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I revisited my old favourite books

I genuinely don’t know how this idea came to me. I think it came to be after I got the urge to re-read some of my old favourite books after I just started thinking about the concept of favourite books in general. I’m not really the type of person who easily re-consumes media, with books especially, it’s very seldom that I’ll come back to one, even one that I loved. The media that I revisit the most is video games, I just find with things like books and shows, since there are so many, it’s so easy to just move onto a new one, because the barrier is much lower, or cheaper. Like, I’m more likely to warrant spending £10 on a new book, as opposed to £50+ on a new game, so I’ll hop from book to book. But after thinking about books, and favourite books specifically, I started thinking about books that I would have considered to be my favourite at one point, and then I just wanted to re-read them to see what I think about them now. I will also say that I was worrying that I’ll be getting in t...
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Parasocial relationships with k-pop idols have made it to books

  So, this is another post that’s quite different, and something other than just what seems to be a glorified book report. The idea came to me in the wake of seeing one of my friends posting Holy Boy by Lee Heejoo, and seeing it was about an idol getting kidnapped. Then I thought that was a cool concept since I’m a K-pop fan, and came across Idol, Burning by Rin Usami, which is about a fan’s life spiralling after her idol gets into a scandal. Then seeing those two so close together, it inspired me to write about the concept of parasocial relationships. I’ll talk a little bit about how they’ve made it into more media now, and also my relationship with parasocial relationships. For a little bit of context, to explain what a parasocial relationship is on the most basic level would be to say that it is a one-sided relationship between someone like a celebrity or content creator and a, for lack of better phrasing, normal person, wherein the “normal person” forms some kind of attachmen...
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So I've nuked my writing

  A very dramatic title, I know. I’m also not sure how many, if any, people read these, but it’s something I wanted to put out, just to get it out of my brain, especially since that’s what this platform is for me. It’s a place to get my writing/bookish thoughts out. The short version is that I’ve nuked this platform, and my other writing platform, and my bookish YouTube content because I don’t want to write a glorified book report for every book, good or bad, I read and want to do different bookish content. I want to post what I think is more varied and not be a place of negativity on the internet. The longer version can come down to a few things. The first being what I mentioned above. I started writing what was essentially a book report with mild review aspects within those book reports for every single book that I was reading to which I would also make content to go alongside it – like uploading to my book Instagram account, and my Booktube account on YouTube. I was doing this...
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Is a Blind Date with a Book worth it?

  So, I made a YouTube video, probably years ago where I went on a blind date with a book from a seller on Etsy, and to be honest, I don’t think I ended up reading the book that came in the box. I think I just ate the stuff that came with, put the bookmark in a drawer, and went on with my life after making the video. But I wanted to try going on another blind date with a book but actually go off queen with the idea. When I say I want to go off queen with the idea, I’ve thought of how to make it something. If you can’t tell from the title, I will be trying to answer this question through two different blind dates with books. Last time I just bought one online and that was it. This time, I wanted to do it twice. My plan was to buy another one online, do some research to either see if there was one that I’d be more interested in – something more akin to what I’d go for normally, similar to the stuff I already enjoy reading – and then aside from the one online, when I’ve been to Lo...
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Something completely different with Chocolat by Joanne Harris

This is a bit of an odd one for me. So, my plan has been to make a post on the concept of a blind date with a book, and in that involves getting two blind dates with books, one from a physical bookstore, and one online. This post, about Chocolat by Joanne Harris, revolves around the blind date with a book that I got from a physical bookstore. The blurb says that in the small French village of Lansquenet, nothing much has changed in a hundred years. Then an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, blows in on the changing win with her small daughter, and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church. Soon the villagers cannot keep away, for Vianne can divine their most hidden desires. But it’s the beginning of Lent, the season of abstinence, and Father Reynaud denounces her as a serious moral danger to his flock. Perhaps even a witch… I got the twentieth anniversary version of this book, and this version has a foreword where they talk about the book, and in that they mentioned how the ...
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A quick trip to Vietnam in A Bánh Mì for Two

Let’s all say this together: I got this book from Gay’s the Word in London simply after seeing the vibrant cover and the pretty splayed edges to the pages. I’m very easily pleased, and I absolutely do judge a book by its cover. Well, I don’t judge it by its cover, but a nice cover inspires me to physically pick it off the shelf. I also read the entire thing on two train journeys lol. The blurb says that in Sai Gon, Lan is always trying to be the perfect daughter, dependable and willing to care for her widowed mother and their bánh mì stall. Her secret passion, however, is A Bánh Mì for Two, the food blog she started with her father, but has stopped updating since his passing. Vietnamese-American Vivi has never been to Vietnam. Her parents rarely even talk about the homeland that clearly haunts them. Now a college freshman, Vivi has secretly chosen Vietnam for her first semester study abroad program. She’s hungry for the truth about why her parents left – and for everything she’s seen o...
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Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die and it's major question mark

So I picked this book up in Gay’s the Word (who is shocked?) because the cover looked fun. That was it. Well, no. I picked it up physically because of the fun cover, I bought it after reading the blurb and thinking it sounded wild. Miss blurbarina and the diamonds says that all his life, Sir Cameron has stayed as far away from danger as possible. He is quite frankly too handsome to die a pointless death in battle. But then the Church hands down a prophecy to his fellow knights: the only way to defeat their nemesis, the mad sorcerer Merulo, is to kill Sir Cameron. Short of ideas, Cameron throws himself on the mercy of the one person who now actually wants him to survive: the mad sorcerer. Merulo isn’t thrilled to be babysitting a spoilt, attention-seeking knight, but transmogrifying him into a vulture is at least entertaining. Cameron, meanwhile, is on a voyage of self-discovery. It turns out he’s really, really into surly sorcerers who lock him up and tell him what to do. Who knew? A...
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