5 days of Bookmas – Day 2: Favourite Fictional Places

12 days of Bookmas is a video series which was created by Hailey over at Hails Hearts NYC. She posts one videoevery day 12 days before Christmas. I am joining in a little bit late, so I will post every day on these 5 days before Christmas. I hope you guys have fun with it!

Today’s topic:
Favourite fictional places you want to visit

#1: Middle Earth

Who would not want to visit Middle Earth, with all its fantastic creatures and places? Middle Earth has always been my favourite fictional place, and if I had the choice, I definitely would choose this world to live in. I do not know with whom I would want to live though. Theoretically it would be amazing to live in Mirkwood, but I would rather prefer the company of Hobbits to be honest, so I would probably live I the Shire with them. (And furthermore, who would leave out second breakfasts?)

#2: Hogwarts

Do I even need to tell you why I wold want to go to Hogwarts? Probably not. If I could be a wizard I would just leave everything and run to catch the Hogwarts train. But when you go to Hogwarts, you can’t only visit the school and castle, but also Hogsmeade and everything else in the wizarding world. How amazing would that be? And just imagine celebrating Christmas in Hogwarts! This would truly be a dream coming true.

#3: Grisha World (Shadow and Bone)

Now, I would not want to visit this world because it’s so beautiful and what not, but because I am so interested in the Grisha and their powers. It would be so amazing to see someone who can just create wind out of nowhere. And of course, it would be awesome to see the Darkling in real too, right? But the whole series takes place in a world which is actually pretty interesting, and I would love to explore all of it.

#4: Dream a little dream

This series actually takes place in our world, but the people in there can dream-walk. So I would not necessarily want to visit our world, but the dream world itself. How cool would it be to just be able to visit other people’s dreams and even be able to influence your own? That would be really exciting in my opinion.

#5: Wardstone Chronicles

And last but not least I really want to visit the world of the Wardstone Chronicles. This series takes place in England many decades ago, and it deals with Boggarts, Witches and Ghosts. The people in this book series have to deal with a lot of scary stuff, and let’s be honest, I would not survive one week in their world, but nonetheless it would be amazing to experience a ghost-hunt yourself one time.

So these were the 5 fictional places I really want to visit. Some of these actually (kind of) exist in real, like the Shire or Hogwarts, so it would be amazing if I could really visit these places one time.
Let me know which places you would like to visit.
but anyway, see you tomorrow! Bye Bye.

5 days of Bookmas – Day 1: Overhyped Releases

12 days of Bookmas is a video series which was created by Hailey over at Hails Hearts NYC . She posts one video each 12 days before Christmas. I just got out of my finals, so I am joining in a little bit late. Christmas is celebrated on December 25^th, so I will post every day on these 5 days before Christmas. I really didn’t post a lot the last few weeks, so I hope this will make up for it!

Today’s topic is:
Overhyped Releases

Now before we move on just a quick note: if you love any of the books I mention, that is completely fine. Everyone is entitled to have their own opinion, right?

#1: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

I know that a lot of people really loved this book, and that is great! But it just wasn’t for me. It got so much hype, especially on the BookTube community, and I had high hopes for this book. REALLY high hopes. But then in the end, it was just a mix of several different YA books (Grisha, Selection, Hunger Games, …) I wished for so much more, for a new world, new characters, but there wasn’t enough originality in my opinion. I am going to read the second book, however, only because I want to know what happens to that ONE single character. 

#2: Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

I have only read two books of the trilogy until now, but to be honest I do not have any motivation to finish this series. The writing just did not work for me at all, and I am not really invested in the story. Yeah, the mythological aspect is great, but there is just something major missing for me. I do not really care for any of the characters (except one of them, but I got spoiled as to what happens to him, so there’s that), or the story itself. 

 

#3: Stolen by Lucy Christoph

I was really excited about this book because some of my favourite BookTubers were recommending this book over and over again. The concept itself also sounded really interesting, and they first few chapters were great, but then everything kind of just went downhill. The books was just too slow for me, and I thought it would focus more on the romance than it actually did in the end, which kind of bothered me. The ending wasn’t great too, because I didn’t get a lot of things which happened, and it all felt too rushed in the end in general. 

#4: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Now don’t get me wrong; I really enjoyed this book while reading it. When I thought about it afterwards though, things didn’t look so good for me anymore. I am not the biggest fan of cheesy love-stories, and the whole book jus dragged on the whole “I actually love you but I can’t” – thing much too long for my taste. Etienne annoyed me a lot too, because some decisions he made were just so weird to me. I read this book years ago, and I do not have any motivation to pick up the next ones in the series to be honest. 

#5: I’ll give you the sun by Jandy Nelson

I wanted to read this book during BookTubeAThon this year, but I had to stop after a few pages and safe it for a later time, because the writing and the characters just didn’t appeal to me. When I picked it up again this didn’t change, unfortunately. The characters (especially Jules) annoyed me so much throughout the whole book, because the things they did to each other were just horrible. The relationship between them was so strange, and I didn’t enjoy reading about it whatsoever. One thing I really enjoyed, however, was the art aspect. I didn’t read a lot of books which deal with art, so that was interesting to see.  

So these were my 5 choices; I hope you guys enjoyed reading this. Again: if you love any of these books that it great, and it makes me happy that people give these books some love if I can’t do that, because in the end all books deserve some love, right?
Let me know which books you think are overhyped. See you guys tomorrow for another topic!

Bye Bye.

HARRY POTTER Reading-Diary #6

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Third entry: pages 237-352

Oh my … how could I have been so wrong? All my predictions … a failure. Nothing makes sense now that I know what REALLY happened.

But let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

So in the first chapter we first hear that Tom Riddle was at Hogwarts sometime, and that he got a price somehow sometime in the past. Now my question actually is: why do they still keep the prices he won in Hogwarts? Dumbledore and probably all the teachers as well, know who he is, or who he has become, and I don’t get it why they still want to show off his achievements as a student in Hogwarts, although he has done so much harm already.

The next section describes how Harry can communicate with the owner of the diary, T. Riddle, and at that moment I just felt like the dumbest person ever. OF COURSE it was Tom, who else? And I thought it could be Snape or Lockhart. (LOCKHART, how dumb can you be?) It all seemed so logical and everything was resolving. The only question which was left: who opened the chamber of secrets? It couldn’t be Tom, so it must’ve been somebody else. So the predictions continue.

Harry and Ron actually thought that it’s Hagrid who opened the chamber, but I knew that this couldn’t be true. Hagrid is just too good to do such things. But the fact that Tom and Hagrid actually went to Hogwarts together, and Riddle is the reason why Hagrid was thrown out of Hogwarts just blew my mind and it made me hate him even more. How could you do something like that to my dear Hagrid? Shame on you, Riddle. And the fact that Hagrid was sent to Azkaban was just heart-breaking.

In the next chapters we get to know WHICH creature hides in the chamber of secrets, and I just found it hilarious that they were so surprise that it was a snake. Duh, what else could it be? (Let’s just not mention the spider scene, okay? I hate spiders and this just confirmed that they are not to be trusted, EVER)

We find out that Ginny was actually the one opening the chamber of secrets, which in the end was quite surprising. The best thing about this chapter however, was the fight with the Basilisk. Have I ever loved a bird as much as Fawkes? Probably not.

Another thing that I realised was that everyone just hates Lockhart, and they say that he is worse than the Dursleys. In how far? Lockhart is just stupid, and the things he does are crazy most of the times, but he doesn’t know better. He is just dumb. The Durselys DO know better, however. They do know exactly what they do to Harry when they treat him like that. After all, that is why they do it, right?

The best thing about this book was this Dumbledore quote though: “It is not our abilities that show what we truly are.  It is our choices.”
This quote can be so powerful, and it truly was amazing.

And the last thing we see is how Harry frees Dobby. I literally cried tears of happiness when I read this, and I would have LOVED to see Malfoy’s face in this scene. I despise this family.

Overall thoughts, feels, and opinions:

Is it even possible to love the characters more than in the first part? Apparently.
I am so happy that I am making a Reading-Diary for these books, so that I can get all my feelings out there. This was amazing, I don't know what else I could say.
I think I never even saw the second film, so I wasn't too familiar with the plot, which was even better. I predicted so many things that just never happened, but I was so surprised at the other things which then happened, it was amazing. But first things first. That Malfoy guy (senior) just annoys the hell out of me. What even? Nobody insults my Mr. Weasley without being hated for eternity. But the Weasleys in general were so great! Who doesn't want to be part of their family?
But then the thing with the chamber of secrets. I first thought that Snape or Lockhart were the heir of Slytherin, but as soon as they found Tom Riddle's diary, I KNEW what was going on, and that I was completely wrong. There was only one question left, and that was who opened the chamber? Voldemort never could've done that. But that eventually also cleared up, and the whole plot resolved perfectly. I loved it. I loved every single bit of it, even more than the first book. I can't wait for the third part in the series, which is some people's favourite, even.
And here I would like to thank Albus Dumbledore, for making me love hot chocolate so passionately again. I owe it all to you, Sir!