Snowflakes and Spider Silk

Hello readers, I'm still alive! I realized that it had nearly been two months since I updated my blog...ooops. This was me for the last month: It's been a busy last few weeks, with everything from quitting my job, moving, having surgery, and getting ready to go to grad school! I am finally ready to get back into the swing of things, we'll see how well I keep up my blog now that things have calmed down :) I have been reading a lot of books even though I haven't been updating the blog, and I have read so many amazing ones in the last week or two. I have also decided that this will be the summer of re-reads ; I am making an effort to reread books that I loved when I was younger but have totally forgotten the details of, but I'm also rereading books I didn't like so much the first time around because I think things might have changed. After all, when I gave Name of the Wind a second chance, I liked it a lot more since I had a better idea of what to...

Well, here we are, at the end of 2016! Last year I made my first infographic that catalogued some interesting reading stats. I made a new one this year, to look at some of the same things and compare them to how I did last year. Here it is! Some interesting facts : I started and ended this year with Sanderson books , so obviously my year in books was off to a great start and end (Shadows of Self and Arcanum Unbounded, in case you were wondering). I think I have one or two more short stories/novellas to go before I've read everything published in the Cosmere :D I read more paperback and hardcover books this year because I went to the actual library instead of just conveniently checking out ebooks on my kindle.  Listened to more audiobooks than ever because I listen to them at work, about 1 a week My average rating last year was 3.905 and this year's was 3.904, and no one star books in either year. Looks like I have a pretty solid idea of which books I...

Hello lovely readers, I'm having a bit of a blogger crisis/life crisis/everything-crashing-down-and-driving-me-crazy-all-at-once crisis, so I definitely won't be blogging any time before the end of the year. I don't know if I will be back in January; I'll see if having December to deal with life and catch up on reviews and breathe will be enough. I wasn't successful in my search for a co-blogger, so I'm just going to hope that taking a very large chunk of time off will help me get back on my feet! If I'm still floundering next year, I may have to say goodbye to this little space on the internet. I don't know if I'll be blogging again in the near future, but I will definitely still be reading and flailing on twitter! I hope your winters are going better than mine :) Cheers, and happy holidays!

Hey lovely readers, I love my blog, and I love posting about how much I love books and getting really excited about books with all of you. Lately I just haven't had the time to post as much as I would like. My blog has been pretty low-key, and I've never posted daily, but now my posts are coming less and less frequently. I constantly want to take a break from blogging even though I'm barely posting once or twice a week. Blogging is starting to feel like work. I feel a little burned out, and I thought about doing yet another hiatus to get back on my feet, but I don't think that's the answer. I thought about this for a really long time, and I think I want to find a co-blogger. For me, not having time to write blog posts is only half the battle. I think I also need a friend to say "You can get through this" and occasionally read books with or fangirl over the newest Sanderson novel with. I think having a co-blogger would help me not just with h...

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by  The Broke and the Bookish . This week's theme:  Top Ten Wishes for the Book Genie This is so easy! I have so many book wishes haha Finally go to a Sanderson signing This almost happened this month during the Shadows of Self Tour, but life happened and I didn't get to go to the SoCal signing/my mom couldn't make it to the Bay area one  :( IT'S OKAY ONE DAY I WILL ACTUALLY GET TO MEET ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS AND IT WILL BE AWESOME. Another thing I was really looking forward to but fell through this year: ALA was in SAN FRANCISCO and I was really excited because it's so close to home and for once I wasn't in school so I could definitely go... but life happened and my family was across the country during ALA. Book Genie, please get me to a book conference sometime soon? This one is an impossible wish, but please make more time in the day so I can read ALL THE BOOKS? And another impossible wish: Please ...

Sorry this post is kind of late! Life was super crazy this week and I hardly had time to breathe, so this is an exhausted, emotional me trying to write a blog post that I think is really important. I read this wonderful blog post on Relentless Reading  about how Scott Lynch grappled with his depression and managed to finish his book. That book was The Republic of Thieves, and there is a lot about it that I understand a lot better now that I have more context for it. How has your depression manifested in your books? I like to think that since I’m now a member of that tribe, I’m a little more cognizant about how I portray mental illness. But the depression isn’t reflected in it per se, everything else I frickin’ went through during those years is in that book, though. Republic  turned into a different book from what I started. That was the divorce. One of the most helpful things my mom said was that a divorce is like death. It’s like a third person in your life...

I'm really squeamish. When I was five years old, I'd get freaked out every time I saw a movie with people getting shot (goddamn those 90s action flicks!). All the blood blooming on people's shirts just sent me into hysterics. My dad decided to lighten the blow by telling me all that red stuff was just ketchup. I promptly proceeded to hysterically scream, "IT'S JUST KETCHUP IT'S JUST KETCHUP WAAAAAAH" I haven't improved much since, but I've discovered something new this week. When one of the surgeons I worked with asked me if I wanted to watch an operation, I said sure! I was a little nervous about all the blood, and the surgeon kept warning me that if I needed to step out, it was totally fine. Apparently even tough men have been known go weak in the knees when they see the blood involved in heart surgery. But I was totally fine! There really was a lot of blood, but somehow seeing a bunch of surgeons and nurses fixing someon...

I don't usually do posts about my life but considering how crazy this summer has been I figured I'd better explain why I've been terrible about posting/responding/being on twitter! I've spent about 2 weeks in Switzerland now, and it has been quite an adventure :) I'm doing research at a university that's 1.5 hours away from where I'm staying. That means I get about 3 hours of free time on buses and trains every day, which I usually use to nap ...and of course, read! The cool thing about studying abroad is that I get to experience a lot of new things. Working 42 hours a week is so tiring , and all I want to do when I get home after my long commute is eat and sleep. It's quite a bit of effort for me to write my blog posts, and honestly if I wasn't hosting the Gentleman Bastards Readalong right now, I probably would have gone on hiatus. I'm really glad that I'm hosting the readalong though, because it gives me something to stay co...

Way back during Sci-Fi November , I made a flowchart of Science fiction subgenres so that everyone could find the sub-genre that they liked the most. The idea was that people could find recommendations in genres they didn't normally read, and maybe find a new favorite series or subgenre. It was way more popular than I imagined it would be, and a lot of you readers asked for a fantasy flowchart . Well, 6 months later, here it is! Again, some subgenres I made up and some are standard. I have read/watched most of these, but there are a few I haven't because I'm not familiar with every subgenre of fantasy. If you would like more suggestions in any of these genres, feel free to ask! I obviously couldn't fit all my suggestions on this tiny flowchart :) Fantasy Subgenre Flowchart You can always find the Sci-fi and Fantasy subgenre flowcharts by clicking on the SF/F Subgenre Flowcharts tab at the top of the page. Did you find a new subge...

Spoilers are such a touchy subject .  I have a bunch of friends who watch the show Game of Thrones but haven't read the books, and back when the show was way behind the books, I couldn't talk to them about anything  because they didn't want to know. When a fellow book reader accidentally let slip that a certain...important character...dies, the TV show watchers were DEVASTATED. "YOU SPOILED IT! NOW HOW CAN WE WATCH THE SHOW? WE WON'T BE SURPRISED OR DEVASTATED OR ANYTHING AND LIFE WILL JUST SUCK." Well...I might be in the minority camp here, but I don't mind spoilers .  Whaaaaaaat? Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to go looking for how things end. I'm not one of those people who flips to the last page of a book to see how it ends before I finish. What I mean is that if for some reason I accidentally find out some giant plot twist or Deep Dark Secret, I'm okay with it. In the words of Markus Zusak in The Boo...

What I love about the blogging world is that it feels like a safe place for me. I can rave about books I love, fangirl over upcoming releases, rant about bookish pet peeves, and push books on people like no other, and no one judges. We all love books, we've all been there, and I feel like I have had a lot of great conversations and made friends with people I've never met in person. Most of my "real life" friends know I'm a bookworm. Every birthday present since the age of five has involved books or gift cards for books or bookmarks. What my friends don't realize is just how much I read, and that I get review copies  and ARCs from publishers. Sometimes I'm so excited about a book that I have an ARC of and I start recommending it to my friends and then they ask questions about how the whole blogging thing works and then comes the inevitable question: Can I see your blog? I don't know about you, but ironically my blog is my secret saf...