Obsessed With Covers #28: The Reader, Firstlife

Y'all know how much I love a pretty cover. I think about...40% of the books that end up on my shelves (be they physical or digital) do so because of the covers. Call me shallow but you have to admit that a pretty, shiny cover will catch your eye faster than a dull, boring one. Two, simple rules that I'll follow:

• 1, 2 or 3 (no more than 3, though) covers per week;
• books should be new-ish; no more than 2 years old.

Oh, before I share the covers that made me drool or want to stare at them for hours and hours, I have to say something. This is a semi-original idea. Why semi? Because almost every book blogger has something similar. The only thing I came up with was the title. If by any chance there's another blogger with a similar feature with the same title, I assure you I'm not stealing your idea. I'm just THAT bad with titles. Believe me, I'd love to be smarter and have a witty name for this feature, but I don't. So, no copyright infringement/theft/steal or anything of the sort was desired. All I can say is sorry :P

So, here are the prettiest covers I've seen this week.

I absolutely love this cover. I love the color palette used, first of all. Blues and greens are my favorite combination in the world. I also like that the pages of the book seem to envelop the girl and some pages even seem to float away from the book. And the designs in the pages, they look like waves for the blue pages and leaves for the green ones. I am very curious to see how this cover looks in real life. I also hope there's some embossed elements on the cover.








The Reader - Traci Chee

It's no secret that Gena Showalter has some of the most gorgeous covers out there. This is one of them. I love hourglasses, which is the first thing I noticed when I first saw this cover. But I love how the image of an hourglass is used in this cover to show what it looks like an imminent threat to the beautiful, "heavenly" city, how the chaos and evil from the city from above is slowly enveloping the second city. Reading the blurb makes the cover even more interesting, because now I'm wondering why exactly it's an hourglass. What does it mean?

Firstlife - Gena Showalter

What covers did you see recently that you liked?

My 2016 Blogging and Reading Resolutions

Hey guys! I hope you partied hard last night and that you had an amazing time. And I hope that 2016 will be fantastic for you!

I saw a bunch of bloggers that I follow make posts about their 2016 resolutions (*waves at everyone*), so I thought I'd join in on the fun. Here are my blogging and reading resolutions for this year:

• Make a dent in my TBR pile.

Now, I know what you're thinking. I say this all the time. But this time I'm serious. I've signed up for the Shelf Love Reading Challenge and I plan on finishing it. Last year I had my thesis to write, so my free time was dedicated to sleep. Now I have a bunch of time on my hands (when I'm not working, of course) that I want to dedicate to reading. Or a part of it, anyway.

• Post regularly

This is another thing I need to correct this year. I need to plan my posts ahead and I need to blog regularly. Which is what I'm going to do.

• Comment, comment, comment

Being an insecure introvert means that I rarely comment. Not because I have nothing to say, but because sometimes I fear my comment my be sorely misinterpreted. So I end up deleting a huge and thoughtful (in my opinion) response to a blog post because of that. I will change that this year and push that "Post" button more often. And if I offend anyone, it usually isn't my goal, so I'm sorry. (If it is my goal to offend, you'll know).

• Be more active on social media

This includes Twitter, Instagram, Facebook (maybe), Goodreads and all the other fun sites a book blogger usually uses. I'm one of those people with an irregular online activity, but I really want to change that. Which I'll do this year.

• Keep an open mind

Last year I discovered comic books. I am hooked on them, to be honest (which is probably why I managed to not only achieve my 2015 Goodreads goal, but to surpass it). So I'll keep an open mind to new genres, new authors, new everything. (That still doesn't mean I'll try audiobooks though, sorry!)

So this is it, folks. These are my 2016 resolutions for my book blogging self. What are yours?

Comic Book Tuesday #4: Secret Wars #1 by Jonathan Hickman

Author: Jonathan Hickman
Series: Secret Wars
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Release Date: January 1st 2015
My Rating: 3 cups
Blurb (from Goodreads):

The final incursion is happening! The Marvel Universe is colliding with the Ultimate Universe, and neither will survive!

I think I may have chosen the wrong order in which to read comic books. The (short) blurb should have clued me in on the fact that this issue is probably one in a long story line within the Marvel Universe, but for some reason I decided to ignore my instincts and go ahead and read it. I have to mention that this issue was part of the 12 Days of Comics on ComiXology this year, so that's how I found out about the book.

The art is fantastic. The colors are rich and beautiful, the drawings themselves are gorgeous. There are certain panels in which I felt like I wanted the characters to have a little bit more variation to their various facial expressions. but all in all the art is beautiful and I could watch it all day.

The plot is interesting. Two Earths, with their respective heroes, fighting each other. The problem was that it was too full of characters. Too crowded. Maybe it's because I'm still new to comic books, but I felt a bit overwhelmed by the number of characters in this issue. Also, it was kind of difficult keeping track on which character is on which side of the battle.

I did enjoy the idea of the two Earths fighting each other, which makes me wonder if there's a possibility to have two versions of each superhero in the final battle. I am curious to see who wins in the end, so I plan on reading the entire series.

Obsessed with Covers #27:The Crown's Game, The Cresswell Plot

Y'all know how much I love a pretty cover. I think about...40% of the books that end up on my shelves (be they physical or digital) do so because of the covers. Call me shallow but you have to admit that a pretty, shiny cover will catch your eye faster than a dull, boring one. Two, simple rules that I'll follow:

• 1, 2 or 3 (no more than 3, though) covers per week;
• books should be new-ish; no more than 2 years old.

Oh, before I share the covers that made me drool or want to stare at them for hours and hours, I have to say something. This is a semi-original idea. Why semi? Because almost every book blogger has something similar. The only thing I came up with was the title. If by any chance there's another blogger with a similar feature with the same title, I assure you I'm not stealing your idea. I'm just THAT bad with titles. Believe me, I'd love to be smarter and have a witty name for this feature, but I don't. So, no copyright infringement/theft/steal or anything of the sort was desired. All I can say is sorry :P

So, here are the prettiest covers I've seen this week.

I love this cover so much. First, that's a crown and who doesn't love a crown? Second, the crown is tricky, because the image in the front is also in the back, but it's made so that it looks like a shadow. At the same time, the reflection of the "shadow" or the back image is kind of stronger than the reflection of the original castle, so I'm wondering what the cover art is actually trying to show. I want to know how does the cover art relate to the story, so I will be adding this to my growing mountain of TBR.







The Crown's Game - Evelyn Skye

This is an extremely interesting cover. The doll's limbs are twisted in some really weird angles, each kind of pointing towards different directions. Also, they seem way smaller for how big her head is, which makes me wonder if that's not symbolic for that tagline too. I also love the white, pure dress of the doll. I'm all for symbols today, as you can see. I definitely will be checking this book out, because just the cover is making me highly curious about the story.

The Cresswell Plot - Eliza Wass

Did you see any cool covers this week?

2016 Shelf Love Reading Challenge

It's BAAAACK! We all know I did a horrible job this year for this challenge. I think I read only two books from my shelf and I bought a few books. To be fair, I didn't read all that much in general, what with my thesis and all. And ever since I graduated I've been in a reading funk. However I am very determined to make a good job in 2016. So I'm signing up again.

Shelf Love Challenge is hosted by the very awesome girls from Chapter Break, Second Run Reviews and Bookworm Brandee. The rules are simple:

• Read books that are in your personal library that were obtained before January 1, 2016.
• Responsibly obtain books for your personal library. You may wish to abstain from purchasing books or set a book budget for yourself. You decide the best way to get control of your TBR pile and read the books you already own.
• Library books (and textbooks) do not count for the challenge. You may use your library to obtain different formats of books you already own and count those towards your goal.

Like last year, I'll only count physical books into this challenge. I'm setting my goal to 21-30 books: give your shelves a warm friendly hug.

Unlike last year, however, I won't pick a list of books in advance. I'll use the tag selflove16 here on my blog for the books I've read for this challenge. And I'll also list them on Goodreads on this shelf. I think I have more than 30 books that I need to read, but I'll settle for that.

Anyway, I can't wait to get started once January gets here :)

Sunday Book Soundtrack #19: The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

Sunday Book Soundtrack is a weekly feature at Ruby's Books, where I share some of my bookish soundtracks. Since I discovered my passion for reading years ago, I've discovered that more and more of the songs I loved remind me of certain books. So I thought I'd share my playlists with you. If you want to listen to the songs, I'll post a link to a Youtube videos for each and every title. No copyright infringement intended! I'll try to find the official videos for each song. There's no set number for each playlist, sometimes I might have 10, sometimes 5, sometimes if I'm one of my moods I'll have 15. If you want to read more about this feature, click the "show more" button below. 

I read with music. If there's no music, I can't read. And not just read, but almost anything, like studying of cooking or doing chores around the house. The only time I don't have music is when I sleep. And during exams, but that's a different story.

Sometimes it happens that a certain song and a book or a scene from the book I'm reading sort of... click. It's like they were made for each other. At least for me. And so I will almost always think of that particular book when hearing that song. I thought I'd share my book soundtracks with you.

Keep in mind that I have a very... weird taste in music. You'll find mostly rock music, country or the 80s-early 90s music in these lists. I might use some "contemporary" songs from now and then, but don't bet on it being something other than those particular genres. Also, not always the songs will be in English. If I have a link to a translation for the lyrics, I'll post it. If you like a song I'm using, that's fine. If not, that's fine too, just don't say I didn't warn you.

The songs aren't always on a book's playlist for their lyrics. Sometimes they're there for an instrument or for a feeling I get when hearing them. Also, I won't always mention what scene I used them for. If it's not a spoiler, I'll share the scene, if it is a spoiler, I'll let you guess.

Anyway, I hope you like my playlists :)

This week's book soundtrack is for The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich. If you want, you can read my review here. The theme of the book is darker, so these songs

1. Of Verona - Dark In My Imagination
2. Metallica - Enter Sandman
3. Godsmack - Voodoo
4. Eminem ft. Rihanna - The Monster
5. 30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill