#2017Nine

I saw this on instagram where people were showing their nine favourite photos from the year. So here are mine 



Photo One

My first ever Pow Wow Experience 

A friend of mine is part native, and took me along to my first ever Pow Wow. It was a fantastic experience, one that I really enjoyed. Over 2017 I have met many native people and going to a Pow Wow is something that I believe everyone should experience. 

Photo Two

Getting New Clothes

I very rarely get any new clothes and when I do I always find it difficult. I’m short and plus sized. But I took this photo because of the fact I had found a nice pair of trousers (pants) but they didn’t fit right. 

Photo Three

My Cat Loved Me… For A Short Time

My cat very rarely shows love and affection. So getting the photo was perfect 

Photo Four

Everyone Loves Doing This

I’ve seen millions of people do this at the beach or pool side. So I wanted in on the trend. 

Photo Five

Mirror Selfie 🤳 Part I

On this day I felt good. It was summer. I was going to the pool and my hair looked great. I had my sun glasses. I just felt great about myself 

Photo Six

Mirror Selfie 🤳 Part II

Again I just felt good about myself. 

Photo Seven

Over Edit Selfie 

I had just dyed my hair and straightened it. Felt good about myself and took the photo. 

Photo Eight

Laying By The Pool

Even though I’m smiling in the photo I was sad inside. All I wanted was to jump into the pool on that particular hot day. But it wasn’t the right day. Thanks Mother Nature/My Own Body

Photo Nine

What I Do Every Summer

I always seem to do this every year and that’s take a picture of my shadow. I have many pictures over the years of them. 

My GoodReads Book Year

Last year I did a post all on my Goodreads reading challenge 

This year I challenged myself to read 24 books. Which I completed, with 42 books. 

This year I read 15,346 pages across 42 books

Shortest book
Blue 2004 Annual
61 pages 

Longest Book
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire
796 pages

Average Length
377 pages

Most popular 
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 
2,521,140 other people read 

Least Popular 
Blue Annual
0 other people read

My Average Rating 
3.6 Stars ⭐️ 

Highest Rated on Good Reads
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
4.51

My first review of the year
Just One Day
4 Stars ⭐️ 

This year I have read 42 Books. 

- Breaking Dawn

- Ugly

- The Ice Cream Girls 

- My Best Friends Girl 

- Goodnight, Beautiful 

- Marshmallows for breakfast 

- Just one day

- Just one year

- Harry Potter and the cursed child

- Fantastic Beast and where To Find Them

- David Beckham My World

- Belle De Jour

- The Pact

- Lock and Key

- Just Listen

- Tracy Beaker

- Cinder

- Scarlet

- Cress

- Thirteen Reasons Why

- Jane Eyre

- Rules of Summer

- Since Last Summer

- The Devil Wears Prada

- One Day

- Dustbin Baby

- The Time Travellers Wife

- Blue Annual

- FanGirl

- Bad Girls

- The Last Song

- Safe Haven

- All I know now

- Hate List

- Billie Piper

- The Casual Vacancy 

- Harry Potter books 1-5

*any books that I’ve reviewed over the last year are linked*

Books/Genres Outside My Comfort Zone

I wouldn’t say I have a particular favourite genre of books because I read a whole wide range, with some that could be in a million and one different genres.

- Dystopian/Fantasy

I always found that I tend to go toward books that have the same underlying theme, love, friendships, so reading Matched or The Lunar Chronicles was way out of my zone.



- Classics

Ive never really been a big classics reader until a few years ago, when I found a sale on books at the local bookstore where three classics where $10. I picked up three. It was also at the same brand of stores when I moved and picked up another’s three. I also have a few that I picked up randomly. While I have read a small number (2) and tried to read others (again 2) they are so out of my comfort zone.

- Reading Duologys

For me I always seemed to read books in a series (3 or more books) so reading a ‘series’ where there were only two books was out of my comfort zone


- Books That Are Not Aimed As A YA Book

It’s so easy to fall into a hole and read only that. But I have been trying to read books that are aimed more towards my age group. As someone in their late 20’s



- Author Expansion part I

I recently read The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. It was way outta my comfort zone of Harry Potter by her but still I did it

- Author Expansion Part II

When I read a book by an author for the first time I always have high hopes. On a few occasions there have been disappointments but I’ve carried on with the book or just stopped reading. But sometimes if it’s bad I have a thing where all the other books by them will be as bad.





- Reading Books I Have Already Pre Judged

It’s easy to say don’t judge a book by its cover, but in reality it’s the easiest thing to do and the only thing. If your at a bookstore looking at a book your still judging that book wether it be the front or the back.

* The Last Song

* One Day

* Lock and Key

Lauren
xoxo

Christmas Book Haul

Welcome

Today’s Top 5 Wednesday is supposed to be on things we’d like to see in books. Instead I am going to do my Christmas book haul
I actually did a post like this which you can see HERE. So instead I am doing a What Books I Got For Christmas Post instead

Crossed and Reached
- Ally Conde

Lola and the Boy Next Door
- Stephanie Perkins

Harry Potter Wands

I feel like a bad Potter head not knowing a book like this existed.

How I Feel Blogmas Went

To be really honest I think it went ok. I did a rough plan of how I wanted it all to go on my phone and every day I completed I put a tick or a mark next to the day to know that I had completed it. That may not work for everyone but for me it did. 

It was hard at time to think of posts to write and make sure that I did something different everyday. But doing the rough plan helped. I knew that three of the post would be T5W so I planned everything around them. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas 🎄 and a have a happy new year.  

Blogmas Day 24 Book Talk: Why I Do Very Few Book Reviews in December

Today marks the end of Blogmas. Which is both satisfying and scary. It means that I’ve completed 24 days of Blogmas. But also means that Christmas is literally tomorrow and December has flown by. Today’s post is all about why I find it hard to do book reviews in December

I hate doing book reviews at the best of times during the year. I have this thing about them because I used to have to do them for English class in high school and even though I loved English I hated doing book reports.

So doing a book review in December is so hard because I don’t tend to read any ‘new or unread’ books throughout the month, and with doing blogmas this year I don’t feel like I can do an honest review on a book that I may have read. So I tend to go towards books I’ve read or reviewed.

I do have one in the works that is a DNF book and I am being honest as I possibly can with it.

Blogmas Day 23 Disappointing Books

Welcome to Day 23 of blogmas. How the hell is Christmas only on Monday. December has just flown by. Today is all on the books 📖 I found disappointing 


- Breaking Dawn
    - Stephanie Meyer
With how disappointing Book two and three are I was hoping Book 4 would be better. But it’s just as bad the first two. It could have been so much better for a last book series 

- Just One Year
    - Gayle Forman
I wanted to love the book. Really I did considering how much I loved Just One Day but I felt let down by Just One Year. (Little side note. Just One Year if you put the first letters of each word you get JOY. Which is my middle name)

- The Casual Vacancy
    - JK Rowling
I wasn’t expecting the Harry Potter Magic in another book but I was disappointed with the book. 

- Jane Eyre
Inam not a massive classic book reader, but so many people have read the book. I couldn’t get to far into it 

- Sense and Sensibility

I came to realize that classic books really aren’t my thing. 

- Scarlet 
    - Marissa Meyer
Scarlet wasn’t a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, but I personally thought that it could have been a bit better. It’s not the whole twilight book thing but it did go down hill near the end. 

- Cress
    - Marissa Meyer
For me Cress was a book that I was so disappointed with. It was confusing, way to long for a third book and could have been so much better. 

- Just Listen
    - Sarah Dessen
I was was so disappointed with the book. It was the first ever Sarah Dessen book I’d ever read or attempt go read and it just fell short of what I wanted. 

Lauren

xoxo

Blogmas Day 22 One Day

Welcome to the discussion questions that I found for One Day, I should have actually published this post forever ago but just didn't for some strange reason. 

How did you like the concept of the story?

• When I first read the book a few years ago I hated the concept but would keep thinking about the book and how much I actually enjoyed it and wasn't as bad as I thought. So as I am re reading the book I am enjoying it a lot more and enjoying the fact the concept of the book keeps you on the edge. It has definitely changed my mind about the book the book the second time around. I think I judged it to harshly the first time around. 

Do you think Dexter and Emma would have been happy had they admitted their love and devotion to each other much earlier in their lives?

• Honestly no. I think the both of them needed to go through the life they had. I think by them being together all those years would have ruined them a lot quicker. Sure everyone knew they should be together, and opposites attract, but it's something about their friendship that they had that meant the two of them could be totally honest with each other. 

Did you like the way Nicholls made the characters annoying to each other as well as people around them, did this make the characters more life-like?

• Yes. Because not every friend will always see eye to eye. They are very different people to begin with, and while they say opposites attract I'm glad they didn't get together right away
• I liked how Ian would get annoyed when Dexter would be around all the time. 

Why do you think Dexter came so close to telling Emma his true feelings at various times in the book but then decided against it (for example, in the candid letter to her that he stuck in a book and promptly forgot)?

• Life. At each point he wanted to say something life happened to one of them. 

Did Emma ever really love Ian or was she just trying to, hoping to?

• I think in her own way she loved him. But her love hate friendship with dexter is so strong that Ian can never ever compare to Dex even when Emma is fighting with him. 

How do Dexter’s insights into Emma compare to her own? Is he more perceptive about her than he is about himself?

• I think Dexter is more open with Emma then with anyone else on his life that he can see what's going on with her. They are so honest with each other. 

What does the affair with Mr. Godalming reflect about Emma’s state of mind as she approaches her mid-thirties?

• That she's not ok. That she needs to start thinking about herself more. 

If you were in Emma’s place would you have stood by Dexter and vice versa.

• I would have. They have a kind of friendship that they are totally honest with each other even if it was a hard friendship. I love friendships like that, because you completely trust the person no matter what even if you don't want to hear it. I think Dexter needed someone like Emma in his life to keep him alive, normal and to strengthen out. 

Did Emma's sudden accident and death take you by surprise? If not, how did you see it coming?

• I watched the movie 🎥 first before reading the book (biggest mistake ever) and I knew something would happen, and when it did it still shocked me even when I read the book 📚 I shed a little tear 😢. 

Do you have a favorite character? A least favorite?

• I liked Sonya, the girl that Emma helped a lot while she was working at the school. I found that she was like most teenage girls just needed someone to help her. 

The When Harry Met Sally question: What do you think - can a single man and a single woman ever truly be "just friends," or does one of them always want more?

• I believe they can be friends. Why can't they is the question. Just because they are the opposite gender and single doesn't automatically mean they want more.

Lauren

xoxo

Blogmas Day 21 A Christmas Throwback

Welcome to Blogmas Day 21

Today I am dong a throwback post.

I remember this Christmas… kinda. I remember always going to my Grans house and me and my cousins would always sit in her lounge and eat with the small tables my gran always had.

I am the one who is wearing the oh so festive pink number looking at the camera with food in my hand.

I was born in 1989, so I grew up in the 90’s. The music was great but fashion… that’s a whole different story. 

Blogmas Day 20 5 Books Of The Year

Welcome to day 20 of blogmas, How I have done a blog everyday so far I am shocked with  myself

- The Ice Cream Girls
The Ice Cream Girls is about two girls Poppy and Serena, who knew each other as teenagers during their affair with their married teacher Marcus, who is murdered. Poppy went to jail while Serena lived her life, got married and had children. After she is released Poppy tries to get Serena to confess that she killed Marcus and Poppy believes she didn’t.

I know I did a whole post on this Books a few days ago, but the book really hit home just how important it is to show that relationships between teachers and students don’t work, how the justice system can be flawed, race can be used against people.

- Goodnight, Beautiful
Nova will do anything for her best friend Mal who she has known since childhood. So when Mal and his wife Stephanie ask nova to be a surrogate she agrees despite her resovations which turn out true as halfway through the pregnancy when Stephanie changes her mind. 8 years later nova is anxiously waiting for her son Leo to wake up from a coma, Stephanie is trying to save her childless marriage

This book shows struggles with mental health, infertility and so much more. It raises questions that no one would want to answer but think about. It shows just how far many people will go to for those that they love

- The Pact

For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty-- they've grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other's lives. Parents and children alike have been best friends, so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. They've been soul mates since they were born. So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head


What I like about the book was that these families have gone through so much together yet when something bad happens to them both the slip away, even though the thing was way out of their hands

- Just One Day

When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

I loved this book, even the second time around reading it. I love it more then book 2.

- Cinder

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future. (Goodreads)

Like many people I was exited to see a different retelling of Cinderella. And I wasn’t disappointed. I loved the book. I thought it was fantastic.

- Safe Haven

Erin is a woman who is married to an abusive alcoholic who happens to be a police officer. One day she leaves and ends up in a small North Carolina town where she meets Alex and his two children. Over the course of the book she falls in love with Alex. 

I freaking love the book. With most love stories it’s hard to get into for me. I know what’s going to happen. But with this one even though I knew what was going to happen I still loved it. 

Blogmas Day 19 Grinch Book Tag

Welcome to Day 19 Blogmas. And it’s The Grinch Book Tag

1. Half of the lights on the Christmas tree are burnt out

Name a book/series/character that started out good but then went downhill

I liked Twilight, not massively because I’m such a Potter head, but I did like Twilight, but my god did the rest of the series go down hill and quick.

2. Annoying Great Aunt Sally who will not leave you alone :

Name a book that you didn't enjoy, but everyone else seems to love so it never goes away

To All The Boys I Loved Before. Everyone seemed to love that book but for me it was such a disappointment

3. Your pets keep knocking over the Christmas decoration

Name a character that kept messing things up for everyone else (can't pick a villain!)

There are so many that I can’t choose

4. You hear your parents putting out the presents and learn Santa isn't real

Name a book you were spoiled for

Breaking Dawn because everyone talked about how they were getting married, had a kid, and there was that big fight…blah blah blah.

Also Crossed and Reached have been spoiled for and I haven’t even got them. It’s a shame because I loved Matched.

5. It's freezing outside:

Name a main character you just couldn't connect with

Lara Jean. I said in the review about the books that I found she was selfish. She is one of those characters I just truly despised.

6. Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas is You' and it's giving you anti-romantic feelings

Name a couple you couldn't stand

Hazel and Gus in The Fault In Out Stars. Controversial I know but I like each of them on their own together not so much.

7. That scratchy homemade wool sweater you got for Christmas years ago but won't get rid of :

show some books that have been sitting on your shelves for a while, and you aren't motivated to read, but you don't have the heart to get rid of

OMG so many books to even think about.

8. Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer:

Name a character death you still are mad about (warn people for spoilers! You can also use TV or movie deaths)

Fred Weasley. I’ll never ever in a million years of boring Sunday’s will ever ever get over his death. That killed me.

9. The malls are overly crowded with holiday shoppers:

Name a series that has too many books in it/went on too long

Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. So I know she wanted the whole moon/star thing going on with her books but the last two were way to long and drawn out

10. The Grinch

Name a main character you HATE (No villians again!)

Ok so this was really hard because I don’t wanna keep saying Lara Jean from To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, but one of the characters that I really dislike is Margo from Paper Towns.

Lauren