Tell Me About Yourself Tag!

Hey guys! Sorry it's a little late, but I ran into a blank as to what to post this week and then I ran out of time to type this out once I came up with the idea. 

So, I do at least one or two Bookstagram photo challenges on my Instagram each month and one of my absolute favorite challenges to do every month is the Read and Gush tag. They're hosted by a set of four amazing Bookstagrammers: marissa_writes, tall_telle_tells_tales, alice_in_her_bookland, and kylielovesbooks, and if you love really awesome book pics, I highly reccomend checking these four out! 

Anyways, March's photo challenge was to complete a different book tag every day to try to beat the algorithm. Unfortunately, even though I really wanted to participate, I didn't have enough time to type out the tags every day... But even though this won't be beating any algorithms by posting on here, I figured I could use the tags as posts for my blog since I really wanted to do them! 

I figured this is a good one to start with since I don't think I've ever done a Get To Know Me post... (Or if I have, it's been two or three years. 😂) This won't be a very indepth post, but I plan on maybe doing a more detailed one another time! 

My face! 😂

• Favorite Animal - Um... Depends... If we're talking about animals I can actually own, horse, hands down! But my overall favorite at the moment is probably a hedgehog! (My state is one of the, like, four that still outlaws the ownership of exotic pets...) 
• Celebrity Crush - Colin O'Donoghue... Because Captain Killian Jones... 😂😍
• Favorite City - I really love Chicago! If I had to choose a major city to live in, it would most likely be Chicago... I have family near there, so I've been quite a few times!
• Favorite TV Show - Hmm... I haven't been watching much tv lately... But I do absolutely love The Good Doctor!! It's seriously so good; if you haven't watched it yet, I highly reccomend it!
• Country You Wish to Visit - Greece and Italy are my top two places! Honestly, I think they're tied for first place on my list. My great-grandparents were from Sicily and I would love to see it one day! And Greece... So many reasons. It looks absolutely gorgeous, I am such a huge Greek mythology nerd, and just, the architecture and history and... I really want to go, okay? 😂
• Era You Wish You Lived In - Hmm... Probably like, medieval times?? But, only if I can have like, a bow and arrows. And a horse. 'Cause that would be epic. 😂

That was it for this little post! I hope you guys enjoyed! If you think this tag is cool and want to use it on Bookstagram, your blog, or booktube, considering yourself officially tagged!! 

~Allie 

(Original #tellmeaboutyourself tag made by tyffany.h)

Review ~ Lost in a Book by Jennifer Donnelly

One. Year. 

That's how long it's been since I've posted a review on here... A blog initially made to review books on... Hopefully, with the new review system that I'm trying out, I'll be able to actually post reviews more often now!

About the Book: Smart, bookish Belle, a captive in the Beast's castle, has become accustomed to her new home and has befriended its inhabitants. When she comes upon Nevermore, an enchanted book unlike anything else she has seen in the castle, Belle finds herself pulled into its pages and transported to a world of glamour and intrigue. The adventures Belle has always imagined, the dreams she was forced to give up when she became a prisoner, seem within reach again. 

The charming and mysterious characters Belle meets within the pages of Nevermore offer her glamourous conversation, a life of dazzling Parisian luxury, and even a reunion she never thought possible. Here Belle can have everything she has ever wished for. But what about her friends in the Beast's castle? Can Belle trust her new companions inside the pages of Nevermore? Is Nevermore's world even real? Belle must uncover the truth about the book, before she loses herself in it forever.

Rating: 4/5 ⭐s 

# of Pages: 341

Genre(s): Middle Grade, Fantasy

Age Range: 12+ (some darker themes)

Favorite Quote 

"Life is fragile. Life ends. But love? Love lasts forever." 

Pros

• My absolute favorite fairy tale has always been Beauty and the Beast, so I love reading retellings and adaptations of it! 
• Amazing writing; super well-written and pretty (for lack of a better term). 
• Major Coraline vibes; like, actually creeped me out a few times, but it was great. 😂
• The relationships between the characters were really sweet!
• Perfect for a readathon (as when I read it) or just a fast read! 

Cons

• Didn't seem so much as a promotion of the movie or retelling... More like, a fanfiction? A very well-written fanfiction, but fanfiction nonetheless. 
• Belle didn't seem quite like the Belle we see in the movies and most other adaptations. She was very blind to some of the things happening around her that I feel she would have noticed or at least been suspicious of. While I most likely would have acted the way she did in this book, I feel like this isn't true to her character, especially considering her headstrong, logical traits that appear towards the end of the book. 
• This is more of a con of the publishing company, but the number of grammatical errors in this book... So many instances where a sentence would be missing an "a" or "the", along with a few other typos. I honestly would have expected a lot better from Disney's own publishing company. 

Overall Thoughts

I feel like I would have enjoyed this story a lot better if it had been an entirely new set of characters. I personally love what I've read so far of Jennifer Donnelly's Waterfire Saga and I feel like this plot line would have been great in an original novel by her, especially with the aspects of Love and Death. This book was definitely a good read for my readathon though; I sped through it and ended up finishing it in a day. Overall it wasn't what I expected, but it was still enjoyable! 

February Wrap-Up!

Wow, I can't believe it's March already... 😱 Where in the world did January and February go?? Only two more months until I'm an official adult and no more high school... Wow... Anyway, ignore my mini aging crisis and please enjoy this little wrap-up of all the books that I read in February! I read five books this month and I swear I was hit with all of the feelings, guys... 

•  Jan. 30th/Feb. 11th - The Assassin and the Underworld by Sarah J. Maas - 4.5/5 ⭐s - This one took me a little longer to read than the others because I fell behind in a buddy read and it took me a little while to catch back up. This book... All the feels, guys... Certain things in the second half of the book made me both really happy and really sad (if you know what happens, then you know why). I had such a hard time putting this one down once I picked it back up! 
•  Feb. 11th/Feb. 16th - The Assassin and the Empire by Sarah J. Maas - 4.5/5 ⭐s - So, I finally finished this during a readathon and... Oh. My. Heart. 💔💔 See, I was expecting pain, but not like this... Though I didn't cry, I also knew what was going to happen, so maybe that's why... I just didn't expect certain events to happen the way they did. The ending scene was absolutely amazing though! I need to pick up Crown of Midnight soon... 
•  Feb. 13th/Feb. 17th - Lost in a Book by Jennifer Donnelly - 4/5 ⭐s - So, of course, I enjoyed this book because it was Beauty and the Beast, but I was actually really disappointed... It didn't seem to fit the Beauty and the Beast theme... I plan on writing a more detailed review of this soon though, so I'll leave it here for now. This was another readathon read. 
•  Feb. 16th/Feb. 17th - Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter - 5/5 ⭐s - Okay, I loved this book! The first book, I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You, was a 4-star read for me - not bad, but not absolutely amazing either. This book though, I sped through it! And I could blame it on the readathon, but honestly, I think I would have sped through it anyway. The plot was amazing and I was in a serious book hangover until I got the library for the third book in the series (which I'm currently reading now). I seriously wish that this was longer than six books... I'm already halfway through. I haven't made this much progress in a series in a while... 😂
•  Feb. 17th/Feb. 19th - Spy High Mission Two: Chaos Rising by A. J. Butcher - 4/5 ⭐s - This book was definitely better than the first one. I used to own the first one, but there was so little that I liked about it that I ended up taking it to my local used bookstore for in-store credit. In the first book, all of the MCs were so stereotypical in the beginning that it was almost annoying, and I usually don't mind cliches and stereotypes in books. Thankfully, a couple of them got more complex by the end of the first book, and that was enough to make me determined to continue the series in the hopes that it would get better. Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed! The plot in this book was a lot better to me, and most of the characters were a lot more enjoyable and had better character development! Though there were still some aspects that I didn't like, and I still don't care for Ben, but I already have the next book on hold at my library, so we'll see how the next one is! 

Well, that was it for my February wrap-up! Hope you guys enjoyed! If you've read any of these, what did you think?? 

~ Allie