Countdown to Christmas: Six Days - Top Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings

Christmas is my favorite time of year, so to get festive and celebrate the week leading up to it, I'm doing a Countdown to Christmas series all this week! Today's topic coincides with the topic for The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings.

I don't really ask for many books at Christmas time because I lack the self-control to keep myself from buying the ones I really, really want. So usually when I ask for books for Christmas, they're ones that I wouldn't normally buy for myself. 

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban illustrated editions
In my noble quest to collect all the editions of Harry Potter, I definitely had to ask for the illustrated versions!

The Snow Queen and Other Winter Tales

I love Barnes and Noble's collectible edition books. They're so gorgeous! I absolutely love the cover on this one, and I mainly asked for it because I wanted to read E. T. A. Hoffmann's "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," which is the story the Nutcracker ballet is based on.

The Nine Kingdoms series by Lynn Kurland
I talked about Lynn Kurland a bit in my Christmas Songs Book Tag post. I started reading her historical romance series (de Piaget) earlier in the fall, and I've really enjoyed the ones I've read so far (each book can pretty much stand on its own, so I've been sticking to the strictly historical ones in the series; there are some volumes that involve time travel that I'm not so keen on). I'm really excited to start her fantasy series now.

Caraval by Stephanie Garber
I've been wanting to read Caraval for the longest time but have just never gotten around to it. I'm thinking it'll be a good magical fantasy to read while I've got some time off from work between Christmas and New Year's.

Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill
Ever the Hunted is another fantasy I've been meaning to read for a while, and with the sequel just out, now seems like the perfect time to pick it up!

That's it! Like I said, I usually buy most of the books I really, really want myself, so my bookish wishlist was pretty small this year. Since I don't have ten books to list for TTT, I'll end this post with a little story about my favorite book I ever received for Christmas (though not from Santa).

When I was in the third grade, my teacher read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to our class, and it was pretty much the only thing I talked about for the next two months (this was right around the time that the books were becoming really popular in the US). So, on Christmas Eve that year, my mom let me open a present that had come in the mail from my aunt. Inside was a book, and that book was ... you guessed it, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It was my first ever copy of a Harry Potter book, and I was so excited!

Baby Alex, featuring HP and the Sorcerer's Stone and little sis

Well, that's all for today's Countdown to Christmas post! Be sure to come back tomorrow for day 3! In the meantime, tell me what books you're wishing for this year. Or, better yet, let me know what some of your favorites book were that you received as gifts (Christmas or otherwise). See you tomorrow!

Countdown to Christmas: Seven Days - Favorite Christmas Movies

Christmas is my favorite time of the year, and since we're just one week away from the big day, I wanted to do a series of posts for every day leading up to it to share some of the things I love most about the season! So, without further ado, welcome to day one of Countdown to Christmas! Today's topic: my favorite Christmas movies!

Home Alone 2

This has always been my favorite of the Home Alone duology. (I absolutely refuse to acknowledge the existence of Home Alone 3 or any other spin-offs. If it doesn't have Macauly Culkin, it ain't Home Alone, people!) When I was little, I loved watching Kevin explore his room in the Plaza Hotel, open that giant cabinet full of candy and cookies, ride in a limousine with his very own pizza while watching The Grinch, and exploring the wonderland that was Duncan's Toy Chest.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

The thing I remember most about watching this movie as a kid was how funny I thought it was. I seriously thought it was the most hilarious movie ever. I loved all the Grinch's funny quips, especially his voicemail message: "If you utter so much as one syllable, I'LL HUNT YOU DOWN AND GUT YOU LIKE A FISH! If you'd like to fax me, press the star key." I would crack up at this part every single time (and I still do)!

Christmas Vacation

I never get tired of watching Christmas Vacation. Like the Grinch, there are so many hilarious moments. When I lived in Indiana, we started the tradition of going to see Christmas Vacation at this little renovated movie theater that was in a small town about twenty minutes from where I used to live. They hold screenings of it the weekend before Christmas, and people go dressed up as their favorite characters and shout their favorite lines in time with the movie. It became one of my favorite things to do, and I'm really sad I wasn't be able to go this year.

The Holiday

This is such a fun, feel-good Christmas movie! And the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer is awesome. Oh yeah, and Jude Law is pretty darn adorable too. ;)

Love Actually

Apparently, over the last couple of years, it's become the new "cool" thing to do to hate on Love Actually. Whatever. I don't really get why people are such grouches (or should I say grinches?) about it, but I still love this movie despite its flaws. Bill Nighy's character is so freaking hilarious, and I love the stories about Jamie and Aurelia and Sam and his stepdad (whose name is escaping me at the moment). Plus, let's be real: it's worth watching just for that Hugh Grant dance scene alone.

A Christmas Story

If there ever comes a day when TBS no longer does the 24-hour marathon of A Christmas Story, my heart will break. I absolutely have to watch it all the way through at least once (preferably the first time it plays on Christmas Eve) and then have it on in the background until it ends on Christmas night. There were many Christmas Eves as a kid when I would be too excited about Santa to fall asleep, so I'd turn on my TV and watch A Christmas Story until I finally crashed.

The Family Stone

You know how some movies just give you a cozy feeling when you watch them? That's how I feel when watching The Family Stone. It's funny and bittersweet and filled with holiday family drama, and even though it's a bit sad at the end, it's a comforting movie for me. And the soundtrack by Michael Giacchino is so pretty. Seriously, go listen to "A Big Red Shovel," "It's Snowing," and "A Very Good Tree" and tell me that they don't make you feel all warm and fuzzy but also kind of like you want to cry at the same time. (Damn it, I just listened to them and now I am crying!)

The Polar Express

So, for reasons I can't remember now, I totally hated The Polar Express the first time I saw it in the theater. I was in the eighth grade, so maybe chalk it up to being a surly teen. Lol. Now, though, whenever I watch it, I always get a huge lump in my throat at the end when the boy (all grown up) talks about how the time comes when his little sister can no longer hear the Christmas bell Santa gave to him. UGH! MY HEART!

Elf

This is another movie that I wasn't all that crazy about when I first saw it that has now become a must-watch every Christmas. Again, must have been in surly teenager mode at the time!

Love the Coopers

This is one of my more recent Christmas favorites. I love all the flashbacks in it and the folksy Christmas music they use. (Though I could do without the family sing-along montage in the middle. Ugh. So much secondhand embarrassment! Lol!) Also, there are, like, zero gifs for this movie, so here's the trailer.

Three Days

I think I must be the only person left who actually likes this movie because ABC Family/Freeform never plays it anymore, and you can't get it on DVD, much to my disappointment. If you've never heard of Three Days, it's a made-for-TV movie that came out in 2001 about a man named Andrew whose wife dies on Christmas Eve. Andrew is visited by an angel named Lionel shortly after, and Lionel gives Andrew the past three days to live over again so that he can prove his love to Beth, who died thinking Andrew had cheated on her (ANGST! DRAMA!). It's cheesy, but I love it so darn much, and I'm so mad that you literally can't buy it ANYWHERE! This movie is also gifless, probably because I'm the only person on the planet who likes it, lol!

George Ballanchine's The Nutcracker

When I was little, I was obsessed with The Nutcracker ballet. The first time I ever saw it was when I watched the 1993 movie version with Macaulay Culkin. I loved everything about it: the party scenes, the music, the costumes, the dancing (and little four-year-old Alex may have had a crush on Macaulay Culkin as the Nutcracker Prince). To this day, one of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to see the ballet live. I'll be going to see it this Saturday for the first time in a couple of years, and I can't wait!

Phew! That was a lot of movies! Now you all tell me what some of your favorites are!
And be sure to come back tomorrow for day two of Countdown to Christmas! :)

The Year of Conquering My TBR: Beat the Backlist Challenge 2018

Well, it's that time of year again. 2017 is coming to a close, and it's time to look back and reflect on all the awesome books I got to read ... and avoid staring at all the books on my shelves that I still haven't gotten around to reading.

In 2018, I'm endeavoring to do better! It's time to get serious about my ever-growing collection of books and make time to read some that I've been meaning to read for a long, long time. That's why I'm so excited to be participating in Novel Knight's Beat the Backlist challenge! The goal of the challenge is simple: clean out those backlist books from your TBR pile.

This challenge coincides perfectly with one of my own personal reading goals for 2018, which is to finish or catch up on several series that I've been the process of reading (or have been meaning to start) for years. Because of that, I'm setting a pretty lofty goal and challenging myself to read 45 backlist books in 2018. My total reading goal for the year is 75 books, so I think this will give me a good balance of new and older titles. 

I have to admit it's sort of terrifying to officially announce those goals, especially since the most books I ever read in one year since I started doing the Goodreads Reading Challenge was 63. But I've been so inspired over the last few weeks by seeing people announcing that they've hit their goals of 100, 150, 175, or even higher, that I really want to go for it next year. After all, I love books. I love reading. I just need to make it a priority again and make sure that I'm setting aside time to do it instead of whiling away the hours on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds.

Now, on to my (potential) TBR list! (Who knows if I'll actually stick to this or not. I'm a total mood reader, and I have a ton of backlist books in my TBR pile!)

Series:

• The Infernal Devices
• Clockwork Angel
• Clockwork Prince
• Clockwork Princess
• The Mortal Instruments
• City of Fallen Angels
• City of Lost Saints
• City of Heavenly Fire
• The Dark Artifices
• Lady Midnight
• Lord of Shadows
• Throne of Glass
• The Assassin's Blade
• Tower of Dawn
• Falling Kingdoms
• Falling Kingdoms
• Rebel Spring
• Gathering Darkness
• Frozen Tides
• Crystal Storm
• Air Awakens
• Air Awakens
• Fire Falling
• Earth's End
• Water's Wrath
• Crystal Crowned
• Six of Crows
• The Kiss of Deception
• Caraval
• Red Queen
• Nevernight
• Red Rising
• The Star-Touched Queen
• The Falconer
• This Savage Song
• Scythe
• An Ember in the Ashes
• The Queen of the Tearling
• The Great Hunt
• The Winner's Curse
• Legacy of Kings
• The Diviners
• Angelfall
• The Crown's Game
• The Imposter Queen
• The Orphan Queen
• The Girl at Midnight
• The Jewel
• Truthwitch
• Three Dark Crowns

Standalones:

• This Is Where the World Ends
• The Darkest Part of the Forest

Are you participating in the challenge? What are your goals and what do you plan on reading? And let me know if we're on the same team (Book Bards)!

Christmas Songs Book Tag

If you haven't already heard, Jana of That Artsy Reader Girl has created this super cute Christmas Songs Book Tag as part of her A Bookish Little Christmas blog series. It sounded so fun, so I definitely had to fill it out myself. For more details on the book tag or the blog event, be sure to check out Jana's blog!

1. "All I Want for Christmas Is You": Favorite bookish couple

Basically any couple in Sarah J. Maas's books. Lol! But there is a special place in my heart for Feyre and Rhysand from A Court of Mist and Fury.

2. "I'll Be Home for Christmas": Name a book where a character is away from home (school, vacation, etc.)

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. Lazlo travels from the home he's known his whole life to the legendary city of Weep. (Seriously, if you have read this book yet, get on that!)

3. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas": Name your favorite "little" book (children's book, short story, novella)

I was trying to think back to Christmas books I loved as a little kid, and the first one that popped into my head was The Amazing Christmas Extravaganza. My mom used to read this picture book to me and my little sister before bed leading up to Christmas.

4. "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town": What books do you hope Santa brings you this year?

I don't normally ask my family for books for Christmas because I have zero self-control and usually end up buying the books I really want on my own. But this year, I've asked for the Nine Kingdoms series by Lynn Kurland. I fell in love with her medieval romance novels earlier this fall, and I'm really excited to check out her fantasy series.

5. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer": Which book turned your nose red (made you cry)?

A Court of Wings and Ruin. I was a total mess for about the last 200 or so pages. Literally just nonstop tears streaming my down my face, and at a few points, ugly, heavy sobs (page 666, anyone? Such a fitting number considering that page was pure evil).

6. "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year": Your favorite book/kind of book to read during the holidays

Every year I try to find a fluffy Christmas romance or family drama to read, but so far I haven't had much luck finding any that I like. So when that fails, I like to turn to fantasy or books with magic—nothing too dark though!

7. "We Three Kings": Your favorite trilogy

Right now it's A Court of Thorns and Roses. The characters in these books have my heart in a vice grip!

8. "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!": A character you would love to be snowed in with

Rhysand from the ACOTAR series. I mean, he is my fictional husband after all, and he does have that cabin in the mountains...

9. "Last Christmas": A book that seriously let you down

An Enchantment of Ravens. I hate that I feel this way because I really, truly was looking forward to it so much! It just didn't live up to my expectations. :(

10. "White Christmas": An upcoming release you're dreaming of

A Court of Frost and Starlight! OMG! More Feyre and Rhys? Yessss! But May is so. far. away! I need this book pronto. And just so it doesn't look I've only talked about Sarah J. Maas books in this post, I'll also add that I'm super excited for Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian and The Queen's Rising by Rebecca Ross!

Reading Manga by Moonlight: Rereading Sailor Moon

Thanks to my awesome #TBTBSanta, Emma, for the adorable Sailor Moon Funko!

Like a lot of '90s kids, I grew up watching Sailor Moon, and she was one of the first kick-ass heroines I was introduced to (though, in all honesty, I think five-year-old me was waaaay more interested in flowy dress-wearing, handsome prince-winning Princess Serenity than her modern-day evil-fighting counterpart). Still, I'm absolutely positive that watching Sailor Moon as a kid is what has made me so interested in magical stories with awesome heroines at their hearts.

So why am I talking about Sailor Moon? Well, I'm trying desperately to complete my Goodreads challenge of 40 books, and with December being such a busy month, it's prooobably not likely that I'm going to have time to read eight more novels before the year's over. So, instead of stressing myself out by trying to cram in a bunch of long novels I won't end up finishing, I've decided to do something I haven't done in a while ... something a little more fun, and easier to fit into the craziness of the holiday season. 

I'm going to reread the Sailor Moon manga series!


I first read it as a middle schooler, and it blew my mind, you guys. I'd seen part of the American dub as a little kid, as well as the three movies, but it wasn't until they started playing the anime on TV before school when I was in seventh grade that I realized it was not only a five-season series but also had an entire manga series too (thank you, Internet!). Luckily my public library had the whole series in their catalog, so I checked out as many as I could in one trip and breezed through it. 

To make my reread even more fun, I'm going to live tweeting as I go along, and I'll probably do some longer reactions posts too. If there are any other Sailor Moon fans out there itching to reread the series, or maybe even read it for the first time, I'd love to have you join me! This is going to be really informal, though, and I don't have a set timeframe for when I'll get to each volume. If you want to follow my progress or read along, I'll be tweeting with the hashtag #SailorMoonReread.

Even if you don't plan on reading along this time around, you can still fangirl with me in the comments! Tell me, who's your favorite sailor scout/senshi? Do you prefer the anime to the manga or vice versa? Have a favorite version of the anime (dubbed, subbed, original, or reboot)? Let's talk!

In the name of the moon,

Review: An Enchantment of Ravens

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Pub. Date: September 27, 2017

Source/Format: Purchased/Hardcover

"One raven for uncertain peril. Six for danger sure to arrive. A dozen for death, if not avoided. The enchantment is sealed."

**This review is NOT spoiler-free.**

Seventeen-year-old Isobel lives in Whimsy, a world inhabited by humans and fairies, and makes a living for her family by performing her Craft: painting portraits for the fairy nobility. The Fair Folk, who are unable to create such works of their own or experience human emotion, desire Craft over all else, and they flock to Isobel to have their portraits done. When Isobel is visited by Rook, prince of the Autumn Court, she discovers the human emotion of sorrow in his eyes and captures it in his portrait. When the painting is unveiled before his court, Rook's weakness is put on display, thus placing his legitimacy to rule in jeopardy. Enraged by this slight, Rook steals Isobel from her home to bring her to stand trial for her unwitting crime. But their dangerous journey to the autumn court is filled with detours and distractions, and soon Isobel and Rook find themselves in danger of breaking an even more dangerous rule—for above all else, fairies and humans must never fall in love.

An Enchantment of Ravens was one of my most anticipated new releases of 2017, not only because the premise sounded amazing but because of the comparisons that were being drawn between it and A Court of Thorns and Roses (which, as you may know, is my favorite series at the moment), and the fact that artist Charlie Bowater, who helped design the A Court of Wings and Ruin cover and has made other amazing ACOTAR fan art, did the cover art. So I went into AEOR with a lot of excitement and high hopes. Unfortunately, it fell somewhat short of my expectations.

Top Ten Tuesday: A Hogwarts Feast

Confession: some of the most memorable scenes from movies and cartoons I watched as a kid revolve around food. The flower petal tea cup Willy Wonka crunches on in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The plate piled high with food that Ichabod Crane eats while listening to Brom's ghost stories in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The cabinet full of cookies and candy in Kevin's suite at the Plaza Hotel in Home Alone 2 ... I'm pretty much obsessed with food, you guys. So while I was trying to come up with ideas for this week's topic, I tried to think of books that had the most memorable descriptions of food, the ones I read and afterward thought, oh my god, I'm SO hungry now! And honestly, what kids' books have better descriptions of food than the Harry Potter books? I mean, who wouldn't want to attend a Hogwarts welcome feast or take a trip to Honeydukes at least once?

So, I did some browsing through the books and made a list of some of the tastiest food descriptions in the HP series. Interesting tidbit: it gets a lot harder to find these sorts of passages the further along you get in the series. I guess it's cause the trio's got "more important" things to worry about, like Voldemort's return or Umbridge's takeover of Hogwarts or finding out where the seven Horcruxes are and other things that keep them from feasting on delicious food. Go figure.

(Okay, so I had to cheat a little with this gif since we don't actually see Florean Fortescue in the movies.)

Finally, shout-out to whoever the awesome person is who made this post over on the HP Lexicon that lists literally every single mention of food in all the books. It would've taken me forever to find some of these quotes otherwise!Now if you'll excuse, I'm off to raid the pantry.

Team Ravenclaw Welcome Post + My House Cup Reading Challenge TBR List

Hey Team Ravenclaw! Welcome to the House Cup Reading Challenge! As the Head Girl for Team Ravenclaw, I'm here to answer any questions you all might have about the challenge. I'll also be the one all you Ravenclaws report your final points to at the end of the challenge on November 12.

A Little Bit About Me ... 

I'm Alex: bookworm, fantasy fanatic, drinker of tea, and lover of all things cute. If this is your first time to my blog (which for a lot of you I imagine it is), welcome! I'm so happy you've decided to join me, Lauren, Erica, and Kelsey for the reading challenge! This all started out as a silly little idea I had back in September, and with the help of my co-hosts, it's morphed into a full-blown challenge! It's my first time hosting a reading challenge, and I'm thrilled to see how many of you have already signed up to join us!

If I Were a Hogwarts Student ...

Name: Alex

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Wand Type: Beech wood and unicorn hair

Pet: An orange tabby cat named Marmalade

Favorite Subject: Charms

Favorite Professor: Professor Lupin

My TBR List

As the head of Team Ravenclaw, I won't actually be participating for points in the challenge, but I'm still planning to read at least seven books (though how many of those I'll get through remains to be seen). I'm trying to pick shorter books off my TBR (with some exceptions) in the hope that I'll actually be able to complete the challenge. I'm a notorious mood reader so I always get a little nervous about setting a hard-and-fast reading list. So for now, here's my tentative reading list with some alternative picks.

Shadowfell by Juliet Marrillier

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Wicked Like a Wildfire by 

Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas

The Queen and the Cure by Amy Harmon

Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa

Heart of the Empire by Carrie Summers

A Million Junes by Emily Henry

Vengeance Born by Kylie Griffin

Need Recommendations?

Still not sure what you're going to read? Here's a list of some of my favorite books from the last few years:

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses #2)
Heir of Fire, Queen of Shadows, and Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass #3, 4, and 5)
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1)
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (Strange the Dreamer #1)
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
Hunted by Meagan Spooner
The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon
Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier

Bustle also has a great list of books all Ravenclaws should read.

Remember, sign-ups close Saturday night, so be sure to add your sign-up post the widget here if you want to participate and be eligible for the prizes! And be sure to join us Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. EST for the kick-off Twitter chat! We look forward to seeing you there! :)

The House Cup Reading Challenge Sign Up

Welcome, welcome to the House Cup Reading Challenge! I along with my lovely co-hosts, Lauren of Live, Love, Read, Erica of Escape Under the  Cover, and Kelsey of Kelsey's Cluttered Bookshelf, invite you to join us for a month-long competition to tackle our TBR lists! As a total HP nerd, I am so excited to be hosting this challenge and hope that you all have as much fun participating as we've had planning it!

What Is the House Cup Reading Challenge?

The House Cup Reading Challenge runs from Sunday, October 15, to Sunday, November 12. During this challenge, you will progress from a first-year to seventh-year Hogwarts student by completing seven books on your TBR list. In addition to the main challenge, you will have opportunities to earn even more points by participating in the themed bonus challenges and tweeting with the challenge hashtag on Twitter. But more on that later! 

How It Works

First, you'll need to choose your Hogwarts house. During the challenge, you'll not only be earning points for yourself but for your Hogwarts house as well. At the end of the challenge, each reader should report their points to their house's Head Girl:

Gryffindor: Lauren @BetweenDPages

Hufflepuff: Kelsey @Kelsenator

Ravenclaw: Alex @booksydaisy

Slytherin: Erica @slychica08

Here's how we're determining the winners:

 4 Individual House Winners
One winner will be chosen from each of the four Hogwarts houses. The person who earns the most points for their house will receive:
$5 Starbucks gift card and some HP-themed goodies (stickers, bookmarks, etc.)

1 House Cup Grand Prize Winner
Here's where the House Cup challenge really comes into play! At the end of the challenge, we will randomly select one grand prize winner from the Hogwarts house with the most points overall. This lucky winner will receive:
A Harry Potter Funko Pop figure and a $25 giftcard to Barnes and Noble

**In the case of an international winner, that person will receive an e-gift card to The Book Depository.** 

**PLEASE NOTE: Because we will need winners to provide us with their addresses in order to send out the prizes, you must be 18 years or older to be eligible to win.**

Challenge Events

To kick off the challenge, we'll be hosting a Twitter chat starting at 8:00 p.m. EST to give everybody a chance to introduce themselves, talk about the competition, and answer some Harry Potter trivia questions. Be sure to follow along with the #housecupreadingchallenge hashtag.

At the end of the challenge, we'll also be hosting a watch-along of one of the Harry Potter movies (to be decided via Twitter poll). We'll have more details about this as we get closer to the end of the challenge.

Challenge Categories and Points Breakdown

Main Challenge (20 points each)

Not everyone likes to be confined to a specific category, so we've decided that all books for the main challenge are reader's choice. This means you can pick any book off your TBR list to count toward the main challenge!

First Year: reader’s choice

Second Year: reader’s choice

Third Year: reader’s choice

Fourth Year: reader’s choice

Fifth Year: reader’s choice

Sixth Year: reader’s choice

Seventh Year: reader’s choice

Bonus Challenges (10 points each)

For those who like categories to help narrow down their reading choices, here are thirteen bonus challenges to choose from. However, books you read for the bonus challenges cannot count toward the main challenge! For example,  if you pick The Hunger Games for the Slytherin bonus challenge (read a dystopian book), you cannot also count it toward your second-year challenge.

Gryffindor: Read a book with an epic hero/heroine

Hufflepuff: Read a book that contains a strong friendship 

Ravenclaw: Read a book that revolves around a mystery

Slytherin: Read a book set in a dystopian world 

Astronomy Class: Read a book set in outer space

Care of Magical Creatures: Read a book that features an animal or magical/mythical creature

Tri-Wizard Tournament: Read a book that includes a competition

Occlumency: Read a book about a character with magical abilities or superpowers

Death Eater: Read a book told from the POV of a villain

Platform 9 3/4: Read a book that features travel

Time Turner: Read a book set in the future or past

Fantastic Beasts: Read a spin-off to a beloved series

Dumbledore’s Army: Buddy-read a book with a friend or group

Social Media Bonus Points

Use the hashtag #housecupreadingchallenge on Twitter to earn 1 point per tweet (limited to 20 points total). 

How to Sign Up

Think you're ready to take on the House Cup Reading Challenge? Awesome! To sign up, grab your house badge below, create a sign-up post on your blog with your challenge TBR list and, if you want, your answers to the questionnaire below. Once you've made your post, be sure to link it back to us using the Inlinkz widget below (or on any of my fellow co-hosts' blogs). We await your owl no later than October 14! ;) Happy reading!

Hogwarts Student Questionnaire

Name:
Hogwarts House:
Wand Type:
Pet:
Favorite Subject:
Favorite Professor:

We can't wait to see you on October 15 at 8:00 p.m. EST for the challenge kick-off Twitter chat!

Review: The Wood by Chelsea Bobulski

The Wood by Chelsea Bobulski
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Pub. Date: August 1, 2017
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Source/Format: Library/Hardcover

"Do not travel from the paths. Do not linger after dark. Do not ignore the calling." Winter Parish is a descendent of a long line of guardians, whose duty is to protect the mystical wood behind her family's home from wandering travelers––people who step through thresholds in time either by accident or with the intent to reach another time altogether. Without the guardians, these travelers are in danger of becoming lost in a time that is not their own, or worse, being consumed by the wood itself. Winter's father has been training her since she was ten to become the new guardian in the Parish family line, but when he mysteriously disappears, Winter is left alone to guard the wood, all the while agonizing over what could have happened to her father. Two years later, Henry, a young man from eighteenth-century England, appears in Winter's wood with one purpose: to travel through the time thresholds to uncover what happened to his own missing parents. When it becomes clear that the disappearance of Winter's father and Henry's parents may be connected, the two work together to find their loved ones and defeat the growing evil that plagues the wood.

The Wood is an interesting contemporary fantasy novel linking time travel with a fairy tale–esque magical forest. I did enjoy the characters, especially the relationship between Winter and Henry, although they definitely did not have the whirlwind, passion-fueled romance you see in most YA books of this sort. I especially liked and even laughed out loud at Henry's reactions to modern technology, clothing, lingo, etc. As far as plot goes, though, I was little ... bored. The story takes place over the course of only a few days––with some flashbacks to when Winter was a young guardian-in-training––and everything seems to wrap up a little too neatly, and the "villain" is defeated a little too easily. I would've also liked it if the book had gone deeper into the folklore and origin story of the wood and also the Old Ones, the fae-like creatures who help the guardians in their mission to keep the wood safe and prevent travelers from interfering with the space-time continuum. It felt like we were given just enough information to make that fantasy world plausible but not enough to really make it come alive. Maybe I'm just not used to the pace of standalone books anymore, considering the majority of the books I read now are part of longer series, which gives the author more time to expand the plot and drum up suspense. While I enjoyed parts The Wood, it's probably not a book I'll come back to or one that I'll be shoving in people's faces and demanding that they read.

I'm trying something a little different with my rating system this time around, so we'll see if it sticks! I got the idea from a book journal my mom got me for my birthday this year, which, in addition to giving you space to write down your thoughts about the book and favorite quotes, has a section where you can rank different aspects of the book. I've chosen the three that have the biggest influence over whether a book becomes an instant fave, is just okay, or doesn't click with me.

If you've read The Wood too, I'd love to hear what you thought of it!

Top Ten Tuesday: My Fall TBR

There are so many awesome books I'm looking forward to reading this fall! 

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson – Eeep, this book comes out one week from today, and I am so excited, you guys! I have been absolutely dying to read AEOR ever since first seeing the gorgeous cover art by Charlie Bowater (who has done some equally fabulous art for the ACOTAR series, in case you didn't know). The premise sounds so magical, and I am totally ready to be swept up into another faerie fantasy world!

Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory Maguire – I've never read a Gregory Maguire book before, despite the popularity of Wicked, but I am really intrigued by Hiddensee, which promises to be an origin story of the toymaker Drosselmeier and the enchanted Nutcracker. I love The Nutcracker ballet––it's been one of my favorite Christmas traditions since I was a little girl––so I can't wait to read a new, perhaps more grown-up, version of that story.

Berserker by Emmy Laybourne – So many of the fall new releases this year have gorgeous covers, and Berserker is no exception. Even though this one sounds like it's a little outside my normally preferred genres (I'm not a huge fan of stories set in the Wild West), the mash-up of that world with Viking mythology certainly sounds original!

That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston – I absolutely loved BBC's Victoria miniseries that was on TV earlier this year, so this alternative history novel about a descendant of Queen Victoria sounds pretty cool!

The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli – I just added this book to my TBR today; up until now I'd avoided it because honestly ... I just really, really hate the cover. And for better or for worse, I am definitely a person for whom the cover plays a major factor in determining whether or not I pick up the book to read the summary. I know, I know, it's bad! But I'm old and set in my ways, haha. I probably wouldn't have looked into this book at all if I hadn't seen a giveaway for the ARC by chance on Twitter (they totally should've gone with the ARC cover; so much prettier!). Anyway, seeing the ARC was what finally made me decide to read the summary, and oh my gosh, this sounds so good!

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden – I finally snagged a paperback copy of this while checking out Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh before the Tower of Dawn event a couple weeks ago. It's been on my TBR list for a while, and I'm excited to read it, especially since I've been on a fairy tale retelling kick lately.

Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody – I got this book as part of the July Unicorn Crate, but of course I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. But maybe that's for the best, because a story about a dark traveling circus sounds like the perfect October read!

The Falconer by Elizabeth May – Yes, the majority of the books on this list are about faeries. Your point? :P

The Great Hunt by Wendy Higgins – ... or they're fairy tale retellings. Oh well!

The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell – Picked this up over the weekend when I went out to grab a copy of Night of Cake and Puppets by Laini Taylor. It was an impulse buy, because this book really hadn't been on my radar, but after reading the summary and finding out it was about time-traveling magicians, I decided to give it a try.