March Wrap-Up

So, here are the books I read in March:

1. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. The first book in the Inkworld Trilogy. I allready read this book a few years ago and just wanted to re-read it as I found it on my shelf shortly after returning to my parents home. I have the German Hardcover Edition.

2. City if Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare. This is the sixth and final book in The Mortal Instruments Series. When I was in London in Feburary I bought this book because I just did not want to wait any longer until it would come out in Germany. As I do have the other books (exept for the fourth one) as the German Paperback Edition I would have probably to wait way longer to get my hands on it, just because I do not want to buy a Hardcover Edition if I have all the other ones in Paperback. I will do an Review of the whole Mortal Instruments Series soon.

3. Life as I know it by Melanie Rose. I found thos book on my mother's bookshelf and I was so tempted to read it, that I left all of my other books on my "Currently Reading Shelf" out and just started this one. It actually just took me two days to finsih it and I really enjoy it.

4. The Selction by Kiera Cass. Yes, I re-read it just a month after I first read it. I love this book so much and while writing my review on it and just couldn't help but reading it again. It is defently not only one of my favourite books of this year, but one of my all time favourites.

I wished I had read more, but I had quite a lot to do with Spring Cleaning and getting prepared to go back to University in April.

Have a beautiful and good new reading month in April. :)
Lots of Love,
Maddie

Review: The Selection

Titel: The Selection

Author: Kiera Cass

Genre:  YA, Dystopian

Original Language: English

First Published: April 24, 2012

Pages: 336

Series: Selection

 Other Books in the Series: The Elite, The One, The Heir as well as the novellas The Prince, The Guard, The Queen and The Favourite



What the book is about:
For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The Selection means one thing: Having the opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since their birth and be choosen by the Prince to become his wife and therfor the future Queen of Illeá. The girls get swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. They live in the palace toghter witch the Royal Family and compete for the heart of    Prince Maxon, the heir to the Throne of Illeá.
America Singer is maybe the only girl in the whole kingdom who is not intrested at all to sign up for the competition. Even her Mother and her little sister May begging her to sign up do not change her opinion. Only Aspen, her secret boyfriend, changes her mind. He is begging her to not let the opportunity of her life pass by because of him. So America agrees to sign up, being sure that she wont be selected at all.
But then America is being Selected. Despite her unwillingness to be part of the competition she leaves her family, Aspen and her old life behind and travels to the palace where she competes for the hand of Prince Maxon, alongside 34 other girls. 
Then America meets Prince Maxon. And for the first time in her life she starts to question the plans she made for herself and starts thinking about a future she never imagined and never wanted before.  


What I think about....

.... the Story and World:
I really liked the world Kiera Cass builded. It's still partly a world we can relate to, as Illeá is the "old" United States, but also a new one with the diffrent castes and the life the people life within these castes.
The idea of an event like the Selection is totally new to me and I really enjoyed how it is made up and described. You can dive in from the very first page and nothing seems unlogical at all.

... the Characters:
I really like America. I do have issues with female characters in distopyan books from time to time but I really liked America from the very start. She is a strong, independant character who is willing to take risks but also would do mostly anything the help the ones she loves. And even when she is thrown in a situtaion she never wanted to be in, she first thinks of her family instead of what she really wants.
I'm not quite sure wheater to like or hate Aspen. One the one hand he loves America with all of his heart and only want the best for her but on the other hand he also can't really let her go the way she wants to go and hurts her over and over again.
Maxon is maybe one of my all-time favourite male character. He is shy and inexprienced at first but grows with all the problems he has to face. He is also willing to take place in the politics of the land he will someday rule as the king and tries to help the people in need.

What I liked the most:
It is hard to tell what I liked the most. I really liked the characters and I enjoyed the story as well.

What I did not like:
About the book? Nothing! The only thing I do not like is that I have to wait until July for the German paperback edition of "The Elite" to come out.

Overall result:

I defently would recommend this book. The story is well written and really interesting. The characters are easy to relate to.
You can easyly dive into the story and it won't let you go. I read the whole book in 4 hours because I just couldn't stop reading.

Book Unhaul

In October 2014 I moved away into a dorm room. I couldn't take many books with me so there most of my books are still at my parents home. As I am currently staying at my parents home I decided it would be time to look through my books and unhaul some of them as well as deciding which books I would like to take with me when I'm going back in April.

So, this was the pile of books I took off of my shelf:
(I'm sorry, but somehow the picture got quite blurry...)

And that's how my shelf looked empty:

I do have more places where I put my books than this shelf, but most of them are on this shelf.


It took me quite a while to decide which books I would keep and which ones I would unhaul.

So here is the result:

These are the books I will keep:

And these are the books I will unhaul:

And there are some books I am not quite sure, wheater I want to keep them or unhaul them, so for now they will stay on my bookshelf but I will surely think about maybe letting them go.

Yep, these are my twilight books.



After some more time I had seperated the books I wanted to take with me from the books I would for noe leave at my parents house and put those who would stay at my parents home back into the shelf.
Here is the final result:

I'm not quite sure what to do with the books I unhauled. They are mostly not damaged, but they are quite old so selling would bring close to nothing. I think I will donate them but I still have to figure out where I can donate them.

I think that unahuling is a great way to recall which books you own, which you want to keep and which are not interessting for you anymore.


So, maybe have a little unhaul to start of your spring cleaning :)
Lots of Love
Maddie

Feburary Wrap-Up

So, here are the books I read in Feburary.

1. Kerstin Gier - Emerald Green. I read the German Edition, as it is a original German book and I am German, too. This was a re-read.

2. Joanne K. Rowling - The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I read this one as a quick read after I finished the Ruby Red Trilogy.

3. Debora Geary - A modern Witch. I bought this book as a random pick when i was shopping with a friend and could not let it be in my shelf unread.

4. Michelle Zink - The Prophecy of the Sisters.The first book in the trology. It was actually a re-read for me, as I read this book a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

5. Veronica Roth - Allicant. The third and final book in the divergent series. It just recently came out as the german paperback edition and as soon as possible I picked it up.

6. Kiera Cass - Selection. The first book in the Selection Series. I heard a lot of good things about the series but never picked it up. When I saw this on in the bookstore for not that expensive I thought I could pick this series up and see wheater I liked it. I will post a review of this book soon. (Edit: It is now on this Blog)


So I read a total of six books in Feburary, which is just the half of the amount of books I read in Janurary.

I wish you all a beautiful reading month of March.
Los of love,
Maddie

My Reading and Writing Resolutions and Goals for 2015

I am not only a dedicated reader but I also love to write. Fanfictions, poems and above all: my own stories. I did really well concerning my fanfictions last year, but not so well with my own stories.
So I decided to do a list of goals and resolutions for this year.

Bookish Resolutions:

1. I want to read at least 50 books this year. The number may seem quite small, but I never counted the books I read in the last couple of years so I actually don't know, how much I am able to read in one year. The only thing I know is, that I read a lot. So I decided to keep the muber small so I will be able to reach my goal without any pressure to do so. I am quite sure that the number of books I want to read will rise next year, but for now, 50 will do.
If anyone is intrestet in seeing my progress on this, just go to my goodreads page, where I will keep everyone who is intrested updated on this goal.

2. Read 10 books from my TBR pile, well actually from my TBR piles. I willd o another post on my TBR piles as soon as possible. Where I will explain, why I have more than one TBR pile and why the number of books is only 10.

3. Finish at least 5 unfinished series. There will be another post for this one too, because I actually don't know, how much unfinished series I have. So maybe I have to lower the number, or catching up with a series will be counted too.

4. Reading diversley. This is mainly concerned with reading diffrent genres. Most of the time I read fantasy. Sometimes another genre, but not as diversly as I wish to read.

5. Discover new authors. As most of the people, I have my favorite authors and I stick with them. But for this year, I want to discover new authors.

6. Read at least 2 classics. I never read that much classics at all, eventhough there are a lot of them which intrest me. So hopefully this resolution will get me to read more of them.

7. Read 5 books with 500 pages or more. I actually do not decide on the number of pages, wheater I read a book or not, but since I left school and go to university, I mainly read small books, which I can finish fast. And I want to change that.

8. Re-read 10 books I loved when I first read them. This is mainlx due to the fact, that I sometimes completly forget how much i loved a book, when it is a while ago that I read them. So some of my favorite books get somehow lost in my memory due to that and I want them to be back in my mind.

9. Keep a reading journal. I want to write down every single book I read and mark, wheater I liked them or not. So in the future, when I want to re-read a book I really liked, I just have to look into this journal.


Writing Resolutions:

1. Write a journal. Not only about things that happen in my life, which wouldn't actually be that much, but mostly about my progress in writing, my ideas and all that stuff. I never did this and most of the time I will forget things, that actually where not that bad and which I maybe could have used.

2. Work on my book. I started last year in October with the book. And until now I haven't even started writing. I have all these ideas, I collect them and I try to get everything in order to start, but I did not do it. So this year I want to finish at least 10 chapters of this book.

3. Working on my book at least 2 days a week. This means not only writing it, but do research, work on characters and other stuff. Things that need to be done and that I normally do not do, because I have something else to do. For this year, I want to bring my writing out of the shadows, where it has been due to to much school work, university work and everything else.


Blog Goals:

1. Write at least 1 review per month. Normally I read more than 1 book per month and normally I just close them and maybe talk about them with friends but not more. From March on I want to do at least one book review per month

2. Post at least once a week. In order to keep this blog going, I have to put work into it and hopefully I will have success with it.


So, I hope you enjoyed reading about all my Goals and Resolutions, eventhough they're a little late.
Have a nice day.
Lots of love,

Maddie

On my "Currently Reading Shelf"

At the moment I have six diffrent bokks on my "Currently Reading Shelf".
I am one of does readers, who sometimes reads one book at a time and sometimes just a lot of books. Right now there are six. I started all of them. In some books I only read like 20 pages at this time, in some I allready read 260.
Actually my main problem, and possibly the reason for this amount of books, that I started but not yet finished, is, that I had a, at least for me, huge reading slump.
For about three weeks straight, which is a lot of time for me, espcally as I don't have to go to university right now, but stay at home all day, I started one book after the other but just coudn't stick with it for more than 50 pages.
But after starting the sixht one today, I finally got out of it. I actually don't know how I got out of it, I just did and I am totally happy with it.

The six books on my "Currently Reading Shelf" are:

The final book in the Divergent Series. I have the German paperback edition of this book.
In German it is called "Die Bestimmung - Letzte Entscheidung", while in English it is known as "Allegiant".
I am pretty sure that most of you know what this book is about, so I won't inclued a description of it.

The beautiful classic "Pride and Prejudices" by Jane Austen. Again I have a German edition, with a beautiful cover I absolutly adore.
This story follow young Elizabeth Bennett on her way to find a suitable husband. But it is not as easy as it sounds. She not only has to deal with her own problems, but also with those of her four sisters who all have the same goal: finding a wealthy young man to marry, as they won't be able to inherite the families possession  after the death of their father.

The final book in the Mortal Instruments Series. Just recently the German Hardcover of this book came out. But as I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. So when I was in London two weeks ago and found this beauty in a bookstore I just had to get it immediatly.
At the moment it is the only English book I am reading, but Clockwork Angel just waits to be read next.
I think mostly all of you will know the story around the shadowhunters so no description for this one.

The first book in the Chronicals of Narnia Series, which is called "The Magican's Nephwe". I actually read those when I just got out of primary school, but as this is quite a while ago now, I just wanted to re-read all of them. I again have a German hardcover edition of this book, with a beautiful dust jacket which should spell Narnia on their spine if you have all of them. Unfortunalty my mom, from whom I leant this one, only has the first four ones.
Again, as this is a well known book, I won't include a description of the plot.

 The first book in the "Endgame" trilogy. Again this is the German Hardcover Edition. I actually don't really know what this book is about. My younger brother got it as a birthday present a just flew trough it, so I decided to start reading it. I know something of twelve kids who are choosen to participate in a game to rescue to world. Or something like that. I just read like twenty pages so I think I will figure out soon what it is all about.










And lastly:

The first book in the Inkworl trilogy - Inkheart. This is a German hardcover edition and I absolutly adore the cover of the book. I already have read the whole trilogy a wile ago and now decided to re-read it.
I won't include a description of the plot, as I probably would start spoiling those of you who haven't read the book yet.
The basic thing is, that in this book, there are people who can read things out of book.
The for example would be able to read Jace, from the Mortal Instruments, out of the book and into the real world. This would be actually totally cool!






So, I hope you enjoyed this little trip to my "Currently Reading Shelf".

Lots of Love,

Maddie