The Diviners - Libba Bray: Creepy, Haunting Crime Investigation

Title: The Diviners

Author: Libba Bray

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers 

Puhlication date: September 18th 2012

Series: The Diviners (#1)

Purchase: Kobo, Amazon

Rating: 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

                       

                    

Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened. 

Update on My Reading Goals

At the beginning of this year, I set myself some goals. Throughout the year I have been adding on to those. I love having a structure in my reading and I find it hard to pick books to read if I don't set a certain kind of challenge for myself. After I started doing this, I didn't want to do anything else anymore. It became a habit and now I do monthly and quarterly challenges. 

Goals video

On my booktube channel I did a goals video at the start of the year. I set myself some personal goals and some reading goals I want to stick to. These goals were to finish an entire author alphabet, read more books from my TBR jar, read 55 books, catch up on my review copies and last but not least, read more of what I enjoy. Let's get into those goals now.

1. Finish an entire author alphabet

I haven't finished the alphabet. I haven't read the letters I still had to fill conciously. I'm doing the alphabet based on last names and I did manage to fill the letter Q. That's one letter down, three more to go. The remaining letters are U, X and Y. Shouldn't be too hard. I feel like I can manage that in the upcoming six months.

2. Read more books from my TBR jar

I didn't do this one. I think I picked one or two back in January and February, then I stopped. Since I'm doing monthly reading challenges, all of my books are basically chosen for the month. Apart from that, I go to the library a lot and take random books with me. Not much room to get a challenge from my TBR jar. But I don't really mind. I'm still diversifying my reading through these other challenges.

3. Read 55 books

Definitely reached that and surpassed it. I have read 81 books at the moment I'm writing this. What's funny is that when I filmed my goals video at the end of December last year I had read 81 books in the entire year. It's June, we're halfway and that's the amount of books I've read now. I can cross this one off of my list.

4. Catch up on my review copies

I didn't have that many review copies in the first place. It was easy to do that and I can cross this one off as well. I do have new review copies, but only one or two. I'm not overwhelmed anymore and I'm caught up nicely.

5. Read more of what I enjoy

I have read a couple books I enjoyed these past six months. I defiantly do this one. The next book I pick is always one I expect to enjoy. This goal doesn't have a certain point where I can say: I DID THIS, except for the end of the year. Up until now, I managed to do this one and I'm proud of it.

Other goals

Next to all of these goals, I came up with some other ones. I wanted to buddyread a book for the first time, I wanted to do a big team challenge on Goodreads and I wanted to participate in a readathon.

1. Buddyreading a book

I can officially say I have buddyread a book with a fellow booktuber. The book we read together was The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. It wasn't a huge success. Buddyreading went great. We also didn't enjoy the book a lot. That doesn't matter, though, because I managed to do it. I asked a booktuber I really like to read Amy & Roger's Epic Detour with me and she said she would. So I'm making an effort.

2. Participate in a big team challenge

Haven't done this one yet, but I am! I have joined a big team challenge and it's going to start on the 17th of June. I'm beyond excited. It's a huge challenge that's going on for 18 weeks in total. I'm on team Polar Bear.

3. Participate in a readathon

This one is still waiting to happen. There have been a lot of readathons this year, but I haven't tried to participate yet. I have a readathon I'm wanting to participate in, though. It's the Booktubeathon which I participated in last year when I wasn't busy with my own channel yet. This year I want to do it again, but join in on the video challenge fun.

I think we can conclude I'm doing really good on these challenges. I haven't been thinking about them an awful lot, but unconsciously I'm throwing myself into things I have never done before and I couldn't be more excited.

Have you set any challenges for yourself? How are you doing on those? 

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.

TBR Jar: Pick of the Week

This is a new weekly feature on Charlie Book Fanatic. Every week I will randomly grab a challenge from my TBR jar and based on that, the book I want to read. The week after, I will post a (mini)review, or if I have more to say; a whole review in a separate post, of the book I read in the TBR Jar: Pick of the Week from that week. 

Funnily enough, I got the best challenge ever this week because I bought some books last week that fit this one perfectly. So, this week's challenge is:

Read a classic romance.

I am soooo stoked about this. The two books I wanted to choose from:

Title: Emma
Author: Jane Austen
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Penguin Threads
First Publication: 1815
Genre: Classical romance
Synopsis: Emma Woodhouse is content with her being single. Interfering in the romantic lives of others is her number one delight. But when she attempts to arrange a suitable match for protegee Harriet Smith, everything unravels and her plans have consequences that she never saw coming.
Goodreads | Amazon

Title: Romeo and Juliet
Author: William Shakespeare
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Dover Publications
First Publication: 1597
Genre: Classical romance
Synopsis: Romeo and Juliet tells the story of two star-crossed lovers and the unhappy fate that befell them as a result of a long and bitter feud between their families.
Goodreads | Amazon


For this first week of TBR jarring (it is a word now), I decided to go with the shortest and easiest option. Thus, the book (play) I am going to read, is Romeo and Juliet. 

Honestly, I cannot wait to get started in this one. I already know the complete plotline of this play, but I never actually read it. Exciting!

Do you like classic romances? If so, do you have any favourites? 

Reading More Diversely #1: Indie Authors

Reading More Diversely is an original monthly feature on Charlie Book Fanatic. (That's me!) 

This feature is supposed to be a monthly reading challenge for myself. In this series of posts I will list 5 books/authors that have to do with diversity relating to the subject I chose for that month. In the month following the post I will try to read all of these books/authors. In the next post I will do some mini reviews of the books I read.

The ultimate goal is to look back at the end of the year and to see I have read more diversely. The definition of diversity is different for everyone. For me it is all kinds of things: Books with characters that have mental health issues, that are LGBTQ, that are of colour, switching it up with male/female perspective. The same goes for the authors. 

I do realise lots of people have already touched on this subject, but I never took it seriously. Now, I do and I want to actively expand my horizons and meanwhile maybe motivate other people to do the same with me. 

To go back to the subject of this month; Indie authors. Another term people fill in differently. What I mean by indie authors, are authors who publish their books outside of 'mainstream' publishing. To specify: Outside of the Big Five and other major publishing houses. 

This month I decided to pick 5 books that look interesting to me. So let us dive straight in.