Weekly Wrap Up – October 1 – 7

If you live in Canada then HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! Today we are planning to have one of the biggest Thanksgiving dinners we’ve ever had. My family is merging with my husbands family (including my brother in law’s new girlfriend who we all LOVE!) – it’s going to be a BIG day!! The weather is supposed to be beautiful so I’m hoping we can spend the day outside by the fire, have some drinks, and eat great food. Looking forward to today!

On top of this amazing weekend, the last week has been SO GREAT for reading! I have a refreshed urgency to read everything! I’m reading faster than normal and retaining more. I also managed to finish 2 books again this week! Almost 3! What is this madness?! I’m thinking that if I do a reread of a graphic novel series, reaching 100 books for this year may be attainable!! I’m getting chills! But I’m trying not to get my hopes up. Reaching 100 books in a year is something I never thought I could ever do…… especially since my original goal for this year was only 50 books. If I could reach 100 by the end of this year I don’t even know what I would do!!

BOOKS I’VE FINISHED THIS WEEK:

ALLEGEDLY by Tiffany D Jackson <—– (full review) 4.25 stars
This was probably the biggest surprise of the year! I’ve kept this book on my radar for many months and finally decided to give it a go. So glad I did! This book was so fantastic!! So heartbreakingly emotional and so conflicting with the truths of what really happened to this poor baby girl.

MARINA by Carlos Ruiz Zafon <—–(full review) 4 stars
Marina is a really hard book to sum up. There isn’t much that I can tell you about it because it’s really a book that you need to experience for yourself. The atmosphere was wonderful and unravelling the story from start to finish was such a whirlwind. I had been wanting to read something from this author for the longest time and now I can’t wait to read more!

 

BOOKS I’M CURRENTLY READING:

Like I said above, I almost finished three books this week. I’m so close to finishing The Troop and hope that I will actually have it done tonight! It’s a horror set in Canada (OH a book set in my own country?!) and it’s totally gross and creepy. It started off with a bang but then the pace slowed quite a bit. The middle of the book has been a bit of a struggle. As soon as I finish this one I’ll be picking up Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes. Does it sounds strange to say that I’m excited to get back into the head of a stalker/serial killer??

I’m attempting to make it through It before Halloween. I sat down and even made a schedule of the amount of pages I had to get to every day (roughly 40 pages or so a day). I thought that I would have immediately fallen behind with this schedule but luckily I’ve been able to keep up!

OTHER BOOKISH NEWS:

TOP 5 TUESDAY

Oh my goodness! My heart has swelled to epic proportions! 17 fellow bloggers participated in T5T (most read authors) this week! 7 of those participants were new! That’s the best turn out for my little weekly feature yet 🙂 When I first started coming up with topics over on the Books Amino app over a year ago I never would have imagined that it would have turned into something other people would participate in. Thanks a million times over for your continued support 🙂 If you want to participate in T5T with me then next weeks topic is Top 5 Spooky reads for Halloween!

GUEST DISCUSSION POST!

On top of the excitement of finishing two books in a week again, I also had the privilege of working with another blogger for a GUEST POST! Joe from jwmartin.com brought up a great discussion post talking about what we as readers owe authors. So many great points and sprinkled with his usual humour. If you aren’t following Joe then you need to check him out!

INSTAGRAM

OK, so i’m “that” person who spends countless hours a week looking at Instagram pics, drooling, falling in love, exploding with jealousy, and then I try to make my pics look half as good as what I’ve been seeing…… and I never come close. Well…… I finally posted a pic that I’m proud of!!! I love it so very much and I’m hoping to give it another shot this week! Crossing my fingers (by the way, follow me on Instagram!) Here is the picture…..

#ILoveFall!

So after my daughter was born, my husband and I wanted to start our own family tradition. Something in the fall to look forward to and something that I can compare pictures over the years. That tradition? APPLE PICKING! We haven’t missed a single year and the kids have so much fun! This year was a spur of the moment decision to go on a Wednesday – because it was just SOO beautiful! We couldn’t waste the day! Here are a few pics from this year (BTW I’m the one in the middle. You can see how much taller my 12 year old daughter is!):

I hope you all had a fantastic week and, to my fellow Canadians, HAPPY THANKSGIVING WEEKEND!

Until next time, happy reading!