The Loneliest Girl in the Universe & Q&A with Lauren

Title: The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

Author: Lauren James

Genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Young Adult

Published: September 2017

Summary

Alone in space, Romy Silvers is a teenage girl on an important mission to find the next home for humanity. The only contact she has with the outside world is with the NASA therapist Molly until they send out a new spaceship with another single passenger called J. They start to chat via email and a bond starts to form. Romy quickly falls for J but is there something that he isn't tell her? Also will the upcoming news from Earth ruin their space mission altogether?

I have only ever finished a book in one sitting once before which was Carry On by Rainbow Rowell and I can now add The Loneliest Girl in the Universe to that list! As well as that, this was one the same day that I received the book in the post so if that isn't dedication then I don't know what is.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine | Book Review

Title: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Author: Gail Honeyman

Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Mystery

Published: May 2017

I unexpectedly won a copy of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine back in May in a Goodreads competition - what a jammy sod. Yet it's taken me this long to pick it up off my TBR pile as I have been going through a bit of a reading slump lately. This is the first book I finished since getting my mojo back.

Summary

Eleanor is a 30 year old finance clerk who spends her working days doing the same routine and her weekends alone in her flat drinking vodka and sleeping. She may not have any friends but don't worry - she's fine with it. All it takes is for her and work colleague Raymond to witness an old man collapse in the street for her life to turn her upside down. Will these big life changes be good for Eleanor, or simply push her over the edge?

Trigger warning: this book deals with physical and emotional abuse, sexual assault, self harm and alcoholism.

Why Autism Representation Matters in Literature

Representation and diversity are two words on everyone's lips in the book world. As a book blogger, writer and general book world lurker, I see these conversations go back and forth in the news, in events, on twitter. When will we see representations of X in literature? Can we do better than this singular example of X? These are incredibly important questions, particularly in the world of autism.

I'm one of the "Lost Generation". I got diagnosed as autistic at twenty eight, only six months ago. It's a strange thing discovering that you've been living your life not knowing a really quite fundamental thing about yourself. I had always felt like everyone else had an insight into the workings of society that I lacked, but I chalked that up to just being a bit weird, awkward, somewhat uncomfortable in my own skin.

Skip forward to my mid twenties, when a friend of mine got diagnosed after meeting another autistic woman. After reading into experiences of people raised-as-women, I realised I was autistic (I've written about this on the blog this week here). Recognising myself in other people was key to my diagnostic journey.

Sometimes I Lie | Review & Author Q&A

Title: Sometimes I Lie

Author: Alice Feeney

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

Published: March 2017

Summary:

Amber suddenly realises that she's stuck in a coma she can't wake up from. It doesn't matter how hard she tries to remember how she got there or how much she tries to shout for help - nothing works. She can vaguely hear the nurse's voices in the hospital along with her husband Paul and sister Claire but will she like what she hears? Most importantly, will she ever wake up?

Awesome Books By Women to Add to Your TBR

It's no secret that I am quite the bookworm and one of the reasons why I love reading so much is because I get to discover more inspiring people and learn about their life experiences that may be different to my own.

International Women's Day wasn't that long ago and it reminded me that as great and powerful as the campaign is, it's something that we should be pushing for all the time not just for one day of the year. In the spirit of this revelation, I want to share seven books that I believe embody the spirit of celebrating women's achievements whilst acknowledging the biases we are still having to face today.

Plus who doesn't love getting some book recommendations?

Lost in a Book

I've been meaning to do this book tag for a while now but I never got round to doing it, until today obviously! I first came across it over on Aisling's blog all the way back in January and after finding out about some of her book rituals I knew I had to let you in on mine because it's not like I talk about books much on here right? I'm not even sorry - you all know I'm a book lover through and through anyway!

Kindred Spirits | Book Review

Title: Kindred Spirits

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Romance

Published: February 2016

*I don't share any spoilers in this review however I still go into detail about the characters and the plot so if you'd rather start the book knowing nothing then you can click off the review if you'd prefer*

Summary:

The new Star Wars film is being released in four days time and Elena decides to camp outside her local cinema till then to ensure she gets to enjoy the celebratory queue with fellow fans like herself. But to her surprise there are only two other people in the queue so she now comes face-to-face with the reality that the experience might not be what she imagined, including having to pee in cup behind a dumpster.

Asking for It | Book Review

Title: Asking for It

Author: Louise O'Neill

Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Young Adult

Published: September 2015

Summary:

Emma O'Donovan is a happy, confident 18 year old girl who has her whole life ahead of her. It's the start of summer and she has so much to look forward to but all it took was one night at a party to change everything including her future. The next morning she wakes up on her doorstop having no idea how she got there or what happened at the party until she looks on Facebook to find photos showing the horrific incident that makes Emma want to disappear forever. Louise highlights a number of controversial issues including sexual consent, mental health, self-harm and social media.

Five Books That Gave Us Great Life Advice

We can all need advice from time to time (whether we like it or not) and what bookworm hasn't learned a thing or two from books? Still you might be surprised just how much they impact our lives for the better without us even realising, don’t forget there’s a reason why we love them like we do guys. So I've picked four books from my bookcase, plus one I borrowed from the library, that I felt gave me some really useful life advice and thought I would share them with you. You know, because I like keeping you all in the know about what's good about books!

Seven Tips for Reaching Your Reading Goals

The new year means that it's time to set a new reading goal! Exciting right? It took me while to decide how many books I wanted to aim to read for this year because I did so good last year but I knew I will be a lot busier so I had to weight it up. Eventually I decided to stay with 25 books which I think is a pretty good target; at least two books a month is achievable for me! Well I learned a lot from my 2015 reading challenge and I thought I could share some tips with you on how you can make sure you smash that goal by the end of the year - we can do it guys!

2015 Reading Challege

Helloo Everyone,

At the beginning of this year I decided to take part in the Goodreads 2015 reading Challenge so I set myself a goal of reading 25 books in one year. Well if you read my reading challenge update post back in August then you would already know that I reached that goal a whopping five months early which was nice surprise! Even after that it didn't stop me from wanting to carry on reading more books (why would I want to stop?) which is why I kept going. I definitely didn't read as much as I would of liked with me going back to studying and getting a new job but I do sneak in some reading time whenever I can. So after checking my Goodreads account and double checking my bookcase to make sure I haven't missed any, I have read a total of 32 books this year!!! How mad is that? For me this is an amazing achievement and I'm quite proud of myself actually!

I've listed all the books that I've read and one that I'm currently reading below in order of when I read them:

What I Got for Christmas 2015

Helloo Everyone,

I hope you're all enjoying the Christmas holidays wherever you are and whatever you're doing! As you can tell from the title, this post is me showing you what I got from family and loved ones this Christmas and it's a post I've been umming and ahhing about doing as I know some people think these posts are kind of boasty. I love reading them on other people's blogs as I'm just as nosy as the next person so I decided to do one myself! If this isn't your cup of tea then that's absolutely fine and I'll see you back for my next post but if you want to have a read of what I got then of course feel free to scroll down and have a look!

A Long Overdue Book Haul

Helloo Everyone,

It feels like it's been way too long since I've done a book haul right? I just looked and the last book haul I done was at the beginning of August which is just not acceptable! I decided gathered all the books I got in the months of August, September and October to show you because who doesn't like a book haul, or any haul in fact? Well I promise it'll be a good one so sit back and relax while you have a nosy at the fabulous books below!

Six Struggles Only Bookworms Understand

Helloo Everyone,

It's no secret that I'm a huge a bookworm because I'm either reading a book, buying books or talking about my recent reads! With that being said it does come with its problems. To be fair it's not like that's going to stop us from falling in love with stories that these amazing authors create but we can't deny them so BOOKWORMS ASSEMBLE as I go through some of the struggles we go through. Don't worry we can all laugh and cry about them together!

Reading Enhances Children's Lives

Helloo Everyone,

I've got some exciting news to announce.. Me along with six other people have organised an event to raise money for the Readathon Hospitals charity! To be more specific, the seven of us will be participating in a 24 hour readathon at the beginning of October, how cool is that? When Jenny first asked if anyone wanted to take part I was quick to jump at the chance and volunteer myself as it sounded too great to miss. Let me tell you all about it!

10 Book Challenge Tag

Helloo Everyone,

I have been tagged by a fellow book blogger Bethan from Bethan Likes to do the 10 book challenge tag (I know what a shocker, bet you didn't see that coming). What I need to do is write about my top 10 books of all time, sounds simple right? NO IT'S NOT! I'm terrible when people ask what my favourite books are because it's hard trying to pick from all the great books I've read and my brain just ends up going into self destruct mode haha! So what I'll do is class it as 10 of some of my top books, deal?

2015 Reading Challenge | Update

Helloo Everyone,

I didn't think I would be writing this post as early as August but as I'm quite smug about this little achievement I thought I'd let you know that I completed my 2015 reading challenge FIVE MONTHS early! Now some of you are bound to be thinking "What is she on about?" so I'll fill you in with all the details. At the beginning of this year I set myself a goal to read 25 books in 2015, kind of like a new years resolution but I never complete those so I did my reading challenge through Goodreads hoping I wouldn't jinx it haha! Here was me thinking I wouldn't even hit that target by December and I managed to prove myself wrong!

August TBR

Helloo Everyone,

I'm back again! So as August has already started, I thought I would quickly let you all know what books I'll be reading this month. It may sound sad but I'm quite excited to be reading on my Kindle again as it seems like ages since I last did; paperbacks are taking over my life haha! Well I don't want to toot my own horn or anything but I think I've picked some pretty good ones for August, let's see if you guys will agree?

July Book Haul

Helloo Everyone,

After a whole two months of not buying a single book, I've finally been able to get some and tick them off my wish list *YAY* and as I've been very excited to do this post I'm just going to get straight into it if you don't mind. You don't? Okay let's go!

Harry Potter Tag

Helloo Everyone,

As it's my birthday today I thought I would treat my lovely readers (and myself) by doing the Harry Potter tag. I know you guys won't be that surprised anyway and I'm actually shocked that I haven't done this tag already haha! I've watched a couple of booktubers videos where they had done it and it seemed like the perfect thing to do for this special day of mine! There's quite a few questions so make yourself some tea, bring some nibbles and get ready for some Harry Potter goodness. Enjoy!