My Summer Bucket List // 2016

Hey Guys,

In the spirit of true summer, as it now attempts to approach England. I thought it would be fun to create a bucket list of everything I'd like to try and achieve during the summer. Some of them are just a bit of fun, whilst others are genuine goals to push my comfort zone a bit. I would love for you all to comment one thing you want to do this summer. My friend over at An Infinite Bookshelf did an amazing one of these, I'll link it at the bottom. I'll aim for 50 things, I'd like to attempt everything, and I'd like you to try one of these as well...

1. make a new friend
2. wear a dress casually
3. take at least one tumblr photo 
4. have breakfast in the afternoon
5. have an epic water fight
6. win book tube-a-thon
7. find a new favourite book
8. do something spontaneous
9. take a pic everyday for a month
10. have an adventure
11. learn a new skill
12. have a picnic
13. walk in the rain
14. read at least 10 books
15. have a disco at midnight
16. cut my hair short(ish)
17. tan (come on England, I need sun)
18. choreograph a dance
19. have a sleepover
20. obsess over a new TV show
21. climb a tree
22. go shoeless for a day
23. watch the sunset
24. watch the sunrise
25. do something I'll later regret (nothing illegal) 
26. paint my nails
27. bake a cake
28. watch a new film
29. create a 'summer' playlist
30. doodle
31. burn several candles
32. wear something un-seasonal
33. go for a morning run 
34. have a total lazy day
35. go back to school shopping
36. re-read an old favourite
37. enjoy YALC
38. re-decorate my room
39. create a photo album
40.  be more active on social media
41. walk with no destination
42. explore somewhere new
43. wear clashing prints
44. go swimming
45. try out new hair styles
46. send a postcard from abroad
47. have a pamper day
48. paint something
49. do yoga in the evening
50. have an absolutely fantastic summer

 There you go, I hope you enjoyed that, some serious thought went into some of those things. I hope to achieve all of them though some of them might be just out of my reach. At the end of the summer I would like to update you on what I did and didn't do. And, once again comment below something you want to achieve this summer.
-A

AnInfiniteBookshelf 

An Infinite Philosophy (July)

Hey Guys,

Just to let you know in advance there will be two posts today, this is just a quick AIP update. So as you may have noticed, there was no collab review for June, this mainly falls down to none of us actually reading the book. Sorry.
Basically, I started it but I was quite bored and wasn't in the mood for something like it, Maud didn't like it so put it down, and Emile didn't get around to even starting it.
We thought it would be best to just move on, so this month's book is...

*confetti*

I'm really exited for this, I'm also hoping this will give me a bit of a boost towards reading the Book Thief.
I hope you'll read it with us.

-A

Behind the Scenes // 1,000 Pageviews

Hey guys,

Today's post is a little bit different, it's a celebration, a rant and an explanation all in one. I don't expect it to be really long, so there will be another post soon. I'll do this in layers, basically talk about each topic in a separate paragraph.

First of all comes the celebration...

I've hit one thousand pageveiws!
That means different people all over the world have looked at my blog 1000 times, that's insane. I would like right now anyone reading this to comment something, anything to let me know that you are out there, and it's not just me. I always try to encourage people to comment, and I understand that it makes some people uncomfortable, but it would make my day.
Anyway, when I started this I was expecting like, two people to read it, but to see that you guys range from the USA to Romania to Malaysia is just insane.
So, thank you and lets hope for a second thousand to come.

So now comes the rant and slight explanation. So recently as I've mentioned, you guys have mentioned and it's the elephant in the room, I haven't been posting much these last months. This doesn't mean I've been inactive. A lot of the time I'm adjusting things that you probably don't even notice like fonts or slight colour changes. For instance I now have a new tab at the top 'reviews' that took an hour to set up. I don't want this to be a massive rant, but these are just things I wanted to mention.

Now for the explanation, I felt it was about time I gave a proper explanation for my recent ongoing absence. I did give a small reason a couple of posts back but that only really covered one month. Basically my life just exploded, I just seemed to be always busy. I'll give you an example, this was my week last week:
Monday ~ maths exam, english exam, athletics training.
Tuesday ~ maths exam, english exam, athletics competition (until 7)
Wednesday ~ science exam, best friends birthday, lifeguard training.
Thursday ~ athletics training, pack.
Friday ~ wake up at three in the morning go to Germany.

That was pretty much my life up until now where it seems to have calmed down, thank god.
I think some of it comes down to plain laziness. It takes 30 minutes to an hour to write a review. Then another half hour of editing, spell checking, drafting, adding pictures and then read throughs before it can be published. I didn't have time for that, and it's always such a daunting task when I sit down to tackle it.

I hope all of that cleared some stuff up, and also just another quick thank you to all the fabulous readers for bearing with me and getting us to 1'000 page views.

-A

The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

Hey Guys,

I’m ready to get back into posting, it’s almost summer time which means six weeks of posting, I hope. Anyway, I was creating a new page up top along my tab bar, when I realized how badly my reviews have become. I mean with amounts and frequency, I'm quite happy with how my reviews read. But, I was creating this tab, and I realized how much I've missed regular reviews and getting to express my feelings for books where real people can read it.

The point of that essay was to say; I'll be reviewing a lot more soon, hopefully, because I miss doing it.

I'll start the actual review now...

So, I picked this up because I was in the mood for something a bit more fun and light hearted, but still fantasy. So, what else did I pick up? A Percy Jackson.

Overall I thought this book was brilliant, I really liked reading from Apollo’s POV, and it was genuinely hilarious. The fact that all the chapter names were Haikus was just the icing on the pretty much perfect cake. I liked seeing Apollo's humility and his thoughts towards that. I loved meeting some characters as well as meeting some new ones.

The book mainly centre's around the god Apollo, who has been sent down to earth by Zeus. That's all I can really say, as I would think you should read the other Percy Jackson books first. I'm sorry if you just wanted to read this one, but it throws you into the story and expects you to know the world and characters. Plus it references the other books regularly.

I would highly recommend you pick up any Rick Riordan book (especially Percy Jackson). I would also like to mention that you might be getting the AIP end of month review a bit late, because all three of us haven't read the book yet. Sorry, I did start it though!

I have mentioned this before, but in July I'm going YALC with Maud and Emile from An Infinite Bookshelf. I'm so excited to go and I hope some of you are going, comment below if you are.

Let's get into the spoilers...

Favourite Authors // must buy authors

Hey Guys,

I am so sorry for how little I've been posting recently but lucky me, I have hit exam season at my school. In the last week alone I have had five different tests. Talk about stress. Anyway between revision and general other busyness I have had no real time to post. I think some of it is just down to pure laziness.

I haven't had much time to review recently either so I'll quickly update you on where I stand with my reading. So, I've read Scarlet and Cress by Marissa Meyer. I then started the AIP book of the month; Beautiful Music for Ugly Children but I wasn't in the mood for it, so instead I picked up Trials of Apollo which I will definitely be reviewing soon. Finally, I'm about to pick up The Crown by Keira Cass.

Anyway, today I'm going to be talking you through my favourite authors. To narrow this down I only picked authors which I have dubbed 'must buy' authors, they are basically the authors where if they release a book I will buy it and read it. I also tried to pick authors where I've read all their books or at least mostly all. Let's finally get on with it...

Ransom Riggs -
I don't think I've expressed my love for the Peculiar Children series that much on here, but I did read them a while back. But, I will read anything Ransom writes because I like his story telling and I love the way he writes. However he has only released one series so I don't know how I would feel about a different series.

Rainbow Rowell -
Although I have not read all of her books, I do own every single one, including world book day short stories. As far as contemporary goes she is an awesome writer, all the stories I've read have been adorable and so awesome. I love them as pick me ups and just in general they are awesome. Also every book she writes is different so I know it's not just me loving certain characters.

Colleen Hoover -
Once again I haven't read everything yet, but I'm working on it. All I haven't read is the 'hopeless' series. I can’t wait for 'It Ends with Us' I don't think I've even fully comprehended how soon it's being published. Once again I love all her contemporaries. She's a fairly new author to my arsenal, but I already love everything she writes.

Cassandra Clare -
I'd like to say I've read everything, but I haven't read Shadow hunter Academy. Still, I've read every main book she's written. I think I love all her characters a bit too much, I really love reading about the shadow hunter world. I really enjoying the Dark Artifices, plus I am super on top of everything coming out soon; like the Last Hours.

Rick Riordan -
This one's a bit special as it really only applies to anything with Percy Jackson in it. I'm on top of all the Percy's but I have no real interest in reading anything else by him. I guess this doesn't really qualify but I wanted to briefly mention it anyway.

JK Rowling -
This one's a little bit interesting again, obviously I would buy anything written by the mastermind behind Harry Potter, but I didn't enjoy the Casual Vacancy. So I guess I would buy anything written by her but I'm not too sure how I would enjoy it. Either way she is an absolutely awesome writer with an awesome ability to create an awesome world.

Sarah J. Maas -
Now this one is a full qualifier as I have read everything by her, I've pre-ordered anything I can; you guys have seen my extreme excitement towards anything she does. And, It's not just one series I love it's both that she's written. I love anything she touches; her worlds are really cool and very in depth. Also her characters are all beautiful; I would just love to live with all of them.

I hope you enjoyed that post. It was definitely one I enjoyed planning and writing. I'm sorry that I kind of got a bit excited towards the end but Sarah is like my spirit animal. That's a bit weird. Also just in the news of me, umm, I'm going to YALC with my friends over at An Infinite Bookshelf in the summer. I'm really excited about that. I'll see you soon.

-A

An Infinite Philosophy May review // collab

Hey Guys,

So it is time again for our end of month review. This month's book was A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarh J. Maas. I have already done my own personal review if you want to check that out to hear my more in depth thoughts.

Without further ado I bring you next month's book Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kristen Cronn-Mills!

*confetti*

Also we are missing Maud from today review as she didn't have enough time to finish the book, though she may add her paragraph later on
On with the chat...

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Hey Guys,

I'm back. I feel like after being gone for so long it's quite hard to back into the swing of things but I'll give it a shot.
So, it is half term here in the U.K so I'm taking advantage of the free time to get some reading done, today I'll be reviewing Cinder by Marissa Meyer. I've literally had this book on my shelf for a year, exactly a year. But, I finally have the others in the series so I can read them all back to back which so far I'm really enjoying. Anyway, enough small talk, let's get down to the review.

This book was so gripping from the very start, it always had me on the edge of my seat and I enjoyed it immensely. I'm already in love with all the characters and have become way to attached to them. I really like the dystopian world that this is set in because it is so far in the future it feels more like a fantasy book. And, in general I think the whole premise is very clever and was pulled off exceptionally.

So it is basically a fairy tail retelling of Cinderella but set way in the future where there a people with cybernetic parts. Our main character, Cinder, had cybernetic parts and is looked down because of it, and other than that it follows the main plot of Cinderella, if a bit loosely.

Ok so, this is were I leave all the people who haven't read this yet, if you have feel free to roam ahead into the spoiler section.
Also, don't forget to look out for the AIP end of month review, it should be going up soon. To be a bit cheeky 'll tell you that next month's book is Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kristin Cronn-Mills.
Don't forget to check out my social media, they're all linked up in the side bar -->
Like I said for all the spoileries prepare to delve into detail down below.