Monthly recap April '16 | My birthday month.

This post recaps my month: my personal life, all the books I’ve read & bought, movies and TV shows I’ve seen and links to posts that interest me.

A lot of good things happened this month, making it one of the best months I've had so far! It started with two shopping trips with my mother and sister, where we also had lunch. I bought some pretty clothes that I still can't wear, because the weather has been awful lately..

I had an overnight stay at a castle with my boyfriend! It was SO cool. It was so fancy and we had breakfast on bed. I felt like a princess for one night.

I had sushi with some collegues and it really starts to feel like I'm part of the group. I went to dinner with the six of us to a dim sum restaurant and heavens, that is delicious! First time I ate it and definitely not the last time. I also had fantastic hamburgers with fries at the beach with my parents and sister. (So many of my recaps include food, haha, I love food).

We FINALLY got to pick up our couch, right on time for my birthday party/house-warming. We had a great time with our family and it was nice to finally show everyone the house. My sister made her best cake so far: Alice in Wonderland themed. Everyone really spoiled me, with a couple of books, money, a new cover for my e-reader, bookends, hair dryer, toaster and a beautiful Marauder poster. I still can't believe I turned 25 (I talked about it in my birthday post), but I'm really happy how far I've come.

I had a book club sleep-over where we attempted the Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon and we read around 13 hours. I finished a total of 3 books. With a lot of food (pizza!), great company (a cat!) and awesome books, I had a fantastic read-a-thon.

If you are interested in more pictures, check out my Instagram Mel_1704.

I also had a lot of 'us' time with my boyfriend this month. We played Just Dance and Mario Party, watched tons of movies, finally caught up on a few TV shows and we spend Kingsday together, strolling on a street fair. In the morning it looked like we had to miss it (it kept raining), but eventually the sun came through and we were able to keep our tradition. I added 6 dvd's for a total of 5 euro to my collection, so not a bad haul!

Tour | What I love about ACOTAR,

I was asked by Alexa and Bloomsbury to participate in this event where multiple blogs share their reasons why they love ACOTAR. I'm in the middle of rereading this book, so it is a perfect timing to share you why you should pick up this book if you haven't read it yet! You can also read my review of A court of thorns and roses.

1. It is a retelling of Beauty and the beast.

Sarah managed to craft a new story with the basics of my favorite fairytale of all time. I think she did the story justice with her creativity. The world-building is based on fey and the difficult life conditions for mortals after they build the wall to separate their lands from the fey. Feyre makes the mistake of killing a fey and has to pay the price by leaving her world behind. Feyre is in no way similar to the Belle in Disney, but I love her all the same. She is feisty and loyal to her family, even when they not always appreciated her hard work to keep them alive. She is trust into a dangerous world and I admire her for her strength.

2. The beast reminds me of Richard Armitage.

I already talked about this in my post where I showed you all the actors I would pick for my ACOTAR cast (definitely check it out, lots of pretty people) and who does not like to read about a character that reminds you of this handsome guy? His broody look and his low voice are perfect for the role of Tamlin if you ask me. #TeamTamlin by the way. He stole my heart the moment he tried to compliment Feyre, in his own way.

3. Complexity.

From the world-building to the characters, this book is complex and layered. I loved every character and how they added something unique to the story. There is Tamlin, who has to deal with a lot of shit, his sarcastic friend Lucian and the mysterious Rhysand, a character you love to hate. The fact that this world is based around the fey works so really well in Beauty and the beast, something I'd never expected. There is also a delicious romance based on hate-to-love, which I always adore, and it never takes over from the plot.  I liked the build-up and how is added something to the plot rather than overwhelm it.

4. THERE IS A MAP.

I talked about this with the book club and we had the same thoughts: we love maps! It's pretty to look at, even when we don't use it while reading. For some reason I always create a world that looks different, but I love to see how the author envisioned their world. I just love art work and I thin it adds something special, especially with fantasy and their (most of the times) complex worlds.

So, did I sway you to pick it up?

Review. 256. Holly Black – The darkest part of the forest.

Title: The darkest part of the forest.
Author: Holly Black.
Pages: 324.
Published: January 13th 2015 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Sort: Stand-alone.

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.
Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once. At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking. Until one day, he does…

Rating:

There were two reasons that made me excited to read this book: 1. The cover, because look at it! It’s gorgeous and 2. The whole boy sleeping in a glass coffin promise made me think this could be a little fairytale-ish and I was right. The story holds a certain fairytale charm with it’s magical writing.

Once there was a girl who vowed she would save everyone in the world, but she forgot herself.

Birthday: 25 years.

It's that time of the year again. Twenty-five years ago I was born on a cloudy April 17th (because of course, thank you Dutch weather) and I don't feel like my age. I feel like I’m still around 18, trying to find my way in life and getting things on track. Sometimes I feel like I’m portraying to be an adult, but I just like to believe I will keep a young heart and mind.

When I was younger I thought my life would be IT around this age. I would have this perfect image and when I look at my life now, it's not the complete picture I envisioned. And that’s not a bad thing. I’m happy with my life, but it’s interesting to realize that things will not always go the way you imagine. That is one of the first lessons;

Fairytale News | Feeling uninspired.

A while back I talked about how I was afraid that I was writing and posting content that was not really original or creative. This was followed by another post where I talked about the fact that originality is almost impossible, especially if you look at all the new blogs that pop up lately. I learned to let go of the idea that I had to come up with new ideas all the time, simply because almost everything has been done before. It's the fact that YOU are writing it, that makes it unique.

The problem with that is, however, that I feel uninspired. I don't have any problems anymore with talking about topics many people have spoken about, but I simply don't feel like it. You might have noticed that I've cut down in the amount of posts. It's not only because I'm busy or the fact I still haven't found a schedule that works for me; it's more that I have no idea what I want to write about and what I want to say. Every evening I sit in front of my computer screen and I'm just blank. I end up doing a lot of things, but none of them have to do with blogging. The amount of unread posts in my Bloglovin' feed is prove of my lack of motivation.

I still love blogging and I enjoy writing, so it's frustrating that it is not working out. I'm still able to type down my reviews, but I want more on my blog (especially since those are not the most popular type of posts) The only thing I still work on with a lot of ideas is my fairytale challenge and I enjoy my monthly recaps, but for some reason my head is completely empty when it comes to other ideas. Discussion posts, yeah. I have quite some random thoughts scribbled down in my notebook, but the words does not come out the way I want and I don't feel like writing them. I am now thinking about revisiting older posts and see if I have new thoughts to add – or perhaps I have changed my mind over the course of time.

And if I am being honest, I sometimes have a little voice that wonders how much I actually contribute to the community. There are so many new blogs and that is great! But every now and then I feel like I'm swallowed up in the mass and I don't know if I stand out enough?  I guess I just need to embrace my blogging slump, then kick myself and get right back at it.


Made my first GIF. 

How do you deal with feeling uninspired? Any tips for me?

Retelling April '16 | Illustrations.

Don't forget to tweet and Instagram with the hash-tag #fairytaleRC.

At the end of this post you can put links to your challenge page/post and every review you post on your blog. Please make this easy to navigate by putting it like this: 
UPDATE  @ your name/blog name. This is your master post, like your challenge page. 
REVIEW – book title @ your name/blog name.

I'm sorry I have kept you waiting for so long, but things went a bit out of my hands, so here is the link-up post for April. I realized I never asked about the bingo card, how did you guys do? And are you still on schedule or are you behind, because remember: this challenge is all about having fun and reading good books. No pressure!

This month I want to talk about one of my favorite things in fairytale books and that is illustrations! Nowadays we can find many drawings inspired by a huge variety of fairytales. Today I want to show you some of my favorite illustrations and I want to invite you to make a post/tweet/photo/video where you share your favorites.