The best time of the year has come once again. The air is getting colder, and the days are shorter. The prime cosy time is upon us, and nothing like a chilling and dark mystery to rock you back to sleep. There is something delicious about reading murder mysteries and creepy stories in autumn. Maybe it’s the change to darker days or the association with Halloween. Either way, reading is always better when it’s colder outside and nothing like picking up a Ruth Ware to make the most out of it. Author: Ruth Ware Pages: 338 Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Drama, Horror First Publication: July 2015 Synopsis Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since the day Nora walked out of her old life and never looked back. Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen party arrives. A weekend in a remote cottage – the perfect opportunity …

I need to start by clarifying that reading is not a competition or that I think it should be. Reading is a hobby, a source of entertainment, therefore, should never be a competition. And in the golden age of online sharing, I know it can be hard to avoid comparing our reading with others, especially when some are capable of hitting double digits every month. But this post isn’t about reading more than other people. Every time I mention competition or competing, I’m talking about doing it against myself, challenging myself, and pushing myself as a reader, not comparing myself with others. Keep in mind this is purely an experiment to get even more enjoyment of reading. To be completely honest, I decided to make this post on a whim. I had a couple of ideas left for reading experiments to do this year when I came across a video …

Taking care of our planet matters to me more and more as time passes by. Slowly, I’m becoming more aware of how much we just use and throw away, and consequently, waste is becoming something that bothers me. Even throwing away onion peals or eggs shells is something that doesn’t sit right with me anymore. If it can be transformed, then I want to do it. While a compost bin still has some “questions of logistics” to be considered, I can start re-purpose other things. And the next item on the list of “things that have a short life span” comes water bottles. Yes, they can be recycled, although I’m still using them once and then throwing them away (to recycling). I want to give them a new life before they are shredded into tiny pieces to be reborn again. Then one day, while losing myself in the slow living …

And Then There Were None is not the first Agatha Christie book I read. Although it is the first one I completely fell in love with. It can be tricky to read her books. They were written a very long time ago, and she often uses references to the 30s lifestyle that is foreign to me. While reading it in a different century, some details can go over my head and doom the book as boring. At least, this has been my experience when reading Agatha Christie. But then, I picked up And Then There Were None. One of her standalone mystery novels. A story with multiple adaptations from movies, to mini-series, to a two-part episode of Family Guy. And I know I’ve seen a few more with different characters while maintaining the same plot, although, for the life of me, I can’t remember where. This is one of her …

The title is very self-explanatory. I decided to experiment for a month to track words instead of books. Yes, I’ve managed to complicate something so simple. Although, I have a good reason. I am a slow reader, as in I usually read at a speed of 180 words per minute. And my original idea for this experiment was to keep me motivated to read, possibly to read bigger books. Every time I look at a book with more than 400 pages, my first thought is how many weeks or even months it will take me to finish it. And that discourages me. So I was on the hunt for a way to allow me to fall in love with reading, no matter the size of the book. How the idea came to be One day in February, I found a YouTube video about reading 30 books in 30 days and, …

Some readers don’t care about tracking books and keeping tabs on everything they read. But I am not one of those. And I’m guessing you aren’t either. For that reason, I bring you three mobile apps you can use to track your everyday reading! I’ve been tracking my reading for a few years now. It started with Goodreads and has been getting more and more specific over time. What every reader wants to track can be a lot different. Maybe you just want to know how much time takes you to read each book. Or maybe you want to keep track of the genres you read most often. Or you just want a place where you can store all the quotes, thoughts and highlights while reading. No matter what you want, I’m going over the features, what I liked and didn’t like on each app, so you can see if …

Happy April Fools’ Day!! Despite today being a day you can’t trust anything people say, trust me, I’ll not be pulling any pranks on you. *wink* *wink* Now that I’ve taken all the jokes out of my system – probably not! – time to focus on the book I bring to you today: Edokko by Loren Greene. This is the second full-length novel in the Sakura+Maple series that brings Japan and Canada together. The story is a stand-alone, so don’t worry if you haven’t read anything else. So grab your passport, and let’s go to Japan! Author: Loren Greene Pages: 332 Genre: Contemporary YA Publication: 2021 Synopsis: Lily Jennings is Going. To. Japan. Sixteen and on top of the world, Lily’s BEYOND excited to be setting off for an entire year as an exchange student in Tokyo. Fashion and fun are foremost on her mind as she arrives ready to …

I know I’m late to the party, but… Good Omens… Oh my… Good Omens. Is. Such. A. Good. Show! I know everyone already say this, but I never truly believed it until I saw it for myself. So if this post finds its way to probably the only person that hasn’t seen it yet, then my job here is done! Lately, I’ve been reviewing a lot of books here on the blog because it’s the type of content I consume the most. But, when I’m not reading or re-watching a series for the 1000th time, I’ll watch something new. And sometimes, I struck gold! And Good Omens is better than gold, so diamonds? – I don’t care much for precious stones or metals. So, Good Omens is better than… an Oreo cupcake with raspberry filling. Yes, that’s the one! The story starts with Crowley, a demon, and Aziraphale, an angel, …

The start of a new year means new books. Although I can’t begin reviewing the books I already read in 2022 without closing the chapter of the ones I read last year. And Capsule by Mel Torrefranca is one of the reasons for that. It came out last summer, and I was fortunate to read an eARC of it. So prepare yourself for a deadly phone game! Author: Mel Torrefranca Pages: 255 Genre: YA, Sci-Fi, Mystery Publication: July 2021 Synopsis: Two students from Brookwood High School mysteriously go missing on the same night. The first is Peter Moon, a heartless pescatarian who bashes students from Brookwood on his blog, turning everyone against him. The second is the adored Kat Pike, an audacious girl desperate to boost her adrenaline. Three days pass. No leads. Indifferent to the disappearances, sixteen-year-old Jackie Mendoza remains immersed in her virtual world of video games and …