Why I Am Team Chaol, And Why My Ship Will Sink

* Note: Since writing this, I have seen Chaol spoilers for QoS, but I don't care, I'm posting it anyway!

I am Team Chaol. I have been Team Chaol from book one. I will continue to be Team Chaol till the end of the series. Even if he isn't end game. Even if Sarah J. Maas kills him off. I will always be Team Chaol. I adore Dorian as a character, but I just don't see him with Celaena. I think it seems obvious that he isn't the end goal for Celaena. Then we have Rowan... Just, NOPE! I don't want to see it and I will refuse. I am scared for Queen of Shadows, I feel it's going to be gearing more towards Rowan and Celaena. But that guy is hundreds of years old, and he has already had his mate. Celaena is like a newborn baby in comparison to him. An idea of a romance between them just creeps me out. Why can't Celaena have him just as a friend!?! I don't want to see her get in to romantic relationships with every single male she comes across - Sam, Dorian & Chaol. Can we please avoid adding Rowan to that list! SPARE ME, MAAS, SPARE ME!!! And then we have Aedion, who I still feel slightly worried about. But he's technically her cousin, so I'd like to assume that is not going down the romance route. 

My Weekly Recap: 29/08/2015

This week has been a bit slow on the blogging side of things. I am absolutely exhausted at the moment, so I haven't really had the energy to do too much. I did one post where I decided to do a chapter by chapter series recap of the Throne of Glass series, which took forever. That took me five straight hours to type up, left me with a ridiculously sore back and meant I had to skip dinner! But it felt totally worth it and I am rather proud of that post. 

I've not done as much reading as usual this week, mostly because I have been too tired to concentrate. I'm on a medication that, whilst it is really good and helps me, it's main side effect is insomnia, which means I haven't been getting a good nights sleep. It sucks always being tired, but completely unable to get a decent nights sleep. But the medication helps with everything else, so it's a side effect you kind of just have to deal with. I'm going to try and get more posts up next week, I have one or two already drafted. 

I've begun to realise just how many unread books I own. My bookshelves are more like my own personal bookshop/library. As I can go there and browse through them all looking for my next read. But it's probably not good to own hundreds of unread books. So I have been limiting my book buying! I've had one pre-order come in, but haven't bought any other books this week. I want to try and get through some of the ones I own first. 

The Throne of Glass Series: Recap

Hey guys, last year,  few years ago I did a complete chapter by chapter recap of the first four Throne of Glass books, in preparation for reading Empire of Storms. I decided to actually make notes of every chapter. I always need to reread a series when a new book is released and it is very time consuming, especially in a series as long as this. I posted my chapter by chapter recap here on the blog and it proved very popular, it still brings a ton of people to my blog even now. I didn't add Empire of Storms at the time, as I didn't take notes whilst reading. I have just done a reread of it, having read my original recap to avoid having to do a whole series reread, and have now added Empire of Storms. Kingdom of Ash comes out in just a few days so I probably won't have time to add that to this.

I have a terrible memory and know a lot of you guys have this problem too. Sometimes it isn't possible to reread before starting the next book, and you are left a little confused and unsure about all the details. So I really hope this chapter by chapter recap is helpful to you all. This took forever to write up and I haven't gone through it all yet, so there might be spelling errors or really crap punctuation and I apologise. I broke the books down chapter by chapter as it seemed the easiest way.This may contain far too much information, but I noted down a lot! 

I feel it goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, this post is going to contain spoilers for all five of the first Throne of Glass books. I like to think you all already realised that!

You can go to individual posts for all the recaps using these links:

Throne of Glass
Crown of Midnight

Heir of Fire
Queen of Shadows
Empire of Storms
Tower of Dawn
Kingdom of Ash

Crescent City recaps:

House of Earth and Blood

House of Sky and Breath

ACOTAR recaps:

A Court of Thorns and Roses

A Court of Mist and Fury

A Court of Wings and Ruin

A Court of Frost and Starlight

When I'm Not Being A Bookworm: Netflix Binging

Believe it or not, my whole life doesn't completely revolve around book. Yes, most of my expendable income goes on books. Yes, most of my free time goes on either reading books or blogging about books. And, yes, I work in a library and am surrounded by books all day. But sometimes, I take a break from my bookworm ways and do something that doesn't involve books - it's a real struggle, but I do it! 

One of the things that I turn to is NETFLIX! Netflix is amazing, especially after a long day at work. When I come home at night, sometimes I'm too stressed out to relax and read, but too tired to take the time to blog. This is when it's perfect to collapse onto my bed and binge watch a show on Netflix. I'm sure I am not alone in this, I assume a lot of my fellow book bloggers do this too. Today, I thought I would share the shows that I have recently binge watched, or am currently obsessed with! Then hopefully you guys can recommend me some shows too. 

Paper Towns by John Green: I Just Don't Get It!

Title: Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Buy this book: Amazon (UK) / Amazon (US) / Book Depository 

Who is the real Margo?  Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificent, adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she opens his bedroom window late one night and summons him to join her on an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows.  After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to find that Margo has not. Always an enigma, she now becomes a mystery and Q soon learns that there are clues to be following in his search for Margo. 

This is my second John Green book and I wish I could say that I absolutely loved it. But I didn't. I read The Fault in Our Stars and I really enjoyed that one, although it wasn't an amazing 5/5 read for me. I hear so much praise and love for John Green, so I really wanted to try more from him to see if those books blew me away and impressed me as much as they seemed to impress everyone else. I didn't find that to be the case with Paper Towns, in fact, I ended up enjoying it less than The Fault in Our Stars.

The story follows Q, a boy who is in love with Margo Roth Spiegelman and has been since they were children. They spend one crazy night together, and the next day Margo disappears. She leaves little clues behind that Q follows in order to track her down. The story IS Margo Roth Spiegelman, which I wouldn't mind if I found her to be an interesting and likeable character. She isn't. Q is actually obsessed with her and in all honesty...

Night Owls by Jenn Bennett: Review, Author Interview & Giveaway

Title: Night Owls
Author: Jenn Bennett
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Buy the book: Amazon (UK) / Amazon (US) / Book Depository

Feeling alive is always worth the risk. Meeting Jack on the Owl - San Francisco's night bus - turns Beatrix's world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive... and possibly one of San Francisco's most notorious graffiti artists. But Jack is hiding a piece of himself. On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is. 

Reviewing this book is going to be so hard because all I want to do is scream at you about how absolutely fantastic it was. This book just completely amazed me and I have fallen a little in love with it. It instantly topped my top reads of the year list and became a firm favourite of mine. So I am going to try my best in this review to explain all of the reasons why this is an incredible read that you have to read! I also just want to take a moment to explain that this has a different title and cover in the US. There the title is The Anatomical Shape of the Heart, so make sure to keep and eye out for it and buy it at the first opportunity you get!

This is one of those books where I know that I won't be able to review it well enough to do the book justice, but I am going to try my hardest. I have so much I want to say about this book, but no idea where to even begin. I don't want to overwhelm you with all of my thoughts, but I do want to adequately express and explain why this book became an instant favourite of mine and why you should run out and buy it. I feel like the best way to do this is in LIST FORM! Yes, time for a good old list.

Reasons Night Owls is one of the best books I've ever read:

Why Hate On Confident Women?: Why I Love Celaena Sardothien

There are very few books and discussion topics that make me want to whip out my camera and actually film a video for them. This was one of those times where I got incredibly close, but got put off by the fact I can't be bothered to even try and attempt to edit a video. Plus... having to listen to and see myself on camera makes me want to cringe just thinking about it. I shall save you all from it! I do think this would be something I'd find easier to discuss when talking, rather than trying to get all my thoughts down in writing, but I am going to try my best. 

I'm currently rereading the whole of the Throne of Glass series - be warned, there will probably be many ToG related posts coming!!! - so that I am ready for the release of Queen of Shadows. Whilst reading, I was remembering back to all the comments I remember seeing people make in reviews about Celaena Sardothien, especially in the negative reviews. A lot of people didn't like her, they found her to be a highly unlikeable main character. They found her to be far too arrogant and full of herself, which she most definitely is. But they also commented a lot on the fact that she's beautiful and she knows it. Many hated this about her, but I actually really love Celaena for so many reasons but the fact she's a confident (sometimes ridiculously confident) women was definitely one of them, we need more confident women in YA.

My Weekly Book Haul: 15/08/2015

My life has really not been all that exciting lately, as I mostly just work and then come home exhausted and sleep. I was slipping back into a blogging slump these last few weeks, which really sucks. I have all these wonderful ideas for blog posts, a whole page of them in fact, but just couldn't get up the energy to actually do them. I feel a bit better now and am hoping to start writing up some of these posts soon. This has been another week of lots of reading, and since my last recap post I have read quite a lot. I reread the Throne of Glass books, which is a lot of reading when you consider how long those books are.

I did have a great evening out in London with my sisters and our partners. We went to this amazing restaurant near Piccadilly Circus, called Inamo. The food is delicious, even though the portions are tiny. But the thing that sells us on that restaurant is that the tables are all computers, where the screen is projected down onto your table. You can order your food through it, use the chef cam to watch the kitchen, or play games with the person across from you. It's a fun way to eat dinner!

One by Sarah Crossan 5/5 ¦ The Good Girls by Sara Shepard 3/5 ¦ Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch 4/5 ¦ Ice Like Fire by Sara Raasch 3/5 ¦ Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas 5/5 ¦ Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas 5/5 ¦ Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas 5/5

Mini Reviews: Hot Key Books

Title: The Perfectionists
Author: Sara Shepard
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Buy this book: Amazon (UK) / Amazon (US) / Book Depository 

In Beacon Heights High, Nolan Hotchkiss is king. His charm, wealth and good looks are deceptively seductive, and many are the students whose lives and reputations have been ruined by it. All while Nolan continues to reign, unquestioned and undisrupted. Until now, that is.Mackenzie, Ava, Julie, Caitlin and Parker seemingly don't have much in common. Each has their own friends, dramas and goals. But one thing they do share: they all have a deep hatred of Nolan Hotchkiss. And they all think it's about time he paid for what he's done. They come up with the perfect murder - a hypothetical murder, of course. It's all wishful thinking ... until they wake up one morning to find that their wish has come true. Nolan has been killed - in exactly the way they planned. The thing is, they didn't do it. So who did?

The Perfectionists is my first Sara Shepard book, as I'd never been tempted to try the Pretty Little Liars series. I think what probably won me over with this book is the gorgeous, yet simple cover. I'd heard about the book whilst at the Hot Key Blogger Brunch and loved the sound of it too. It's the story of five girls who bond over their mutual hatred of Nolan Hotchkiss, who is king of their high school. They come up with the idea for the perfect way to kill Nolan, whilst never planning to actually use it. The only problem is that Nolan ends up dead, just the way they had discussed. They didn't kill him, but now they have to figure out who did.

Top Ten Tuesday: My Most Read Authors

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at The Broke & The Bookish.

This weeks topic is:

Top 10 Authors I've Read the Most Books By

I found this weeks top ten interesting, as it turned out that a lot of authors on this list aren't even favourite authors. It also made me realise how few books some of my favourite authors have actually written. Come on, YA authors, get writing!!! I did a TTT post that was the authors I owned the most books by and the lists are different, which is good to see but also shows me I need to start reading more of the books I have bought!!!

Jodi Picoult: 22 Books

The first Jodi Picoult book I ever read was My Sister's Keeper, and it began my love for the author. As soon as I finished that book, I just knew I needed to hunt down everything else that woman had wrote. And I did. I have then followed her ever since and bought every single book as soon as it came out and devoured it. I might not have enjoyed her last few books as much as her others, but I still love the author and eagerly await her next release.

Films for Thoughts on Thursday: Inside Out

This is a weekly meme that I am hosting here at Reviews from a Bookworm. To take part all you have to do is share a movie review once a week, link back to Reviews from a Bookworm and add your link to the linky tool.

This weeks movie review will be for:

Inside Out

My feelings about Inside Out in one gif:

Yes, that is my exact feeling. WHY?!?!? Why did you give me such a promising trailer and then go and disappoint me? Why fool me with ridiculously good reviews?Why spend most of the movie with the two worst characters? Why was this so bloody depressing? And, seriously, why is everyone raving about this?

Am I the only human being who didn't think that Inside Out was an amazing movie? Well, I know I am not alone as my boyfriend and my sister both really didn't like it as well. But, other than those two, everyone else seems to think it was an amazing movie. NO! NO! NO!

I was so expecting to absolutely love this, it's so hard for me to have to write this review and talk about how much I didn't like it. I was so disappointed by this movie, and I feel so alone in my feelings. Please, someone out here in the blogosphere tell me you have seen this and didn't love it. It has a 98% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 90% audience rating. See, clearly I am alone in my opinion.

I don't think it was good that I went into this with ridiculously high expectations, but I couldn't help it. I'd seen amazing review after amazing review - some said this was Pixar at its best. And I'd loved the trailer and thought this looked absolutely hilarious. The trailer was rather misleading though and don't think it actually gave any real hint to what the movie was about. I had assumed it would be about more than one person and the personalities in their heads, seeing as that was all that was in the trailer. But it doesn't, it all concentrates on Riley, a teenage girl who is all mopey because she had to move. The funniest part of the whole film was the argument between Riley and her parents - you know, that scene we already saw in it entirety in the movie trailer.

Joy & Sadness are the two personalities we probably spend the most time with, and it is not good for my opinion of the movie - they are the two worst characters. Anger, Fear and Disgust are the real show stealer's in this film and they needed more time to shine. Instead we see Joy & Sadness go through failed attempt after failed attempt in getting back to headquarters. It became far too predictable because you knew every plan was going to fail. It made this movie really drag in places and I just wanted them to hurry up and figure their shit out.

5/10

I am so annoyed by this whole movie that I don't even want to write a decent review of it. I just want some explanation as to why everyone else seems to think it's so amazing? Tell me people, I missed it. I feel it looked amazing and had a brilliant premise, but that just didn't manage to really pull it off. If they ever do a sequel it needs to be in more than one head and it needs to concentrate more on the funny personalities. I'm going to go rage for a while, even typing this is pissing me off to the extreme. WHY DID YOU DISAPPOINT ME, PIXAR, WHY?

The prize:

Up to £40 worth of books

For the giveaway post go HERE

That will be up to £40 worth of books of the winners choice from Book Depository. They ship internationally which means that it can be open to all of my wonderful followers. 

If you want to do the 1989 tag then it will get you 10 entries on the post, just add your link underneath and link back to here. Feel free to do as many or as few questions as you want, there are quite a few questions to choose from!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The prize:

2x The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

I want to be able to share this story with at least some of you, although I hope my review is enough to convince you all to go out and grab a copy! I am going to giveaway two copies of the book, which I will get from Book Depository - so, as long as they ship to your county, this is open to everyone! The two winners can choose whether they want a paperback or a hardback.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For the original review go here. 

On the blog:


The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough: Review, Author Interview & Giveaway
A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston
My Weekly Recap: 1/8/2015

My Weekly Recap: 01/08/2015

This week has seen me do nothing but work and read. That has been my life this week and one part has sucked - the work - and the other has been amazing - the reading. I have managed to get through a lot of books in the last week, which makes me very happy. And I read two top reads of the year, which makes 4 so far this year out of a large 79! I've received some truly amazing review copies that I am very excited to get to as well.

Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan 4/5 ¦ Flirty Dancing by Jenny McLachlan 4/5 ¦ Love Bomb by Jenny McLachlan 4/5 ¦ Sunkissed by Jenny McLachlan 4/5 ¦ Night Owls by Jenn Bennett 5/5 ¦ Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa 5/5

Magnus Chase was such a great read and I rushed through that one, even though it's a huge book! I loved Magnus as a character, he's absolutely hilarious and had me in stitches. I got into this way easier than I did the first Percy Jackson book. That's probably because this one is much more YA, where as the PJ series was more MG. The Ladybirds books were so much fun to read, and very quick to get through - I read all 3 in 2 days and thoroughly enjoyed them. Night Owls and Fans of the Impossible Life both BLEW ME AWAY, so be expecting some glowing/gushing/fangirling reviews for those very soon. And, spoiler, Jenn Bennett agreed to an author interview!!! CAN'T WAIT!!!