28 March 2025

A Week in My Life: Working on Two Projects and More

Want to know what my week looks like as a self-employed indie author? I filmed a week-long vlog where I show everything I did in a week. Last week, I was working on two projects: editing the fifth draft of Project Prehistory and revising the third draft of a literary fiction short story that I plan to submit to literary magazines soon. I also entered a first page writing contest where I will get feedback on the first page of Project Prehistory, read a bunch of books (although I only finished one of them), and baked a delicious blueberry cheesecake. Check out the vlog below for more!



14 March 2025

Say Hello to My New Book Nook

 

Eternal Bookstore Book Nook

I recently got the Eternal Bookstore DIY Book Nook as a gift and spent a few days building it. I love this miniature bookstore with all its little details, like the sleeping dog, the posters, and the folding books you can flip through.

I'm a little sad that I had to glue the books in place, because now I can't reorganize the bookstore. But at least I don't have to worry about the books flying every which way when I move the book nook around. It's now on my favorite shelf right next to my Jane Austen collection.

12 March 2025

Book Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

Legendary by Stephanie Garber

Book title: Legendary
Author: Stephanie Garber
Genre: Young Adult fantasy
Published: May 29, 2018
451 pages
My rating: 4/5

"Your future can be whatever you wish. We all have the power to choose our own destiny."

Donatella Dragna has saved her sister Scarlett from an arranged marriage and escaped her father. But now she must pay her debt to a mysterious criminal and find out Legend’s true name. Her only chance of uncovering the secret is to join Caraval again and win the game – or else she might lose everything, including her life.

Legendary is the second book in Stephanie Garber’s young adult fantasy trilogy Caraval. I enjoyed Caraval, but I must admit it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. The same can be said about Legendary. My feelings are conflicted: on the one hand, Legendary was better than Caraval, but simultaneously and paradoxically I also found it more boring. I liked the plot and the expanded worldbuilding, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care about what was happening. I think that was because I didn’t connect with Tella even to the little extent that I did with Scarlett.

06 March 2025

February Wrap-Up and March Goals

February Reads

February Wrap-Up

  • Finished: 4
  • Started but not finished: 4
  • Total pages read: 2,012
  • Average rating: 3.75

I finished four books in February, and two of them were novels. The first was Stephanie Garber’s Caraval (4/5 stars). It was an enjoyable young adult fantasy, but I admit I had expected a lot more from it. It didn’t quite reach my expectations, as you can see from the four-star rating. Click the link to read a longer review.

You might also like...