Author: Marie Rutkoski

Item: The Winner's Crime
Rating: 5
Author: Amanda Marie

{TTT} Books Should be Accompanied by Soundtracks

Posted February 16, 2016 in Reading / 2 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

The theme this week is Books and Music. I really don’t listen to a whole lot of music, so this might be a bit hard. Typically, I only put music on when I am driving across town (5 minutes). Anything longer than that will be at least one hour and forty minutes since I live in Montana and things are so spread out. Longer drive warrant an audiobook.

I guess this means that this week I am going to give you some books (more like three) I think should have songs/ballads written about them. If there actually are songs written about any of these books, I am most likely completely oblivious to that fact. Please let me know in the comments.

Tagged as Top Ten Tuesday

2015 in Review (& End of Year and Statistics Surveys)

Posted December 31, 2015 in Life, Reading / 10 Comments

Big Things That Happened in 2015

I mentioned the school talent show in which the teachers sang Yellow Submarine.
I worked at a Catholic summer camp for the summer and had a blast. I wrote about it and shared some pictures.
I survived over a week of blinding smoke due to forest fires. It was insane. I talked about that here.
I had my very first ever Blogversary which was exciting.

Analysis of Books I Read in 2015

This was the very first year that I ever kept track of the books that I read. My stats have amazed me.

I read 141 books.
Almost all of the books I read this year were 4 or 5 stars. I must be pretty good at choosing books I know I’ll enjoy.
Over two-thirds of the books I read this year were from the library or books I own.
Over half of the books I read this year were hard copied (Paperback or Hardcover) while over a quarter were ebooks. Audiobooks made up the rest.
About a quarter of the books I read this year were debuts.

I made some pretty nifty looking pie charts in Excel (you can just pretend they are totally awesome).

Tagged as Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge, Birthday Month Reading Challenge, Catholic Book, Color Coded Challenge, Fairytale Retelling Challenge, Finishing the Series Challenge, Mythology Reading Challenge, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, Read 2015, Rereading Challenge, What's In a Name Reading Challenge, You Read How Many Books Challenge

{TTT} Anticipated for 2016

Posted December 29, 2015 in Reading / 4 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s list is the Top Ten Books I’m Anticipating for the 1st Half of 2016. Well, I’m going to list these ten by publication date. If they share the same publication date, then author’s last name comes into play. One of them isn’t technically the first half of 2016 but I don’t care. I still NEED it! These title all have such gorgeous covers that I could say that I picked them only for their covers… and it wouldn’t necessarily be a lie. With the covers and the synopses, I can’t wait to read these books!

Tagged as Top Ten Tuesday

June and July 2015 in Review

Posted August 10, 2015 in Faith, Reading / 4 Comments

It has been a crazy month and a half! I will share some of my summer camp experience here but most will wait until it’s own post with pictures!

Things that Happened in June & July

As you may recall from a previous post, I spent the summer working at a great Catholic summer camp. I really want to talk a lot about that but I promise I will post more with pictures later.
I survived 6 weeks without much cell phone service or internet. It was really great for me.
I also read things that I wanted to read rather than what I needed to read based on review copies and such.

Books I Read in June

Tagged as Consecrated Virginity, Fairy Tales, Monthly Wrap-Up, Pope Francis, Saints, School, Summer, Vocation

Review: The Winner’s Crime – Kestrel and Arin Risk All

Posted July 13, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

The Winner's Crime by Marie Rutkoski
Series: The Winner's Trilogy #1
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (2015)
Hardcover (402 pages)
Rating:
Also by this author: The Winner's Curse, The Winner's Kiss
Also in this series: The Winner's Curse, The Winner's Kiss
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

Book two of the dazzling Winner’s Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love.
The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement…if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.
As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.

Find the book: Goodreads

Find the author: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Tumblr

Tagged as 5 star, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge