Bloggin 'Bout Books Blog

Hello Lovelies!! Sorry I've been away. I thought I was gonna be better when my semester finished, but it turns out the condensed summer classes are even more intense than regular semester classes. So I've been prioritizing my education. Of course, now that I have two papers due this week, I have no interest whatsoever in working on them, so I thought I'd catch up on a few reviews. So in this particular post, I'm going to sum up my rereads of Harry Potter: Sorcerer's Stone, and Chamber of Secrets, and Goblet of Fire. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling Published: June 26, 1997 Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books Received: I own the whole set, but I borrowed this particular copy from the library Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone introduces readers to Harry Potter--a young orphan taken in by his aunt and uncle. The Dursleys are terrible people and Harry suffers under their upbringing until his 11th birthday, when he receiv...

Hello Lovelies! So this is another feature that I'm going to try to do this year. Women Crush Wednesday--52 fantastic female authors, one each Wednesday.  Some people might say, but so many of the authors in YA literature are women, what makes them so special? And to that I would say,  I disagree with the premise of your question. But also, major media prefers to focus on men, and will usually only write about women when their books become sensations (Stephanie Meyers, Veronica Roth, Suzanne Collins, etc.). I want to focus on all the female authors that I love. I know that there is no why I'll hit them all with a mere 52 weeks, so I'm hoping this is a feature I can continue until I get sick of blogging (I'm hoping that'll never happen). As my first TBT post was on Harry Potter, it seemed only suitable that my first WCW post be on J.K. Rowling.  For those few people who somehow don't know the backstory of the infamous J. K. Rowling, let ...

I wanted to love The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling , but mostly I just felt ambivalent (and a little angry). I'll be the first to admit that I read it because Rowling wrote it. In fact, the reason it took me so long to read is because I didn't think the story itself sounded that enthralling, but come on, she created Harry Potter!! Of course, I'll love something she writes. Ehhh, maybe not. First of all, The Casual Vacancy starts really slow. Like glacial speed. Even 150 pages in, I was hoping it would pick up. Then there are the characters. If I was going to make any allusions to Harry Potter in the review of the book, it'd be this: The town of Pagford is full of Vernon Dursleys. It's like the worst place on earth.  I hope there isn't actually a Pagford (it's okay, I just checked and there isn't. Bless Google) because if there was no one would be able to live there. Frankly, part of the reason I kept reading was because I wanted these characters ...