Category: Blogger Awards

Sunshine Blogger Award #2 | Thank you so much!

Published on by Rukky @ Eternity Books28 Comments

Hey everyone and welcome to another tag!! Today, I will be doing the Sunshine Blogger Award for the second time, so thank you so much to Kiera @ Kiera’s Bookish Thoughts for nominating me!! The questions are interesting, and I’m super excited to do this!

Let’s get started!!

Rules:

  1. Display the award logo on your blog
  2. Thank the person that nominated you
  3. Answer the 11 questions given to you
  4. Nominate other bloggers and give them 11 questions

What author do you own the most of?

I actually own only one book because I live and breathe library books. A few days ago, however, I saw a book for $1 and got it, so it’s the only one that I own and it is by Chris Ould. The authors that I’ve read the most books from are: Robert Muchamore and Ally Carter. They both tied with 12 books.

Do you have more hardback or paperback books on your shelves?

I read e-books 99% of the time so I have more of that than both hardbacks and paperbacks. I only have one paperback.

If you were on a desert island and you could only bring one thing what things would you bring?

If I could bring only one thing, I’d bring water. No matter how much I love books, I can’t survive without water.

Who is your celebrity idol or crush?

Um, haha, I don’t really have a celebrity idol or crush?? I’m fascinated by any royal family if that counts but they aren’t my idols…or crushes.

What is the coolest thing you’ve ever done?

I’ve ridden a horse!! I absolutely loved it, even though I don’t think the horse really liked me, but it was so much fun! And grooming them is really nice too!! Until they relieve themselves…

What got you into reading?

I think when my 3rd grade teacher recommended that I read, Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix, that’s when I felt that spark, and that’s when I started enjoying reading. It was also a way for me to pass the time, since I don’t watch a lot of TV. And then I read Cam Jansen, and I fell in love with mystery, and then I read the American Girl books, and I fell in love with mystery and historical fiction. And I’m so glad that I did.

Why did you decide to start a blog?

It was was actually a spontaneous decision. I was bored, I liked to read, and I’d just discovered book blogs and I was like, hey, why not? And so I started it, but because I was my nervous naive self, I chose to use a pen name, and now I’ve switched to my real nickname, Rukky. But I don’t regret doing it impulsively at all, because it was and still is so much fun and I love talking to other bloggers and readers. I probably would have chickened out if I had put too much thought into it lol

What are your hobbies aside from reading?

Well, blogging, coding, and baking. I love desserts, and I seriously love to bake!! I hate cleaning up afterwards and it’s also not good for my health/weight, but I still love it anyway lol. I also like designing websites with HTML and CSS, but it’s been a while since I’ve done that.

Give a shout out to a blogger you love!

But I love so many bloggers!! I can’t do this…I might just have to write a post shouting out all of you amazing bloggers that I love 💚💚

What was the last book you purchased or borrowed from the library?

I found The Blood Strand by Chris Ould at the Dollar Store for $1 so yay!!

Have you ever participated in a 24 hour readathon?

Nope, I have not. I’m not sure how readathon’s work in general, but I think it’s that you have to read as many books as possible for 24 hours? Is that right? Please let me know in the comments if I’m right or wrong! (I love my sleep, so if it is, I probably never will take part in one lol)

Tagging/Nominating:

May @ My 1st Chapter | Jane @ Blogger Books | Zoe @ Zoe’s Library

Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads | Xandra @ Starry Sky Books | Kay @ Hammock of Books

Kelly @ Another Book in The Wall | Kat @ Novels and Waffles | Ruqs @ Many Things Bookish

And You, if you’d like to answer my questions!!

As always, no pressure if you don’t want to do it!

My Questions:

  1. What’s your favorite kind of post to write?
  2. What do you do when you aren’t blogging?
  3. What’s your favorite dessert?
  4. If you could spend a day with one famous person, alive or dead, who would it be?
  5. Why did you start a blog?
  6. What’s your favorite animal?
  7. Who are your top three authors?
  8. What’s your biggest pet peeve
  9. What’s your favorite cuisine?
  10. How many times have you changed the design of your blog?
  11. Freebie (Pick a random question you’d like to answer!)

That’s it for this post!! Thank you again, Kiera for the nomination!! Also, if you’d like to do the award, and answer my questions, go right ahead! Be sure to link back here so I can see your awesome posts!! And I’m curious: how do readathons actually work? Chat with me in the comments below!!

Monthly Wrap-Up

Monthly Wrap-Up: July 2019

Published on by Rukky @ Eternity Books7 Comments

Happy Saturday my friends!! I hope you all are having a fantastic start to August. Today, I’ll be sharing my Monthly Wrap-Up post for July 2019.

July was meh. To be honest, I didn’t really want to blog, I didn’t post on time, I’m behind on two reviews, and I was really busy IRL. But I still posted when I got the chance, and I joined Top Five Tuesday for the first time which was great! I loved the A-Z book idea and you can find a link to the letters that I did, below. Let’s take a look at this meh month.

Books:

Covers are from Goodreads | Click on the titles to visit my reviews.

Key: * = Book for review | ^ = Review to come

So I read 6 books this month which is great, but I am behind by 5 books on my GR reading challenge which is bad. I really need to catch up and hopefully I’ll do that this month!

Trust Me I’m Lying by Mary Elizabeth Summer // Rating: ★★☆☆☆ One sentence summary: A disappointing read with a naive main character.

Keep You Close by Karen Cleveland // Rating: ★★★☆☆ One sentence summary: A quick thriller with okay characters.

Look For Me by Lisa Gardner // Rating: ★★★★★ One sentence summary: A great mystery with strong and amazing main characters.

*The Bridge of Little Jeremy by Indrajit Garai // Rating: ★★☆☆☆ One sentence summary: An okay contemporary novel with a passionate main character.

^Hell’s Corner by David Baldacci // Rating: ★★★★★ One sentence summary: An amazing political thriller with two spectacular main characters.

^The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton // Rating: ★★★★☆ One sentence summary: A confusing, but interesting and unique murder mystery.

DNF: I also DNF’d Captive Witness by Carolyn Keene. It was a bit dated, too cliche and unbelievable for me, which is sad considering I loved Nancy Drew as kid.

Total Number of Books Read This Month: 6

DNF: 1

Tags:

Okay, so I really can’t believe this but I have done only ONE tag all month! How…???

2019 Mid Year Freak-Out Tag (I tagged myself for this one!)

Here’s a link to the Top 5 Tuesday posts that I did:

K-O | P-T | U-Z

Great Posts From Around the Blog-O-Sphere:

5 Things No One Tells You About Blogging // ft. the real truth about what bloggers do!! by Olivia @ Purely Olivia

Beyond the Blurb | How Blogging Has Helped Me as a Reader by Siobhan @ Siobhan’s Novelties

Why You Should NEVER Compare Your Blogging Statistics with Others’ by Caitlin @ Caitlin Althea

Summer Blogger Promo Tour: Blogging Made Me More…Introverted? by Tiffany @ Read By Tiffany (Ok, so this wasn’t published in July, but I loved it and had to include it anyway!)

Anything Else?

Yes! I started a weekly meme called Let’s Talk Bookish which hopefully will encourage me and others to write more discussion posts (yes, I know, I posted this yesterday, August 2nd, but I shall sneak it on here anyway). You can learn more about that here. As you can guess, I didn’t do a discussion post this past month.

Also, school starts this coming Monday, and I’m not sure how easy it’ll be for me to blog and do my school work at the same time, so please bear with me if I don’t post regularly, or on time.

I also reached 1,000 comments/pingbacks, and I believe that is an achievement so HOORAY!! I’m also close to hitting the 150 followers mark so again, YAY!! Thank you guys so much for loving my blog, chatting with me so much, linking to me, and following 💚

That’s A Wrap!

In the end, I read 6 books, wrote 4 reviews, did 1 tag, and 0 discussion posts. 3 of the books I read were either 4 or 5 stars which is great, but sadly, I am behind on my reading challenge.

I did meet one of the goals I set in June, which was to read at least 6 books, but I think my content quality took a bit of a dip instead of a rise. I did discover some new blogs, thanks to May @ Forever and Everly hosting the 2019 Book Blogger Awards so that’s definitely a plus!

For August, my goals are to: post more often, but even if I don’t, I hope that my posts are great and not generic; do maybe 3 out of the 4 discussion topics for Let’s Talk Bookish (at least 2 though); and read 8 books.

And that’s it for this wrap-up! How was July for you? Did you get as much reading as you wanted done? Did you take part in the 2019 Book Blogger Awards? Ideas for discussion posts you’d like to share? Chat with me in the comments below!

2019 Book Blogger Awards Nominations

Published on by Rukky @ Eternity Books20 Comments

Today, I’ve decided to take part in the Book Blogger Award by nominating bloggers that I know for some of the categories! I love all the blogs I follow, and at first, I didn’t want to do this because I didn’t want to leave anyone out, but I decided to just go ahead and do it to help some of you win! I LOVE all the blogs I follow and even if I don’t nominate you, know that you are still really awesome 💚💚

This year, the Book Blogger Awards are being hosted by the amazing May @ Forever and Everly. You basically write your own post with your nominations for each of the categories and link back to her so that she can see them. The nomination round ends on Saturday, July 20th which means there are 8 days left so if you’d like to take part, you need to hurry!! To see all the rules and categories, visit her post here!

Without further ado, let’s get started!!!

Best YA Book Blogger

This has to go to Vicky @ Vicky Who Reads. She has such a gorgeous blog and she’s constantly highlighting YA books and doing amazing author interviews/guest posts and giveaways every Wednesday! I also love her design!! It’s really stunning!

Best Mystery / Thriller Blogger

Zoé @ Zooloo’s Book Diary is constantly reading and reviewing Thrillers and Mysteries. She’s usually my go to blog (and GR account lol) when I’m trying to find new thriller books to read! She also just gave her blog a really cute makeover so definitely go check her out!

I’d also like to nominate Jennifer @ Tar Heel Reader because she writes amazing reviews and reads amazing thrillers. I always look out for her review when I’m deciding which books to add to my TBR and love reading her opinion!

Best Book Reviews

Christina @ A Recipe and a Read. I mean, she has recipes for delicious food at the end of many of her reviews which I absolutely love and which also make me hungry. She’s also super kind and amazing and I love her writing style!! We also both love thrillers and mystery so that’s an added bonus. She’s been a bit MIA recently, but her reviews are truly wonderful!

Best Discussion Posts

Xandra @ Starry Sky Books does amazing discussion posts that I love to read! She’s always talking about new and interesting topics and I also really like the starry theme of her blog. Some of my favorite posts are two of her most recent ones: What Makes a Novel “Young Adult & Why Are you Blogging Right Now

Best Blog Aesthetic

This is going to Kat @ Novels and Waffles because her blog is absolutely stunningly gorgeous!! She recently changed her blog’s look and even before she did, it was an amazing and gorgeous place that always made me crave waffles!! And her new mini reviews on sticky notes are just so! adorably!! gorgeous!!! She’s also amazing and really nice and it always makes me smile reading her comments!

Friendliest Member of the Community

Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads has been so supportive and so kind ever since I joined the book blogging community. She also nominated me and I’m so flattered and happy (THANK YOU!!!!). Though we don’t have the same favorite genres, I absolutely love heading over to her blog just to read her posts and drop comments. She also loves to bake (I do too!!!) and I like to read some of her recipes sometimes because she’s a better baker than me lol. She’s just an amazing and super friendly human being!!

Best New Book Blogger (started blog after August 2018)

Can I nominate myself? Lol, just kidding. I’m going to nominate Umairah @ Sereadipity for this one. Umairah started blogging in late December of 2018, and her blog and posts are amazing. I also seriously love the watercolor-ish background and she has also written a few great discussion posts.

There are still so many amazing bloggers out there that I love. I seriously appreciate every single one of you for writing such amazing content and being super welcoming and also really kind people. It’s tough being a book blogger, but because of all of you, I’m reminded of why I love blogging and it makes me want to continue. Good luck to all the nominees this year!!

The Liebster Award #2 – Thank You So Much!!

Published on by Rukky @ Eternity Books28 Comments

It’s time for Tag Thursday! Today’s tag (or I guess I should say award) is The Liebster Award! I was tagged by the always and forever amazing Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads. Go check her post and blog out and then come back to finish reading this! I guarantee that you’ll love it!

Thank you so much Meeghan for tagging me!! However, I’m going to be shortening the questions, answers, and nominees to five.

Btw, this is my 100th post!!! YAY me!!!!

Let’s get started!

The Rules:

  1. Acknowledge the blog that gave it to you and display the award
  2. Answer 11 questions that the blogger gives you
  3. Give 11 random facts about yourself
  4. Nominate 11 blogs and notify them of their nomination
  5. Give these blogs 11 questions to answer

Questions:

If you had to describe yourself in three characters, which ones would they be?

Aza Holmes from Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, Josephine March from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and I don’t know. A friend of mine says that I am a lot like Inej Ghafa from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo so I guess I’m going to go with that.

What movie can you watch over and over without ever getting tired of?

Home Alone!!! The first movie and the second one. I LOVED them both and I can always always always always re-watch them! The other two movies were pretty awful in my opinion

How many books are on your TBR?

243 books. And it’s still increasing!

What inanimate object do you wish you could eliminate from existence?

Slime. It’s disgusting, makes me want to puke, and gets everywhere. And once it sticks in the carpet, it sticks. Yuck.

What was the last book you DNF’ed?

Blanca and Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore. I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

5 Facts About Me (just like Meeghan, I think I’ve said some of these before, but there isn’t much to tell so sorry):

  1. I hate nails on paper, or walls, or chalkboards. It is such an irritating sound and makes me feel super uncomfortable.
  2. I was born with six fingers on each hand. Note the was – I now have only 5.
  3. I’m one of those people whose favorite color changes depending on their mood.
  4. I think I’ve said this before, but I don’t know what else to say. I love cooking and baking!
  5. I love love love love landscapes or still lifes, but I’m a pretty horrible painter.

Tagging/Nominating:

Umairah @ Sereadipity | Kat @ Novels and Waffles | Aoife @ Pretty Purple Polka Dots | Ilsa @ A Whisper of Ink | Jaime @ Books and Waffles | and YOU (if you’d like to do it!)

P.S. No pressure. If you don’t want to do the tag. That’s absolutely fine. If you’ve already done it, please share the link so I can check it out!

Your Questions:

I’m going to post the rest of Meeghan’s questions, if you’d like to answer them and some of my own:

Meeghan’s:

1)Which character would you swap lives with?

2)Who is your favorite villain and why?

3)What’s your go-to book recommendation?

4)What was the last book you read that made you cry?

5)Which fictional character do you think would be the most frustrating to meet in real life?

6)What social stigma do you think society needs to get over?

Mine:

1)If you could live in a book, which one would it be?

2)What are some of your other hobbies besides reading and blogging?

3)What’s your favorite snack or drink?

4)What was your last 5 star book?

5)If you could ask an author, who isn’t alive, a question, who would you ask and what would you ask them?

That’s the end of Tag Thursday! Thank you so so so much Meeghan for tagging me!! I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I’ll see you guys next week!

The Liebster Award – Thank You So Much!!

Published on by Rukky @ Eternity Books21 Comments

Hey friends! Today, I’m doing The Liebster Award which I was tagged in by the amazing Umairah @ Sereadipity. I’m going to also be shortening the questions/nominees to five, so let’s get started!

Thank you so much Umairah!!

The Rules:

(1) Acknowledge the blog who nominated you and display the award.

(2) Answer the 11 questions the blogger gives you.

(3) Nominate 11 blogs.

(4) Notify those blogs of the nomination.

(5) Give them 11 questions to answer.

P.S. I am reducing the number of nominees / questions to 5.

Questions:

(1) How do you choose which books to read?

Most of the times, I read the summary and if it’s interesting or what I’m look for at the moment, I borrow it from the library. I recently did a Top Ten Tuesday post about what draws me to books which you can check out here. Also, if the book has been recommended to me by a good friend, I’ll definitely read it.

(2) Which three book characters do you wish were real? Why?

Aza Holmes from Turtles All The Way Down by John Green. I want to hug her so much, and tell her that she’s worth the world, to support and help her through all her spirals.

Mary DiNunzio from Accused by Lisa Scottoline. This is part of a series, and I love reading about Mary’s family and legal life. I’d love to meet her, and maybe even be her sidekick during one of her cases!

Josephine March from Little Women by L. M. Montgomery. I loved Jo as a kid. Her adventures, quick temper, and aspirations to be a writer were so much fun for me. I’d love to meet her, and have a chat over a nice cup of tea.

(3) Which themes or tropes do you dislike in a book? Why?

I really really don’t like insta-love because most of the time, it is not used right. The characters are usually flat, the romance even flatter, and it can ruin great books.

I also hate it when the good guys are White and the bad guys are Black. It does NOT sit well with me. Thankfully, I’ve only read one book in which something like that happened.

Another theme that I dislike, is when the MC realizes that the organization that has raised him/her his/her whole life is evil, they decide to get revenge. It’s so overused, and I avoid it, unless it seems like there’ll be a unique story behind it.

(4) Who are your top three favorite authors? Why?

Jennifer Lynn Barnes. She is an amazing author and I love most of her female MC’s. They’re strong, sassy and amazing and I really love her mysteries.

Lisa Scottoline. I love her legal mysteries/thrillers and her Rosato and DiNunzio series in particular.

Lisa Jewell. I’ve read only two books by her and I’m loving her work so far. I’m definitely going to explore the rest of her books and read more.

(5) What do you think is more important in a book, well-developed characters or a gripping plot?

I think a gripping plot is overall more important in a book, but both are needed for a good story. If the plot is very good and very gripping, then I can usually overlook or hate the characters less. If the book has no plot, or a very bad one but with well-developed characters, then it’s just blah, slow, and a waste of time. I’ll probably hate that more because I would feel like the characters didn’t get the story they deserved.

Questions:

1)What’s your favorite pastime when you aren’t reading or blogging?

2)What’s your go to genre?

3)How many books do you plan on reading this year?

4)Which three characters would you love to switch places with for a day? Why?

5)Share a fun fact about yourself.

Tagging/Nominating:

The Reading Chemist | Crystal @ Paper Royalty | Xandra @ Starry Sky Books | Sara @ My Year of Reading Dangerously | Meeghan @ Meeghan Reads and Bakes

P.S. No pressure. If you don’t want to do the tag that’s absolutely fine, and if you’ve already done it, please share the link so I can check it out!