Fabulous Beach Reads: It's Getting Warmer!

It's been getting hotter in The Netherlands lately which means loads of people are packing up and traveling to the beach. I don't live close to the beach and I don't see myself going to the beach, but these books could be read in the backyard as well. It's just a summer thing. Let's recommend some books to read while it's hot outside. 

Summer TBR

It's that time of the year again. People are posting their lists of books they want to read this summer. I felt like this was the perfect post for my blog, because I have a lot of books I want to get to in July and August. These are books I've been wanting to get to for ages or books I'm just really excited about. Let's dive straight in!

How To Get Back Into Blogging After Taking a Break

It's very hard to get back into blogging after being gone for a while. I've been thinking on what to post and how to make my comeback to this blog. I could hardly pretend I hadn't been gone at all, so that's not what I'm going to do. Here I am and this is what I've been up to. 

Quitting blogging

The real question is: Why did I quit blogging? The simple reason is that I didn't feel like doing it anymore. I thought it was too much work while being in my senior year of high school. Then my freshman year of college came around and I never got back into it. I have no good excuse and I don't need to have one. I was busy. This doesn't mean I haven't been reading. Since 2016 started, I have been reading more than ever. My reading average is 15 books a month. This is crazy for me. My total reading amount comes down to 80 books and we're only halfway through the year.

What have I been up to?

I have been doing something else book-related since last October. I created my own booktube channel. I have uploaded more than 100 videos on my channel. That comes down to uploading 3 to 4 videos a week. I have been using the same name as the name of this blog, since I wasn't sure if I'd ever come back to blogging. Making bookish videos had been my pride and joy for the last 9 months. My motivation has been through the roof and I've been very good at creating an uploading schedule. This gets me to believe I must be just as good at keeping a blog going.

What is in the future for Charlie Book Fanatic?

The booktube channel is definitely continuing on, because I absolutely love creating videos and sharing my love of books with fellow booktubers and readers. My plan is to expand my platform onto this blog and keep a separate blog going next to my booktube channel. I don't have any ideas for posts yet, but I do have a list of video ideas which I might transform into blog posts. I can also insert my videos and make a blog post around it, but I'm not the biggest fan of this idea. What I don't want, is to push people into watching my videos. I've been an avid reader of blog posts and I loved writing my own ones for the short amount of time I did it last year. The difference between my booktube channel and this blog is going to be that my blog will be fully book-related. On my channel I upload mostly bookish videos, but I also upload story times.

Where do we go from here?

I will choose some ideas and type those up. I don't have an upload schedule or any real ideas yet, but it will happen. I promise you that. I might make posts I don't have any videos of. Examples are discussion posts and challenge updates. I don't do those often enough on my channel, but I did do one recently on New Adult books and why I like them. I think I can create something great with this blog and I hope you'll be here, along for the ride. It's going to be a crazy one.

Tips

I can't leave you hanging without giving you some tips if you're wanting to get back into blogging after a long time. That's what the whole title is about and what I've been asking myself, after all.

1. Think long and hard about the content you want to create. Do you want to go on with what you did before you quit or took a break? Or do you want to do something completely different?

2. Talk to your readers! If you don't know what to do, do what I'm doing right now. I'm talking to the people who read or want to read my blog. They'll understand and maybe even help you out a fair bit.

3. Create an upload schedule and stick to it. I know how hard this is. I started blogging once and quit. I started booktubing once and quit. I picked both up again. Having an upload schedule helped me so much. I was determined to stick to it and it worked. 

4. Brainstorm. It's so important to have actual ideas for the content you want to create. I know I'm being contradictory here. I have no clue about what I want to upload here, but I do have ideas. I can pick whichever idea I want to work on anytime I want. For my booktube channel, I have the whole year planned out already. I'm never stressed out.

5. Don't push yourself. Don't create an insane upload schedule you can't stick to. Only do what you can do. If you know you're busy, don't go and upload six to seven times a week. You can do whatever you want, but I feel like quality is more important than quantity anyway. Spend more time on one post you can be proud of and you will feel way better. 

If you do want to check out my booktube channel, you can find it here: www.youtube.com/charliebookfanatic

Do you have any more tips to get back into blogging? Leave them down below! I'd love to hear from you.

Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2015

This is a year-long reading challenge hosted over at My Reader's Block. The purpose of this challenge is to choose a level and read the chosen number of books from your TBR that were on there prior to January 1st 2015. 

You can say I am quite late to the party. I join in when this post goes online. This means that I will not count the books I read from my TBR the first few months of 2015. I will start counting when this post is actually on my blog. 

To start it off, I chose the lowest level possible because I can still upgrade my level. But from the moment I upgrade, I cannot go down anymore. The level I chose, is:

Pike's Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile.

I did not choose my books beforehand, because I feel like I am obligated to read them and I want to read what I am in the mood for. At the moment, I am reading:

Title: The Secret History
Author: Donna Tartt
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Penguin Books
First Publication: 1992
Genre: Contemporary thriller
Synopsis: A group of eccentric misfits at an elite New England college go beyond the boundary of normal morality and at last slip - inexorably - into evil.
Goodreads | Amazon 



This book has been on my TBR since September 13th 2014, since I was currently reading it prior to this post I will count it towards my goal. If there are any new additions to my reading challenge, I will make a new post with the update next month. 

Are you doing any challenges? Which ones?

Stacking the Shelves #2

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted over at Tynga's Reviews. This meme is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in a physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks.

Stacking the Shelves #1

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted over at Tynga's Reviews. This meme is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in a physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks.

Review: Hooked - Allen Wolf

I received a free copy of Hooked by Allen Wolf from by Independent Book Publisher Association (IBPA) in exchange for an honest review.  

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Wow. This book turned out to be something completely different than I expected it to be. It mostly appealed to me because of the cover, but I do not regret reading this book. At all. It was heartfelt, honest and real. I maybe even shed a tear. Or two.

Shawn and his brother Collin have been raised by their grandparents because their actual parents couldn’t deal with Shawn’s autism. Now, Shawn is looking for the love of his life who can take care of him when his grandmother dies. This proves to be quite hard, until he meets the dazzling Violet. Shawn thinks he’s found a potential wife, but Violet turns out to be a prostitute. Because of Shawn’s autism, he doesn’t see that lovely Violet’s auditions actually are hook-ups with clients. And she sure as hell isn’t the one to tell him.

Review: Those Girls - Lauren Saft

Those Girls by Lauren Saft will be out in your local bookstore on June 9th 2015. I received this book as an eArc from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in exchange for an honest review.

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This book got me. Right in the feels. Perfectly relatable as a teenager. I couldn’t put this book down and stayed up until three AM to finish it.

Veronica, Alex and Mollie are best friends and have been since a very long time. Alex is in love with her best friend Drew, but he doesn’t know about it and now she joined a band - without telling anyone. Mollie struggles to keep her estranged boyfriend with her, while she’s getting meaner. And Veronica longs for love, in all senses. This book is about their junior year.