My Favourite Summer Reading Spot

Today’s post is one that is close to my heart, and although it may not seem like much of a big deal to start with, by the end I hope you will have a feel for its importance to me and for me. This post is dedicated to my favourite spots to read, focusing on one in particular…

Now that it is Summer here in Aus, it is also time for the Christmas holidays, my favourite time of the year. This is partly because it means it is the end of the School year and I get six glorious weeks off, to read and blog and watch tv shows to binge-worthy standards. But it also means I get to spend my time reading outside in my favourite spot. I also get to read inside in my favourite spots as well. But there is something magical about reading outside on a warm summers day.

I know us as readers are creatures of habit when it comes to our ‘spots’ for reading. I always tend to frequent the same places in my house, on my bed, on the far left end of the couch, at my desk in my candle dungeon. Always the same spots. But now the weather has warmed up, it opens up so many new possibilities! And one in particular I am super excited for!

And here it is, my ultimate favourite outdoor reading spot.

Now let me tell you why it is my favourite place!

Other than it being rather picturesque, it just feels like home. I remember when we planted the apple tree, with my mum, pop and gran, we all dug the dirt, watered the tree, tended to it and now it is established, I still feel that family connection. I think that connection is what draws me to it each summer.

I love laying down on the soft, clover filled grass. Feeling the breeze on my skin, the warm sun on my shoulders and losing myself in the pages of a good book.

When the day gets too hot, I move into the shade of the apple tree and roll onto my back, looking up through the foliage and glimpse the bright blue of the summer sky, between page turns.

The sounds of birds calling, the horses walking through the paddocks and the sound of cattle grazing on the hill. The leaves gently brushing against one another as a slow breeze blows through the garden.

If I look to my left, I can see the rest of my garden, the tomato plants starting to produce fruit, the raspberry canes in full bloom, with buzzing honey bees collecting and distributing pollen to the flowers. The potatoes with their deep green leaves quietly doing their thing away from prying eyes.

If I look to my right, I can see the gate that my pop made for me to go out into the horse paddock. I can see the yearlings playing in the long summer grass, their neighs to each other echoing around the hills. I see my pop’s house up on the hill, surrounded by his garden that he and my gran made from clay filled soil into a booming native filled oasis, with birds of every kind calling from the trees.

 

Yes, this is my ultimate favourite place to read. It is not only doing something that I love, but it is doing something that I love, in a place that makes me feel entirely grounded, entirely at peace with the world. It is somewhere that will always feel like home.

 

I want to hear about your favourite place in the whole entire world, that you like to read.

Comment below or write your own blog post, but make sure to use the tag #BookishIntoxicationWrites so that I can see it! I want to hear all about your reading spots and hopefully see them too!

As always,

Thank you for reading!

 

Julie xx

 

 

Review & Ramblings – New World: Ashes by Jennifer Wilson

Welcome to another session of Review and Ramblings!

If you are new to my R&R blog posts, here is a little warning to you, a warning of the spoiler kind. This post will contain spoilers from New World: Ashes and New World: Rising. So if you haven’t read either of these books and you don’t want to be spoiled, look away or click this LINK to go and read my spoiler free review on GoodReads!

 

New World: Ashes by Jennifer Wilson

Book Depository

GoodReads

Published June 7th 2016 by Oftomes Publishing

 

Woah, this book is so much darker than New World: Rising. I am 80 pages in and the difference in the total feel of the book is incredible. I am glad we are finally calling Phoenix, Prea, it makes her feel more like a real person, not a fictional character. Which is working in her favour, I’m starting to like her now, if you can’t remember, I really disliked her in book one (You can read my review and ramblings of New World: Rising, HERE).

I am a little sick of being reminded of Triven and Mouse yet having no updates about them. I understand the books are from Prea’s point of view, but I love Triven and want to know how he is surviving. So I am hoping either Prea escapes like she plans to, or we get an alternate point of view chapter.

Also what the heck is up with the minister of the Sanctuary being Prea’s grandfather! I knew there was going to be a twist in there somewhere but I wasn’t expecting that!

The pacing in this book isn’t as off as the first one, so far anyway. It is easier to read, but maybe that is because I am used to the writing style and used to the characters.

I actually hate the way they are conditioning Prea within the Sanctuary. Her grandfather didn’t even try to get to know her, he went straight to ‘breaking’ her, to brainwashing her, stripping her of who she is and trying to find the militant soldier within her that he created when she was a child. What is truly horrific is the way that the guards are forcing her to fight children. Children as young as 10. I can’t imagine being in that situation, but I can imagine how soul crushing and defeating it would be, especially when each child reminds her of Mouse.

I feel a little conflicted, because as much as I hate seeing Prea being stripped of who she is and being forced into doing all of these horrible things, I am loving seeing her come into her own power. She has grown so strong, mentally. Yes she is being worn down, yes she is moving into a state of constant fight or flight. But she is finding herself, finding out who she is and how much she is willing to sacrifice to stay that person.

150 pages in… Is anything actually going to happen in this book? I am honestly over reading about torture, trauma, mental conditioning… It is too intense, these 150 pages have been so hard to read, just one trauma after another. Also what was the point of having Triven and Mouse killed and then having them not dead? Shock factor or just to keep us on our already shaken toes? I am glad to see Triven again, he grounds Prea which is just what she needs now. But was it necessary for us to have to go through all of that torture with her? Was it really pertinent to the story line for her to go through all of that? I guess I will have to wait and see.

Ughh and now there is a love triangle. How totally YA Dystopian… There didn’t need to be a love triangle, it is giving nothing to the story at all… I understand why Wilson thought it would be a good idea, linking Prea and Ryker in more than a childhood friend way. But it makes so much more confusion for no reason. This book is already going nowhere, why add another useless element?

Now that Prea, Triven and Mouse are leaving the Rebel safe house, things are starting to pick up… slightly. I’m still not sure how Prea managed to piece herself back together so quickly after half of the book shows her to be a broken, shadow of herself, then two chapters later she is almost back to her normal self, planning a mission to unite the tribes.

What I am enjoying about this book is the interconnecting parts. We get told so much information throughout the books that it is a little messy. But it is nice to see all of that information meet up eventually and make sense. For example, we have found out, how mouse got her scar, who Gage really is, how Prea got the scar on the base of her neck, why Prea’s parents decided to leave, how Prea lost her mind so quickly within the Sanctuary’s prison. There has been a lot that has been revealed, which doesn’t make this book a little easier to read.

That being said, in 290 pages, nothing has happened. Other than the torture I mentioned at the beginning of this review. I’m hoping something happens in the next 80 pages, or I doubt I’ll read New World: Inferno. Which would be a shame because I have read the first two books, but I also feel like it could have been condensed into one longer title? Like this book didn’t need to be an entire, single novel?

Side note, how amazing is the medicine and technology in this trilogy? It blows my mind that there is a serum that can repair broken bones, heal burns, cuts bruises and any other bodily harm that you can think of. But it also makes the characters sloppy, they know they can train or be hurt but they won’t die of infection or of their injuries. It takes away their fear of getting hurt, which makes them insensitive. It also makes the soldiers much more violent and unforgiving.

The last 40 pages of this book were amazing, they were the only thing that bumped my review up to a 3 star level. The action picked up, we saw some of the amazing relationship between Prea, Triven and Mouse again and we saw Prea coming to realise that Ryker is actually a true friend. The pacing speeds up incredibly in these last few pages, making them go too quickly.  We see Prea as her true self again, racing along rooftops, searching the skyline for landmarks, sensing movement and wrongness in the air before impact. These last 40 pages really saved this book for me. It is such a shame it took 340 pages for it to get good.

As I said in my GoodReads review, I wasn’t going to read the next book in the trilogy, New World: Inferno. But now I think I owe it to myself and to the author to complete the trilogy. I have invested in the first two novels, and I am somewhat curious to see how it all wraps up. There are a lot of unanswered questions that will need answering in the final book, and after reading this one, I am unsure if those answers will be revealed.

What the heck was the ending though!? I get it was designed to act as  a cliff hanger, but it just cut the best part of the book, short. It made it feel false and as though everything our trio worked for, was for nothing.

Also the connotation of Ashes is not what I was expecting. I didn’t expect it to be literal. Or human. Those scenes were so hard to read, as many of them were within this book.

I want to know more about Ryker, I know previously I wrote how I don’t want a love triangle between Ryker, Prea and Triven, and I still maintain that. But I think it will be an incredible shame to see Ryker snuffed out so soon when I think he could be the one thing that helps Prea remember who she was before she left The Sanctuary. He also seems like a top guy, even if he has to live two lives in order to survive and help the Rebels to create a new and better world.

All in all, I guess the last 40 pages really lifted my opinion of this book. Which is annoying because we can see that Wilson can write incredible scenes, but they happen right at the end of the book! The writing style is fantastic as is the language used, it is easy to read and you definitely can’t say that this book is lacking in plot. I am hoping, with everything crossed that Inferno keeps up the pace we saw at the end of Ashes…

Have you read this trilogy? Thoughts?

 

Julie