Songs To Make You Stay by Jay E. Tria / A Book Playlist

August 6, 2018September 26, 2020 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

Hi, people out there in my book galaxy! How are you doing? I’m here with a new blog post for you all and it’s another Galactic Book Playlist. Fun, am I right? I’ve honestly made more playlists this summer than I ever have before and it’s just the most exciting and fun experience; creating these playlists is almost like reading these books again. These playlists give me a chance to both find new music and relive the feelings I had when I first read the books. It’s the best combination. Expect a lot more of these playlists to come in the future.

This playlist is for the book Songs To Make You Stay by Jay E. Tria. It’s the last book in the Playlist series and it’s the novel that finishes the story of Shinta and Jill. I have also made a book playlist for the second book in the series, Songs To Get Over You, and you should definitely check that one out as well, which you can do here.

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

February 27, 2018May 25, 2018 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

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

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.
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.
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.
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.

Six Bookish Confessions

September 1, 2016March 15, 2017 Olivia ChanelLeave a comment

Every reader and book collector is different, just as we are all different people. However, communities tend to be united in their ways or at least have a certain pattern to things. A lot of the stuff we do, we do without giving it a second thought, but sometimes if you really think about it, you realize you do certain things differently from the majority. Or so you think. That’s why I thought I’d confess to a few bookish things I do that I don’t think the majority of the book community does. But maybe I’m wrong, if I am, I’d love to hear it!

I hereby confess to the fact that…

I buy books with my eyes on the price, everything else is secondary. When buying books I’m all about the cash and that’s just the way it is. I’m a student, I live at home and I can’t buy all the new hardcover books every month. So my tactic is to buy books during sales (Amazon kindle deals please and thank you) and to mostly buy paperback books, which I actually prefer. For international readers, such as myself, I have come to realize that when buying a physical book there are few stores with as good prices as The Book Depository. You looking for a book? That’s where you should go first. The way I usually go about buying books is that I look up the books I’m dying to read and those with reasonable prices (reasonable is different from person to person) I buy.
I really like paperbacks better than hardbacks. This is partly because of price, which has been discussed above, but it’s also because I just prefer that format. I hate that with hardback books the cover isn’t attached to the book. It makes the book harder to read (do I take the dust jacket off or do I leave it on seriously) and I think it’s easier to accidentally hurt a dust jacket than it is to hurt a paperback.
When reading I often prioritize shorter books over longer ones. This confession I’m almost ashamed of but I honestly don’t know how not to do it. I think it has something to do with me being stressed a lot but finishing a book during a short period of time just feels better which is why I tend to lean towards picking shorter books. Do I never read long books then? Of course, I do, I read after what the story is about but I love short books. Maybe it’s a bit weird, but that’s just how I am.
The act of rating books is one I have not yet mastered. Rating books? How do you even do that? For the majority of my life I have rated almost all books five stars because if they made me fangirl a bit I loved them, and if I loved them they were getting five stars. I have evolved a bit from that, but I do think that rating a book is the hardest thing ever. Four stars (cake slices in my case) doesn’t necessarily mean the same for one book as it does for the other. However, I like to rate books, it gives me direction but in the end, my thoughts will tell you what you need to know about what I thought about a book.
I act all cool around authors on social media but in reality, I’m fangirling. Why you may ask? Well because their beautiful and magical words have touched my heart and soul, and now they’re talking to me. I know they’re just human, and I’d never think or treat them as anything else but we all have people we look up to and admire. My favorite authors are just that, people who inspire me. So yes, I act cool but honestly, I’m probably smiling like a big goof behind my screen. Also, among my friends, I am known to just get very excited by things, and my favorite authors talking to me is a fabulous thing.
I buy books secondhand. I know some people buy secondhand and others don’t but honestly, I love it. Unfortunately, I live in Sweden which means that people don’t read that many young adult (and new adult) books in English and even less actually end up in secondhand shops. However, that won’t stop me from searching. A book that has a little history outside of the story itself is pretty cool, at least in my opinion.

That was all of my six book related confessions, I bet a few of these are pretty common even if people don’t talk about them much, or am I wrong? I’d love to know what you guys think about my confessions.

**What bookish things do you do that you’re unsure about whether others do as well? Do you have anything to confess?**

What is the “Writing Cave”?

August 10, 2016October 19, 2016 Olivia Chanel3 Comments

I bet some of you are wondering, what is the Writing Cave part of my blog? I thought I’d tell you guys and thereby introduce that part of my blog to you. For those of you who don’t know, I write. I have been writing for a while now, around 4 years and I’m currently working on two stories I love a lot. However, due to school and other circumstance I just don’t write as much as I would like to. Not nearly enough honestly, but I thought that by having this part of my blog I can write about my struggles, all of the ups and downs of my writing experience. I’ll update about my process, how I build characters and worlds. What works for me in terms of plotting etc. I probably won’t update often but I believe that it might motivate me to actually sit down and spend more time with these stories that I love with all of my heart.

Another exciting part, that is more on a personal note, is that this fall I’m starting a creative writing course at my local university. This is something I have wanted to do for such a long time but when I ended high school I went with on another path and started studying business administration instead. After having done that for two years, and the second year not going as I wanted, I realized that it was time for me to stop doing what I can’t stand and start doing something I love and have loved for such a long time.

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Writing is my dream, my passion, and it’s something I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to read books, I want to write them and I want to always and forever enjoy the magical stories that come my way. Words are magical, you can read and you can write them. I’ll be doing both in my little writing cave.