Between the Pages

For my birthday, I received a Parnassus YA Book Bundle. As this is a bookish gift, I thought I would share its contents with all of you. I will follow up on each item after I commence using them routinely or after I read it. My favorite independent bookstore is Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee. At this book store, they offer a Young Adult gift box that staff members put together. These boxes usually include one to two books and a couple items that are either cute and literarily oriented or make reading easier.  In my YA Book Bundle, I received two books:  Legendborn  by Tracy Denon and Open Road Summer by Emery Lord (who actually came to my school for an author talk last year!). I am very excited to read these two. My TBR list is a MILE long, so these reviews will probably pop up around November or December. Nonetheless, I am very excited to read and review these books, as Legendborn is a fantasy book (a genre I don't read very often) and Open Road Summer is a fun ...

 For my September BOTM, I wanted something that would be the calmest 'adult' book in this month's bunch of suggested picks. I picked The Last Story of Mina Lee. Review coming soon! Do you subscribe to BOTM? What did you choose? Happy reading!!

  While The Simple Wild was a little over the top for me, it is a fine, romantic, early adult novel.  Summary Calla Fletcher leads a perfectly normal and fulfilling life. She has a boyfriend, a job, a good family life with her mother and step-father, a smattering of supportive friends, and a successful website and social media account. She is beautiful, fit, and has a diverse and expensive wardrobe.  She would not live in Toronto with her mother, Susan, and her psychiatrist step-father, Simon, if her mother hadn't have hated her life. Originally, Susan got pregnant with Calla, married, and lived with Wren Fletcher, Calla's father, in Bangor, Alaska. Calla's mother has instilled nothing less than hatred for the early darkness, bitter cold, the occasional outhouse, Wren's tiny-dangerous-plane-charter company, and the constant absence of Wren in Calla.  Over her 26 years of life, Calla has heard from her father in a serious, talking manner about five times. The occasion...

 As a proud member of the bookstagram community, the rapidly growing corner of the social media/internet sphere dedicated to reviewing and reading books, I look up to a lot of bookstagrammers. While I wish I could name each and every one of them on this platform, I'm afraid that would be an impossible feat. Here are my 5 favorite accounts. 

       Reading is a fickle activity. If you are on this blog, chances are you have the keen ability to read anywhere: your car, bed, couch, floor, lounge chair, rocking chair, porch, et cetera. This quirky talent of being able to read anywhere at any time is bread out of necessity. I need to finish this chapter (who am I kidding, the whole book). I need to finish this reading because I have to study for math. I have to drive for eight hours to Florida with my extended family; therefore, I have to read.  Is there such a thing as the perfect place to read? Is all reading born out of necessity?       I am not positive about the first question, but the latter question I am certain the answer is NO! All reading is not born out of having to or necessity! Even as an intense bibliophile, some of my reading is a "have to".  As for the first question, I do not think there is a perfect place to read, but I do think there are steps to creating a "go...

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is an interesting and disturbing tale about mankind's dual identity and how it may be brought by science.  PLOT SUMMARY Soho, London. Victorian Era. Mr. Utterson is an upstanding lawyer who hangs out, drinks, eats, and smokes with his other upstanding lawyer and doctor friends, two being Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll.  One night, as the novel opens, Mr. Utterson walks along with his friend Mr. Enfield when they pass an old dilapidated building. The site of this erection sparks Enfield's memory, and he tells an eerie story. One night/early-morning, Enfield was out on a stroll through Soho on his way home when he sees a young girl gets knocked over and trampled on by a short, portly fellow. The man runs ahead, but Enfield and a couple others catch him by the collar and make him apologize to the girl's family and give reparations. After the encounter, the short man heads into the same dilapidated building Utters...