The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
Trying to lose myself in books this week because my head is tired – the real world is a hard place to be right now! These holiday romances are really appealing to me right now.
+ This week was mentally and emotionally draining. I am sick of gun violence. I cannot believe this country puts the value of guns over lives. People’s lives. CHILDREN’s lives. I am SICK of it.
I know it’s more complicated than gun control but that’s a step in the right direction, right? I don’t understand how all of us right now cannot agree on that alone, that it’s not OKAY that our kids are unsafe and sitting ducks at school. Smh…make it make sense.
SIGH…I’ll get back this week into reading, since I have some arcs I need to finish up, but my heart is so heavy.
The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)– Season 3 – I don’t love these last episodes. But honestly this is what I wanted for Belly BEFORE she agreed to marry Jere! LOL, not after. Like see she’s living it up in Paris and growing. She needed that growth earlier.
Chief of War (Apple +) – episode 7, it made me cry, broke my heart and made me angry.
Football – Eagles/Chiefs play today!
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme originally created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and hosted by Aria @ Book Nook Bits, where every Friday, bloggers write discussion posts based on a weekly prompt and Dini @ dinipandareads has cohosted since the beginning of 2025.
This week’s topic is:
September 12: Following the Reader
Prompts:What makes you want to follow a bookish account on social media? What makes you want to follow a book blog? Are you very discerning or do you follow back whoever follows you? Do you prefer or find it easier to engage with other readers on one platform over the other (i.e. blogs vs. bookstagram or booktok)?
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What makes you want to follow a bookish account on social media? What makes you want to follow a book blog?
Right now on tiktok because I’m building my following, I’m basically following anyone who follows me – unless it’s an account that doesn’t post anything. I pretty much do the same for book blogs but I feel like even though I follow people here on wordpress, I don’t always see the blogs.
Are you very discerning or do you follow back whoever follows you?
Pretty much follow back unless I check the account and I don’t really vibe with their content. But for booktokers, bookstagrammers or book bloggers, it’s usually a follow back.
Do you prefer or find it easier to engage with other readers on one platform over the other (i.e. blogs vs. bookstagram or booktok)?
I feel like booktok is so much easier to find new followers and comment and such. I love how people are authentic on there, don’t have to make their videos or photos pretty or anything. I feel like bookstagram years ago had more engagement and now it’s so different – I basically only see accounts that have 1,000+ followers. Smaller accounts, not so much. I think I post the least on bookstagram just because I have to make pretty posts (and I’m lazy lol) it’s easier on booktok. Blog engagement I think is in the middle – it took me years to build up a good following but I love the community!
September Topics:
September 5: In Which Season Do You Do Your Best Reading? (Jillian @ Jillian the Bookish Butterfly)
Prompts: Is there a month, quarter or other specific time of year when you do your most reading and why do you think that is? Does this tend to fluctuate every year or is your reading pretty ‘steady’?
September 12: Following the Reader
Prompts: What makes you want to follow a bookish account on social media? What makes you want to follow a book blog? Are you very discerning or do you follow back whoever follows you? Do you prefer or find it easier to engage with other readers on one platform over the other (i.e. blogs vs. bookstagram or booktok)?
September 19: Favourite Genre Recommendations
Prompts:What is your favourite genre(s) and what makes it your favourite? If someone wanted to try your favourite genre(s), what are five books that you would recommend to them and why those books specifically? Has your favorite genre changed over time?
September 26: Are Published Books Losing Quality? The Impact of Social Media Platforms and Trope-Based Marketing
Prompts:Reading has become increasingly more “popular” due to platforms like booktok and bookstagram, which tend to promote certain types of books. It has also given rise to the “trope only” marketing trend. Do you think the hype that’s been created on these platforms has impacted the quality of books that are published these days? Do you think it’s impacting only certain genres or do you notice it across all genres? How do you think this will impact book quality and publishing in the years to come (i.e. is it just a phase or will it continue)?
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
Already the second week of September and I think it’s weird that I’m reading horror arcs and Christmas romance arcs! 😅. I wish holiday romances got published in November rather than in September/October. Anyway hope everyone is having a good week!
At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen’s last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.
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I don’t know why I never picked this up when the movies came out – I was obsessed with them! My hubby has the books but I just never picked them up.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.
From Sauron’s fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.
When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.
The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.
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Another Austen book I love because I’ve watched the movies and show adaptions but never read….and I should since it’s on my shelf.😅
‘The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!’
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.
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Do you remember when there was a War and Peace show with Lily James (Cinderella – 2015)…by the way where is Lily James?! I loved her! Anyways, I watched the series War and Peace because she was in it and loved it. I attempted to read the book and maybe got 1/4th through and gave up 😅.
War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.
As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.
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Of course another Jane Austen book! I loved the movie but never read the book.
Taken from the poverty of her parents’ home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle’s absence in Antigua, the Crawford’s arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen’s first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.
+ It’s September! So that means I had to spend some time getting my car maintenance done and safety check. I waited about 3 hours but at least I got to sit and read!
+ Football (NFL) is back! And the Philadelphia Eagles won their first game, so I’m happy.
The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)– Season 3 – a boring episode, but it made me dislike Jere even MORE.
Football
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish meme originally created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and hosted by Aria @ Book Nook Bits, where every Friday, bloggers write discussion posts based on a weekly prompt and Dini @ dinipandareads has cohosted since the beginning of 2025.
This week’s topic is:
September 5: In Which Season Do You Do Your Best Reading? (Jillian @ Jillian the Bookish Butterfly)
Prompts:Is there a month, quarter or other specific time of year when you do your most reading and why do you think that is? Does this tend to fluctuate every year or is your reading pretty ‘steady’?
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Is there a month, quarter or other specific time of year when you do your most reading and why do you think that is?
I actually don’t know! I feel like my automatic answer is fall (but hello I live in Hawaii – it doesn’t get cold here! 😅). But fall is BUSY – holidays, my kids school projects, etc….so…maybe winter? Because the sun sets faster and I do my best reading at night.
Does this tend to fluctuate every year or is your reading pretty ‘steady’?
Now, if the topic was when do I read the most…according to the arcs I was given this year, it seems like major publishing dates occur in July and September. So I will say according to this year alone, I had so many arcs to read for these 2 months out of the whole year. December is such a dry spell – is everyone just busy? 😅
August Topics:
September 5: In Which Season Do You Do Your Best Reading? (Jillian @ Jillian the Bookish Butterfly)
Prompts: Is there a month, quarter or other specific time of year when you do your most reading and why do you think that is? Does this tend to fluctuate every year or is your reading pretty ‘steady’?
September 12: Following the Reader
Prompts: What makes you want to follow a bookish account on social media? What makes you want to follow a book blog? Are you very discerning or do you follow back whoever follows you? Do you prefer or find it easier to engage with other readers on one platform over the other (i.e. blogs vs. bookstagram or booktok)?
September 19: Favourite Genre Recommendations
Prompts:What is your favourite genre(s) and what makes it your favourite? If someone wanted to try your favourite genre(s), what are five books that you would recommend to them and why those books specifically? Has your favorite genre changed over time?
September 26: Are Published Books Losing Quality? The Impact of Social Media Platforms and Trope-Based Marketing
Prompts:Reading has become increasingly more “popular” due to platforms like booktok and bookstagram, which tend to promote certain types of books. It has also given rise to the “trope only” marketing trend. Do you think the hype that’s been created on these platforms has impacted the quality of books that are published these days? Do you think it’s impacting only certain genres or do you notice it across all genres? How do you think this will impact book quality and publishing in the years to come (i.e. is it just a phase or will it continue)?
August was a long month that went by quickly because my kids went back to school. So we are back in the school routine again! I did read a lot, apparently I had a lot of arcs for September to get through. I have 3 more arcs for September to finish!
I read 26 books and posted 20 book reviews in August.
Books I Read – 26 books:
Endless Anger by. Sav R. Miller
What Fury Brings by. Tricial Llevenseller
The Robin on the Oak Throne by. K.A. Linde
Witch of the Wolves by. Kaylee Archer
Blood Moon by. Britney S. Lewis (audiobook)
The Dragon and the Sun Lotus by. Amelie Wen Zhao
The Dating Prohibition by. Taj McCoy
The Dead of Summer by. Ryan La Sala
Heir of Storms by. Lauryn Hamilton Murray
Dream of the Shadows by. Logan Karlie (audiobook)
Well Fell Apart by. E. Lockhart
The Nightblood Prince by. Molly X. Chang
Witch You Would by. Lia Amador
Girl, Goddess, Queen by. Bea Fitzgerald
Broken Souls and Bones by. LJ Andrews
Sweet Heat by. Bolu Babaloa
The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk by. Carissa Broadbent
A Scar in the Bone by. Sophie Jordan
Coffin Moon by. Keith Rosson
Wild Reverence by. Rebecca Ross
A Forbidden Alchemy by. Stacey McEwan
A Steeping of Blood by. Hafsah Faizal
The Executioners Three by. Susan Dennard
Charlie Quinn Lets Go by. Jamie Varon
The Weaver Bride by. Lydia Gregovic
While the Dark Remains by. Joanna Ruth Meyer (audiobook)
The idea is pretty simple, every week you dedicate a post to the three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What have you just finished reading?
What are you going to read next?
It’s September! We are officially in the “ber” months. Can you believe it? I can’t. I think I’ll have more room to read books that aren’t arcs very soon.
What are you currently reading?
Hekate by. Nikita Gil – 8% – I did NOT realize this book would be poetry, so imagine my surprise when I started reading it! 😅
+ My son turned 13 on Wednesday! He had presents and cake, but today we are going over to his grandparent house to have more food, cake and presents with them and they rest of the family.
+ It’s a 3 day weekend, it’s always nice to have one more day to sleep in!
The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)– Season 3 – what an episode – Conrad was not having huh? lol
Chief of War (Apple +) – episodes 5 and 6, war is coming!
The Life of the Walter Boys (Netflix) – season 2
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 