FEBRUARY READING WRAP UP 2016

I didn't have the best reading month in February, in total I read 4 books, and I've read 11 books so far in 2016. I'm also just over half way through 'Anna Karenina', which I'm really enjoying but is taking me a long time to read, and I'm also still 33% of the way through 'The Bronze Horseman', which is so long and slow I'm debating giving up on it. We'll see. I have big plans for March (lots of library books to read).

Books Read:

1. 'And Then There Were None'- Agatha Christie 
I watched the new BBC version of 'And Then There Were None' when it came out at Christmas and I absolutely loved it; I was desperate to read it afterwards and this month I finally picked it up. This is the first Agatha Christie book that I've read and I was surprised at how quick and easy it was. The story flows so smoothly and I sped through it without even realising (I think it took me about 24 hours to read). What I love most about this story is the premise, I absolutely loved the way it was centred around a poem, it was absolutely genius. A fantastic read and a really great start into Agatha Christie's novels.

2. 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'- Douglas Adams
I picked this one up on something of a whim, I just randomly felt like reading some sci-fi. I enjoyed this book, but I definitely wanted some more world building from it, there's quite literally the whole universe, and I felt that the story was really lacking in more detail. I'm undecided about whether or not to carry on the series, I wasn't going to but I'm hoping to get some more world building out of the later books and I feel that the story is missing something if treated as a stand-alone. Overall, however, I did really enjoy it.

3. 'Absolute Beginners'- Colin MacInnes 
The two sole reasons I read this book were because of how much Andy Miller raved about it in 'The Year of Reading Dangerously' (yes, I'm still talking about it) and because it was only 99p on Kindle. I honestly do not have a clue about how I felt about this book. It's got very 50's-era language, which meant that a lot of the time what they were saying and the story itself didn't make much sense to me; it may be just me, but not a lot seemed to happen. I am definitely not the target audience for this book, and I'm really not sure what to say about it.

4. 'Cinder'- Marissa Meyer
HYPOCRITE ALERT. I am the biggest hypocrite in the world. In December I wrote a blog post called '5 series I have no interest in' and I marked the Luna Chronicles as one of them, as I normally struggle to get on with sci-fi, no matter how much I want to like it. In my defence here, however, I did also say that I wasn't entirely decided against reading it, I just wasn't sure. Ever since Winter (the final book) came out in December, and after seeing the hype surrounding that, I've been kind of wanting to pick up Cinder and see for myself. After reading Hitchhiker's, I was in a spacey mood, so I finally jumped on the bandwagon and read it. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I really enjoyed and I'm planning on binge-reading the rest of the series asap. The book wasn't as spacey as I thought it was going to be, but I actually wanted more (I think/hope this will increase as the series develops). I really liked the futuristic, new technology aspect, and I like how it combined all your typically YA new technology/killer disease/future world aspects without being your stereotypical dystopian novel. I really, really enjoyed this book and I'm excited to see where it takes me.

Rosie

MY NEW FAVOURITE OUTFIT OF THE DAY

One of the main staples of every person's wardrobe should be a rain coat. Not your Millet's jack-in-a-pack, but a proper, sturdy, not-foldaway rain coat. Honestly, is there any nicer look that a rain coat? This outfit of the day post today is to highlight my rain coat, the nicest and most lovely coat that I have ever owned. It's most definitely waterproof, the most gorgeous navy colour and has a really beautiful striped lining. It's definitely not a thick winter coat, but it's going to be absolutely perfect as it's gets warmer (and still equally as rainy). Also featured in this post in my new Fjallraven Kanken Classic rucksack, which I received for Christmas. It's the most perfect size for fitting everything I need and I absolutely love the square-shaped look and style of it; I'd been lusting over it for a while. I opted for the black one, as it goes with everything and always looks good, but the one thing I would say is that, due to the colour and the material, dust and dirt sticks to it and shows up quite easily. This still doesn't take away anything from it's beauty. These are by far my two new favourite wardrobe staples.

Fjallraven Kanken Classic Rucksack (£67 from Urban Outiftters)

Seasalt Seafolly Jacket in Squid Ink (£89.95)

Topshop Jamie Jeans (£40)

New Look Top (£7.99)

Converse All Star Low

Rosie

SIGHH DESIGNS

I challenge anyone not to be a fan of Sighh designs. I've been following Polly (the creator of Sighh) on Instagram for a couple of years now, and I've been lusting over her products for just as long. After countless debates over what to get, I finally took the plunge and am now the very happy owner of a very beautiful (and aesthetically pleasing) phone case and to-do-list pad.

I was lucky enough to receive the phone case for Christmas, I helpfully pointed my mother towards the website and the cactus print seemed very fitting after my cactus-buying rampage during November. There are two types of phone case available, the original slimline case with the design on the back and clear plastic sides, or the new premium case where the design also goes up around the sides. The cactus design only comes in the slimline case, which I actually prefer as I like to still be able to see the beautiful gold colour of my phone. The back of the phone case, where the design is, is matte, which I absolutely love, not just because matte always looks better, but also because it's scratch proof and still looks brand new. One thing I'd also like to highlight is that the case is really easy to get on and off, so there's none of that struggle and stress that one or the other is going to break with the brute force.This phone case has stood up to the ultimate phone case test, I dropped my phone onto my friend's wooden floor and neither the phone or the case (or the floor) are damaged at all, which is perfect.

A kind-of-picture of how the slimline case looks on the sides of your phone

The second product I bought, which I'd been eyeing up for quite a while and desperately waiting to come back in stock, is the 'Today's Activities' desk pad. My order of the desk pad also included an A6 art print, which I thought was a really nice added touch. Undoubtedly, the 'Today's Activiites' desk pad is one of the most photogenic desk accessories I've ever seen. I love all things stationary and organisation, and so this little pad is absolutely perfect for me. I no longer have to keep pages and pages of notes on my phone, but can have it all here beautifully in front of me. The pad was initially thinner than I was expecting, but each sheet has over 10 little boxes and, really, how much is one person doing? For me, it's the perfect little size and the paper is think enough that you can make it all colourful and pretty without having the risk that it'll seep through. Both the desk pad and the art print are a cute little A6 size. The art print has a nice quote on it,'turn bread and water into toast and tea', which are two of my favourite things, and I love the mismatched style of the different fonts.

So I thought I'd talk briefly about the products themselves before I went on to the designs, the real reason why we're all so attracted to Sighh. The artwork is beautifully and painstakingly drawn, you can tell that a lot of love and effort goes into these designs and that anything less than perfection is not accepted. I absolutely love love love the hand-painted look of the 'Today's Activities' pad, it's definitely my favourite of all Polly's art styles. It's such a simple but effective design and I love the final imperfect-but-purposely-imperfect look it gives. The cactus design is one of Sighh's immensely popular cute and quirky styles. Other phone cases that caught my attention were the vegetable and hot chocolate cases, both of which have adorable foods with faces on them. What I really love about the design of the cactus case is that each cactus is different, it makes the case much more personal and interesting. With all these products, you can really tell that a lot of time and effort has gone into designing and making them, and they are all designed and produced to a really high quality.

Sighh is an immensely popular, home-grown, independent shop, and it really, really deserves all the hype and popularity that it gets.

Prices

Slimline Phone Case - £14.00

Desk Pad - £4.50

Art Print - £1.50

Link to the website here

Rosie

2016 READ-A-THONS

This maybe should have been posted closer to the start of the year, but I'm doing it now. For those of you that don't know, a read-a-thon is a challenge where you have a set amount of time (usually a week) to read as many books as possible that either fit a certain theme or have the goal of clearing your TBR slightly. I've made a short list here of all the read-a-thons (that I currently know about) that I would be interested in participating in this year. I'm also going to put a link here to Little Book Owl's video on Youtube, where she goes into much more helpful detail about read-a-thons happening in 2016.

AYearAThon
(Link to the Goodreads page here)
The AYearAThon happens for one week in each month of the year, making it 12 read-a-thons in total. Each read-a-thon has it's own theme, for example the theme for February is 'New Adult/Romance' and it is occurring right now (from the 8th-14th). To my knowledge, there is also a 'group read' every month, a book everyone participating is encouraged to read as part of the read-a-thon- like a book club book.

BookTubeAThon
(Link to the Youtube channel here)
The BookTubeAThon is probably the most popular and well-know annual read-a-thon. There are two BookTubeAThons, the main one takes place in the summer months over the course of a week, where people are challenged to read seven books that all correspond with the set read-a-thon challenges, which are announced nearer to the time. For those with Youtube (or Booktube) channels, there are also daily video challenges that go along with this read-a-thon. The second BookTubeAThon is the Christmas BookTubeAThon which happens in December (duh). This one is seen as being much more relaxed, lasting only three or four days, and so reading less books that all still fit with a Christmas-themed challenge.

Bout of Books
(Link the the website here)
Bout of Books is a low-pressure, week-long read-a-thon that happens multiple times a year, where participants are encouraged to read more than they usually would in a typically week. There is no set theme or reading list for the Bout of Books, it's very much a do-you-own-thing, chilled read-a-thon.

TBR Takedown
The TBR Takedown is another read-a-thon that occurs multiple times throughout the year and, obviously, the aim is clear some of your TBR books. Unlike Bout of Books, the TBR Takedown has some reading challenges to go along with the read-a-thon, though these are optional. TBR Takedown has a Twitter account where they will announce the dates closer to the time.

Slay That Series Read-a-Thon
The Slay That Series read-a-thon is taking place from 13th March- 20th March and the aim is to either finish one or multiple series that you've already started or to read a whole series.

Cram-a-Thon
The Cram-a-Thon usually takes place in July and December. The aim of the read-a-thon is literally to cram and read as many books as possible in a short period of time. I believe that there are also some reading challenges that go along with it. The Cram-a-Thon has a Twitter account, and I believe they will be announcing the July dates some time in May.

Harry Potter Read-a-Thons
There are two main Harry Potter read-a-thons. The first is the Harry Potter Read-a-Thon and usually takes place around the end of July, to coincide with Harry's birthday. The second is HarryXmasToYou and, you guessed it, takes place in December. HarryXmasToYou takes place during the whole of December, rather than being only a week long, and also includes Watch-a-Thons, where you watch the Harry Potter films. The aim of these read-a-thons is obviously to read the Harry Potter books.

Rosie 

GROWING UP?

So we're going to have a bit of an honesty hour here and discuss changes in reading preferences and growing out of certain books. As you probably know, I read Andy Miller's 'The Year of Reading Dangerously' in January, which I talk about a lot. As extreme as this sounds, this book changed me. The book documents Miller getting back into reading, and the 50 'great' classic books he challenged himself to read. As crazy as it is, I felt myself growing up in the less-than-a-week it took me to read this book. At the end of 2015, I was rethinking my reading choices and preferences, and TYoRD highlighted that even further for me. And the conclusion I came to is this:

I'm not sure I want to read YA anymore.

Obviously, this is a slightly over-reacted statement, I will still read YA because I can't help but love some of it, but right at this moment in time I find myself only wanting to reach for historical fiction YA and being a little bit tired of everything else. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this, but so much YA is so similar to each other and I'm getting so tired of it. I'm finding myself getting increasingly frustrated with YA characters and the way they act without thinking, and just the general unrealistic-ness (and dare I say childish-ness?) of YA books. Maybe I just can't relate to them anymore, who knows? Honestly, I think I'm growing up. At the end of 2015 I set myself the goal of reading more literature for adults (I want to refer to it as 'adult fiction' but I'm well aware that that makes me sound like I'm talking about erotic fiction, which I'm most definitely not!), as I'm eighteen-nearly-nineteen and I thought it was time I broadened my reading choices. In all honesty, it scares me slightly that I don't want to read much YA anymore, it's going out of my comfort zone and I'm not sure I even know where to start with general literature. All I know is that I'm just tired of YA and I maybe think I'm getting too old for it. (I'm not bashing anyone older who still loves YA, this is just how I feel personally about myself, read what you want and don't let anyone put you off it).

'The Year of Reading Dangerously' has thrown me completely off balance, suddenly I'm rethinking all my recent TBR's and I'm not sure what I want to read anymore. I'm almost feeling a bit like I'm in a reading slump, whilst still reading happily; I'm reading multiple books and I don't know what's right for me at the moment. I've realised that I definitely want to read more non-fiction and general literature, which I never felt the urge to before, and I'm looking forward to that. Wanting to read non-fiction is very new for me, I've never been interested in it before, but after reading 'I am Malala' and TYoRD, I'm starting to crave it slightly. I'm especially interested in historical and political non-fiction, and also non-fiction about books and film. I want to read what I want to read, and right now that's just not teenage fiction. In the past few weeks alone, I've branched out way more that I usually would. Don't get me wrong, I will still be reading some YA, but it's no longer going to be the only thing I read.

Don't be afraid of change and admitting to it.

Rosie