BookTube-a-Thon 2016 / Day 3

Hey guys,

I know I literally just stopped uploading on day 2, but my lap top was packed away and then when I arrived in Wales the internet was down and I literally didn’t have anopportunity to upload until now so sorry for the spam but I assumed you’d still want to know how I was doing for the 5 days I was absent.

Today I didn’t really read anything, as per usual but I did finish Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell which I started on Monday in the orthodontist. Today’s challenge was too read a book you discovered through BookTube which is quite fitting, for this I chose Anna and the French Kiss.

 I’ll keep trying but I make no promises

Happy reading!

-A

BookTube-a-Thon 2016 / Day 2

Hey Guys,

It's going to be another quick one, I truly am sorry sorry, it just that the day seems to fly by, and before you know it it's nine o'clock.
Anyway, happy BookTube-a-Thon, how are you doing? I once again did not read a single page today, however I did pick The Crown last night and read a few chapters then. I had a really lovely day today, I went to one of my friend's houses, and we attempted to chill in her hot-tub, but we ended up spraying ourselves with hoses. How was your day?
I'll try and read some more of The Crown later:

The challenge for today was to read a book only after sunset, I chose this one, obviously. I did start it yesterday for a bit of a head start, but it was still after sunset.

I'll be driving to Wales on Thursday so I'll try to do some reading in the car, but I don't make any promises.

I can promise to be reviewing all the books I read during BookTube-a-Thon though it may take me a while. I don't really have much else to say.
Happy reading! xx

-A

BookTube-a-Thon 2016 / Day 1

Hey Guys,

I'm sorry this post is going to be really rushed, but I don't have much time and I've had a really long, non-stop day. Happy BookTube-a-Thon! Obviously this year I'm taking part in BookTube-a-Thon. I tried last year but I failed, I accidently read the Harry Potter series instead, but, I am back for round two. However, this year I am going to be doing an update post every day for the whole week. Wish me luck!

So far today I have read a big fat Zero pages, today's challenge was to read a book with yellow on the cover, I chose This is What Happy Looks Like:

I might try and pick up The Crown by Kiera Cass tonight for my after sunset read but I'll see how that goes. I'll try and keep you guys posted, but on Thursday I'm going to Wales.

Last thing, I know I promised to be more active, but I haven't posted much recently. This is because I'm working on a post that I'm not happy with and have been struggling with for a while, I'll see if I can get it up soon though.

If you want to familiarize yourself with the reading challenges you can head over to the official BookTube-a-Thon YouTube channel and see them there.
Happy Raeding!

- A

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Hey Guys,

Back when I was in my 'too busy' phase, where I didn't have time to sit and review books, I actually read some really great books. I thought I would catch up with past me and review the books I missed. I review things not just for you, but for me as well so I can look back and see what I did and didn't enjoy. And, I don't have that available for the last month or so.
So, today I'll be reviewing Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz. It will from now on be referred to as AADDTSOTU or just Aristotle...

This is one book that I was really holding out on, I'd had it for over a year and I wasn't interested in reading it anymore, however after some extreme convincing I finally made myself pick it up. OMG was it worth it! The characters were beautiful as was their arc as a person. The setting was quite bland but it made the people in it seem more alive. It was so emotional; I was in literal tears for most of it. I can't wait for the sequel, yes there is a sequel, and you can expect it to be one of our An Infinite Philosophy picks.

The book mainly centres around two boys who are complete polar opposites. One of them is a very happy go lucky not afraid to express himself, always smiling type of person. Whilst the other is very, I would say, stereotypical Mexican, quite violent, but with an emotional side. It follows them as they become friends and generally arc as people. It's such a beautiful story and I would so totally recommend it.

So this is where all the people who haven't read this book leave, I highly recommend you go pick it up and give it go, it's not super romantic but it still is very sweet and emotional.
In other exciting news, you guys know me and some friends are attending YALC in the summer, well I've been informed that we are also attending the midnight release party of The Cursed Child! I'm so excited. I can't even believe it.
Anyway, let’s get onto the spoilers...

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