Slow reading benefits || Why I am a slow reader

Hello book friends!

So today I wanted to gather some of my thoughts on reading and make a post like that. I have been a reader my whole life and I have been through all kinds of different phases with my reading habits. I have been a really fast reader, an all-over-the-place reader, a very selective reader, a mood reader, or a slower reader depending on my current mood and conditions in life. What I have deduced all those years is that there are as many types of readers as there are readers and most of us will probably fit into more than one of these "categories". I'm not going to talk about all of them, however. Today I wanted to talk about slow vs fast reading.

As I said previously, I've gone through a phase when I was a very fast reader, but this way of reading doesn't fit me anymore and it doesn't work for me for a couple of reasons. First of all, for practical reasons, my life is currently pretty busy and hectic so finding time for reading is rare and hard, so my reading time is limited even though I try to make the most of it. Secondly, my preference has changed through the years and I now enjoy much more reading slowly rather than fast and I don't see myself changing that any time soon. And lastly, I have come to realize that this way of reading is much more beneficial to me and had more to offer than my old ways.

Disclaimer: The reasons I'm about to list below are personal and not general rules. Any of the following could apply or not apply to you and on various levels. These are personal opinions and in no way do I want to say that my way is better than yours, or make it seem that I am better than anyone else. Whichever way of reading is best for you and works for you is the one you should follow and you don't have to agree with me or follow what I say. I simply wanted to state my views and use them as a chance for a conversation with all of you. 

So, with that out of the way, here are some of my reasons for reading slowly and some of the benefits I've found it has on me:

1. Reading slowly increases my understanding of the text/story: Not just on a surface level, meaning what happens to the story and how the characters interact, but also on a deeper level, like what each thing means to the characters and how it affects them.
2. It allows me to empathize more with the characters and get to know them better: Taking time to re-read a line or taking my time to read a dialogue can make me understand the characters better, "hear" their voices more distinctly, read between the lines and find any subtext there might be. In the end, I feel like taking the time to think about certain parts of the story can really help me understand all the motives and conflicts of a character, which in turn increases my enjoyment of the story.
3. It helps me analyze every aspect of the story: As you may have noticed if you've read my blog, I really enjoy over-analyzing stories and going to a deeper level with them. A story may be sci-fi or fantasy or whatever, but it may well carry lots of different themes and ideas that may be interesting to explore. I love finding all of these themes and messages and analyzing them as much as I can; the socio-economic commentary from the writer, the "peak" into the scary human future, the psychological repercussions of an important historical event, or even the importance of different kinds of relationships in our lives are only a few of the things we can find in stories and that we may want to talk about after consuming the story. I love taking a deep dive into all of these themes and over-analyzing them, especially the ones that I consider that concern me most, and reading slowly really helps me take this deep dive.
4. It helps me learn more and better: Lately, I have found out how to "read like a writer" and, since I really love writing and aspire to write my own story one day, I have tried as much as possible to "read like a writer". Which means to learn from what I read and always try to take something out of it, whether that is new vocabulary, learning how to use punctuation properly, or learning new techniques of writing, new expressions, and all kinds of new literary tools and devices. I have realized that this way of reading allows me to absorb all these writing and artistic details so that I can more easily and effectively use them in my own work and, consequently, improve the quality of my own writing. 
5. It helps me remember more parts of the story better: Just to clear this out, slow reading does not make the story itself more memorable, it cannot do that and I do not think it can be done with any way of reading. What makes a story essentially memorable is the content and nothing else. However, I have found that the slower reading helps me remember a little bit better the story, within of course what its content allows, and to keep it in my memory long-term. I don't really like it when I have read the book and I can't remember what it was about and why I liked it or disliked it. So devoting a bit more time to reading, comprehending, and approaching it from many different angles, I feel helps me with remembering more of the story better and cherishing it more, and this is a positive for me.
6. It prolongs the experience: This is most useful and desirable with the books that I actually love and enjoy, and that I want to make them last longer and I don't want them to be over. But it is not so great with the books that I don't enjoy and that I would rather get over with. So this one really depends on the book itself and I can make it last a longer or shorter time according to how much I enjoy each book. I have skim-read books quite a few times in the past if I've found them boring, but if they are nice I'm more likely to want to make it last longer.
7. It gives me the time to take notes: If I feel like there's something worth remembering and keeping written down or annotated I like to take the time to note it down to be able and appreciate it both at the given time and for future reference.
8. It's just pure preference and taste: In the end, this is what it all comes down to; how you personally enjoy and like to pass your time and it doesn't really need more reason than that. This is the way that helps me get more emerged in stories and that I feel was more beneficial to me. This is the way for me.

Now, there are of course a few downsides to this way of reading, just like there are with any other way of reading, that are worth mentioning too:

1. You don't get to read as many books as you'd wish: This method, of course, means that you'll read significantly fewer books than other readers that chose to read quickly and, as a consequence...
2. You get through your TBR list much more slowly and
3. It's a bit harder to reach your reading goals/challenges, or you have to set much smaller goals in order to make it
4. It's almost impossible to keep up with all the new books, all new releases, and all these books you've had an eye on for a while.
5. Re-reading books you've enjoyed in the past is almost out of the question: Not if you want to get through all these other new books you've been dying to read. It's not impossible, but it's surely rare and hard to do.

So, tell me, what type of reader are you? Do you prefer to read more quickly or slowly? Do you belong to any other "types" of readers? What do you enjoy more and why? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to share them!

For one more time, thank you for reading!

Until the next time!

My Bookish Pet Peeves

Today I felt like doing a different post, so I decided to talk to you about my bookish pet peeves. I will only be talking about practical things, things that have to do with the physical copy, the cover, the pages, and all that. I won't be talking about things pet peeves I have that are related to the stories, plots, or characters as I feel this talk belongs in a different post. Some of these things only bother me and no one else, others bother many of you as well, while some others bother most of the reading community but I don't mind them. So, here we go!

My bookish pet peeves:

1. Stickers on the cover - This drives me nuts! And I think it is a common bookish pet peeve amongst the reading community, I can't think of anyone that would appreciate the addition of a generic, irrelevant, and ugly sticker on their beloved and beautiful cover. I mean not only they are ugly, not only they destroy the cover of the book, but most of the time they're impossible to remove! Plus if you have low patience - like me - the more likely it is that you'll end up destroying a part of your new book trying to take the thing off! Just stop this madness, please!
2. Different sized books within a series - this is pretty much self-explanatory. Unevenly sized books just make it so much harder to arrange on the bookshelves. It's not amongst the most annoying things on this list, however, it is pretty irritating.
3. Dog-eared pages - once they've been dog-eared they never go back and that's enough. I used to do this quite a lot in my school books and it was useful for this, but reading recreationally is a whole other story and there is no place for dog-earing in it!
4. Movie covers -  just no!
5. When people don't respect a borrowed book - I've long now stopped borrowing books, because the last couple of times they were brought back to me destroyed. I borrowed you the thing, just be careful, and bring it back soon and in the state I gave it to you!

Common bookish pet peeves that don't bother me:

1. Broken spines - As long as it's not completely destroyed to the point that it can't hold the book together, I don't mind if the spine is a bit broken. On the contrary, I feel that a broken spine shows that a book has been read and loved, probably multiple times, by multiple people and that says something.
2. Annotations - I don't usually annotate my books, I have done it a few times though when a book sparked many thoughts in me. It's great that I can revisit those books and also be able to read the thoughts I had about it at the time and I find it even more fascinating if I can get my hands on someone else's book and I'm able to read their thoughts about it! It's amazing that you can see what someone thought of a specific passage and it can help you rediscover a book and see it from a different angle. I know it bothers many other bookworms, but as long as it doesn't cover or smudge the text, I love it!

So, that's about it for me. What about you? Tell me what bothers you, what is it that you cannot stand, or something that doesn't bother you even though it's a common bookish pet peeve? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences with me, I'd love to hear what you have to say!

Thank you for reading!

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" || Book Review, Book to Movie Comparison & Discussion

***MY GENERAL THOUGHTS***

I started and finished this book in 2021, it was actually my last book of the year. However, I have been postponing writing the review for it for about a while now because I felt conflicted about it. My feelings for it were unclear and my thoughts complicated. I couldn't decide how I should rate it and I'm still unsure as I'm beginning to write this review, so I just hope by the end, when I'm done with it, I will have come to a conclusion. So I will just try to lay my thoughts down and see if I can figure it out, but if you'd care to see my previous review of this series for "The Goblet of Fire" before reading this one, you can find it here.

First of all, I'd like to mention that I have watched the movies before reading the books so I had a good idea what was coming and I've also read plenty of spoilers online, watched videos about the whole series and I had a very good idea about it in general. More specifically, the fifth movie is one of my favorites (if not my favorite), so a good part of my confusion and indecisiveness about this book may come from the high expectations I had about this book because of my love of the movie. Another reason for my high expectations may well be the good impression I had of the previous book which I enjoyed thoroughly. Then again, I don't think it's just me being biased, because I could point at some legit issues with this book, some objective problems. To cut the long story short, let's get to it... I apologize in advance for the super long post, but I had so many things to say (and I didn't even say everything I've been meaning to say, I had to cut out a few of the smaller, more insignificant parts). I just couldn't stop myself.

***NON-SPOILER SECTION***

Once more in this series, we have an enormous book, in fact much bigger than the rest. Even though the pacing is good, the story flows nicely, it doesn't get tiring or boring and it does have things to say, I still think it could have been a bit more compact. It wasn't by any means one of my big problems with the book, in fact, this was one of the least significant problems I had with it and I would probably not have even noticed or minded if the rest was flawless. But the fact of the matter is that plotwise this is kind of the middle point of the whole story, so it has this feeling of a middle book. We have a significant plot point in the previous book (Voldemort coming back to life) and then this book which is basically people not believing Harry, the Ministry messing things up and then everyone coming to the realization they should have come to one book ago. And then we have the next books, where we all know that some pretty heavy things happen there. So this book is a long, suspenseful build-up to the next and a midway point to the overarching story. So, it being so long when it is a transitional book, even though is not the most important problem, still doesn't really help.

The writing is great for one more time, I think there's no doubt about Rowling's skills as a writer, so I won't further analyze this, there is no need.

This book has a good amount of worldbuilding; new details about the world, new magical beings, new settings and it all is certainly very entertaining. We learn more about giants which I wasn't so crazy about, we learn a bit more about centaurs that I already liked. I really enjoyed the addition of the thestrals and I thought they were amazing! The change of setting from Burrow to Sirius's house was definitely interesting and different and gave the book a whole other dark feeling, but at the same time, I found it to be funny at times what with his mother's portrait shrieking and all (even though, I could have done without all the cleaning and decluttering scenes).

The general mood and atmosphere of this book are obviously darker than the previous ones and it's to be expected as the story gets more serious, the characters grow up and the story matures with them.

***SPOILER SECTION***

We had quite a few new characters in this book. I really enjoyed the addition of Tonks in this book; I liked her and felt like I was vibing with her on many occasions. She is strong, smart, and funny and definitely adds something different to the story. Luna of course is great and loveable and we get to see more of some of the villains - Death Eaters. I also thought that the addition of Phineas Nigellus - even as just a portrait - was entertaining and I wish we'd seen more of him! And, of course... Umbridge... Now, what can I say about her that hasn't already been told? She is absolutely revolting and she gets worse after each page! She is an absolute tyrant, the embodiment of our worst fears in a teacher as students and a representation of all things foul that have to do with authority and its abuse. I was happy that in the end she got what she deserved. 

I really liked the Order of the Phoenix and how all the characters we already knew are now united in this team and they work together for a common purpose. It's nice to see them all together and to see a bit more of their personality. It's also nice to see them all team up no matter their feelings about each other; whether they like or hate each other.

The D.A.D.A. parts were also very interesting and I really loved seeing the students working together and learning new things together. Although I didn't care about Harry and Cho's relationship and it was obvious from early on that it wasn't going to work between them.

Fred and George were really funny for once more just doing their thing and I really loved what they did to Umbridge and how they dramatically left the school!

One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was the Occlumensy lessons! I really enjoyed reading about them and about everything that was going on between Harry and Snape. Snape is consistently, throughout the book, one of my favorite characters, whether he's being his worst or his best version and in this book we get one of the slightly better versions of Snape. He - even though grudgingly - actively tries to help and guide Harry, he tries to give him some insight, some understanding, and he helps the Order a lot. Even when he gets mad and lushes out, it feels understandable in the circumstances of the book (like for example when he got mad after Harry saw his memories). One thing I disliked, however, was that Harry didn't pay much attention to his Occlumency lessons. Actually, it felt as though he was just wasting what was being offered to him, like he didn't care and didn't even try to gain something out of this. It even got me thinking that maybe Snape was justified in considering him arrogant.

One thing I liked about the books, in general, and even more in this book in particular, is that we get to see a lot more of Harry's actual personality that could not be seen that much - if at all - in the movies. I really love Harry's sass and his sarcastic remarks, they make him really stand out and be more interesting as a protagonist, while in the movies he's more "meh". Even though in this particular book we didn't just get to see his sass and humor but also a more annoying side. Harry spends the best part of the beginning of the book being grumpy, whiny, and really irritating in general. I'm not talking about the moments when he's anxious about what is happening in the world and when he is reasonably feeling left out. These are all understandable and I could totally feel them. I'm talking about the moments that he was a whiny baby, constantly complaining, refusing to understand why certain things had to be the way they had to be, refusing to listen to whatever he was being told, and just being the shadier part of an angsty teenager. He even went looking for trouble with his cousin which is not like him generally and who knows how things would have gone if the dementors had not arrived. He's even being a twat to his friends when he finally finds them because he was feeling left out. Thankfully, this doesn't last too long and he comes around, but just in time when he comes around and seems to be back to himself, Sirius starts being the whiny complaining baby who refuses to understand and follow rules!

But I think it's about time to talk about one of my main problems with this book and that would have to be the scene in the Department of Mysteries, which is also supposed to be the most crucial, important, and climactic scene in the whole story. This whole chapter suffers. And it's not just my personal opinion or preference. No, this chapter has some objective problems, the main of which I found to be the lack of clarity. There were moments that I was completely lost and I couldn't understand where the characters were, how they got there and where they were going! One moment I thought we were in the dark spinning room, then suddenly a brain jumps towards me, then I thought we were in the shining room but no apparently we were right back to the dark room which had already started spinning! There was a moment when I couldn't tell if these people were getting in the room or these other people were getting out of it! Did Bellatrix chase them in the dark room or out of it? I kept rereading sentences to understand what was happening and it didn't always help, so a couple of times I had to just accept the chaos and move forward with the story. I feel like all these different rooms and places weren't really all that necessary. It almost feels like Rowling went like "Okay, this is the Department of Mysteries so we need to make it MYSTERIOUS!" and she just went ahead and took it way overboard! So yes mostly confusing and unclear but, thankfully, the important bits were done well and clearly. Even if the majority of the scene was hectic and confusing, the main plot points within the scene (Sirius's death and the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort) were very clear and strong and I enjoyed them!

As for Sirius's death, it was sad but it didn't touch me as much as I expected, especially after seeing how heart-wrenching Cedric's death was in the previous book. Sirius's death in the book didn't feel as devastating to me and I didn't like how Harry's reaction was written, because again it didn't touch me. Or at least, not in the way I'd expect it since this was Harry's last living family member. It should be devastating and painful to read but to me, it was a bit "meh". Maybe it was supposed to be this way, maybe it meant to show that Harry is in some sort of limbo after witnessing and experiencing so many horrible things, maybe he simply feels detached. Even his sense of guilt for his godfather's death didn't feel real to me. The discussion between Harry and Dumbledore after the battle was interesting and heartfelt but not so much in the parts that had to do with Sirius's death, but more so in how it explained Dumbledore's attachment to Harry. This part was something we hadn't seen before and we got to see it in this book for the first time. It was a sweet moment that restored all the lost ground and lost trust between them.

***COMPARISON WITH THE MOVIE***

The fifth movie is one of my favorite movies in the series and so far it's definitely my favorite book to movie adaptation. It's not as faithful as some of the previous ones, but I think it's the best, anyway. Because it does an excellent job in including what really needed to be included while excluding all the unnecessary bits. The movie is compact and strong.

The portrayal of the characters is very accurate to the book and the acting is simply flawless! The new cast members are all on point and the older ones give great performances. Umbridge is depicted perfectly and she is as loathsome as she was in the book, Tonks is great, Luna's actress is perfect, the addition of Helena Bonam Carter as Bellatrix is chilling and Voldemort is of course still perfect!

Most of the parts that were changed I feel were made better. Like for example, in the movie, Harry doesn't go looking for trouble with Dudley, instead, Dudley is being just the usual bully he is and he goes looking for trouble until they're attacked by the dementors. This feels much more true to both their characters and I feel that actually, this is one of the best opening scenes of all the Harry Potter movies as it's interesting, intense, and perfectly sets the tone and mood.

Another example; the scene in the Department of Mysteries is greatly simplified and works much better. I mean creating such a complex department surely is admirable, but does it work as well in terms of storytelling? In my opinion, the simplified version works better. This scene in the movie is not only simplified by reducing inessential details but it's also enriched by increasing all the important and interesting character dynamics. It was so much better that all of the students got to fight together as a team in the movie, whereas in the book, each person was unconscious in a different room and away from the main action. I also liked better the fact that they all heard the prophecy right then and there, while in the book the prophecy is smashed and Harry only finds out after being told by Dumbledore. 

I liked Harry and Sirius's relationship more as it was portrayed in the movie rather than in the books; it felt more emotional and heart-warming. And Sirius's death was also better in the movie in my opinion. His last words, the moment when he died, the moment when Harry saw it and how the movie went silent while we saw Harry's reaction, the pain on his face... it was heart-wrenching as it should be and, while we had a nice bonding moment with Harry and Dumbledore afterward, we were at least spared of all the pointless mess Harry made of his office.

One thing I liked more in the book and I think could and probably should have been included in the movie was Mc Gonagal being attacked by Umbridge and her followers. It was so sad, Hagrid's reaction was priceless and when she finally came back toward the end it was just perfect! Even though this particular scene was missing from the movie, we still got to see quite a bit of Mc Gonagal's fierce and kick-ass spirit and her rivalry with Umbridge, but I have to admit, it was a bit richer in the book and it was totally worth it!

***MY FINAL THOUGHTS AND RATING***

Having laid all my thoughts down, I can now resume by saying that I generally enjoyed this book very much. It does have some issues that I can't help but notice and point out, but it's still a very good book overall with a very interesting story. I didn't love "Order of the Phoenix" as much as I loved "Goblet of Fire" which is still my favorite of the series so far, but I still enjoyed it thoroughly. Story-wise I liked the "Order of the Phoenix" more than "Prisoner of Azkaban", but "Order" was objectively not as well-written as "Prisoner" or "Goblet", both of which are excellently written, while this one has a couple of problems.

It may seem that I have criticized the "Order" too much, so maybe you're thinking that I didn't like it, but this could not be further from the truth. The truth is that I really liked it and I thought it was a great book! I just liked it a little bit less than the previous book in the series and I thought that it wasn't as perfectly written as some others in the series, but it's still a great read that's worth your time and attention. 

So, my rating for this book is going to have to be 4* out of 5*, because it didn't really touch this 5* perfection for me, but it was still pretty good and I couldn't possibly give it a lower rating as I feel this would be unfair. It's the same rating I gave to the "Prisoner" which I didn't love as much as a story, but was more well written than this one, so same rating, different reasons. This book is my second favorite of the Harry Potter books so far. I am curious about the next books and can't wait to see what'll happen and what I'm going to think of them.

Thank you for bearing with me through another huge post! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Feel free to share your opinions about the post and about the book; I always love talking with you! 

Thanks for reading! Until the next time!

 

New Years Book Tag & my Bookish Goals for 2022

 Hello everybody!

I like to create a post like this every year talking about my Bookish Goals for the year. But this year I decided to change it up a little and combine it with this book tag I found over at The Bookworm of Notre Dame blog for a post she did back in 2020 but was apparently first created back in 2018 by Heather on her YouTube channel Bookables.

• How many books are you planning to read in 2022?

So, if you remember from the past posts I've made, I usually give myself relatively easy and achievable goals. I do this for many reasons - psychological and practical as well - but I wouldn't like to become repetitive and tire you out of your minds, so I won't go on analyzing those now. But if you care to know a bit more about it, you can always go check my older Bookish Goals posts here and here. 

I will continue this year in this same spirit of small, achievable goals. I will, however, make it just a little bit harder than last year. Last year my goal was to read at least 16 books, so this year I'm going to set my goal to 20 books and I am very optimistic about it.

• Name 5 books that you didn’t get to this year but want to make a priority in 2022.

The first two are going to be obvious choices, for obvious reasons (because I need to finally be done with this series that I had been postponing for years and have been reading it for quite a while now). The other three books are just books that have been sitting on my TBR pile for a long time.

1. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J. K. Rowling
2. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J. K. Rowling
3. "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman
4. "The Book thief" by Markus Zusak
5. "The portrait of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

• What genre do you want to read more of?

I want to read a few more classics because I feel I've really neglected them and also more horror stories because I really enjoy them.

• Name 3 non-book-related goals for 2022.

1. Finish the first draft of my story and maybe even start a few first edits
2. Be more consistent with the blog
3. Lose some weight

• What’s a book you’ve had forever that you still need to read?

"The scarlet letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I've owned this book for many years now and I've always been curious to read it. Once I started it but ended up DNF'ing it. I've been thinking about starting it again but I still haven't gotten to it.

• One word that you're hoping 2022 will be.

Can I say more than one? 

Creative

Productive

Prosperous

Hopeful

Optimistic

Educational

• Tag a friend!

There's no one in particular that I would like to tag, but if you like the tag, please go ahead and do it! I tag anyone who wants to do it!

***

So, I'd like to conclude the post by listing my bookish goals for 2022:

1. Read at least 20 books
2. Try to read every single day even if it's just a couple of pages
3. Finish the Harry Potter series 
4. Read at least 1 classic book
5. Read 1 Stephen King book (because I've been meaning to do it for a while)
6. Read at least 1 non-fiction book
7. Try to be more committed to the blog and consistent with my posting and improve the blog in general
8. Listen to at least 1 audiobook

That's about it for me... I'm very happy with my goals for the year and I feel optimistic about how I'll do. Please, feel free to share your goals for the year, your expectations for the reading to come, and any other comments you may have. I'll be happy to exchange thought with you all!!!

Thank you for reading once more!

2021Review || Evaluating My Progress

 Hello, my friends, and Happy New Year! I hope 2022 finds you well and I wish that it'll make all of your dreams come true!

For the first post of the new year I wanted to do a little bit of an evaluation of the year that passed; see if I have met all of the goals I had set for myself and if I didn't then how far did I get and why I didn't make it. I would like to do a little wrap-up and see how much I committed to my reading, writing, and blogging goals in hopes that this will help me do even better this year.

So, without further ado, let's see what my reading challenges for the past year were:

1. Read at least 15 books ✅  - So, my initial reading challenge for 2021 was 15 books, but by the summer I knew that I could easily make it and I wanted to make it a little harder for myself and decided to rise it a little higher. I set a goal of 16 books with the prospect of making it even higher later on in the year. As the year proceeded I was pretty confident about the 16 books goal but hesitant for anything higher, so I changed my mind and kept it as it was. As the year approached its end, I was in kind of a reading rush, so not only I reached my goal, but I passed it quite a bit managing to read 20 books. I know it may not sound much and especially in comparison with other bookworms/book bloggers, but it was enough for me. In the end, I am very happy with my results and quite satisfied with myself.  
2. Read at least 1 classic book ✅ - I almost failed that one, because I didn't even get to it by December when I suddenly decided to read some poetry (to be honest one of my online book friends talked me into it). I went for the classic Greek poet Constantinos Cavafy and I read his complete works. I hadn't read any classic Greek poetry since high school, so this was quite a change for me, but I'm happy I did it.
3. Listen to at least 1 audiobook ✅  - I listened to 2 audiobooks: (I) "Everything is f*cked" by Mark Manson and (II) "Brida" by Paulo Coelho.
4. Read at least 1 non-fiction book ✅  - I did manage to read only 1 non-fiction book ("Everything is f*cked" which is also mentioned above), but I wish I had managed to read one more.
5. Finnish the Harry Potter series 🆇 - Now, this is the first and only one of my original goals that I failed. BUT, I am still happy with myself and not disappointed at all that I didn't make it, because I still managed to read 4 entire books of that series (within 2021 I started and finished "Chamber of Secrets", "Prisoner of Azkaban", "Goblet of Fire" and "The Order of the Phoenix") 2 of which are huge! To be honest, when I got to the middle of the 4th book and realized how big it was I felt a little overwhelmed for a moment (even though I have read as big and bigger books in the past) and a little intimidated. I realized that reading a big series like that, even though it is a very nice experience and can be really enjoyable, it is also a bit of a commitment as well and I didn't really know if I was able to make this commitment at this point in my life, but I decided I was too far along to give up and I didn't want to give up, because I was having fun. So I took it easy on myself and said that I'll do with my own rhythm and way and even if it takes me longer I'll finish it. Needless to say that the 5th book intimidated me, even more, when I got to it, but by that time I got over it quickly. So, not quite there, but very good overall.
6. Keep writing and posting on the blog - Now, this is kind of both a pass and a fail at the same time, because I did keep writing and uploading on my blog and I even made a few changes and improvements, but what I did was nowhere near what I had hoped to do. So for this one, the result is kind of "meh". 😐

These were the goals that I had mentioned one year's post, but I would like to add some more, more abstract goals that I had set for myself even if I hadn't written them down:

1. Try to read every single day even if it's just a couple of pages - So, I kept track of every day that I read or wrote in the past year and it turns out that last year I read 264 days out of the 365 days of the year. This means that I read most days of the year and not to mention a rather difficult year for me with a couple of health problems in my family. I'm happy with how I went and I hope to keep up like this and even a little bit better for this year.
2. Try to read a variety of different genres, books, and styles - I definitely did try to meet this goal, I read comic-books, children's books, adult books, funny books and "heavier" books. So, I'm pretty happy with how I did, I do wish, however, I'd done even a bit better. I would have liked to have read 1 or 2 horror/thriller books. 
3. Try to write as much as possible - I have always loved writing and whenever I have spare time I try to write a little bit. I've been doing that since I was a teen. This year, however, I decided to take it a bit more seriously and try to make writing a habit. I started these efforts around February, kept writing every day for a few months, then had a bit of a break for a couple of months, and then I managed to pick it up again. I managed to keep a writing schedule for about 130 days in the year, while I also did much research and kept trying to learn more about writing even on the days I could not write. I know that this is probably not much, but for me, it was great because it helped me accomplish a number of amazing things like: (I) Finally hit my word count goal of 50000 words on my current W.I.P., (II) Learn more about my characters, (III) Unravel more of my plot and (IV) make me fall back in love with my story and writing in general.

So, overall, I am quite happy with how I did. I could have done even better with a little bit more effort but still I'm satisfied with my reading progress, proud of my development as a writer and I'm happy that I managed to stick to it for the most part. Now I feel more determined than ever to commit to my new goals for the new year as well and I'm also pretty confident that I can stick to it and make it for this year as well and possibly even better this time around.

So, how has your reading been going? Did you do well? Reach your goals? I would love to hear your experiences! Feel free to comment.

Thank you for reading!

Reviewing the last 4 children's books that I read

 Hello friends!

So, being a mom of a 5-year-old boy I read quite a few children's books, so I decided to talk about a couple of the latest ones we read and really enjoyed.

1. 
   "The Gruffalo's Child", by Julia Donaldson, Axel Scheffler (Illustrator):                I understand that this book is part of a series, but I haven't read any of the other books in the series, so I can only talk about this one for now. Father Gruffalo warns his child about the big, scary mouse, but baby Gruffalo still goes searching for it. Is the mouse really that big, bad, and scary, though? This is a fun story about the cute, little adventure of Gruffalo's child. The story is simple and fun, the rhyming patterns are nice and easy to follow, the illustrations are very cute and unique and my son couldn't stop talking about it, so it was a 4* rating for me! I would like to try the other ones in the series as well.

"Avatar The Last Airbender: Team Avatar Tales" || A mini book review

Hello book friends!

I'm continuing with the ATLA comic books and today I'm here with a short review of "Team Avatar Tales". If you want to know what I thought of the previous comic book in the series ("The Rift"), you can check my full review here.

This is a collection of mini team Avatar stories that occur after the events of the show and in between the other "main" comic books. Some of the stories are just pure fun and enjoyment and some others carry a bit of a theme or a moral message in them. This is one of the weaker comic books in the avatar universe. It was fun and entertaining, but surely not as good as the others. I rated it 3*, because I didn't love it as much as the others, but it was still fun.

The strongest stories were "Rebound" (Mai's story) which, as I understand, also becomes pretty relevant later on in the story (what with Kei Lo's appearance and Mai standing up to her father and taking her little brother away), and "Sisters" (Ty Lee's story) which seems to play an important role in her character development and her overall arc. The funniest one was probably "Toph and the Boulder". "Origami" was sweet and nostalgic. "Shells" was classic kickass Suki being cool and empowering! The rest of the stories were not as good, but still okay.

The illustrations in this one do not follow the familiar pattern that most of the other main comic books use, instead, it follows the "Lost adventures style" of having many new and different styles of illustrations between stories. I didn't love all of the illustrations equally, some were better than others, but it is always fun and refreshing to see the new styles and have a bit of variety. 

It was a nice, fun read, but nothing great and with the exception of Mai's and Ty Lee's story you wouldn't really miss much if you skipped it and just went on with the rest of the comic books. The only two stories that add anything to the overall plot and characters are "Rebound" and "Sisters" and the others aren't necessary to the overall universe. You could go on reading the rest of the comic books and skip this one without really missing much, but if you want to see more of the characters you love and you don't mind, you could still enjoy it. 

Thank you for reading!