Posts Categorized: Discussion

Monday, April 02, 2018

What I’ve Been Reading: March Update

Posted by Rashika • 0 Comments

It seems like 2018 is now shaping up to be a pretty shitty year for me so like, I’ve been behind on everything and not in the mood to do anything except sit around and mope. I would say something more optimistic but like I am not an optimistic person in general, lol. But I’ve been rewatched old favs as a pick-me-up which has been helping a little. March was a decent month for reading and I REALLY hit my backlist TBR hard.

Only four sequels this month but I technically finished two series so HELL YEAH.

It was really great revisiting a series I read back in the day and this time, the books really lived up to my expectations. However, with time comes awareness and I also realized some of the problematic nature of the books and wrote to the author about it, lol. Beneath the Sugar Sky was technically the last book in the series but now we’re getting MORE BOOKS SO YAY.

I read 8 books, 8 WHOLE BOOKS off of my backlist tbr. Where is my medal?

My favorite out of all of these was The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You. I couldn’t stop reading and am sad it is over but I guess that means I get to read more books by the author!!! Brown Girl Dreaming was also noteworthy and I really really really want a sequel, which is definitely not something I say a lot about non-fic books. The nice thing is that unlike my previous backlist reading ventures, I actually like 7/8 of these books???? WHICH IS A LOT.

These are published (and recently published) books I’ve read this year that have under 200 ratings on Goodreads and deserve more love!

The Night Diary is the only book I’ve rated five stars this year, I think?? SO. YES. READ IT. To be fair, I’ve done a could 4.5 stars but The Night Diary means the WORLD to me and I want people to read it.

What have you been reading this month? Anything you loved I should definitely check out?

Dear Great-Grandma

Posted by Rashika on 03/20/2018 • 3 Comments

Dear Great-Grandma,

I am not the best at writing letters that are also going to be on display but you know, I am trying. I recently read The Night Diary, which is currently the only book I am calling a favorite of this year and I’ve read 86 books so far. Reading it has made me incredibly pensive because the entire time I was reading it, I kept thinking that I was reading your and grandma’s story too. Sometimes its disheartening that something that impacted my family and 16 million other people so much isn’t really talked about. Everyone always talks about the liberation of India with pride or the end of a colonial rule but they always forget about the 14 million people who were displaced. The 14 million people…

Can You Read Too Many Books?

Posted by Rashika on 03/06/2018 • 8 Comments

I feel like the question that is the title of this post is super loaded but I don’t know how else to really get into a question that I’ve been contemplating for a while. Which all starts with this, GOODREADS CHALLENGES.

Some people love challenging themselves to read more every year and other people don’t want to set a number for how much they are gonna read, lest they ruin it. I am somewhere in the middle? I’ve taken to setting challenges as 1 book a year for the past two years but like, here is the thing. I can set it to 1 to make myself feel good but I’ll always have another ambitious goal where I wanna read like 5,000,000 books.

The most books I’ve ever read…

What I’ve Been Reading: February Update

Posted by Rashika on 03/01/2018 • 5 Comments

January kind of flew by but I feel like February has felt like it has gone on forever. I did get a lot of reading done but at the same time, I haven’t really wanted to read in the same way I wanted to last month. That might be in part due to the fact that I’ve been stressed out all month and just need something to let up so I can breathe and read. For this upcoming month, I do hope that I will be able to go back to unhauling my backlist TBR.

I read 5 sequels in February (technically more but I am sticking to old series that I started instead of new books.) That’s one less than last month but hey February has less days so…

How to Support Diverse Books (aside from buying them)

Posted by Rashika on 02/28/2018 • 2 Comments

Here is the thing, even though you may think that there has been a huge influx of diverse books, there really has not been. Diverse authors, especially people of color, still face many barriers when it comes to getting their books published. You can check the CCBC Publishing Stastisitics for more info. We might not always be able to buy every single diverse book that comes out (even if we will try) because our wallets aren’t infinite but there are more things we can do that also supports diverse books!

1. Request upcoming releases at your library if they don’t already have them pre-ordered. Even if you are planning on buying a copy.

Libraries are always welcome to open recommendations from patrons!

2. Check diverse books out from the library!…

10 Stationery Items To Help You Organize Your Life in 2k18

Posted by Rashika on 02/19/2018 • 3 Comments

I love love love love writing tools and notebooks and nice paper and literally everything that gives me some semblance of control in my life. So, I spend a lot of my time window-shopping for these things and decided to compile some of the things I’ve had my eye on into a nice, handy-dandy list. Note that I am not an affiliate for any of these sites and receive NO money if you choose to click on buy links. But you know, lemme know so I can turn green with envy.

1. Brush Pens

I feel like brush pens have become a much bigger deal since bullet journaling has taken the world by storm but if you’re like me, and not really a bullet journaler, I think the pens are…