Books for Breakfast

via weheartit Harry Potter is back for another year of Hogwarts, and this one might be the most exciting yet. The Triwizard Tournament is coming to his school, and with it, comes students from two other magical academies. When his name is put into the Goblet of Fire, declaring him a Hogwarts Champion, alongside three other students, he quickly realizes someone has it out for him... again. I looked forward to diving into Goblet of Fire because the movie was such a fun ride; mazes and mermaids and dragons, oh my! I was curious to see how Rowling would tell the adventurous story of Harry competing in the Tournament. Man, this book was a CHUNK! And it's not even the longest one :) I think this was the first book where I read significant portions that were not included in the movie. I mean, I can't blame the movie writers; like I said, the book is enormous, something had to be cut. Despite the excitement of the plot in this installment, I felt like the story really dragg...

I feel like I should give some credit to this isolation-situation for giving me my reading mojo back. I haven't been able to read a book in two days for a long time... it feels so weird, but also so great because I used to go through books so much faster and now I'm finally getting back to that. The Prisoner of Azkaban might be my favorite HP so far; the story moved so quickly and contained this hype that kept my heart pounding and pushed me to read just one more page ! It was cool to compare the book to the movie and see what they changed and chose to not include. I'm in the group that insists the book is always better than the movie; this book, in particular, did something the movie was not able to do, and that was show the deep relationship between the characters. This ended up being a five-star read for me, but I also didn't come away from it with any really strong thoughts or feelings. I'm enjoying the journey through the HP books for sure, but I think my s...

 I am officially done with re-reading the HP books I have already read... all two of them :) But I'm feeling more motivated to continue on with the series so my hopes are high that I will have read the entire series by the end of this year. I have to say, I liked Sorcerer's Stone better; the story seemed to move quicker and I was more engaged with the storyline. I find it funny because in my opinion, the second book is usually better than the first (case in point: Catching Fire vs. Hunger Games). That's not to say I disliked Chamber of Secrets , on the contrary, I enjoyed the level of mystery in this book. I thought Rowling injected a kind of whodunnit air to the story with the integral question "who is Slytherin's heir and who opened the Chamber of Secrets." I think this was the main motivator that kept me moving through the pages. On the other hand, I feel like some scenes kind of dragged in places. Sometimes I put myself in Harry's shoes and thi...

via Pinterest Here I am again, about to read my way through the HP series. I've been in this place before, but I never made it past book two. I intended to just continue on with Prisoner of Azkaban but my sister, as self-proclaimed HP lover, insisted that I should go back to the beginning and re-read the first two books since it had been so long since I first read them. Well, don't let it ever be said that I don't take advice from other readers!  The first time I read The Sorcerer's Stone , I was on a camping trip with my family. I spent quite a few hours curled up in a camping chair by the fire devouring it. I quickly made my way through The Chamber of Secrets as well, but something made me stop there, and I can't quite remember what. It probably wasn't anything significant, other than the fact that I am an incredibly moody reader and I moved on to something else. For some reason, the mood struck again right now and I'm plodding along again.  I...

I'm just gonna put this out there: I really need to stop buying books I haven't read before. It stinks, because there is nothing like the excitement of buying a new book and the feeling like you are getting yourself into a wonderful new adventure. But too many times over the last year I have found myself buying books with anticipation only to actually read them and wish I had checked them out from the library and saved my money for a favorite book. I think this goes along with my desire to really curate my own book collection... as hard as it is, I really want to try and only buy books that I know I will either share with my own family or read over and over again. I want my collection to reflect myself and my interests, and books that I don't love , don't really fit into that. I could go on for awhile so I'll move onto my review :) Caraval was a solid 3-star read for me. I'm beginning to wonder if I am slowly moving away from the YA genre because I found mys...