BOOKS READ:

• Origin by Dan Brown
• Tokyo Ghoul Volume 4 by Sui Ishida
• GYO by Junji Ito

BOOKS BOUGHT:

• Tokyo Ghoul Volume 4 by Sui Ishida
• The Luxe by Anna Godbersen
• Alienated by Melissa Landers

Since I recently moved here from Tumblr, I decided to launch a new series as an opening entry in WordPress. I’m never really good at introductions, may it be in print or in person, so let me just start with this:

I was at a local secondhand bookshop one Sunday morning with my cousin and while we were browsing through the shelves, I came across this book by Nick Hornby which gave me an amazing idea for my blog: A new series. It’s been a while since I last introduced a new series here, and I haven’t really been consistent either. So, I hope this one works.

My main goal in launching this new feature is to share and express my love for books and reading through this web page. So in this section of my blog, I will talk about the hows, whys, whats, and whens of reading — basically, reading in general. Why I read, what I’m reading, how I feel about reading a specific book, etc. But my goal does not end there, another reason for launching this feature is to help me develop and enhance my writing little by little.

So before we start, here are some things you should keep in mind while reading Stuff I’ve Been Reading Lately:

1. I don’t want anyone writing in the comments just to point out that I read too much romance or middle-grade books for my age. I try to read different genres as possible and I just recently fell in love with mystery/suspense/thrillers since I discovered my love for Dan Brown (which I will talk about in this post).
2. In a similar note, I most definitely don’t want anyone commenting about how I spend too much of my money on books that I won’t be able to read anyways. Just to be clear, I do intend on reading all of the books that I buy, I just need a lot of time to do so.

A few months ago, I read Origin by Dan Brown. It was my first Dan Brown book and I know a lot of you would think that I should’ve started with Angels & Demons or The Da Vinci Code, but this was actually my boyfriend’s idea. I never really planned on reading this nor any of Dan Brown’s books because if you haven’t already noticed based on the reviews I’ve posted here, I’m not really into the suspense/mystery/thriller genre. So my boyfriend insisted that I try reading something out of my comfort zone, besides he has read the Percy Jackson series for a year because of my doing, so I guess it’s actually time for me to read something of his recommendation. I never really thought I’d get to finish the book, let alone finding myself trying to stay up late at night just to finish another chapter. In the end, I fell in love with Dan Brown’s writing. It took me quite a while to finish reading it. I think finding and squeezing in the time to read is every reader’s dilemma.

After Origin, I opted to read something lighter and less intense, so I started reading two mangas and finished them in a span of a day and a half. I’ve read Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 4 by Sui Ishida and Gyo by Junji Ito. I didn’t get to add anything on my read list in the weeks after that because I spent the rest of the month with my boyfriend: attending a relative’s birthday party, meeting his mom for the first time, and practically running around my town to complete the requirements for my passport renewal (which was all too stressful).

I was never really into manga too, but my boyfriend has read a lot of them, so I decided to give it a try since I also read a lot of comics. We decided to look for something he hasn’t read and something that interests me so we can read it together or at the same time, at least. Upon a lot of research, we came across Tokyo Ghoul. I know it already has an anime version, but I planned on reading all of its volumes first before delving into the anime. So far, it’s quite a good read. Gyo, on the other hand, was a bit weird for a horror genre but I enjoyed it just as much.