Tag: Book series

Some readers will unapologetically put down any book they are not that interested in. Meanwhile, others have to finish all the books they ever started. I think I stand somewhere in the middle. I’ve closed books vowing to never open them again, while also finishing some that I shouldn’t have wasted my time with. But what I started to realise was the various reasons I gave myself to DNF a book. Online book communities tend to use a lot of acronyms, and for newcomers it’s normal not be sure what some of these words mean. In case you don’t know, DNF stands for Did Not Finish. It can also be expanded to Soft DNF and Hard DNF. People usually use Soft DNF for books they aren’t finishing right now, but want to come back to them later. Maybe life got busy. Maybe the story requires a certain headspace. There are …

In 2025, I finished reading the last book in the Robert Langdon series by Dan Brown. And to celebrate, a few weeks later, the author announced the next book in the series ( I should really finish A Song of Ice and Fire to see if George R. R. Martin does the same). I was very excited to have a new book to read. And then it was announced that a female character was returning. This is a first. Robert Langdon’s female sidekicks are always new characters. Basically, the whole cast is always new from book to book, making them perfect to start at any point. While this news was exciting, what I didn’t like was discovering the character in question was Katherine Solomon. Previous co-star in The Lost Symbol, AKA the book I disliked the most in the series. Title: The Secret of Secrets Author: Dan Brown Series: Robert …

I’ve been dreading the day I had to sit down and write this update. I’m not giving up if that’s what you’re thinking, I’ve just made some progress… in the opposite direction. This summer, the TBR grew bigger, and I’m trying my hardest to clean up that mess! But what would you do if you saw some books become homeless? Wouldn’t you help them? Those poor things were shivering! It broke my heart. I couldn’t send them away… So I opened my shelves… They look so cosy and happy now! And I hope they can make me feel like that as well. June It all started on a warm sunny day in June. The doorbell rings with the mailman bringing a package with fresh new books. The second volume of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo – I can now start planning to read that – The Seven Deaths of Evelyn …

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 …

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 …

It has been a hot minute since Dan Brown released a book in the Robert Langdon series. The most famous symbologist had many adventures and probably will have many more. It has been 9 years since I started on this journey. And it took me until last year to finally sit here and say I’ve read every book in the Robert Langdon series. Update: The next book in the Robert Langdon series is coming out on September 9th. Named The Secret of Secrets and features the reappearance of Katherine Solomon from The Lost Symbol (of all the books and all the women… *sigh* WHY?) Therefore, I thought it was time to do a little overview. I didn’t write reviews for every book, but I still want to share my experience reading each one. Keep in mind, this is a look at my enjoyment of the series spanning almost a decade. …