ARC Review: Tempests and Slaughter | An Unexpected Favourite

TITLE: Tempests and Slaughter
AUTHOR: Tamora Pierce
SERIES: The Numair Chronicles
RELEASED: February 2018; Random House Books for Young Readers
GENRE: YA Fantasy
FORMAT: eBook

KEY INFO: magical schools, coming of age, world-building, romance, friendship, political intrigue
REPRESENTATION: characters of color (side), gay male (main)

Content Notices

slavery, empire, violence, poverty, dead bodies

amazon / book depository / goodreads

Series Review: Constellations #1 and #2

TITLE: Defy the Stars (#1) / Defy the Worlds (#2)
AUTHOR: Claudia Gray
SERIES: Constellations
RELEASED: April 2017/ April 2018 by Little Brown Books for Young Readers
GENRE: YA Science Fiction
FORMAT: Paperback / eBook

KEY INFO: artificial intelligence, interstellar war, space journeys, complex ethical issues, romance, switching POV in third person
REPRESENTATION: female MC who is descended from Chilean relatives
CONTENT NOTICES: kidnapping, AI experiments on children, bombing of innocent civilians

#1: amazon / book depository / goodreads
#2: amazon / book depository / goodreads

State of the ARC #5 | The Last ARCs of 2018

State of the ARC is a monthly meme at Avalinah’s Books meant to motivate you to finish up all your long overdue ARCs (Advanced or Early Reader Copies).

Usually I don’t post my State of the ARC until the beginning of each month, but after seeing Evalina’s last State of the ARC of 2018 and shared with us all the new bingo sheet for 2019 I couldn’t believe I hadn’t planned to do a State of the ARC wrap-up! Instead of the review I had planned to write today (which definitely has nothing to do with the fact I didn’t get round to writing it…), I’ve decided to post my next State of the ARC a few days early and combine it with a little recap of my 2018 ARCs.

Discussion | My ARC Shelves

Last month I saw a few of these great posts going around the blogosphere where bloggers shared their current ARC shelves and I thought it would be fun to join in as well!

This year has been a fantastic year for ARCs. I was approved for some of the most anticipated releases of the year on Netgalley, had all of my blogging dreams come true when I started receiving physical ARCs from UK publishers, and also had the opportunity to work directly with some authors. Needless to say, I’m incredibly grateful for all of the ARCs I receive but on the flip side of this success, there is also a mounting collection of overdue ARCs which I feel endlessly guilty about.

Like Destiny, I think that being transparent about what goes on behind the bloggers’ computer is a great way to show the reality of blogging life (lots and lots of unread books) and builds solidarity between us by showing you’re not alone in your struggle/guilt around ARCs!

State of the ARC | #4

State of the ARC is a monthly meme at Avalinah’s Books meant to motivate you to finish up all your long overdue ARCs (Advanced or Early Reader Copies).

I have been dreading doing State of the ARC this month because I have been failing so hard with my ARCs, especially since going back to university. November was not a great reading month for me so I’m super behind in general, and only managed to read 1 ARC! I’m really looking forward to January when Destiny will be hosting the readathon for overdue ARCs so I can really focus on my poor neglected ARCs.