Category: Trang’s Corner

We All Love the Beautiful Girls by Joanne Proulx [ARC]

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MY RATING: ★★★/5  

“I love her. Everything. The way she smells. Tastes. Feels. Jesus. The way she feels.”

– Joanne Proulx 

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Thumbs up for beautiful cover ❤

Set in Quebec, we follow the lives of a family who had everything, but are being torn apart slowly. I think this is the kind of novel better to dig in without reading the synopsis. That’s what I did and I find myself enjoying it more than I thought.  It’s the kind of story you don’t really know who the main character is because all the 3 members of the family have equal part in the story.

We have the child who’s dealing with his lust, teenager problems and social pressure. This may seem silly and stereotypical but the author succeeds in bringing a raw perspective of it. Continue reading →

How to make time to read

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SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME

I think this is one the most popular question my friends and followers have asked me. ”How do you make time to read? How do you have time at all? ” And I just look at them like : HOW DON’T YOU HAVE TIME?! 

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HAH kidding, I know it’s easy for me to say that books are in my everyday life. So here are few tips I’d like to share with you or maybe you can relate too  😀

1. Always have a book with you

This first step is very important guys😂 Do not leave your house without a book, even if it’s on your phone or a physical book in your bag. I always end up with like 3 books in my bag because I have that strange phobia where I  fear that I won’t have any book left to read…

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2. Take advantage of the public transportation

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Book Lover’s Day ft 4321, Spill Zone and The Heart We Sold reviews

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How fitting it is that today is Women’s Day, Book Lover’s Day and my best friend’s birthday, WOO 😀 ! She’s an incredible woman and bookworm ❤ Shoutout to NHII  😀

I have decided to put together some reviews of the books I’ve read these past months but didn’t makea full review for it 😉

4321 by Paul Auster 

★★★★★ 

I’ve been a fan of Paul Auster since his New York Trilogy, and oh my god he didn’t disappoint with this one.  Okay be aware, it’s a 900 pages novel with small fonts. Whenever I bring the book people thought I was bringing a dictionary around LOL. However, the long narrative justifies the beauty of Auster’s writing. He proved once again he can change from the detailed thought process of prose in New York Trilogy to a historical and storytelling style in this one. I loved the fact that he took that risk and produced a wonderful plot with a complex structure.

 “The torment of being alive in a single body was that at any given moment you had to be on one road only, even though you could have been on another, travelling toward an altogether different place”- Paul Auster

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Heartless by Marissa Meyer

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MY RATING: ★★/5  

“The easiest way to steal something, is for it to be given willingly.”
― Marissa Meyer, Heartless

It’s really rare that I don’t finish a book. I always  force myself to finish a book to, at least,  say with certitude that I didn’t like it.  I read 241 pages of this novel and I had to stop. I couldn’t endure it. But then, my best friend was like okay aren’t you intrigued by the ending at least? So I went straight to the ending and read it. And damn, I LIKED THAT LAST PAGE. 

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But for me to endure 400 pages to get 2 pages in the end worth it? I DON’T KNOW. So y’all, here’s why I couldn’t finish it but I still rate it 2 stars for the ending.

I don’t know what happens to Marissa Meyer after The Lunar Chronicles, but oh gawd, everything felt so cheesy and odd. Continue reading →

Summer Movies Review

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You will go in for a treat today for I'll be reviewing 5 movies woohoo! 😀 Don't worry, I'll keep it short and straight to the point.

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Finally, another superhero movie with a female as the main character ❤ ! You get to see her childhood, to fully grown fierce woman who has to decide her own fate. Gal Gadot nailed it in every way.  Plus, women warriors kicking ass and fighting . I went out of the movies theatre and wanted to be an Amazon so badly.

I've never seen a superhero so empathic and having the biggest moral clarity ever, some would mistake it even for naivety.

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The only thing that I didn't like is the villain. As we discover his identity, I thought the character in the movie was not really fit for the real villain we should be seeing from the comics. He lacks..that OP VIBE you know? Also, too much bad CGI for Wonder Woman's fighting scene… so the fighting seems less natural in some scene,  I'm sure she'll be just fine without too much graphic effects. Continue reading →

Lost Boy by Christina Henry – The True Story of Captain Hook

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MY RATING: ★★★★★/5 

Lost Boy was my first novel from Christina Henry  and to be honest, I was not disappointed. I think Peter Pan has been one of my favourite classic tales. When I read it for the first time last year, I felt like a kid still enjoying the magical world of fairy dust, flying and never growing up. Christina Henry took all the essentials elements that made it magical for us and turn it to ashes, in a good dark and villain way.

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The main character here is Jamie (later known as Captain Hook) and we follow his story of how he met Peter Pan, how he ended up on the island and before he was Peter Pan’s enemy, how he became his best friend. His development was astonishing from beginning to start. What is even more interesting was, for the first time, we have a concrete measure of a character development : his growth. You know how all the children living in Neverland never grow up? Except this one. He’s growing up throughout the stories and all the turning points of his transformations are also the indications of his character development. Masterful move!

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Strange Practice (Dr Greta Helsing #1) by Vivian Shaw

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My rating: ★★★.5 /5 

If you ever think that YA tackles one of the most stereotypical vision about vampires, you are going in for a complete opposite direction in this Van Helsing retelling. All the facts about vampires we know are demystified.

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We are introduced to the main character, Greta Helsing, who’s human but is descendant from one of the most prestigious family of doctors. They are known to practice medicine and help the supernatural creatures.

plotandsettingI love the setting, in late 1800s, where a murderer who mirrors Jack the Ripper still roams the streets of London. At the same time, one of Greta’s closest friend encounters a mysterious vampyre  who’s been stabbed in a suspicious way by a group of people wearing monk hoodies. After the attack, his skin is burning and the wound looks nothing like Greta ever sees before.  Here begins a search for the purpose behind that act and if the group will ever target another supernatural creature.  Continue reading →

Vault of Dreams by Luke Taylor

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MY RATING: ★★★★/ 5  

Emerald hills and ice blue lochs, bordered by Nørds raiders and the haughty monarchs of South Angle, each dynasty eager to seize lands weakened by a civil war in which a usurper has risen to seize the cloven throne.

why4starsCapture d_écran 2017-07-15 à 18.35.50Meet Six Of Crows and Lord of The Rings, my friends 😀  It was so mesmerizing to being able to read once again, a novel from one of my favourite author (that I’m happy to call friend !) I’ve praised Luke Taylor prose before in his novel The Quiet Kill , a psychological thriller. He came back this time with a total different genre. A prose that was elegantly displaying in a psychological but when turns into fantasy, I find a little too much.  That’s the reason why I removed a star from my rating. Some people will find this extremely beautiful to read and enjoy, but personally when there’s an excessive descriptions I just find it confusing as it takes away from the main story. Continue reading →

What to do in Vietnam

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I’ve spent the most wonderful month of June by traveling around Vietnam and I thought you guys would want a post on what I did and maybe get inspirations for your next trip too 😉 First up, I landed in Ho Chi Minh City but two days later I was already leaving for Singapore.  When I came back,  I had the chance to spend a few days in Ho Chi Minh City and then it was time to fly to Hanoi!

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Defy The Stars by Claudia Gray

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MY RATING: ★★★★★/ 5 

defythestars_coverThis was a very refreshing read for me! I got into a pretty bad reading slump while traveling and I couldn’t enjoy my books as much. But now that I’m back to Montreal and I finally finished this novel, I wonder if I’d appreciate this book more while traveling :O

It is set in a distant future where humans are living on different planets, Earth seems to be depicted as a big villain here while they are in conflict with Genesis, another planet.

Our main character, Noemi, a soldier from Genesis is sent off on a mission intergalactic and she meets her new nemesis Abel while trying to take control of a deserted ship.

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A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death by Adrien Owen

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MY RATING: ★★★★/ 5 

Anyone knowing me would know how much I’m passionate about my field of study, neurosciences, and this book perfectly describes the fundamental aspects as well as the psychological ones that I rarely see people do.

19578552_10155689574812780_842442280_o.jpg19648277_10155689574727780_1262742911_o.jpgHe describes his experience and work with his patients dealing with neurological disease over 29 years. When I read non-fiction, I’m always afraid that I get bored by all the formal aspects, but he managed to mix a god amount of science and story that keeps us on edge

Reading this book makes me appreciate all the efforts that we all went through, all the knowledge we acquired. The mistakes we made lead us to all the information we have now and more mysteries to uncover. It makes me realize how one tiny device that we use was well-thought, and how all the science generations before us have helped us come to this point of life.

The big theme of the book is consciousness, more importantly, the scientists in the novel are trying to find a way of understanding the vegetative state in neurological disease patients and how their consciousness work during this state. Some even have found away to communicate with them, which helps a lot.

I also want to give a huge shoutout to my co-blogger Lashaan, who’s been on fire lately !! I couldn’t write any posts before because of my constant traveling and I caught a cold ahah on my way back from Phu Quoc. Here’s me in The Love Garden sending you guys a lot of love!! 😀 

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Top Fcked Up Books

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I was going to put up a review today but I feel like sharing my fcked up books instead haha 😉 The fcked up genre for me group the taboos, psychological thriller and weird plots that make you go omg…WHAT AM I READING.

The Whole Collection of Chuck Palahniuk Books

chuckpalahniuk-15 My favourite book from him is Invisible Monsters but all the other books are pretty fucked up to be honest. Haunted has some of the most disturbed short stories while Choke provide us with a solid story about sex addiction and the lies we tell ourselves and Rant is still about the extravagant and crazy imagination of Chuck while toying with the timeline.

 

 

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Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

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MY RATING: ★★/ 5 

“It’s easy to lose yourself in the idea of a person and be blinded to their reality.”
― Jay Kristoff, Stormdancer

I was very excited to read this novel giving the fact that I’ve loved AIDAN in The Illuminae Files and I knew that Jay Kristoff was the one behind it. Unfortunately, this wasn’t for me.

At first, I found it weird  that I couldn’t like it because the concept and ideas are VERY GOOD. We have a bad-ass heroin set in Japan, telepathic samurai, a search for a griffin, super skills in martial arts, may mystical creatures and a worldbuilding out of this world.  Continue reading →

What To Do in Singapore

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Hi guys ! 🙂 I just came back from my trip in Singapore and since you guys asked for the pics, I figure why not make a post about it instead ? 😀 I’m currently in Vietnam taking a break from all the travels and also having some spare time to share you my amazing experience in Singapore. If you got the chance to visit this city-state one day, please go. It’s one of the most futuristic cities I’ve been to !

18622665_10155568023862780_8204064526677184101_nFirst off, we stayed in a space pod hotel near Clarke Quay and lucky for us because, there was a little road there where the nightlife is insane ! People walking down the streets, live concerts open space and on top of that, it’s all beside a river! I could hear people singing Shape of You or Starboy form my balcony 😀  Continue reading →

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

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MY RATING: ★★★  

“Because,” said Thor, “when something goes wrong, the first thing I always think is, it is Loki’s fault. It saves a lot of time.”

This novel was very hard for me to rate because I’ve never rated a mythology translation/retelling before. Therefore, you can’t really rate a book based on the plot or the story since the author didn’t decide it by himself. It was a tradition passed on from oral stories to poems. Then I tell myself, how would rate or review a book like Norse Mythology?

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Book Blogging – Marketing (ft The OrangUtan Librarian) | Discussion Post

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*Warning: this is going to be a long read*

Hi guys!! 😀 So this post was inspired some experiences I had so far regarding the book marketing programs. As a book blogger, I always enjoy sharing my thoughts about a book, rate it and hear what other people think about it. But sometimes, misleading book marketing can be frustrating and also the blogging and marketing misconceptions by other bloggers and readers.  Addressing these issues, I decide to resume it in this post with the help of my co-blogger Lashaan and.. THE ORANGUTAN LIBRARIAN WOO!

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CARAVAL // SPECIAL GIVEAWAY

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Hello everyone ! 😀

I know all about the buzz surrounding Caraval and I partnered up with Flatiron Books to giveaway not 1 but 6 sets of Caraval goodies- 3 winners with 2 sets each ! I’ll be putting my review up soon enough (also read-along with OrangUtanLibrarian and believe me you’ll want to see this LOL)   but here are my  other fellow bloggers reviews 😉 If you reviewed Caraval too, do not hesitate to link yours so others can read it 😀

Well, where to begin? Caraval is on many, and I mean many, people’s most anticipated lists for 2017, and it was… well, it was good (in fact pretty damn great at some parts) but it was not as good as I wanted, and those two are very, very different things […]

As as setting, Caraval was simply whimsical. Nothing is quite as it seems in this world, and since the magic has no real rules, anything and everything can happen. Garber’s writing was immersive, vivid and lush with details, a delight to all senses. It wasn’t quite ‘un-put-down-able’, but it was compelling enough for me to want to read on, and I really enjoyed visiting this world of hers. – Reg @ She Latitude

Honestly, I could go on and on about how amazing the plot was and how completely engrossed I was by this novel. I mean, I did read it in 24 hours. But all I’m going to say is that this book completely pulls you in and doesn’t let you go until the very last page. The hype is real, y’all. However, I did have a few issues with this book even though I enjoyed it so much that they did not affect my overall rating of it. – WonderfilleReads

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