I'm back!!!!!

Photo credit: Chibird 

Hi everyone, I know it's been such a long time right, I apologise about the radio silence, let me explain about the long break. 

I got married! It's going to be our one year anniversary in a few days, I blame all the planning and time it took in preparing for this big day, for the lack of reading and blog hopping last year. Our wedding was a week long of spending time with family and friends and dancing the night away. 

I moved countries! My husband is from Toronto, Canada, so it was such a big move for me, leaving my family behind, where I'd grown up my entire life, where everything came easy to me. Knowing that I couldn't just drive around the corner to pop back home and see my family, but I had to take an eight hour flight to get back home (I've been lucky that I've been able to visit my family twice since I moved in May). But it's taken a lot of time adjusting, I couldn't work for a while a first, I had to adjust to driving on the wrong side of the road! And I was massively homesick. But my husband and his family were hugely supportive and I had an aunt who lived nearby, so I used to visit my home away from home as much as possible.

But then when sitting at home, I discovered the amazing library here, that had all the books available as soon as they were released, I had really lost my reading mojo, but just having that awesome feeling that all these books were at the tip of my fingers. 

Currently I'm home from work due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but April has been a good month so far, me and my husband try to have our own time as much as possible, I read in the other room and he watches his tv shows, so that we don't get sick of seeing each other's faces hah! But I actually managed to read 11 books in April (I think that was largely due to the  fact that everyone was reserving copies of my book, as they were home and I had to read them super duper fast), but there was a handful of books which I really enjoyed! 

I'm hoping that I will be back to blogging regularly, I have a few reviews lined up too. But I've definitely missed you guys! 

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Spring 2019 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl where each week a new top ten list is shared and fellow bookish folk share their lists on that topic.

This week's Top Ten post is: Books on My Spring 2019 TBR. 

(Click on title for Goodreads link) 

I'm not the most consistent when it comes to read next pile, I'm the biggest ever mood reader, and when a certain genre doesn't work for me either, I'm quick to change it up. But of course I'm once again behind on my ARC books, so below are a few that I need to get through and some other books I hope to read this Spring.  

  

 

 

 

Which books are you looking forward to reading this Spring? 

Weekly Recap #39

Hi guys, I hope this will be me back posting regularly again, I'm still suffering from a blocked nose and feeling tired a lot of the time, but I've bought a higher dose of iron tablets, so I hope those will help. and I really need to get back on track with eating properly, I think because I've had back to back viral infections and colds I've just been eating what I feel like, but I seriously need to sort it out now! But other than that my week wasn't too bad.
We link our weekly wrap ups with The Sunday Post hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated reviewer.

WHAT I READ/REVIEWED 
(Click on title for Goodreads link)

I was surprised to learn that Bridal Boot Camp was a novella, I really did enjoy it, but just expected more. On the Come Up was another great book from Angie Thomas, I think I still loved The Hate U Give a smidge more, but On the Come Up once again had such solid characters. Because You Love to Hate Me had been on my tbr pile for the longest time, I finally decided to give this book a go last month, and just finished it yesterday and to be honest it was kind of disappointing, I think there were one or two stories that I liked, but a lot of them I skim read :/

BOOKS RECEIVED 

 (Click on title for Goodreads link)

  

 

It was my sister's birthday this week and she had been after Emergency Contact for the longest time, I've heard such great things about this book, so can't wait to start it, as soon as she's finished with it.  And I'm not normally one to read graphic novels, but since I really enjoyed The Umbrella Academy tv show, I thought I'd give the comic a go.

NEW TO MY TBR
(Click on Book for Goodreads link)

 

This newest book from Mar H, Choi sounds brilliant, I know I haven't read anything from Choi previously, but I have a feeling that this will be my sort of book. And Christina Lauren have quickly become my go to authors, so I was super excited to find out about their newest release. 

  WHAT I'M WATCHING

So I went to watch Captain Marvel this week and wow this film was just incredible, definitely up there as one of my favourite Marvel movies alongside Black Panther. I loved how we were given the backstory and how it links up with other films, this is one film I highly recommend watching!

EVENTS OF THE WEEK 

This week marked my seven year blogoversary at The Readers Den, it was the day of my sister's birthday and the day I went to watch Captain Marvel, so totally forgot, but thank you everyone who has stuck by me and supported my blog, even though I haven't been that consistent as of late, I appreciate every single comment you guys leave. 
The above photo is the breakfast I had with my friend this week, the egg muffin was absolutely delicious and it was just great catching up in so long. 
And in other news my sister has started a new blog, unfortunately she's not a reader like me, but she's lived with being a coeliac most of her life, and recently has become super strict with her diet (proud sister moment) and so has created this blog, to help others ease their way in living with a coeliac diet. You can check out her blog at Gluten Free & Gut Happy. 

How was your week?

February Monthly Recap

Image credit: Chibird

What I've been up to.

Jasprit: 

Hi everyone, sorry about the radio silence as of late, I just don't know where this last month has gone, I've either been super busy or sick, my immune system has just been so weak, that I tend to be catching everything and then don't have the time to rest either. But February has an eventful month nonetheless. 

 

I got to spend a weekend with one of my best friends Allie, with our busy schedules we of course have to plan way in advance, we managed to find a new show to binge watch and of course went on our usual food crawl, usually we're able to hit a lot of places, but this time around we did get to try out some great food, but were tired so quick! 

What I've been watching 

Allie had been telling me about this show and we ended up starting it on the weekend it was added to Netflix, let me just say I was addicted! I needed something refreshing and different and this was exactly it. 

Reading 

I managed to read six books this month, and they were really a mixed bunch, I sadly only had one book which stood out for me and surprisingly it was the anthology below. Seriously it was super cute and one book I will definitely be highly recommending. 

(Click on title for Goodreads link)

What I plan to read

I hope March will be a better reading month, I started On The Come Up by Angie Thomas, which despite not being able to read as much as I want to, I'm really enjoying. I also have a buddy read planned with Nick, we're reading Meg Cabot's newest book Bridal Boot Camp, which I'm super excited about. And below are a few other books I plan to read in March. 

(Click on title for Goodreads link)

I'm also planning to watch Captain Marvel this week, for my sister's birthday, to be honest this film wasn't on my radar, (I've been eagerly anticipating Avengers Endgame and X-Men: Dark Phoenix), but everyone seems to have watched this over the weekend, so I'm really looking forward to it now. 

I hope you all have a great upcoming month!  

Review: Meet Cute: Some People are Destined to Meet by Various authors

Meet Cute: Some People are Destined to Meet by Various authors
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: January 2nd 2018
My rating: 4.5 stars 

Whether or not you believe in fate, or luck, or love at first sight, every romance has to start somewhere. MEET CUTE is an anthology of original short stories featuring tales of "how they first met" from some of today’s most popular YA authors. Readers will experience Nina LaCour's beautifully written piece about two Bay Area girls meeting via a cranky customer service Tweet, Sara Shepard's glossy tale about a magazine intern and a young rock star, Nicola Yoon's imaginative take on break-ups and make-ups, Katie Cotugno's story of two teens hiding out from the police at a house party, and Huntley Fitzpatrick's charming love story that begins over iced teas at a diner. There’s futuristic flirting from Kass Morgan and Katharine McGee, a riveting transgender heroine from Meredith Russo, a subway missed connection moment from Jocelyn Davies, and a girl determined to get out of her small town from Ibi Zoboi. Jennifer Armentrout writes a sweet story about finding love from a missing library book, Emery Lord has a heartwarming and funny tale of two girls stuck in an airport, Dhonielle Clayton takes a thoughtful, speculate approach to pre-destined love, and Julie Murphy dreams up a fun twist on reality dating show contestants. This incredibly talented group of authors brings us a collection of stories that are at turns romantic and witty, epic and everyday, heartbreaking and real.

“All love ends”, she says. 
“Maybe” I say. “But it has to start somewhere”. 

This anthology was probably one of the best that I’ve come across, the stories were short yet sweet (sometimes too short in my opinion), but I ended up liking so many of them, and could imagine them being written as full novels and me just devouring them up. Here I thought I’d share some of my favourites. 

Siege Etiquette by Katie Cotugno 
This was such a cute story, but also made me feel quite mellow after finishing it; two classmates end up hiding out in the bathroom together when the police show up to break up a party. Despite barely knowing one another, I loved how with just the small amount of time Wolf and Hailey end up spending together hiding out, they end up forming some sort of meaningful connection. I liked how Cotugno gave us little snippets into their lives outside of the bathroom and party, how two people who’d formed wrong opinions about each other, but were exactly what they needed in that moment in time. I was really gutted when I came to the end of this story, as I was so left wanting more. 

Print Shop by Nina Lacour 
Again, this was another book that I loved the direction the author took the story in, Evie ends up taking a job in a print shop, the first day she starts work, she’s told to try and promote the shop through social media, they’ve never done it before, so want some sort of online presence. Evie’s never done something like this before either, but once she has the shop’s Twitter page going, she’s overwhelmed with negative tweets about the shop’s service. I loved this story from the get-go, I wanted Evie to do well at her job, but felt really sorry for her dealing with the wrath of these negative tweeters just because someone else had messed up with a customer’s banner. But like I said I loved the direction that Lacour took with this story, as she went onto show you really could find love in the most unexpected of places. And it was thrilling seeing Evie experience it first-hand. 

Hourglass by Ibi Zoboi 
This short story had so many things going for it, I adored the main character Cherish, her voice was strong and I admired her for sticking to what she believed in, (her best friend messes up, but Cherish still decides to go to prom on her own, and with a few days left still needs to get an outfit). It did take me a little longer to get into this story, but again I felt this story just ended so abruptly, what happened with Cherish? did she get her outfit? did she go to prom? and is she even talking to Stacy anymore? these are things I need to know! 

Click by Katharine Mcgee 
I think Click was probably my favourite story from this anthology collection, Mcgee gives us a great futuristic take on what dating could be like for us in the next few years and a wonderful chase over the city when our MC leaves her phone in the taxi and her date agrees to help her locate it. What I loved about this story was how our MC really thought her date wasn’t her typical guy, but as they spend time together in search of her phone, they get to know each other more. And that twist at the end was just pure brilliance! 

Meet Cute is one book I highly recommend reading, it was really the perfect book that reminded me of why I loved YA romance in the first place. The stories were ones that left a big goofy grin on your face and yearning for more, I know this is one anthology that I will go back to for re-reads especially when I need a quick pick me up.