2018 reading plans

2017 wasn't that great of a reading year for me and the thing that I was worst at last year was recording the books that I had actually read

That was why, this year, I have decided to participate in the #Theunreadshelfproject2018, where participants try to read as many of the unread books on their shelves as possible

I have a bad habit of starting books and then never finishing them and I am hoping that this year long readathon will help accomplish this task for me

I do have some other things that I would like to acheive this year reading wise that relate to this challenge for me:

• I would love to try and read 100 books this year or even more, as well as keeping better track of my reading 
• I would like to try and read more genres than just YA contemporary and in particular read more fantasy, both YA and adult, as well as try to read more New Adult books
• To try and buy less books, at least without reading more of the ones that I already own beforehand
• To finish as many of the series that I already own and have started before starting too many new series
• My main goal that I will hopefully achieve is to read as many Cassandra Clare books as possible, and try to at least read all the main novels in the Shadowhunter Chronicles

The Greek Myhthology Book tag

Gods of Olympus

Zeus (Jupiter)

God of the Sky and Thunder / King of the Gods

Favorite book (choose your own category!): 

There are so many favourite books under different categories that I didn’t know which one I wanted to pick for this question. I ended up choosing one of my favourite stand alone books which is Simon vs the Homo sapiens agenda. This book made me smile as I was reading it and I recommend it to everyone

Poseidon (Neptune)

God of the Seas and Earthquakes

Book that drowned you in feels:

Bramblestar’s Storm drowned me in too many feels. I read it a while after reading The Last Hope and I ended up loving it. That didn’t mean that there wasn’t a few times when I would start tearing up, especially when a few characters died who I wasn’t expecting to die

Hades (Pluto)

God of the Underworld

Favorite book with a dark / ominous plot:

Does Jurassic Park count? This is probably the darkest book I’ve read. It is, after all, about an island where dinosaurs escape and eat people

Hera (Juno)

Goddess of Marriage and Family

Cutest fictional couple:

For this there was no other choice than one of my favourite fictional couples ever. I had to choose Johnny and Meg from Paige Toon’s books. I just love how Meg manages to change Johnny for the better and I love their relationship in the Jessie Jefferson trilogy and how different it is to the start of their relationship

Athena(Minerva)

Goddess of Wisdom, Handicraft and Strategic Warfare

Series with the best world-building: 

I love the world building in the Game of Thrones series. I’ve only just started the series but I love the world building in the show as well

Aphrodite (Venus)

Goddess of Love and Beauty

Most beautiful cover on a 2016 release:

The cover of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenplay which I only bought recently (30/11/2016), I love the way this book looks both with the dustjacket on and with it off

Ares (Mars)

God of War and Bloodshed

Most violent book you’ve ever read:

I’m going to go with the same one as one of the previous questions. Jurassic Park, the book is a lot more violent than the films and it describes the people killed in a much more detailed way

Hephaestus (Vulcan)

God of Blacksmiths and Fire

Scorching hot swoon worthy character:

Is there really any other choice for me than Johnny Jefferson? He is definitely a swoon worthy character and he even has the bad boy personality to go along with it

Artemis (Diana)

Goddess of the Hunt and Virginity

Favorite Kick-Ass Heroine: 

Eowyn. This might be slightly cheating since I haven’t actually read the book yet but she is amazing in the film and she is definitely my favourite heroine

Phoebus Apollo (Apollo)

God of Light and Healing

Sequel book that redeemed its series:

City of Ashes, though I still haven’t finished this series. I didn’t like City of Bones that much but I loved City of Ashes when I read it and it made me want to continue reading the series rather than stop

Hermes (Mercury)

Messenger God of Thieves and Commerce

Book with the best message:

I couldn’t really think of an answer to this question. I’ve read a lot of books where I thought they had a good message but I can’t think of any

Hestia (Vesta)

Goddess of the Hearth and Home

Book with the most relatable story: 

I’d say that Love Lessons has the most relatable story. When I first read the book I was going through a tough time with a teacher (Nothing happened, it was just tough for me) and I loved art like Prue and I was shy and quiet like her. Reading the book made the year slightly easier for me

Demeter (Ceres)

Goddess of Fertility and Agriculture

Favorite bookish setting: 

I love the world where Gone is set. I wouldn’t want to live there but I love how the setting kind of evolves and changes throughout the books

Dionysus (Bacchus)

God of Wine and Celebration

2017 release you are most anticipating:

The Last Piece of My Heart by Paige Toon. Her next book that will be about Bridget. I also can’t wait for the cover to be revealed

Heroes of Olympus

Percy Jackson

a brave, spirited natural leader with a sarcastic sense of humor, and a will to save friends and enemies alike

Favorite protagonist:

I have a lot of favourite protagonists, but the first one that pops into my head when thinking about the question is most of the main characters from Warrior Cats, especially Brambleclaw from the second series

Annabeth Chase

intellectual genius with a strong mind, brave heart, and a love for architecture

Series / book with the cleverest plot:

The Saga of Darren Shan, I love the way the plot plays out over the twelve books and I like that there isn’t really any romance in it. Also, it is a unique way of portraying vampires without making them seem boring

Jason Grace

 has a moderate sense of humor, but a strong sense of honor, justice and compassion, often described as perfect

Book with an epic finale: 

The final battle in The Last Hope. This is one of the best final battle scenes I have read and was the perfect finale to that series. Also the BloodClan battle in The Darkest Hour for the same reason, though I think I liked this one slightly more

Piper McLean

aggressive and persuasive but down to earth, caring and loving towards Jason, her friends and family

Book with a tempting synopsis (one you haven’t read!): 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, I heard so much about the book and knew I wanted to read it as soon as I read the synopsis, it sounds like something I would love reading

Leo Valdez

good-natured and energetic, funny but intelligent, honest and witty, and is skilled with machines

Book that made you laugh: 

Not many books manage to make me laugh. If I find a book funny, I usually just end up smiling instead of laughing

Hazel Levesque

bright  and outgoing despite an unfortunate childhood, is mature for her age and has a love for horseback riding

Favorite character with a tragic past:

For this I chose Caine Soren from the Gone series, he isn’t the character with the most tragic past but he is my favourite. I can’t say much without spoiling anything that happens in the series though

Frank Zhang

somewhat shy, cynical, and clumsy, though he possesses a strong sense of duty, loyalty, and love

Book you loved more than you thought you would:

I was going to go predictable and say Jurassic Park but that is the book that I seem to talk about the most. Instead I chose Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. I went into this expecting to be disappointed, it isn’t my favourite vampire series but it was amazing and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would

Nico di Angelo

grim, solitary, powerful and mysterious, highly unpredictable and selectively affectionate

Most mysterious character you’ve ever encountered:

For this I decided to go with a character that is more unusual. She isn’t the most mysterious character I’ve ever encountered but I didn’t want to choose a character that people would expect me to say. I went with Sienna from All About the Hype, she is the sister of Dana and half of the book is wondering if you’re supposed to trust her. She is definitely a mysterious character

Grover Underwood

cheerful, upbeat and protective satyr who chews on furniture when he gets nervous

Book you won’t read due to warnings against them: 

I try not to listen to books that have warnings and bad reviews about them. My opinion is usually different to most people’s anyway. There are too many books for this answer to even think about listening

Clarisse La Rue

arrogant and hot-tempered, but brave, strong and protective of camp

Most annoying character:

There are so many people I could use for this that I think I should just make a separate post about who the most annoying characters are and why I think that about them

(Review) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Spoliers)

Name: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Authors: J.K Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne
 Publication date: 31st July 2016
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟/5

Overall I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped and I don't think that it lived up to the hype that it has.
 If this book had not been a play I probably wouldn't have read it as quickly as I did, I read it in three days.

Spoilers ahead!

I thought that the first act was good and I liked Scorpius a lot more than I had thought I would at first.
 However it didn't shock me as much as it maybe should have when Albus got sorted into Slytherin. I felt that it wouldn't have been hinted at in the end of Deathly Hallows if he wasn't going to.

The big plot twist in the book was when we discovered that Voldemort has a daughter and that she plans to go back in time to stop Voldemort from trying to kill Harry as a baby.
 The revelation came as a shock to me but I wasn't surprised at her betrayal, even though she says she is going to help Albus and Scorpius at the beginning of the book.

A big part of this book revolved around time travel and the use of a time turner, something that wasn't ever fully explored within the series, I did think that this face the book an interesting view on what the world would have been like had things gone differently.
 This is what made the book enjoyable for me, seeing the different possibilities for the end of the series, even though one was bad.

I think that Albus's and Harry's relationship was mostly overdone, I didn't think as much of the plot needed to be focused on it. I feel like it could have been done with less.
 I do think however that the reason that Albus makes some of his decisions is because he has to live up to the expectation of being Harry Potter's son.

Overall, I feel that this book did not live up to the hype that surrounded this book and it was an average book for me

Jurassic park by Michael Crichton review

Jurassic Park

Michael Crichton

Originally published in 1991

4.5 🌟

I'm sure most of you who have seen the film (and who hasn't seen the film?) will be asking why they should read this book if they already know what happens. The book is different from the film! Both good and bad

The back of the book reads:
‘On a remote jungle island, genetic engineers have created a dinosaur game park.

An astonishing technique for recovering and cling dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now one of mankind’s most thrilling fantasies has come true and the first dinosaurs that the Earth has seen in the time of man emerge.

But there is a dark side to the fantasy. And after a catastrophe destroys the park’s defence systems, the scientists and tourists are left fighting for survival’

I loved this book and while reading it, it quickly became one of the best books I have read in a long time. It can be difficult to get through in places, particularly in places when there is a lot of information at once and it can be fact heavy but it is also filled with action.

Spoilers ahead!

The beginning of this book was slow with just under 100 pages of talking about the island and the discovery of an unknown animal that they later discover as a ‘compy’ though it is never revealed how they got off the island

While reading the book I got different impressions of the characters than when I had watched the films. Some characters who died in the film survived in the book and some who survived in the film died in the book.

One of the major changes I noticed while reading was that John Hammond was completely different, all he cared about was money and even after he knew the park was going wrong he was still thinking about how he could make it better on a different park. In the end he gets killed by Compys in the end

One of my favourite characters in the film Robert Muldoon is also very different in the book though he was still my favourite character. In the book he has a drinking problem and is often seen drunk or drinking. Unlike in the film, he wasn't killed by the velociraptors and instead survived.

Ian Malcolm was never one of my favourite characters in the film but I started to dislike him even more as I was reading the book. At the end of the book, he was supposedly dead, having died from the wound in his leg that he received from the T. Rex. However he was brought back for the sequel, having apparently survived

Overall this book was amazing and I rated it 4.5* and it would have been 5 stars if it hadn't been for the beginning. I recommend this to anyone who loves dinosaurs, loved the films or just wants an action packed read

Booktube-athon tbr and update

i don't usually participate in readathons as much as I wish I did. This is mainly because during most of the readathons that I want to participate in I have been busy with college.
The Booktube-a-thon started today (Monday 18th July 12am) and runs until Sunday 24th? July 11:59pm.
I am also participating in Camp nanowrimo this month and will probably do a blog post about it when the month is over

Here is my tentative TBR

The challenges are:

Read a book with yellow on the cover:

I might end up reading The rest of us just live here by Patrick Ness since it has a yellow cover and I've heard a lot by the author

Read a book after sunset:

I don't know what I want to read for this challenge yet but I'll probably read a childrens book

Read a book you discovered through booktube:

Possible Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe since I first heard about it through booktube

Read a book written by your favourite author:

One of my favourite authors is Paige Toon so i will probably read her newest book The One we well in love with

Read a book that is older than you:

For this I chose my current read which is Jurassic Park, I'm already 150 pages in and I haven't read anything today. This book was wrote in 1991 and I was born in 1997

Read and watch a book to movie adaptation:

Same as above Jurassic Park

Read 7 books in total:

I'm not sure of the other two books I'll end up reading during the week

I'll try to post daily but if not I will definitely post a wrap up when the readathon is over

Carry on (Rainbow Rowell) End of book 1 review

I just recently finished reading the first book in Carry on by Rainbow Rowell and I'm sad to say that I'm not enjoying it so far. I'd only rate it 🌟🌟 at the minute.

I'm finding myself not liking any of the characters so far. Baz is just frustrating and at this point I've only met him though flashbacks. And I'm just finding the Mage to be unlikable

I find that this book has too many similarities to Harry Potter and that has made this book disappointing to read.

I will be finishing this book and I will post a full review of it when I've finished it

Small update

I haven't posted any of the reviews I've been wanting to so I thought I'd give you all an update.

Last week was my last unofficial week at college and since I've been studying art and design my Final Major Project consisted of putting up an exhibition that will be seen by the public.

Because of this I haven't had as much time to post here as much as I wish I have, I have two more days at college including my exhibition then I promise I'll be posting reviews and book hauls and everything that I've missed.

I post slightly more regularly on my Instagram: @Cloverhand_reader so you can follow me there for updates