Let’s Talk | My 5 Least Favorite Books I Have Read So Far This Year

July 24, 2019July 11, 2019 bookishluna10 Comments

Welcome to part two of my continuation of my mid-year check in! Earlier I did a whole post talking about my top 5 books I have read so far this year. Now, it is time to talk about the bottom 5 books I have read this year. If you would like to see my top 5 you. can find that. here:Let’s Talk | Top 5 Books I Have Read So Far This Year. Anyway, I don’t want to do too much. of an introduction, but the books I mentioned just didn’t do. it. for me personally for one reason or another. That doesn’t mean they are a bad book or that you can’t like them. I just didn’t and thankfully most of these were library books.

-The Books-

There is only a single “book” I gave so far this year and that would be a work by Shakespeare. Since I first read some of his works back in high school, I did not enjoy them in the slightest. I thought that this feeling was mainly due to teachers in the past making me read a bunch of them. Turns out, I still don’t like the plays all that much. Maybe it would be different if I saw one of them preformed, but I just thought it was WAY too dramatic.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

So far there is only one book I have given two stars and this would be The Woman in the Dark. I was just bored by it and I don’t really think it has anything to do with the book. I just read a lot of thrillers and this one never really surprised me or kept my interest. I think It was just predictable because I read so many of them. The writing itself was good and the author is talented, just the plot of me was meh.

The Woman in the Dark by Vanessa Savage

The fact that I need to list any three star reads is great in my eyes. That means I have not read a lot of books that I didn’t enjoy. I am finally getting better at finding books I am more likely to enjoy. But, while these books are not bad at all, they are at the lower end of my rating scale.

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

While this was an enjoyable book, I was not wowed by it. It was just something I read and moved on. It was not notable for me personally.

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

Behind her eyes has a similar reason as The Woman in the Dark apart from the ending being surprising. I was just not totally feeling into the story as I read, but I liked it enough to finish it.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace was good, just I was not that drawn into the lives of the people I was reading about. These stories are very character driven in my opinion and if you are not feeling the characters you most likely wont enjoy it very much.

What is your least favorite read so far?

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Wrap Up

Middle Mark | July 2019

July 14, 2019July 13, 2019 bookishluna13 Comments

Middle Mark

I feel like my reading was dragging so much this first half of the month. I had a lot going on and I was pretty stressed out that I didn’t really want to read, which says a lot since that is normal what I do when I want to destress. Anyway, I did manage to read some and I found myself kicking myself for not reading some of them sooner. Also, I am doing better in the stress department so the rest of the month will hopefully will be better reading wise. Here are the books I have read the first half of the month.

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This held true to the little blurb on the cover, “Grisly World of Victorian Medicine”. This book goes into great detail into what victorian medicine was, so if medical talk and such bother you, stay away from the book. If you would love to learn more about the progression of science and medicine, please read this.

Lindsay Fitzharris I think does a great job turning this non-fiction topic into a narrative. It read very nicely and flows. I never felt bogged down by fact and stats, even though I learned a ton. The way she broke the novel into chapters also made a lot of sense and were natural breaking points, not that I stopped I read this in one sitting.

I also appreciated that the end notes were organized by not just in order, but labeled by chapter as well. The only thing I wished was that were labeled by a number or letter and not just by the page number since there can be three or more from a single page and I had to flip back and forth from the chapter to the end note to make sure I was looking at the correct source.

Overall, I recommend this book if medicine, history, victorian era and science are something you are interested in, I actually already have this going to a friend of mine.

View all my reviews

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am finally getting to this review, thanks for waiting!

I have to say, this novel is long, but It not one that can be read slowly. If you take your time details will begin to fall away and it may leave you lost and confused. It is helpful while reading to have a list of characters, I know I needed mine.

I have previously read works by this author, such as Anna Karenina, and loved it more and more as time passed. I found myself thinking about the characters and empathizing and realizing more and more. I really don’t think that will be the case with War and Peace. While I did enjoy reading this and I do not regret it in the slightest, I just feel like I wont think about this book again. I could very well be wrong.

At times I was bored and kept saying, “alright get on with it already” while other times I was laughing so hard at something or very really engrossed. This book was a bit all over the place in that sense for me, that is why I decided to give it 3 stars.

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Mort by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am kind of mad it took me so long to read a book by Terry Pratchett. The sense of humor, characters, and world are so unique and fun. His take on the character of death is really interesting and I found that even though that this is a story about Death, I laughed a bunch. Mort is a really fun and interesting character as well, it is interesting to think about how a human would react to the situation and choices he was given. It really make you think. I really enjoyed this story and I will be continuing to read the death books within the Discworld series. I don’t really know what else to say because I loved this story and if you enjoy fantasy and a good laugh, I feel like you will really enjoy this.

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The Two Dead Girls by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The feeling of this book is really haunting. Part one has really set the tone of this serial (6 parts). It depicts a pretty horrendous crime so you know what type of people our narrator is dealing with, but I am thankful that he has not shared more than he has needed to. I really am enjoying the narrators voice, it is oddly calm, but I can tell something big is going to be shown to me. I am going to be jumping into part 2 as soon as I can.

View all my reviews

Currently Reading 2

Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy, #1)

I just started reading this book last night since I somehow managed to finish two books yesterday, woohoo! I have not started a new series in sometime so I am in a way excited to be reading this, but also not looking forward to the wait for the next book. So far I am enjoying the world that I have seen so far. Like I said, I started this book pretty late last night so I am not very far in, but so far so good and I don’t see that changing unless something ridiculous happens.

What are you currently reading?

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Bullet Journal Jottings, Writing & More

Bullet Journal | June 2019

June 9, 2019May 27, 2019 bookishluna20 Comments

So, this month I was so excited to be starting a new bullet journal. I don’t know about you, but I get super excited about starting a new one. It feels like a fresh start, a sweet breeze, or a clean slate. I can take all the spreads that have worked for me and leave the ones behind that I either don’t use or out grew. It is nice to see it evolve and grow as you do. Well, this time around I will admit I was heavily inspired by the Plant Based Bride over on youtube and her blog, http://plantbasedbride.com. I really enjoy the feel and simplicity of her bullet journal and I have heavily taken inspiration along with the spreads that have worked for me to create this new bullet journal.

My last bullet journal was a Rhodia goalbook, I HATED it. The pages fell apart just from erasing it, the paper was awful and I will not be buying a new one. Also, their customer service is horrible. I filled out a from and reached out on twitter and they said they would contact me twice and they never did. Not how you handle a situation as a company. This time around I am trying a new company, their notebooks are a bit pricy, but I was lucky enough to get it as a gift from my wonderful BF. I am trying an A rcher and Olive notebook.

Before I moved into my new notebook I decided to make a list of the spread I wanted to keep and the ones I wanted to add. Here is a bit of a peak into the spreads I wanted to keep for this bullet journal, as well as add.

Keep

Crochet hooks ✔️
Weight-loss Tracker ✔️
Yearly Reading Goals ✔️
War and Peace readalong tracker ✔️
Twitter tracker ✔️
Blog tracker ✔️
Seasonal Bucket List ✔️
Grid spacing ✔️
ARC Tracker ✔️

Add

Period Tracker ✔️
Crochet Project Tracker/Wishlist Just Bright Ideas ✔️
5K Training Progress ✔️
Owned TBR ✔️
Buddy Reads ✔️
Study Tracker ✔️

-General Spreads-

This layout is very helpful for me when I move into a new bullet journal, especailly when the brand is new to me. This lets me quickly see where 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 in either direction as well as how many boxes are in each page.

I tent to only keep a bullet journal for 4-6 months, so I only bother putting 6 months ahead so I can easily see how many days are in each month. I also left an area on the bottom incase I wanted to add a particular note for a day. On the other page I updated my eARC/ARC tracker page. I can easily see when a book comes out and if I have reviewed it. In this bujo I only added the ones I am still working on.

While I am not in blogging or on twitter for the numbers, I find it fun to track them. Seeing all the people I can connect with or who want to read my work is motivating in a way.

Alright, these two pages are totally new. On the right I added a different layout for my War and Peace reading this year. This year I decided that I would read W&P on the right hand side I write what sections I should read each month to finish on time. On the right I am writing when I actually end up reading it. I also added a little progress bar at the bottom. On the right I decided I wanted to keep track of all the books Reg, Jenna, Amy and myself read together. I added a bit of a starry night because I messed up, but I really did love how it came out.

Here is my reading challenge tracker, the same as it was in my old bujo. On the right I started writing my seasonal bucket list. I am still thinking up ideas, if you have any suggestions let me know!

I decided I wanted to track my studying my writing in the topic as well as checking off if I actually do study. I am trying to become a bit more structured. On the right I am tracking my period, I find myself needing to track it more now so I figured having an over all picture in one place would be helpful.

If you did not know this year I am really taking the time for myself and my health. So, I have been doing my best to make healthier decisions and lose some extra weight. I really loved the spreads I had in my other bujo so I migrated them over. I took the layout on the right from Forever Good Life.

A bit of a continuation, I am currently doing a 5K training app. I wanted to track my progress through the program as well as the km per week I am running/walking. On the right I wanted to keep track of the crochet hooks I have so I did some googling and found this spread from paperandinkco.heidi on instagram.

On the left I decided to give myself a space to write all of my “dream” crochet projects. I also decided to implement a kanban board for my blog posts. I picked this up from Plant Based Bride, as I said in the start of this post I found a lot of inspiration from her.

-Monthly-

This is my dashboard page and a bit of a monthly overview. I really enjoy having this monthly overview each month and I wanted to continue with it.

This is my normal book tracker that I have been using for MONTHS and I just love seeing what books I read and on what days. It is a great overview picture of my reading habits without using a habit tracker, which I realized are not for me because I don’t look at them for days and then have to do my best to remember when I did what.

Here is a bit of a view of my other reading tracker. I color in a block for each chapter that I have read. It is almost like a goodreads for my notebook when it comes to progress.

I wanted to try something new for my social media page. I decided to draw a mini calendar and highlight my blogging days, but I want to also color in when I post on instagram. I will see how this format goes instead of a list. On the other page is my TBR, pretty simple and straight forward.

Last month I used this weekly spread and I really loved it. I had to resize it a bit for this new notebook, but I still really like it. It made organizing my day really easy and gave me a clear view of my week. I will be adding some quotes as I move through the weeks, but I also left room to add doodles if I want to as well.

Well, there you have it, my new bullet journal and my June spreads, what do you think? Have you ever used a notebook by this brand before? Are there any notebooks you think I should try in the future?

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Wrap Up

Middle Mark | February 2019

February 15, 2019February 11, 2019 bookishluna13 Comments

Middle Mark

Hello and welcome to my mid month check in! This month I feel like I have been doing a ton of reading between buddy reads with Jenna @JK I’m Exploring, Reg @Bookish In Bed, and Amy @ Tomes with Tea. The Co-hosting a Count of MOnte Cristo readalong on instagram with Jenna. All of which I have been LOVING. I had no idea I would love Monte so much! Anyway, between reading those I was able to read

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Read 2
The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have to say that the description for this book does not give it justice. There is so much more to this book, but I don’t want to give details and ruin the surprise. It was really magical and I loved the intertwining of fairy tales, history, and a thriller all mixed into one. The authors writing style is very flowery and enjoyable.

If you find the description interesting, I think you will like it even more than you think because there is so much more.
View all my reviews

Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overall I thought this was a very unique and interesting series. The artwork was fantastic and I felt that it was the perfect match to the story line. For the size of this I felt that I read it fairly quickly, that was mainly because a lot of stuff happened for the first. 60-70% of this book. I felt like the thought process and mental games that were played in here were very well done. The main reason why I did not give this series more stars is because once a particular character died the quality seemed to go down with the mental games and I felt like at times there was something for the sake of events, but it seems kinda random and forced at times. I also felt that the story slowed down all of a sudden at a point and I felt like I had to push myself through because I came so far already.

View all my reviews

Divider 2 Currently Reading 2

–The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas-

The Count of Monte Cristo

I am currently page 298 at the time of posting this, but as I have said already in my into I am LOVING this book so much more than I thought I would. Due to its size I thought it would be slow, but I feel like so much happens each chapter. It is mind blowing. I highly recommend this classic.

–War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy-

War and Peace

I am on page 154. Yes, I am making progress in my classic of the year while reading Monte as well. Since I am reading a book every 3 weeks, I have a lot of time to read others books. I have read one peace and one war section and so far I think I am enjoying the peace sections more. I think becasue I am seeing more class distinctions that I learned about when I was in college and I really love how the author made a point of adding those in there to showcase the class system in Russia, but also how they spoke more French than Russian.

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What are you reading? Have you read any of the books I have read or am currently reading?

SignOff12:17

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Knitting, Crochet, Crafting, Art & More

DIY Tested | Creating a Serialized Book

January 8, 2019December 4, 2018 bookishluna2 Comments

DIY12:17

Hello and welcome to another attempt at me recreating a DIY! This time I am trying to serialize a novel. I first came across this DIY on instagram posted by Sarah on Book50Blog. When I first saw this back in August I was first shocked by the methods used, but she made a really good point. Doing this to a huge, mountainous book into something really manageable.

Now, because this was on Instagram stories, it disappeared in 24 hours, so thankfully I thought it was a great idea and I wanted to try it right there and then. I screen shotted the steps so I could try when the time was right. That time has just now arrived, but before I get into the DIY I want to explain what a serialized novel is.

This was very popular during the victorian era, many books that are now published and full novels were once realized in chunks on a set schedule. This could be once a month, once every two months, or sometimes every other week. It really depending on the magazine or paper that the story was published. Some of the popular books that were originally published in the manner were The Women in White by Wilkie Collins, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bleak House by Charlies Dickens. I tend to read a lot of classics like this in their original form thanks to a website called Victorian Serial Novels. I suggest checking them out, it really give you a whole new reading experience, you get cliff hangers in places you wouldn’t even believe.

Now, the book I am testing this out on was partly published like this, but then was turned into a novel part of the way through. You can read all about that here. So I am taking a little bit of liberties with breaking it up for a few reasons. The first being I wanted to try this on a big book and the second was because I had a cheap version of this classic so I would not be horribly upset if it all went wrong.

The book I decided to try this on was War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy because I plan on reading it in 2019. So, here it goes, the doing part of DIY.

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Supplies

Book
Cutting device
Washi tape
Adult supervision-if you get hurt it is not my responsibility ask a responsible adult to help you cut. Using a knife or cutting device can be dangerous do this at your own risk!

Divider

The DIY

First you need to find the sections, I decided to break the book down into 17 sections. Book 1-25 then he first and second epilogue. I think in herLes Misérables by Victor Hugo if I am not mistaken.

This is the part I was most worried about, I really thought I was going to butcher the edges and the entire book would fall apart page by page. But, I have to admit seeing the little bits of the spine actually looks kinda cool… did I just say destroyed book looks cool? Who am I?

The last step I think was the best part of this for a few reasons. The first being it kinda made me less worried about the book just falling apart and it made it look more uniform.

Progress Images

Outcome

This is such a wonderfully straight forward DIY, thank you Sarah! Three steps with not a lot of fluff, it gets right to the point. I think that is why it caught my eye right away.

Overall, I really liked this DIY. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would. I would say I did have to cut the sections two times to really get a clear cut. The first to open up the pages to get to the binding, then the second actually cut the binding. I am really looking forward to reading this now serialized edition of War and Peace in 2019!

I hoped your enjoyed me testing out a DIY.

Which ones should I try next?

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Reading Challenges

Lets Talk | Classic of the Year 2019

December 26, 2018December 26, 2018 bookishluna7 Comments

LetsTalk12:17 So, since the year is coming close to an end I am starting to think about the things I want to accomplish in 2019, it feels so weird typing that. So this is one of the first of many posts that are going to be talking about the things I want to do in 2019 and I hope you enjoy. This will not be the only post about this specific book, so look forward to that!

So in 2019, I really wanted to read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy for a few reasons. The first being I read Anna Karenina in 2018 and I have been loving it more and more as time passes. The second I find Tolstoys writing so be beautiful. The last reason being is it on nearly every “100 Books to Read in a Life Time” lists. So this year I decided it was going to happen. Do this year I decided I was going to break up the book so I can read about a section every 3 weeks and finish in December. I am lucky enough to have friends who want to join me and you can see by the following tweet we are all excited about this year long endeavor.

I’ve been in a buddy-reading book for almost a year now. We’ve read loads of brilliant books, some of which have become favourites of mine. In 2019 (over the whole year) we’ve decided to tackle this monster! I’m all tabbed and ready to go! 😁🎉📖 #bookblogger #2019goal pic.twitter.com/X96QKseDLy
— A M Y – L O U I S E (@tomeswithtea) November 14, 2018

I think the main reason why I am so exited about this endeavor is because I have made the book manageable by breaking up the book and spread it out throughout the year of 2019. This book is huge, that is one of the reasons it has taken my such a long time to get to it. I thought since I made this book manageable for me I would share the schedule I came up with with all of you.

War and Peace Document