Reading Women Challenge 2020

Hello lovely readers, Happy Sunday! I hope you’re all doing well! I am sitting here on a particularly blustery and stormy Sunday afternoon (thanks Storm Dennis) and have finally decided to post about one of the year long reading challenges/readathons I am taking part in this year. I really enjoy year long reading challenges, and find they have been really useful in making me read new things and focus my reading efforts for the year as a whole. I was told about this readathon by chance on Instagram and decided that it would be a great mix of fun and challenging and decided to take part! I have already started the reading challenge and will be tracking my progress through the year on this post and in my bullet journal (I’ll share the tracker at the bottom of the page)

So what is it all about? Simply, reading more books by different women. I know, it pretty much does what it says on the tin. The sad fact is that I don’t read as many different female authors as I probably should, and I certainly don’t read books by women that are out of my comfort zone or not on the shelves at my local supermarket or book store and it is time to change that. This readathon is challenging, but I am really going to try and finish it by the end of the year. I have copied the ‘rules’ from the Reading Women podcast website – which you should really check out, because they are simply wonderful:

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Oliver Doliver’s Dinosaur Comes to Stay | 5* Review

Title: Oliver Doliver’s Dinosaur Comes to Stay

Author: Papa Perkins

Rating: 3 stars

Dates read: 25 Jan 20

Publication date: 06 Feb 20

Publisher: Clink Street Publishing

Genre(s): Children’s, Picture Books

Description:

Oliver Deliver (who is really just Oliver but he does like having both names) will be mostly Oliver in this story. Oliver is six years (and one month) old and has a friend who is a Dinosaur called Aya Buddn.

This is the story of how they met!

*I received a copy of this book courtesy of Clink Street Publishing as part of their Oliver Doliver blog tour*

Girl, Woman, Other | Review

Title: Girl, Woman, Other

Author: Bernadine Evaristo

Rating: 5 stars

Dates read: 25 Nov 19 – 25 Jan 20

Publication date: 02 May 19

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton – Penguin Books UK

Genre(s): Contemporary, Feminism, Short Stories

Description:

This is Britain as you’ve never seen it.

This is Britain as it has never been told.

From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl Woman Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They’re each looking for something – a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .

*I received a copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Penguin Books UK in exchange for a fair and honest review*

Pillow Thoughts | Review

Title: Pillow Thoughts

Author: Courtney Peppernell

Rating: 4 stars

Dates read: 01 Jan 20 – 02Jan 20

Publication date: 05 Oct 2016

Publisher: Andrews Mckeel

Genre(s): LGBT, Poetry

Description:

Pillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, love and raw emotions.

It is divided into sections to read when you feel you need them most.

Make a cup of tea and let yourself feel.

Tweet Cute | Review

Title: Tweet Cute

Author: Emma Lord

Rating: 4 stars

Dates read: 09 Jan 20 – 13 Jan 20

Publication date: 21 Jan 20

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Genre(s): YA Contemporary, Romance

Description:

Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming — mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account.

Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.

All’s fair in love and cheese — that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life — on an anonymous chat app Jack built.

As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate — people on the internet are shipping them?? — their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.

*I received a copy of this book courtesy of St Martin’s Press as part of their Tweet Cute Blog Tour*

New Day, New Year, New Decade

Happy New Year Everyone! I know Innocent smoothies have said it is officially to late to say that anymore, but I haven’t been blogging much recently and this is my first post of the 2020’s. That’s a little bit scary really. the 2010’s were an interesting decade, but I think 2020 could be the best yet, don’t you?!

The Red Book | Review

Title: The Red Book

Author: Davide Cortellucci

Rating: 4 stars

Dates read: 18 Dec 19

Publication date: 09 Sep 19

Publisher: Clink Street Publishing

Genre(s): Science Fiction

Description:

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THOUGHTS.

Martin’s life as he knows it has turned upside-down, and he decides to embark on a trip to give sense to his existence. Via coincidences and fabricated non-coincidences, he finds a group of people that helps him enhance the power of his thoughts to modify the physical world around him. In a journey within a journey, Martin discovers the powers of visualisation and its pull. And he acknowledges why he’s flooded by negative feelings when he’s close to certain people.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE ENEMIES.

Unless Martin finds the strength within himself to fight, he and everyone around him will cease to exist.

*I received a copy of this book courtesy of Authoright and Clink Street Publishing as part of their The Red Book Blog Tour*

TBR Alphabet Tag

Hello lovely bibliophiles! It’s been a long while since I have completed a tag huh! I miss doing them, they’re fun and they really make you think about your books, your TBR, your bookish opinions, and if I am honest I am glad to be tagged and taking part again. This tag is a long(ish) one so instead of sitting here chatting, I am going to get on with the show.

The lovely Lucinda @ Lucinda is Reading tagged me in the TBR Alphabet Tag. It’s premise is simple, list a book for each letter of the alphabet that you have been meaning to read.

Strictly Saturdays | Week Thirteen/The Final

THE FINAL. Everyone this is not a drill and I did just say that, it is the final dance of the series. I bloody love this show and I love the final so much. I mean, who doesn’t love the best dancers doing the best dances of the series and then throwing in a no rules show dance to top everything off. I mean it’s always hard to say goodbye to the show each year, but it is always such a great nice. Lots of pros, lots of dances, lots of old celebrities coming back, and a sneaky special music guest (even if she isn’t my favourite, she be a big star!) What a night we have in store.

Strictly Saturdays is a weekly review of Strictly Come Dancing. Expect biased reviews, uneducated dancing critique, and sass.

Bookish Naughty or Nice Tag

I have taken part in the Bookish Naughty or Nice tag before and love that it seems to have become a Blogmas staple! When I took part last time I reviewed my life prior and think this time round I am just going to review the last year, seems fair right?

The lovely Jenn @ Jenniely came up with the festive treat a couple fo years back, and as the wonderful Jenna @ J K Exploring tagged me in it this year, I thought I’d quite like to find out if I have been any better this year. I have tagged a few of you lovely people at the bottom, but as always if you would like to take part, please consider yourself tagged.

Rules

– Tag & link the person who tagged you
– Tag and link me/this post (if you would be so kind, I love reading your answers!)
– Tick/cross off the ones you’ve done
– Tag another 10 people!