In My Life
Past week
Sometimes life passes you by and you feel like you hardly remember anything. I had one of those weeks, though I do remember baking a cake. There’s tangible evidence of it in my fridge and it tastes wonderful too.
Review Book and Milestones
As a blogger situated outside of the US, UK and Australia, I’ve rarely come by review copies in the past. If I did, then it was for digital review copies. Of course, I appreciated them because I love reading books before drowning in the hype. I like formulating my own opinions. That’s why I blog and review books in the first place — to document and share my thoughts.
Still, sometimes I wish I could read physical formats of books for review, especially for non-fiction books which I prefer to annotate. It makes it easier for me to write cohesive reviews.
Imagine my joy then when I received The Big Lie by Julie Mayhew in the mail this week! It’s a finished copy but nonetheless, for the purpose of reviewing. What makes this even sweeter is that my first book review on the blog was of Red Ink, also by Julie Mayhew. There’s such a poetic justice in marking milestones with parallels like these and I’m super excited about reading Julie’s second book.
Guest Blogged Book Recs
In light of A Way into YA hosted at An Armchair by the Sea, I recommended some backlist YA contemporary titles. If you’re looking for underrated books currently not on the hype radar or are looking for contemporary fiction, you may wanna check out my list.
On the Blog
Blog Posts
This week I shared a photography guide to achieving even light with the burn tool in Photoshop. As usual, it’s specific to book photography but can be applied to other types of photos as well. For Mise-en-scène Georgie and I took on feminism and I seized the opportunity to recommend A Mad, Wicked Folly. It’s a book set during the suffragette movement, which is very fitting for going to the roots of feminism through YA fiction.
Book Reviews
The UK edition of The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness was released this week and there’s so much I loved about it. I also expressed my love for Nimona by Noelle Stevenson. All-around, two stellar books and I can’t recommend them enough!
Around the Blogosphere
- Ashley @ Nose Graze explains why freedom of speech doesn’t necessarily apply to Goodreads or Amazon, or any other website. Neither does it have to. When we sign up for a service, we have to abide by their terms and conditions. If that means we aren’t allowed to write certain things in our book reviews (such as personally attacking authors), then we have to accept that. Doesn’t matter of we disagree. If we don’t like those rules, then we better find alternative outlets to share out thoughts.
- Laura @ YA Love Magazine says, We don’t want more John Green. It’s not that she’s against John Green. She enjoyed his books. But she’s not so keen on having very other month into the next John Green. We should respect individuality of authors and we need to remember that good YA fiction doesn’t have to equate to John Green.
Yay, I’m one of those Aussie bloggers who are lucky enough to get ARCs, so that’s definitely a highlight for you being able to do the same Josephine! Thanks for the recap, checking out both of those discussion posts as well.
Thank you, Jeann! :) It’s definitely a privilege.
Thanks for sharing my post!! :)
Gladly! It’s an important topic for all book reviewers :)