Fulfilling Friday: Semester Break!

Fulfilling Friday is a feature where I talk about the happenings of the week, focusing on the positives, and plan for the upcoming days- on a Friday, of course!

And this has been quite a week.

The Passing

It is the first week of a three-week semester break, in which I faced the death of a relative, which, although expected- due to her advanced stage of cancer- was still quite a blow to the family. It doesn't help that she's barely 50 years old, which is... really young. Almost my mother's age.

Death drives home the ephemeral state of life, and the permanence of non-existence. It grounds the fact that we will all cease to exist one day- if you still believe in the Big Bang theory, and the theory of Creationism. It drove me to a mini-crisis of existentialism for a day or two, which I fended off with some more reading and reviewing and good ol' sleeping.

We will always miss her and continue to remember her in our fondest memories.

The TBR Pile(s)

I am rather excited for this month's TBR- or was, before the above-mentioned event came to pass. Nevertheless, I will post my TBR pile for this month of March and strike through those I have already read by the time this post is finished. Bear in mind I will probably read more, if things go my way.

1. The Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill - IN PROGRESS
2. This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl - IN PROGRESS
3. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. Seraphina by Rachel Hartman - IN PROGRESS
6. Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #3) by Laini Taylor - IN PROGRESS
7. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
8. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins - IN PROGRESS
9. The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus #5) by Rick Riordan
10. Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scott Lynch
11. Apprentice (The Black Mage #2) by Rachel E. Carter
12. DIAgnosis2 [Bahasa Melayu book] by various authors

Yes, I have the tendency to read multiple books at once. I have no idea why this works for me and why it does not get confusing, because it really doesn't. In this case it really is necessary, because two of the books in progress are really very slow reads for me and I need to punctuate the rather humdrum pace by interspersing it with more face-paced reads. They are my rewards for finishing a certain chapter of a slower book.

Of course, my other TBR pile- the TO BE REVIEWED pile- is stacking up like nobody's business. 

Nobody's business but mine.

I would be more sad about it, if I'm not so excited. It's rather unbelievable how excited one can be about things that are not supposed to be exciting when one has nothing else to worry about.

Plans

This weekend will be filled with reading and reviewing, of course. I am also finishing up an actual letter to send to my high school friend (currently in Canada) and will be sending that next week- whenever I will be headed back a bit in the southerly direction.

There is a Sushi King bonanza next week (all sushi plates at RM 3 each!) which I will definitely splurge on. And I plan to watch at least two movies in the cinema, since I haven't watched a movie in the cinema since the last installment of The Hobbit.

I think I better start planning on some revision and cleaning up too, for the rest of the break.

Last but not least, try to restrict the impulse to keep ordering books online- for which a post is due within the next two weeks.

What have you fulfilled this week? :)

Review: The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

Title: The School for Good and Evil (The School for Good and Evil #1)

Author: Soman Chainani

Genre: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Children, Young Adult, Fairy Tale, Adventure

Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books

Pages: 488

“The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away.”

 This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil.

But when the two girls are swept into the Endless Woods, they find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School For Good, thrust amongst handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are…? (More from Goodreads)

This book is an unexpectedly enjoyable read- and I don't say that a lot about middle grade books which are so blatantly, well, middle-grade. The cover alone is very childish- or well out of my age range, at least- and I can't help but love it.

Review: The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson

Title: The Dragonfly Pool
Author: Eva Ibbotson
Genre: Historical Fiction, Middle Grade, Adventure
Publisher: MacMillan Children's Books
Pages: 416

Tally Hamilton is furious to hear she is being sent from London to a horrid, stuffy boarding school in the countryside. And all because of the stupid war. But Delderton Hall is a far more" "unusual and " interesting" place than Tally ever imagined, and she soon falls in love with its eccentric staff and pupils. Now she's even organizing an exciting school trip to the kingdom of Bergania . . . although Tally never expected to meet the "prince."

Prince Karil hates his life at the palace and he is only truly happy when he escapes to the dragonfly pool, a remote spot in the forests of Bergania. Then Karil meets a feisty English girl who brings the promise of adventure. But his country is under threat, and the prince soon looks to his new friend Tally for survival as well as friendship... (More from Goodreads)

I had this book for a while, and never got around to it until I realized it would be perfect for one of the 2015 Reading Challenge categories. It just gave me more of an excuse to read it. The first Eva Ibbotson book I read, almost a decade ago, was The Star of Kazan, and I really liked it. I think I should re-read it because I can't remember anything that happened within! That said, I was also planning on getting Journey to the River Sea as this is her book which garnered most fame, but it's all a matter of time. Onward to the review!

Fulfilling Friday: One-Twelfth Around the Sun

Fulfilling Friday is a feature where I talk about the happenings of the week, focusing on the positives, and plan for the upcoming days- on a Friday, of course!

In the blink of a eye, the curtains begin their descent on January in preparation for February's act.

What have I done in this month?

Book-related

Well, first of all I completed my targets for the first month of this blog's existence. Two book reviews per week at least, and now scheduled posts are still bidding their time until February. I am one month closer to being ready to publicize this space.

Review: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Title: Revolution
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Genre: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Supernatural
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 496

Andi lives in New York and is dealing with the emotional turmoil of her younger brother's accidental death. Alex lives in Paris and is a maid to the royal family as the French Revolution rages. They're both struggling with their responsibilities and their places in the world. (More from Goodreads)

I picked this book up because the cover caught my eye. I found it gorgeous, and as you can see at the bottom of the cover, it touts the author as having written a best-selling novel. I looked at the back cover and it talks about a curious girl in a very vague, single sentence paragraph. The first thing that crossed my mind was romance. Probably historical, by the looks of the book. Revolution? Only one historical time period, in one particular region, came to mind.

Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

Title: Room
Author: Emma Donoghue
Genre: Contemporary, Fiction, Adult
Publisher: Picador
Pages: 321

Jack is five, and excited about his birthday. He lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures eleven feet by eleven feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real - only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day Ma admits that there's a world outside...

Told in Jack's voice, Room is the story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible. Unsentimental and sometimes funny, devastating yet uplifting, Room is a novel like no other. (More from Goodreads)

Room is a book that keeps popping up everywhere and remained within the periphery of my vision, untouched and unwanted- at least by me, and at least at that time. This is because (as I have probably mentioned before) I am kind of a book snob and would rarely indulge in buying contemporary fiction in place of a good young adult and/or fantasy title. That is until one fine day, I find someone raving about how good it was and decided, 'Why not? It has been available in the bargain bookstore for a while.'

Review: Lirael (Abhorsen #2) by Garth Nix

Title: Lirael (Abhorsen #2)
Author: Garth Nix
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Publisher: Harper
Pages: 705

Lirael has never felt like a true daughter of the Clayr. Now, two years past the time when she should have received the Sight that is the Clayr’s birthright, she feels alone, abandoned, unsure of who she is. Nevertheless, the fate of the Old Kingdom lies in her hands. With only her faithful companion, the Disreputable Dog, Lirael must undertake a desperate mission under the growing shadow of an ancient evil.

In this sequel to SABRIEL, winner of the Aurealis Award for Excellence in Australian Science Fiction, Garth Nix weaves a spellbinding tale of discovery, destiny, and danger. (More from Goodreads)

As should be apparent, this is the second book in the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix- perhaps the best series of books ever written by him, and the very series that made me start reading his work. I started re-reading Sabriel a while back when Rinn was doing re-reads sometime last year, and I figured I should continue to finish the trilogy again- because at the time, the new prequel Clariel was coming out soon. At the time of writing, Clariel has been out for a few months now and I still haven't got it yet because I'm... waiting for the right time (and price).

2015 Book Reading Challenge

For the first time ever, I'm participating in a reading challenge on my Goodreads' group Dragons & Jetpacks.

The challenge consists of 50 total categories, and one book cannot be used for more than 2 categories. The group gives us the option to individualize our goal and reduce the number of categories we intend to cross off to pass the challenge, and I opted for 25.

I've been a sleeper member of the group. I intend to change that by starting to be (slightly) more proactive with their activities.

Here's the challenge: