Tag: book discussions

My Moonlit Discussions: Unhauling Books – The Why and The How

Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

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Hi, readers and welcome to my first Moonlit Discussions. I really love other book blogger’s discussion posts and thought I should start my own series of discussion posts as well, especially since it’s a new year and everything (this is technically my first blog post of 2018 yay). There is so much to discuss in regards to books and the book community and I really want to share my opinion on these topics. Today I want to talk about unhauling books. I own a lot of books but I have recently realized that some of them I’ll probably never read and some I already have read but know I will never read again. That is why I wanted to get rid of them so that I’ll have more space for books I do want and actually will read. I have decided to split up my post into three parts: reasons to unhaul a book, what to do with the books you want to unhaul, and books I have or will unhaul.

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Reasons To Unhaul a Book

  1. The book is problematic in some way. Either you read the book and was hurt by it or you read online from other reviewers (after you bought it) that the book has been offensive or otherwise hurtful.
  2. Your taste in books has changed. E.g. when you bought the book you were totally into adult science fiction but now you’ve realized you don’t actually enjoy that genre anymore and don’t want to read the book.
  3. You’ve read the book and know you’ll never read it again. If you know it’s a book you don’t want to reread and it’s not a book you want to keep for aesthetic or sentimental reasons then sometimes the answer is to just unhaul it.
  4. The book is an odd one. This is similar to number three, meaning you’ve read the book (unless you’ve accidentally acquired a sequel to a book without reading the first book). If you only own one book in a series, especially a sequel of the end of a series, it might feel useless to keep the book if you don’t plan on buying the rest of the series.

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Books That Shouldn’t Have to Stand Alone

Olivia Chanel2 Comments

Standalone books are great for when you want to read something quickly and don’t want to commit to anything more than that. However, sometimes we stumble upon a book, a book we love, and it just happens to be a standalone book. You just happen to read a book so good that you just wish that there was more. You crave it like you crave water, but there is not a sequel out there. Nor will it probably ever be. That is often the case with contemporary YA books. The moment is sad, because you, you just feel that these characters and their lives, they deserve to be told in vigorous detail. You personally deserve to know more. I think we have all felt it, one time or the other.

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The first book Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel is probably one of my favorite books ever. I would love it if we got to know more of Leila and Lisa’s story perhaps from a sequel with Lisa’s POV. I would honestly love to get to know more about her, she’s one of my favorite characters ever, and I’m dying to know how Leila and Lisa deal with high school, college, and just life. We deserve to see more of our love nuggets.

The Host is a book I think most people know about it. It made me bawl several times, and I have a soft spot for Melanie, Jared, Wanda, and Ian. After that ending, damn that open ending, we deserve to know more about these characters and this world. I know Stephenie told the world she’s making this book into a series, but so far we have gotten nothing. Please, give us, give us more.

Another book I really would have loved to get a sequel to is Dreaming of Antigone. Andria uncovers so much about her dead twin sister, her family and what she thought she knew about her life. In this cocktail, there’s also Alex, who has dealt with his fair share of hurt as well. The ending to this one is great, but I would have loved to see the next step in their lives after everything that happens.

Dirty London is a short book about London Noble, about how tough high school and life can be. The amazing part about this book is that there is a strong sense of family and sisterhood, and the ship is just the best. The only thing I would change is that we get more. This book is only about 170 pages and ends on a very happy note but I would have loved to see more of the Noble family and the love story.

A fifth standalone book that I would have loved to get a sequel to is Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here. Scarlett is Jewish, a fanfiction writer and throughout the book, we get to know her and see her grow so much. Her personality is so lovely and amazing, and most of all unique, we deserve to see more of it. I want to see Scarlett fall in love, apply for college and I want to read more of her fanfiction.

Keeping Her Secret is another book I crave a sequel for. It’s about Riya and Courtney. This book takes place during a summer camp, and they meet again after several years. I love the ending, but as the greedy person I am, I want to know more about their lives after summer camp. I mean am I the only one who just wants more? Just give me endless books about my OTP and them doing day-to-day things.

What standalone books do you think deserve sequels or spinoffs? Have you read any of the ones I mentioned?

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Ten Things I Hate About You: Book Edition

Olivia Chanel1 Comment

“I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call. But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.”

Love and hate, both such strong emotions, so strongly intertwined. We love to love, we love to hate, hate to love and hate to hate. It goes for people, material things, and of course books. There are so many books we love, so many books we hate, but then there are those we love to hate and hate to love. They are complicated, messy and we are not sure if what we feel for them is just that, love or hate.

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Books have a way of making you go completely wild with emotions, they take over your mind, and as a result make you feel like you no idea how or what to feel. Do I love this? Or do I hate it? It’s probably a bit of both right? Sometimes this is exactly what I think while reading, it’s a mess. I have a few books that make me feel like this, or well ten to be exact. Here is a list of ten books I have a love/hate relationship with:

  1. Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout
  2. Friends vs. Family by C.L. Stone
  3. Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
  4. The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines
  5. Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi
  6. Coming in from the Cold by Sarina Bowen
  7. Heir of Fire by Sarah J Mass
  8. The Death Cure by James Dashner
  9. Delirium by Lauren Oliver
  10. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

These books are all different in how they make me feel. Some of these books are just books that just made me the dislike the series in general even though I really loved it before, whereas the others are books that just have a certain event that made me go “omg why did you do this, what is this, go back” but that I still love despite that. It’s all just a mess of strong and weird feelings that you make go bratwurst (what??).

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To end things I just want to say, we are all going to have different books that we love and that we hate. Certain books we love might still have aspects that we’re not able to stand. After all, we’re all different people with different taste.

This post is supposed to be a fun discussion post about the complexity of feelings we can have for books. However, if a book is problematic and hurtful then it’s our duty to say so and warn our peers. No one should ever have to read a book with bad representation.

Other than that, I do think love/hate relationships with books are good. They fuel discussion and make us have to think a bit more about our emotions. Also hating something in a book doesn’t mean you actually hate the book itself, which is something we should all remember.

Do you have a love/hate relationship with a book? If yes, which one?

Lusting For Cover

Olivia Chanel3 Comments

I don’t know about you guys, but I have a serious case of cover lust. I go weak at the knees when I see a beautiful book cover and am guilty of buying a book solely because of its book cover. Sometimes it pays off, other times it really doesn’t. Have you guys ever bought a book just because of book cover lust? Which book was it?

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A book cover often give me the first impression of a book, so be it good or bad. I know they say don’t judge a book by its cover, which is true, but the cover undoubtedly does give you a first vibe of the whole book. If a book cover is poorly made the book usually needs to have a convincing synopsis and/or a good price in order to convince me to get it. The truth is that cover lust also applies for me when I’m only buying an ebook, the prettier a book is, the more likely I am to want to buy it. Is that sometimes bad? Yes it is. I might miss amazing books because of this mindset, but the one thing I have going for me is that I’m aware of the fact that I do it. Even though the book cover is a big part of my first impression of a book, it does take a seat in the back later on.

Way back I only went on book cover and synopsis when I was about to buy a new book but these days I tend to often go on friends and other amazing blogger’s advice. Especially when I buy a physical copy of a book. I want to know that my money goes to books that are worth it and that I know I’ll like. That doesn’t mean I don’t love it when a book has the most beautiful cover I’ve ever seen.

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In the end having cover lust is not a bad thing, I think we all want pretty shiny things. However, what we need to remember is that a book is not its cover. A book is its synopsis and the story it’s trying to tell. If a book has a beautiful cover it’s only an added bonus. An author who has a book cover not as appealing as the next author shouldn’t be punished for that, because the truth is, most authors can’t choose their covers and/or doesn’t have a lot of options to go with. All authors, no matter their book cover, deserve all the love in the world if the story they have written is a good one.

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A beautiful book cover can both enhance the beauty of a story and make a story that’s otherwise pretty dull appear more enchanting to the naked eye. I think we like to believe that books with beautiful covers are good, but I think in our hearts we know the stories worth putting our time and energy on, no matter what they look like.

Have you ever bought a book because of cover lust? Did it pay off or was it a complete bust? Let me know in the comments below!