Captain's Log 11: May Wrap Up

Hey ya'll

So, if you've been reading for a while, you may have noticed I haven't been doing my Captain's Log posts every Monday. I decided to move my Captain's Logs to the end of the month so I can kind of recap my month. I noticed that oftentimes, I wasn't reading/watching/playing anything new because, let's face it, nobody spends one week on a game never to return!

So, here's my May recap!

This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp, To All the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy by Jenny Han, Fireworks by Katie Cotugno


Total: 5 books read

Goodreads Goal

Beginning of May: 12/35

End of May: 17/35

Overall, my reading for this month was very good considering all the other stuff I had to get done. I thoroughly enjoyed all the books I read and now I just have to make room on my shelf!

Movies: Lego Batman, Pandorum, Bicentennial Man

TV: Bob's Burgers, Family Guy, Bridezillas, Naked and Afraid

Jonathan is happy because I finally saw Pandorum and Bicentennial Man. I am so bad at watching movies! But both were very good and we both loved Lego Batman. 

I've been catching up on the new episodes of Bob's Burgers and Family Guy, and even though I've seen all of Bridezillas, it's my guilty pleasure. Jon and I both started and binged on Naked and Afraid and it was so crazy! Jonathan likes the roughing it aspect and I love the drama! It was nice to finally get into a show together that neither of us had seen.

Heroes of the Storm (PC), Overwatch (Xbox One and PC), Magikarp Jump (Android), Mario Run (Android)

Overwatch is currently having their anniversary event so I'm grinding for the D.Va skin! I've also been super addicted to Mario Run and have gotten pretty far in it. It's good to pass the time. Magikarp Jump was okay, nothing too special. Heroes of the Storm was supposed to be just for grinding for the Officer D.Va skin, (can you tell I'm a D.Va main?) but I love it now!!

Other Goals

I didn't set any May goals (oops!) so I will have to get back on track with some awesome goals for June!

May was fun and I can't wait to see where the rest of summer takes me!



Always, Raineedayze

Raineedayze Reads: This is Where it Ends

Hey ya'll!

I went on a pretty crazy book shopping spree this past weekend and I have been dying to start working my way through the pile. The first one I finished? This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp!

This is Where it Ends tells the story of a school shooting using 4 different students as the narrators and goes through each minute of the terrifying ordeal. The book uses a mixture of tweets, text messages, and blog posts to also give some insight to other students and the surrounding community who has now been rocked by the tragedy.

Reading this book broke my heart. Many of the characters have strong relationships with their siblings and just imagining something like this happening to my siblings really freaked me out. Also, the community was very reminiscent of the town I grew up in, which reminded me of how easy it is for something like that to happen.

One thing I loved about this book was amount of details that the reader was privy to. I feel many people may think there were a lot of questions left unanswered, but I think the lack of details really helped bring me back to high school. I think sometimes books have details about character's lives that no one could possibly know and so by having the four narrators, it made the story more real. The truth is, most high school students know each other, only in passing, and when disaster hits, the students have to make extremely fast decisions and be there for each other to survive. 

Obviously, this book can be very upsetting for some readers so approach with caution, but I have to say, this book was great. My tears would agree.

Overall Review: 4/5

Have you read this book? What are your thoughts? Let's chat in the comments or tweet me @raineedayze!

Follow me on Goodreads here!

Always, Raineedayze

Raineedayze Reads: To All The Boys I Loved Before Trilogy

Hello sweeties!

I just, and I mean JUST, finished up the third book in this series and I really wanted to get my review up before my May Wrap-Up post!

I know I'm slightly late to this Jenny Han party, but oh my goodness, this trilogy was beautiful.

The series starts off with To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which follows Lara Jean Song Covey, a Korean-American teenager living with her two sisters and father, on the cusp of her sister's departure to college. Lara Jean is a sentimental girl, who has a hatbox of her favorite memories. She also has a habit of writing letters to all the boys she's ever loved and putting them in the hatbox, never to see the light of day. But, when her letters mysteriously get sent out to all the boys, Lara Jean comes face to face with her heart.

The second book in the series, P.S. I Still Love You, follows up directly after the events in the first book. Without giving too much away, this book allows us to really understand the motivations behind characters and see them as more than how they first appeared. I read through this book in one night because I couldn't put it down.

The final book in this trilogy, Always and Forever, Lara Jean, follows Lara Jean in her senior year and her prospective future. This book took me longer to read, due to outside obligations, but the ending made me cry. It was such a great note to end this trilogy on and I felt it was tied together so nicely. 

This series as a whole was incredible. The family bond between the Song girls and their father was well-written and had me texting my sisters to tell them I love them. The single father taking care of his three girls was also a very interesting dynamic. I grew up with a single mom so the entire dynamic of being a kid while also having to take on more responsibilities, such as taking care of your siblings and being there for each other, was very familiar.

Also, this series made me so hungry!! While reading this, I baked muffins, cookies, pancakes, cakes.....Darn you, Lara Jean!!

The books displayed a lot of character growth, even for the minor characters and by the end, everyone had full-fledged stories and motivations and it was so wonderful to be immersed in this series for a bit.

Overall Review: 5/5 

What are your thoughts on this series? Which book was your favorite? Let's chat in the comments or tweet me @raineedayze!

Follow my reading journey on Goodreads

Always, Raineedayze

Raineedayze Reads: The Upside of Unrequited

Hey guys!

So remember how I said in my last post that I had been reading a TON more? I'm nearly halfway through my yearly goal of 35!

I chose 35 because, since my schedule is always changing, I wanted to be able to at least meet my goals. Plus, I feel like recently my attention span has been lacking. I think I spend way too much on my phone and so I wanted to ease myself into reading more and maybe cutting out mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. 

As of right now, I am at 12 books read!

                                   


The last book that I read was The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli.

      

Guys.

This book was awesome!!

The book follows Molly, a girl who has had 26 unrequited crushes. Her twin sister Cassie has always been smooth with the ladies but meets a girl who may have her on her toes. Molly meets Reid, a cute nerdy guy, and Will, a hot hipster dude. With all the new boys and the changing relationship with her twin sister, Molly has a lot on her mind and things are only going to keep changing.  

This book was great! I loved the diverse cast. There were LGBT characters, characters of different ethnicities, a main character who was chubby, mentally ill characters,and so much more. What I really loved about the diversity was that the characters were not "token" characters. The queer characters were not defined by their relationships as much as they were by their actual personalities. This book also mirrored real life in some of the current events that were portrayed in the book. I really loved the contemporary feel to it.

For: Fans of Simon vs. The Homosapien Agenda, people who just love cute love stories


Thanks so much to Owlcrate for featuring it in your April box! I can't wait to read more fun books!

Overall Review: 5/5 

Have you read The Upside of Unrequited? If so, what are your thoughts? Let's chat in the comments!

Add me on Goodreads! 


Always, Raineedayze

It's Gonna be May

                                  

Yes. I know you are all sick of the Justin Timberlake joke but...

C'mon.

I HAD to.

It is May, my lovely readers. Which means this blogger is back from hiatus. I'm sorry it was pretty unexpected and dead on my end. I had a lot of stuff from my personal life pile on with my professional life which reduced my fun time to practically nothing. In other words, I've pretty much been running on fumes since February.

But now, May is here which means 1.5 weeks of school and then 

SUMMER.


                                        


Summer for me, as you probably know if you've been following me on social media, is my most relaxed time of the year. I typically work 3 days a week and use the rest of the time to read, drink tea, blog, and hang out with Jonathan. 

So what have I been up to since you guys last saw me? Well....

I turned 22! 

This was after the festivities

I have read. A LOT. (more on this later)

I have started subscribing to OwlCrate. 

I played a ton of games. Okay not really a ton, but some really amazing ones!

I may or may not have a surprise later this month.....?!

I'm extremely excited to be back here with you all and share my musings. I missed the community and the excitement of sharing slices of my life with you guys. Things may change a little bit around here, but we are still the same old nerds, geeking out as ever. <3 Stay tuned.

Always, Raineedayze

5 Fandom Friday: My TBR pile

Hello there nerdlings!

It's 5 Fandom Friday!!! This week we're talking about our TBR (to-be-read) piles. As I am so incredibly busy all the time, I am super behind on books that I want to read. As you can imagine, my list is insanely long. Since I rarely have time to keep up with newer releases, I typically keep up through Booktube blogger reviews. So most of these books are releases from years past that I can't wait to check out.

5. Caraval by Stephanie Garber

        This is the most recently released book on my list, having come out last month. I have heard so many book bloggers raving about this book and the premise sounds incredible. Scarlett and her sister Tella have dreams of attending the week-long game of Caraval, a mysterious game of legends. After finally receiving their invitations, they attend only for Tella to get kidnapped. Scarlett struggles with the hopes that Caraval is only a game, though she may not be prepared to play. This book sounds amazing and I can't wait to start it. However, I may want to read the next book on my list before I begin, as I hear it is pretty similar.

4. The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern

       A circus that arrives without warning and vanishes without a trace. This book sounds super mysterious and I have avoided reading too many reviews for it just because it seems like every review has a spoiler. I hear it's less focused on the mystery of the circus and more on the players, but I've always been a fan of creepy circuses, mysteries, and magic. I can't wait to read this one as it is currently tempting me from my Kindle. 

3. This is Our Story by Ashley Elston 

       I have to thank Kristin for this recommendation because she's been recommending it on her channel for about a month and it sounds so interesting!! Another mystery, this time about a group of 5 boys who, after a hunting trip, come out as group of 4. None of the boys will say what happened but Kate, the new intern at the DA office, isn't about to let them go that easy. What really happened to the 5th boy, and is Kate really prepared to find out? I know I am and I can't wait to pick up this book!

2. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

       I feel like I'm the only person on the planet who has yet to read this book. With recommendations by pretty much everyone, including my best friend Cassie, I have to check this book out. This book follows a fangirl named Cath who has to go through her first year of college, no longer accompanied by her twin. Wren, her sister, is ready to leave the fandom behind and embrace college life, but Cath is just not too hopeful. I actually started reading it today between classes and I'm already really into it. I'm only a few pages in, hence the TBR status, however as a fellow fangirl of most things, I can't wait to delve deeper in this story. The synopsis really spoke to me because when I came to college and left my entire life 9 hours away, I took to my fandoms to keep me sane. I'm excited to see what Cath chooses to do.

1. One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

       This book won't come out until May of this year but I'm already so freaking excited for it. I'm a huge fan of the Breakfast Club and this book sounds pretty similar. 5 students enter detention, 4 leave and of course, no one wants to talk. This book also sounds very similar to One of Us is Lying, but I can't get enough of weird high school mysteries. The 5 students all share the same stereotypical characteristics of the Breakfast Club characters: brain, beauty, outcast, jock, and criminal. There is an added twist though, as the outcast also happens to run a super high-profile gossip app and plans to release huge news on his detention buddies. Everyone has a motive, but who did the deed?

Those are just some of the books on my TBR! Have you read any of them? Are you excited to check any out? Let's chat in the comments!

Also, if you'd like to participate in 5 Fandom Friday, check out the links below! If you do participate, feel free to leave your link below and I'll totally check them out!

Origin of 5 Fandom Friday

February Prompts for 2017


Always, Raineedayze

January Check-In and February Goals

                                

Happy last day of January!

For this post, I decided to take a look at how I did with my goals in January and look ahead to my goals for February. To read my 2017 goal list, click HERE.

Goal 1: Do Something and Do it Well
   
      This goal was all about school and work. I can definitely say I've been keeping on top of my classwork this month. That could be because it's the beginning of a new year, but I also feel so much calmer knowing that I have finished all I have to for the day by 8 p.m. and having the rest of the night to binge on Roswell. It's also nice to feel good about the work I turn in and showing off what I know I can do.

Goal 2: Do Something Active

      This goal was the tough one. I have been skipping the coffee for more tea or water and have been taking my lunch instead of buying Hot Cheetos (something my wallet is eternally grateful for). However, I still find myself eating when I'm bored or when I know I'm not really hungry. This is definitely something I have to work on.

Goal 3: Do Things for and With Others

       I did start putting down my phone more, especially when I have time with Jonathan. One thing about my new schedule is it only leaves me with a few hours to see him before I fall asleep for the night. It made me realize how precious our time is and I feel so much healthier for it. I am able to explore my hobbies and feel less tied to a false "connection" through my screen. Not to say that computer and phone time is bad, but it's nice to be around people in the real world. Which brings me to...

Goal 4: Just Do It

       I definitely started doing things I've been putting off. I started waking up earlier to just spend a few minutes to myself. I started watching shows and movies I've put off. I went to the movies for the first time in forever and enjoyed myself. I started becoming more independent by not relying on Jonathan to take me places. I've read way more books in the last month than I have in the past year. I love how I feel accomplishing this and can't wait to see what February has in store.

Goodreads Goal 

4/35 books! Yay!!

My February Goals

• Blog more and more consistently 
• I feel pretty confident in this goal despite my recent blogging hiccup. I feel with my planner keeping me on schedule and the surge of new audience members I have (I see you!) I have more of an obligation to make this blog as awesome as possible. It reminds me why I started blogging in the first place.
• Save money
• It's been super tough with all of our big holidays falling within a four month period. Between Christmas, our anniversary, my birthday, Valentine's Day, and Jon's birthday in March....it's a lot! I hope to cut back on spending and make do with what we have. I know we can do it if we try!
•  Be more independent
• It's been really tough with our conflicting schedules lately, and oftentimes because of that, I become even more dependent on Jonathan because the little bit I get from him is so precious. However, it's time I explored my own hobbies and started doing more things that benefit us instead of waiting for us both to be free. I often hold off on grocery shopping or running errands because I love going places with him or spending our time outside of the house. Yet, I don't love putting a strain on him when he gets out of work. This will be a huge transition, but I think I can do this.                         

What are some of your goals for February? How are your previous goals going? Let's chat in the comments!


Always, Raineedayze