, but one thing is undeniable: Spring has arrived. And the small taste o sunny weather brings out the gardener in me. It’s beautiful to watch something grow day after day, taking care of it, and then harvest the hard work. For the longest time, I wanted to create a small garden with vegetables and herbs to feed my little dwarf bunny. I can’t always find diversity for her in the supermarket and grow it myself would solve the problem. I started this project back in April when everything was in lockdown. I would preferably build a vegetable patch out of wood, but with shops only half working I wasn’t going to go out exclusively to buy wood. I had to work with what I had around the house. And in one of the attics clear-out, I went through all the architecture models I …

How is it possible that April is already over? March felt it had 365 days and April had like two weeks? What is happening? We are one month away from the middle of the year and from a new Sims 4 Expansion Pack – sorry to plug that in, but I just found out the news! But before I start to care about what is yet to come, I better take a step back and talk about everything I read last month. Wrap-up If you didn’t know, April was the month of the OWLs, part of the Magical Readathon. I’m not going to explain again what this readathon is all about, for that read my TBR post where I explain everything (or almost everything). To start the readathon in full swing, I read The Beauty volume 1 by Jeremy Haun, the shortest book of my TBR. As much as I …

OWLs 2020 is officially over – it has been over for 4 days already – and I decided to compile the last two weeks into one post. After the second week, it started to get a little complicated to keep the momentum. These are some exceptional times we are living in, and not every day is a good day. Also not having a book like Pachinko that would give me a lot to think of and to share, didn’t help. But now it’s time to conclude the OWLs and turn the page to start a new month. Wednesday, 15th April 2020 Well, there goes my posting schedule! I haven’t done anything today other than resolve tech issues. First, I was trying to understand how some memory cards work in a Wifi IP camera and others don’t. Having all that figured out took me hours, not even counting testing time. Then, …

Happy book birthday to Goldilocks! A space adventure to find a new planet grand theft spaceship style. In this near-future tale of women taking control over their destiny and the whole world’s fate, many challenges explore how far they are willing to go for the greater good. My many thanks to Anne Cater, the publisher, and Laura Lam for allowing me to be part of this tour. Author: Laura Lam Publisher: Headline Publishing Group, Wildfire Pages: 352 Genre: Sci-fi, Dystopian Publication: 30th April 2020 Synopsis: Ravaged by environmental disaster, greed and oppression, our planet is in crisis. The future of humanity hangs in the balance – and one woman can tip it over. Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, Cavendish, where conditions are just right for human habitation. It’s humanity’s last …

Another week of reading books for the OWLs 2020 is done. It wasn’t as productive as the first one, but I’m still reading and that’s all that matter. Wednesday, 8th April 2020 Last night, I entered the third and last part of Pachinko. The book is divided into three parts, each one sort of following each generation, and now I’m in the final round. This part is going to focus mostly on male perspectives, and I’m not excited about it. The characters that I’ve been loving are going to stay in the back and the ones that are being pushed forward I’m not as connected with. I hope this doesn’t affect my enjoyment. And day three of yoga complete. I have to say that it’s a challenge to try and do yoga or any other type of exercise with a bunny hopping around, jumping on top of you, and sniffing …

Back in 2017, I did a little readathon of my own to countdown the days until Christmas, and I was posting updates of my reading regularly. And last month, when Noura from the blog The Perks of Being Noura did a reading blog where she documented her weekend while she was reading Chain of Gold by Cassandra Claire, she got me thinking that maybe I could do something like that for the OWLs. When I started writing this, I wasn’t too sure about this idea – and I’m still not sure. What am I going to write about? Will I have anything to say? But I kept on doing it day after day, pouring out the thoughts I was having at the moment about the book I was reading, about tv series, about my day. So here it is the first week of the OWLs 2020: Wednesday, 1st April 2020 …

In 2020, March had 365 days instead of the ordinary 31, and being at home in lockdown didn’t help. But I’m not here to talk about these bad days we are living in. No, for that you can turn on the news. In this house, sadness stays outside the door, and if it dares to come in, I’ll fight it with a movie, a game, and a book (in no particular order). For now, I’m going to stick with the books that made my March more bearable and enjoyable. I participated in two blog tours in March. The first one was for Happy Family by James Ellis. The book is set in Spain where the main protagonist, Germaine, goes to try to break out from isolation the creator of the virtual reality game Happy Family. I’ve read books about VR games in the past, but none of those can compare …