Sorry to have left you guys for so long, first I was sick, then I was sick on antibiotics. Then the opportunity to take bookish trip and go see a Broadway show came up. So good news is I came back with tons of great books and comics. I will try to get IG pictures of all of them. So my friend and I were in Greenville, which has a like 5 independent book stores and tons of comic book shops. To compare my town has no independent book stores and only a few comic shops.
I definitely loved all the bookstores and plan to write reviews about all of them but what stuck out was the staff of some of the book stores and comics shops. I plan to write up my own reviews on these standout people.
Here are some pictures from my trip.
And finally my lunch
I’d like to give particular shoutouts to Fiction Addiction, which had The Last Mapmaker, a book I’ve been looking for literally forever. Mr. K’s Used Books for their great selection of teen and middle grade books at a great price. I may be repeating myself but M. Judson was just the ultimate experience I will be coming back for sure to visit there next time I’m in Greenville. I also loved my experience at the comics shop Borderlands Comics and Games.
Also a shoutout to Cornerstone Minerals for my lovely new ring. The Trading Post at the Broadway Show for all my new jewelry and this blanket that I’m now a huge fan of and also my prop of Elsa’s coronation orb.
Overall what I’m trying to say is I had a fantastic time. Thank you everyone for hanging with the blog through my break, we will now be going back to posts every day. This trip and getting new books has really re-energized me about working on the blog.
So as many of you know I’ve got chronic illnesses. Mostly chronic migraine but breaking my leg at the beginning of the year didn’t help. Also vertigo is a pain. So I’ve spent most of the week just trying to rest, of course when my vertigo isn’t bad the upside of laying down all the time is it’s perfect for writing blog posts in advance and reading books.
So what am I reading? Quite a few things actually
1 The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy
Summary
If no one notices Marya Lupu, is likely because of her brother, Luka. And that’s because of what everyone knows: that Luka is destined to become a sorcerer.
The Lupus might be from a small village far from the capital city of Illyria, but that doesn’t matter. Every young boy born in in the kingdom holds the potential for the rare ability to wield magic, to protect the country from the terrifying force known only as the Dread.
For all the hopes the family has for Luka, no one has any for Marya, who can never seem to do anything right. But even so, no one is prepared for the day that the sorcerers finally arrive to test Luka for magical ability, and Marya makes a terrible mistake. Nor the day after, when the Lupus receive a letter from a place called Dragomir Academy—a mysterious school for wayward young girls. Girls like Marya.
Soon she is a hundred miles from home, in a strange and unfamiliar place, surrounded by girls she’s never met. Dragomir Academy promises Marya and her classmates a chance to make something of themselves in service to one of the country’s powerful sorcerers. But as they learn how to fit into a world with no place for them, they begin to discover things about the magic the men of their country wield, as well as the Dread itself—things that threaten the precarious balance upon which Illyria is built.
This a good book to read when when you rest lots of mystery, so you can get caught up in it. I’ve stayed up late with this book this week because it’s just interesting.
Artemisia is training to be a Gray Sister, a nun who cleanses the bodies of the deceased so that their souls can pass on; otherwise, they will rise as spirits with a ravenous hunger for the living. She would rather deal with the dead than the living, who trade whispers about her scarred hands and troubled past.
When her convent is attacked by possessed soldiers, Artemisia defends it by awakening an ancient spirit bound to a saint’s relic. It is a revenant, a malevolent being that threatens to possess her the moment she drops her guard. Wielding its extraordinary power almost consumes her—but death has come to Loraille, and only a vespertine, a priestess trained to wield a high relic, has any chance of stopping it. With all knowledge of vespertines lost to time, Artemisia turns to the last remaining expert for help: the revenant itself.
As she unravels a sinister mystery of saints, secrets, and dark magic, her bond with the revenant grows. And when a hidden evil begins to surface, she discovers that facing this enemy might require her to betray everything she has been taught to believe—if the revenant doesn’t betray her first.
This is great book for its humor as well as its high stakes quest. A great read read for when you need to rest up.
3) You’ve Reached Sam
Apparently this is super popular, I can see why, it’s good. But wowza the list of people waiting on the book.
Seventeen-year-old Julie has her future all planned out—move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city, spend a summer in Japan. But then Sam dies. And everything changes. Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s cellphone just to listen to his voicemail. And Sam picks up the phone.
What would you do if you had a second chance at goodbye?
Filled with a diverse cast of characters, the heartache of first love and loss, and the kind of friends that can get you through anything, plus a touch of magic, You’ve Reached Sam will make an instant connection with anyone looking for a big emotional romance of a read.
Those are my top three at the moment I’ve also been resting by playing Scarlet Nexus and blogging on here to keep busy while I’m not feeling well, I’m also getting ready for the holidays as I can and I hope to be able to bake some as I feel better. I’m also doing a Christmas Readathon you’ll hear more about next week.
So I know I’ve talked about my issues with getting disability on here. The journey has been long and annoying but I’m finally at the point where I’m going to be getting money next month. I so glad I finally got a some success. I may stay with my parents for awhile to raise money for my eventual new house, or I may move out sooner, we’re looking to see what’s best for everyone.
I’ve been getting a chance to read more I’m enjoying new releases like You’ve Reached Sam and Luminous among other as well as reading many graphic novels and plenty of books for IndigAThon. So I’ve glad I’ve had success in my readathons.
I’ve been able to add some books to the Pokemon A Thon, Desert a Thon Royal Readathon and Indig A Thon. I may not hit my goal of 100 books this year but I think I’ll beat what I read last year and considering I broke my foot and was out of reading and blogging for a few months I consider that a success.
Anyway expect to see reviews for the books I’m reading for these readathons.
When I’m not reading I’ve been playing Scarlet Nexus, a game for the PS5 I’m not sure if I told you guys but I had some success on my birthday and scored the PS5, I wanted to get one early even though there aren’t many games out now because I expect there to be a TON of games coming out in 2022. I know I’m going to get the new Horizon Zero Dawn game. And I know DragonAge 4 is coming out at some point. I also want to buy Maiden of the Black Water. This is not including all the Switch games I need like the new Pokemon game in the new year.
In review I’m having lots of success as we head into the holiday season and hope to continue at this pace till the end of the year.
I’m sorry I haven’t checked in regularly. I’ve been enjoying the cooler weather and trying to relax and enjoy fall. Because honestly my mind has been focused on the details of my disability claim. I found out I’m fully disabled in my state. Yay! Then have heard no details about what that means. Boo!
I know I’m getting some amount of money, maybe enough to buy a house which I’m really excited about. A place for my books and I can finally have my Instagram library. Hopefully the meeting I have this coming Monday will give me the details of the money I’m getting and let me know when I’m getting Medicaid, because my medical costs are a big issue for my family and if they were covered that would be a great burden off my parents.
Along with it getting cooler, I don’t think I really went in to detail of how my birthday went. I had a very good birthday on September 28th. I got the disability claim around then. A few of the things I got were a cape, for my D&D campaign which is going to start back up in November.
Several books, and most shockingly a PS5, I couldn’t believe it myself, but PlayStation kept sending me emails about purchasing one, and I had some money. So I manage to scrap through the line and get the digital addition. Right now I’ve got Scarlet Nexus, which I’m super bad at, so I’m going to have to look up tutorials to get through the tutorial, but it’s a cooler game than I was expecting and visually lovely because it’s a PS5 game. I also have Horizon Zero Dawn, which I’m playing in order to get ready for the sequel coming out in February. And DragonAge 3 because I love DragonAge.
I will say to check the PlayStation Store Tuesday or Wednesday around 5 if you’re looking to get one. That’s the only other time I seemed to have any luck.
I’ve found myself just reading more daily with my two readathons, I rolled, Humans, New and Cute for my Bookaplaton rolls so I’m read and am reading Ghost Girl, The Smashed Man of Dread End and Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating. For Magical Readathon I’m working on Fellowship of the Ring on the principle of getting the toughest book out of the way first, if other books come up the match my Bookaplaton prompts that are also on my Magical Readathon List I’m going to double up and try and maximize my reading as best I can.
What have I been doing when I haven’t been reading. I’ve been trying to post as you can see I’ve put up either reading or writing stuff every day. I’m also going to try and go back and do the reviews for the books I’ve been reading, for example all the stuff in August but that I’ve gotten behind on. I also plan to get back to posting new releases every Monday when there is enough content and all the other things I was doing for the blog before I kind of blinked out and took a bit of a hiatus due to my health.
I’m also using the blog as a bit of a distraction, I have a disability hearing on the 15th and that decides whether or not I’m considered disabled and can get the money to move out on my own, it’s causing me major stress so I’m just throwing myself into things I can control, like reading books. Or posting on the blog, maybe I’ll feel better after my hearing but they still have a month to tell me how I did so I think the blog might be a bit of a distraction for awhile.
I’m not sure I can focus due to stress levels but I also want to get back to writing, even if it’s just a little. I miss telling stories, and you only get better by telling the bad drafts first.
There is one good thing other good thing, it is starting to feel like fall here! One it took long enough, and two, that makes September the best month, and three that means it’s spoopy season! Lets be real though, it’s been spoopy season here since mid-July.
So I thought August wasn’t going to amount to much reading wise. Instead it became an extremely productive reading month I’ve had to date since I’ve started reading seriously. Now posting on the blog fell behind which I’m going to try to remedy next month. But I read A LOT. A few were picture books but most were novels, and I may be able to fit a few in more in before the end of the month.
It’s a good thing too since I’ve got two extremely major readathons coming coming up. They both require a lot of books and a lot of time spent. Those two readathons are BookoplAthon and Orillium, one is readathon inspired by Monopoly and the other is a journey to a magical school. So the books I’ve read this month were great training for the TON of reading I’m going to do next month.
Let’s talk about the books I’ve read this month shall we 13 in all. 13! For some of you who hit double digits often this may not sound like a lot but I’ve been having trouble getting out of the low single digits so it’s a big success for me, so I’m going to try for 15-20 next month.
Below are the books I’ve read this month.
So as we can see I have a lot of reviews to do, well as some reviews from the summer that I’ve missed. I’ll try to get to all that in September. But it’s nice to look at all the reading I’ve done in a visual form. Most of this reading was done for the two readathons I was taking part in this month, which were, The Royal Readathon, and the Trope-ical Readathon. I feel particularly accomplished this year because I hit most of the prompts on the Trope-ical Readathon.
So while my state hasn’t issued a stay at home order (because they are not making good choices) and we have one of the highest COVID rates in the US. My family is back to mostly quarantine again except for a few key task. We’re going to get the booster when it’s time and I got my flu shot but until then we are just being extra careful.
I also have my disability hearing in a few weeks which makes things kind of stressful, because it determines whether or not I get a lot of social services. Ones that would help me pay for my medication, find a place to live that not with my parents, and other important things.
Well with this new quarantine I’ve been trying to keep busy, I’ve got several new games including Paper Mario: The Origami King and Cris Tales. I’m also still diligently working on Horizon Zero Dawn.
One goal I didn’t have a problem meeting this month was my reading goal, thanks to my readathons I think I’m going to end up with 12 or 13 books for the month. My best month yet this year.
I’ve also got great new readathons including @MagicalReadthn that I’m taking part of in September which will surely keep me up on my reading goals.
Now I haven’t done as good a job posting reviews, I’m going to try to remedy that I’ve just been so caught up in reading I kind of let posting reviews fall behind.
I’m also taking part in a medical research study that starts tomorrow as a way to make money to help pay for my medicine until my other services hopefully kick in. I think I’ll bring my Switch tomorrow because it’s supposed to be an hour and a half session.
What is everyone reading? I’m currently working on The Forgotten Girl.
I spent the week reading again, I’m already up to seven books this month. I seem to be a doing a good job at continuing my pace, so expect more books and more reviews to be up soon.
I haven’t felt well this week, but I’m going to my doctor’s next week for my migraines so hopefully that should help overall. I’ve also had some help with my disability case so I’m working that, I’ll continue get help from the organization I’m working with and my lawyers till my hearing in September so wish me luck.
This week I finished What Stars Are Made of, which is a lovely book that talks about the important of women in STEM and features a protagonist with a disability. I look forward to reviewing this book, it also helped me meet one of my readathon challenges.
I also finished the first Revenge of Magic book, which I’m happy about because I’ve found a new series that I like something I haven’t found in awhile. I haven’t found a long series I liked since Keeper of the Lost Cities.
Finally I read Dark Waters the third book in the Small Spaces trilogy. I just finished it Thursday night and I’m still not over the ending. I kind of need the fourth book to magically appear in my hands. Katherine Arden why?
I also just got my flu shot so I’ll be spending the weekend at home enjoying the after effects. Which mostly means I’ll be here doing post in advance, or reading, or playing the new game I got Cris Tales. I also might be doing some reading sprints for my readathon if there are any going on this weekend.
Hope everyone’s weekend goes well. What are ya’ll reading?
Sorry the disappearance and lack of updates, I’ve had some emotional drama, which honestly made me realize I’m a little depressed. So I’m trying to get back on the boat and start posting normally again. I think it’s the fact that both of my regular friends are busy (one is in California, one is a new mother) that has me down. But I’m going to my favorite charity to help out a little next week. So that should cheer me up I never leave Girls Rock on a down note so I think that will be enough to push me through the last of my least favorite months, July and August.
I just hate summer my track record with things happening in the summer is all bad, so bring on Fall and Winter, the best seasons there are.
I also missed my update this weekend. I haven’t been doing much, except for work leading up to camp (ie depression), but I have been playing Horizon Zero Dawn whenever I can. Seriously it’s my summer RPG like Dragon Age was last year. I’m not a very good shot though so I think I’m going to need to work on that some.
I’ve also been looking at Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin. Because seriously I need some cute Pokémon esque stuff in my life and I can’t wait till Pokemon Legends: Arceus comes out next year.
I did manage to get one book read despite my depressive fog, The Infinity Courts was AMAZING and I can’t wait to put out a review. I’m also going to get back to reading so hopefully I can fulfill one of my chosen picks for Path or Pantheon. Here is to a better time moving forward yay better future positive energy.
I’m done saying sorry for being myself. I willing to work on my own issues but I’m not going to dilute myself any longer.
So we finally caught Cinnamon behold the of tuna. She was gone for a night and we were worried about her, but she came home a different and happier cat, it’s like she’s 10 years younger and she was 2 years old to begin with now that she doesn’t have to worry about getting pregnant and I think she tell something is different. She had a litter when they took her in but it wasn’t viable. She’s just a happier cat, now hopefully getting her in the house, but that, followers is a problem for another day. Right now we are just happy she’s happy and has a rabies shot and doesn’t have to worry about getting pregnant and has her ear tipped so everyone knows she’s fixed.
You also may have noticed my post falling off toward the end of the week, some of the was Cinnamon, but most of that is my nephew. I’m not sharing his name or picture here so we’ll call him W.
W and his mom were in a rough medical situation last year where we weren’t sure W would make it. Let just say the odds were severely against them. For more information on W’s condition check out the PPROM Foundation. This condition effects lots of pregnancies and isn’t widely researched basically it causes the placenta to rupture early in pregnancy often causing the loss of the baby or if not treated properly leading to sepsis leading to the death of the baby and mother both.
Anyway W’s mom somehow made it through, I’ll forever be thankful and the fact that W made it through too is a close to a miracle as I’m ever going to see, anyway, he’s getting close to 9 months now very cute and very distracting. So if I’m not posting I’m probably off chilling with this cutie and his parents. I just bought way too many clothes for him, and I already have plans for birthday, smash cake plus cake cake and Halloween. Yes, I’m that overbearing aunt. But I love him and his parents so much I just can’t help myself.
Anyway when I’m not being distracted by cats and babies, wait a second, black clothes tough exterior I though I was supposed to be scary. I think I though I was Disney Villain and am really a Disney Sidekick.
There are worse realization to come to in life, speaking of what else am I upto? I’ve gotten addicted to Horizon Zero Dawn, even though I’m not really playing the plot yet I’m just running around slashing machines with my spear.
I’m happy though, so if I’m not posting as much at the end of the week that’s why, I’ve got my cat, and my friends, my nephew and am still, so thankful that I didn’t lose them. I’m also processing some trauma dealing with the fact that I nearly did.
![The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by [Anne Ursu]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51yaQUQW0HS.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![Vespertine by [Margaret Rogerson]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41jan1VC5bL.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![You've Reached Sam: A Novel by [Dustin Thao]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51-SpkKzqoL.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![The Dragon Egg Princess by [Ellen Oh]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41NBK6YltoL._SY346_.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![The Revenge of Magic by [James Riley]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51cB2TjfVqL.jpg?resize=235%2C355&ssl=1)
![Dark Waters by [Katherine Arden]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51KeOML3ZFS._SY346_.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![Hide and Don't Seek: And Other Very Scary Stories by [Anica Mrose Rissi]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41imKGI0S4L._SY346_.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![The Last Dragon (The Revenge of Magic Book 2) by [James Riley]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51QWbMviGeL.jpg?resize=232%2C351&ssl=1)
![Bridge of Souls (City of Ghosts #3) by [Victoria Schwab]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41b4UfIDCeL.jpg?resize=236%2C354&ssl=1)
![The Forgotten Girl by [India Hill Brown]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51RqESo5DBL.jpg?resize=237%2C356&ssl=1)
![In My Mosque by [M. O. Yuksel, Hatem Aly]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61oPjqF0J9L._SX260_.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![Say It Out Loud by [Allison Varnes]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51K1p4K7oPL.jpg?resize=231%2C349&ssl=1)
![What Stars Are Made Of by [Sarah Allen]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51OFuhXLykL._SY346_.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
![The Revenge of Magic by [James Riley]](https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51cB2TjfVqL._SY346_.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
