Tag Archives: reading advice

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Spoiler Free Fantasy Review: House of Flame and Shadow

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you.

*No spoilers – just vibes* 

House of Flame and Shadow
By Sarah J. Maas
🎧 Narrated by: Elizabeth Evans
Book 13 of 2024

I have an instagram post with my advice about starting with the world of SJM, and after finishing Crescent City 3: House of Flame and Shadow, I stand by it. I think you will get the *best* reading experience reading the first 3 ACOTAR, all of TOG, the next 2 ACOTAR, and then the Crescent City series. The worlds build on each other, so I think that’s the simplest way to read and be able to catch all of the Easter Eggs sprinkled throughout the worlds.

The Crescent City series is urban fantasy, which I hadn’t read a lot of before diving in, and at first I didn’t like it. Fae, Angels, Demons, Wolf Shifters…and cell phones? And as we often see with SJM heroines, Bryce doesn’t really begin the books as her best self. But it went from jarring – the modern language, the swearing, and again – the cell phones – to something I was absolutely in love with. Bryce is the kind of sassy heroine that I fell in love with reading about since I was a kid, and she reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who is one of my favorite fictional characters. 

I think Book 1 is entirely from Bryce’s POV, but by Book 2 we have multi-POVs. Book 3 switches around even in the middle of chapters, so I think reading it in print is really helpful. However, Maas does well starting each POV clearly, and Elizabeth Evans’ narration makes it pretty clear who we’re following. While I felt like Book 1 had SO MUCH worldbuilding, and Book 2 had SO MUCH hanging out and learning about characters, Book 3 was straight action. The characters didn’t always make decisions that I agreed with, but they were decisions that were true to who they are as people. Overall, it was a very satisfying experience! 

I think what makes reading SJM so fun is the fandom surrounding it. As someone who grew up reading Harry Potter, I crave having a series that I’m reading as it comes out that I can make fan theories about and talk about with other readers. I sometimes wonder if I’m really a true fantasy fan or if I just like to join the fandom of 1-3 ongoing series and ignore the rest of the fantasy books that are being published! 

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Fable buddy read! And thank you to all of the people who held my hand through my SJM journey!

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Embracing Audiobooks

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A couple weeks ago, I talked about my very unhelpful 2019 reading resolutions. One of them was to read less by audiobook. I thought that, since it took more time to read books via audiobook than with my eyes, if I just read more with my eyes I would obviously read more books!

What I didn’t factor into this equation was that audiobooks helped me to read when I was too busy or too tired to read with my eyes. 

And I had two big problems at the time:
1) I got all of my audiobooks through Audible
2) I didn’t speed them up

Now, this is not to say that Audible is not a great way to listen to audiobooks – my biggest complaint is that Audible Exclusives aren’t able to be purchased by libraries, which creates accessibility issues. (If you don’t want to support Amazon – Libro.fm is a great choice! LINK in bi0 with information about how to join.)

My issue was actually that I read too much too quickly and found myself burning through my audiobook credits. The solution? The Libby App! Libby connects to your local library so you can listen to audiobooks *for free.* 

Once I figured out Libby and no longer had to restrain my listening habits, I jumped from reading just under 50 books a year to just over 60 books…then 100…then 130…then 175 books last year! (Probably a bit of an anomaly because of Long Covid, but that’s not the point of the story.) 

I’ve heard from people that they “can’t do” audiobooks, so I wanted to share some tips because I think audiobooks are SUCH a game changer for reading. If you can listen to a podcast or talk on the phone, I think you can absolutely learn to love audiobooks.

1) I started by listening to old favorites at bedtime. It does help to listen to something that you’ve read before at first to train your brain.

2) Speed up the sound so it sounds more conversational and less sleepy. I started just bumping it up 0.1x at a time. (1.1x, 1.2x, etc) and am now comfortably listening between 1.75x-2x for most books.

This is especially helpful if you find yourself getting bored while listening or your mind is wandering!

3) Get a 2nd copy to read with your eyes. Some people call this immersive reading – reading with your eyes and ears at the same time. I’ve heard this is especially helpful for readers with ADHD. For me, I find that it’s helpful to read some of the early chapters with my eyes so I know what the names are – for some reason my brain struggles with processing names when I hear them. 

There are a lot of positive effects of audiobooks. I know that uneducated people like to say that it’s “not really reading” or “is cheating.” But that’s really not true. (Unless you are learning how to read with your eyes, in which case you do need to practice reading with your eyes.) 

Positive effects of listening to audiobooks:
• Make boring tasks like laundry, dishes, and commuting more fun
• Improve your listening skills – remember more details about conversations that you have
• Read more books!

A few years ago, Libro.fm came up with 8 mental and physical benefits of audiobooks – I put a link to that article in my bio if you’re curious! 

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Learning to DNF – part 1

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This is the story of the person I was before I embraced DNFing books…

I have always been a list maker, a goal setter, and a journal keeper. So I can tell you *specifically* how I went from a “must finish everything that I start” reader to a “DNF on page 1” reader. 

The year…2018…the time…that week between Christmas and New Year’s where everyone rests and socializes and *I* go on unhinged marathon goal planning sessions. (Happy to talk more about that if anyone is interested.) I was looking through my reading docs and reflecting on my year. It was my 3rd year in a row of not meeting my reading goal of 50 books. 

Something that I had implemented that year was keeping a record of every book that I started, and I noticed that where were a *lot* left on the list – some of which I’d started the year before!

So my list convinced me, if I had just finished every book that I started, I would have met my goal!

I also made the brilliant (heavy sarcasm) conclusion that audiobooks were really slowing me down – mostly due to the fact that I can read with my eyes faster than my ears. Especially back then, when I didn’t know that you could speed up audiobooks! But more on that next week, I digress…

My list had me convinced about my 2019 bookish resolution – I decided that I would dedicate time to read at least 10 pages a day of whatever the first book that I started was. 

Do you know how long it takes me to read 10 pages of a book that I’m not interested in? Hours. Years. I cannot make myself read something with my eyes that I’m not interested in. 

So that was the proof that I needed. I read more when I’m enjoying what I read. Instead of forcing myself to read books that I do not enjoy, I quit them, and I read more because I enjoy the books that I’m reading.

I will still find myself reading books that I have to set aside time to read (as opposed to just tearing through them). Some books start slower or are dense or heavy and I need more breaks. Those aren’t necessarily the kinds of books that I DNF. But, if I find myself really struggling to focus for even five minutes at a time – I know I need to DNF. 

Did you find this helpful? Check out my highlights for other reading or bookstagram advice! 

Come back next week to hear about how I stopped feeling guilty about loving audiobooks. 

Let me know in the comments – how hard is it for you to DNF?

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Finding New Releases

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A friend on Instagram asked me the other day how I find the books before they are released in order to request them. (Referring to my ARC lists and “Out this week” posts.)

The short answer: I spend almost as much time scrolling book lists as I do reading.

The long answer: I feel like being a reader is a combination of hobbies:
-actually reading
-finding books to read / adding books to your TBR
-buying books
…not to mention all of the add-on hobbies you could collect: book journaling, shelf arranging and decorating, book clubs, bookstagram, BookTok, etc…

But, to answer the actual question, I have a number of ways that I find out about books before they are released.

My main way now is through influencer marketing. For the publishers who I am on an influencer mailing list for, some of them will send us catalogs of upcoming books that we can then request. (Which is basically my dream come true?) I add everything that looks remotely interesting to my Goodreads “Want to Read” – which is an exceptionally long list. I try to request a more reasonable number of books, to varying degrees of success.

Even if you are not on Influencer mailing lists, you can browse Netgalley, which is a free website where you can start reviewing books if that is something that you want to do. (I talked a little bit about Netgalley in my “Book Mail” post on January 4th –  but am happy to share more if y’all are interested!)

My other favorite way is, of course, from you! When my friends and other bookstagrammers post reviews/features/other posts, I add the ones that catch my eye to my TBR. 

Even more common than browsing are me & Dani’s ARC group chats. People are so amazing about sharing books as they get added to Netgalley or other places we can get review copies from. (If you want to join, we’re posting sign ups on Friday!) 

But, before I had those resources, I was still someone who tried to keep up with what was coming out. 

Goodreads has a feature where they’ll email you a list of books coming out in the next month by author’s you have already read. Which is kind of overwhelming, honestly. But I still click through it and make sure that I haven’t missed anything! 

I also look at lists that Goodreads puts out – they’ll often have things like “50 summer romances” or “Hot new Sci-fi and Fantasy.” And I add most of them to my Want to Read shelf. 

Hope this helps! What’s your favorite place to go to for book recommendations? (Feel free to shout out your own blog or a friend’s – I’m looking for more to follow!)