Hello!

When I was a kid, I was always that one that had a book in their hand and their mind in a book – I have vivid memories of sneaking out of bed after my mum had switched the lights out to get a book and read when I should have been trying to sleep.

My bad sleeping habits started young!

As I got older, it was never that reading wasn’t ‘cool’, it was that I wasn’t given the time to read at my own pace. I’ve always read slowly – when I was young it was slowly but consistently but as I had library lessons in secondary school and they expected me to finish a book every two weeks, I became less interested. I didn’t like being rushed or told what to read – I fell out of love with reading and I miss that.

However, when I go into a book shop I still feel that same excitement and I always manage to pick up loads. I have a proper library at home with over 600 books and I’m horrified to admit I’ve probably read less than half of them.

So I went into Waterstones in Southampton and picked up a few books, photographed in the header (photos I took myself – sticking to that resolution!) and I have a bunch of other books that I got for Christmas or brought with me to uni with intent to pick up reading again so I thought perhaps blogging about them would inspire me to read them!

Maybe I could review every book I finish – blogging as an incentive to read, that sounds so painfully ‘me’!

We All Looked Up // Tommy Wallach
I love a good post-apocalyptic/dystopian/end of the world novel and when the blurb suggests humanity breaking through stereotypes with ‘two months to really live’ it makes me wonder which stereotypes the characters fit into and what they’ll become.

I like a book that I can empathise with and as I’m deciding to say ‘yes’ more this year, this kind of spontaneous, live while you can live attitude is so compelling to me. Well, I imagine that’s what’s in this book – I’ll feedback when I’ve read it!

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl // Jesse Andrews
I saw an advert for the film adaptation of this book and I really wanted to see it – I don’t know why but stories about kids with cancer living out their last days always tug at my heart strings and I like that (apparently?). I never did get round to seeing the film, but when I saw the book I thought actually I’d rather read that first! Often finishing a book makes me want to compare it to the film.

I think it’ll be another motivational kind of book. Also it’s about a bunch of kids that try to keep on the outskirts of their school peers and make films in their spare time – as someone who was invisible at school and made YouTube videos, I can empathise!

A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled // Ruby Wax
I don’t know what attracted me to this book – it was on a stand right by the door and I was drawn to it (so bonus points for the cover design being so appealing!). This is the first non-fiction book I’ve picked up in a long time and, to be perfectly honest, the reason I picked it up was because of one line on the back cover; ‘Five hundred years ago no one died of stress’.

I experience stress in a particularly severe way, particularly recently (as I’ve moaned about constantly!) and I picked up a couple of books about anxiety while I was home over Christmas but this one seems more me – it describes combining humour and science so I’m very looking forward to reading this one!

The Ultimate Guide To Blogging // Mike Fishbein
My mum bought me this for Christmas and whilst she may have given up all hopes of me getting a job (after my photography deadline mum, I swear!), a last resort is making money from doing something I love! I really have fallen in love with blogging having written 365 posts last year and this is another one I can’t wait to read.

Whenever I’ve googled ‘making money blogging’ it’s always been really rubbish advice about product placement and manipulating readers – I just want to have a little bit of income from writing, my true passion, so hopefully this will help!

Doctor Who: Time Lord Fairy Tales // Justin Richards
A beautiful, beautiful book that I received as a brilliant gift from my boyfriend for Christmas – not only is it a gorgeous hardback book with intricate drawings and gold, shiny Gallifreyan on the cover, but it’s going to explore the Doctor Who universe more thoroughly in the form of fairy tales.

I imagine it’s along similar lines to ‘Tales of Beedle the Bard’ in the Harry Potter universe and it’s another one I’m really excited to read!

Girl Online: On Tour // Zoe Sugg
On a very different note to Doctor Who – YouTube’s Zoella and the sequel to the controversial Girl Online. I’m not making comment on who wrote it, but I reviewed the original novel on my YouTube channel (if you’d like to watch it). As I said in the video – I had no intentions to read Girl Online, but it was on offer on Amazon so I gave it a go! I turned out liking it far more than I expected but I didn’t think a sequel would really happen – the book ended very well.

So I bought Girl Online: On Tour because I was intrigued – having talked to a friend who loves Zoella as much as I do, she was disappointed by it and this is the only book on the list that I have tried to read already and it didn’t grab me. But the book is essentially about music and going on tour with a band so it should be right up my street, so I’m determined to persist and finish it!

Also, hardback books are my weakness.

Love, Rosie // Cecelia Ahern
Another book I was interested in because of the film – when I saw the film advertised on TV, I knew I wanted to see it, so when I saw the book on offer in Sainsburys I picked it up. I’m still yet to read it, but watching someone watch this film on the plane back from Ecuador made me far more determined so I brought it to university with me.

This book looks very similar in style to ‘if I stay’ by Gayle Forman and I think that was the last book that I fell so in love with I finished it in three days (and with the pre-described slow reading issue, that’s quite an achievement for me!) so I’m very excited to allow myself to be submerged in probably very stereotypical chick-lit romance and absolutely adore it.

The Scorch Trials // James Dashner
I knew when I saw the trailer for The Maze Runner that it would be a series I like – it’s dystopian, it’s a ‘chosen one’; it’s action, fantasy (ish) and I knew I’d love it. Again, never got round to watching the films but I did finish ‘The Maze Runner’ when I got back from Ecuador/when I moved into uni. I’ve been meaning to read the sequel ever since because I did thoroughly enjoy the book.

Time is a thing that I keep telling myself I don’t have. Also I’m very behind on my YouTube watching so I think I’ll read more when I’m up to date on that. I’m giving excuses but I really do need to prioritise reading more this year! 2016; the year of the book.

where she went // Gayle Forman
Speaking of ‘if I stay’ – the sequel! I picked this up when it was on offer in W.H.Smith and I’ve failed to read it yet. I’m so ashamed – this blog post is really making me realise how much I love books and how I wish I had read this book already!

What did make me laugh is that when I bought ‘if I stay’, I saw the title of the sequel and I figured she must have stayed, because she ran off and went somewhere else! It’s not that funny, but that memory always makes me laugh.

One Day // David Nicholls
Apparently I have way more chick-lit to read than I thought! This book was so, so popular a few years ago and then the film came out and everyone fell in love again and I really like the concept of having a book set on one day for twenty years and revisiting the characters.

I normally don’t go for big, popular books because generally I don’t like them, but I’m intrigued by this one.

Billy and Me // Giovanna Fletcher
I’ll be the first to admit that I love Gi and the Fletcher family – I avidly follow Gi, Tom and Carrie’s YouTube channels and I love their family videos so, so much. But Gi is a writer – she’s living my dream life and I figured, I love the woman so much that I really should read one of her books! I was choosing between Billy and Me and You’re The One That I Want (because I only had enough money for one) and I will shamelessly admit that I picked Billy and Me because the focal character’s name is Sophie.

I am childish, yes, but also useless in that I haven’t read this book yet!

Now that’s a lot more books and a lot longer blog post than I was anticipating! I included links to all the books so you can read a summary if you wish, look at the pretty cover artwork or even to purchase them if you so desire! 

Another thing I’ve learnt in writing this post is that if I ever wonder round Waterstones, I should write down the name of books and by them on Amazon! They’re so much cheaper!

I thoroughly enjoyed this post, you’ll see how effective it is if I post any book reviews any time soon!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx




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