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Julianne Vs TBR Update and February 2021 Book Review Wrap Up: Going on a Digital Book Ban

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In today’s video, I review my February reads and update you on my Julianne Vs TBR project, which is not going well…

Books mentioned and mini-reviews:

Jem and The Holograms: Dimensions

This is a collection of short comics by different writers and artists – it’s really cute and nice to see different takes on the art style. I definitely have a preference for Sophie Campbell’s art on Jem and The Holograms in the first two books, but it was still really cool to see a different range of artists   and their take on the same characters.

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

A Perfect Paris Christmas by Mandy Baggot

This is the second Mandy Baggot book I’ve read and now I think I am a Mandy Baggot fan girl! I want to read all her back catalogue, I think she’s a really great romance writer. Her characters are so realistic, with full lives outside the romance. They have jobs that they care about and families they care about and it just makes them seem such wonderful 3D people!  A Perfect Paris Christmas is about a woman who goes to Paris just before Christmas to meet the mother of her kidney donor, and while she’s there, meets and starts to fall for her donor’s best friend, who is struggling to adjust to life without her. It’s just gorgeous.

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

Romancing Mr Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

I had high hopes for this one as it’s many people’s favourite Bridgerton book but it just couldn’t compare to An Offer From a Gentleman in my opinion! It was still perfectly readable and compulsive reading, up until the marriage proposal, and then I found myself losing interest. Unfortunately I just wasn’t as invested in the story as I wanted to be.

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

Rescue Me by Sarra Manning

This is an absolute delight, a funny, lovely romance about a man and a woman who co-adopt a dog. She definitely wants to adopt, he’s just hoping to volunteer – but they both fall in love with Blossom, a shy little Staffy who needs patience and care. As they rehabilitate Blossom and work out how to share her, they start to develop feelings for each other, but are those feelings compatible? Sarra just gets better and better with every book. It was a dream and I will definitely read it again.

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

Violette Around the World , Vol. 1: My Head in the Clouds! by Teresa Radice and Stefano Turconi

This is a graphic novel about a girl who lives with a traveling circus. It’s quite cute and while in Paris she meets Toulouse Lautrec which is funny, but it was missing any spark that would have made me love it. I think if I had read this as a child, I would have loved the idea but not the execution.

Buy: Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

Conspiracy of Ravens by Leah Moore, John Reppion and Sally Jane Thompson

Another graphic novel, this one has beautiful art, but the story felt very rushed and I longed for it to be longer. It’s about a girl at a boarding school who inherits a locket and a mansion from an aunt that she didn’t know existed. Her parents  want her to sell it as quickly as possible, but then she starts having these  weird experiences with birds, developing magical powers. Eventually she finds out that she and a bunch of other  girls are the descendants of an all-woman secret organization. It’s a great premise, but I felt like I didn’t really get to know any of the characters, as there’s so much plot and too few pages to explore it!

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

This is just as brilliant as you’ve heard – the stories are really varied,  some of them have a strong plot but most of them  are vignettes which make you think. I really liked that because that’s the kind of short story that I struggle with and these were such perfect examples.

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

The Way Past Winter by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

This is a middle-grade fairy tale about a girl who sets out on a quest to save her brother from the Bear, a powerful being who controls the woods and the weather. It’s a lovely kids adventure and quite a quick audiobook – I wanted something short and seasonal and this was perfect!

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org (affiliate links)

How to Share Your Love of Books with Others this World Book Day

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From my 2016 visit to my childhood library in Beckenham

 

It’s World Book Day, which is traditionally celebrated mostly by primary school aged children, but why should we let them have all the fun? Here are some ways in which grown-ups can share their love of books with others this World Book Day.

1. Get involved in online book communities

There are so many ways to share your love of books online – on social media, forums, even blogs. You can start anytime, but why not today? I promise you that you don’t need the perfect profile or pictures or blog theme to get started. Lots of people start a book blog on free sites like Blogger – that’s where my blog was for most of its life!

If you’re intimidated by the size of the book communities on Instagram or Twitter, try Litsy – it’s a lot like Instagram, but just for books, and there isn’t the same expectation to produce heavily-styled images that you get on ‘Bookstagram’.

For more tips on how to join online book communities, join my free course Ignite Your Passion For Reading: Fall In Love With Books.

2. Share your books…or give them away

If you’ve read a print book recently that you’ve loved, how about lending it to a friend or neighbour? If you’re worried about how to properly quarantine it before/after passing it on, make it a recommendation instead. Or hop onto your favourite social media platform and tell the world!

Fancy a declutter? If you have books you no longer want to read, there are loads of ways to give them away, even when the charity shops and book exchanges are closed. My current favourite way to pass on books is to list them on the Olio app so that neighbours can arrange to pick them up from outside my front door. You could also try Freegle, Buy Nothing groups, or, if you want something more book-specific and global, BookMooch.

If you have a lot of recently-published childrens and teen books (I’m looking at you, fellow bloggers), BookBuddy can help you connect with staff at a local school in need of books for their library.

3. Support libraries

Are public libraries in your area in danger of being closed down? Get involved in campaign groups to support them, or at least have a go at raising awareness. You can find out more about the state of public libraries in the UK at Public Libraries News. Last year my beloved childhood library was under threat, and at the moment it seems to have escaped the axe, but we need to be ever vigilant, and libraries in my current area are also in trouble.

You can also donate money to libraries all over the world at JustGiving.

4. Start a book club

Okay, so you might be bored of most online activities by now, but trust me on this one. A book club could be the answer to all your social problems. It strikes the perfect balance between structure and freedom to chat, gives you something to talk about other than the pandemic and to fill your time with between meetings… Have I convinced you yet?

If you would like to start a book club but have no clue where to begin – or only a little bit of a clue, and want some help – my course Start and Run a Book Club (now with bonus ‘Starting a Book Club During a Pandemic’ video) is free, yes, FREE, for the next two days (until 10pm GMT on 6 March). Just click here to register: https://www.udemy.com/course/book-club/?couponCode=WORLDBOOKDAY