In Which Post Concert Depression Melts My Brain // August Wrap Up

Hello beautiful blogger babes! It feels like forever since I’ve made a post. Sorry about the unplanned mini hiatus! I went away on Sunday to my capital city to see my favourite band, Pierce The Veil, play. I was fortunate enough to see my favourite song in the entire world “Hold On Till May” live. I am suffering from the worst post concert depression I’ve ever experienced. It’s completely melted my brain. I even left my Kindle behind at my Aunts and I’m lost without it. I have an old Samsung Tab that I’m using as back up, but it’s not the same. I arrived home on Thursday and haven’t wanted to do ANYTHING. I’ve been trying to get back into blogging, but all I wanted to do was watch the videos and look at the photos I took. Saying I love Pierce The Veil is an understatement. They changed my life and seeing them live was the most amazing experience in the world. If you want to know how much live music means to me I will direct you to this INCREDIBLE post here, written by my favourite person ever (she gets it ♥). I was lucky enough to meet 2 of the members, (Vic and Jaime) after the show (I look awful because I cried a million times and was in the mosh pit 🤘🏻). I miss them SO much.

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Still reeling from this. Nothing will ever be able to describe how it feels to tell your favourite band how much they mean to you and how they've helped you. Saying last night was amazing is an understatement. Thank you, @piercetheveil 💘 #isthisreallife #piercetheveil

A post shared by lauren 🖤 (@laurennkara) on Aug 23, 2016 at 6:14pm PDT

If you’re into post-hardcore music or are just up to trying new music you can listen to all their songs on Spotify! It’s honestly incredible.

Besides seeing Pierce The Veil all I really did this month was get too emotionally invested in the Olympics 😅

Of course, because I was in Perth I used my last free day to hit the city to try and find some books. I couldn’t get many because I had to make sure my luggage didn’t go over the weight limit and I only had one bag. I did manage to get 2 books that I’m SUUUUPER excited for!

Blog wise – I posted my first Design Post and everyone was SO nice! It was super overwhelming. I’m definitely hoping to post more soon. As well as the original tag I’m working on.

Is a wrap up post even a wrap up post if I don’t mention how fast time is going? I’m also quite sad because winter is officially over in Australia. Now I’m going to have to go back to weeks of 42-47C (107-114F) and DO NOT WANT.

I had a relatively small haul/reading month which is why this post is combined!

BOOKS I HAULED

Of course I bought Harry Potter and the Cursed Child! I was really happy that Target had this for $25. In Australia, that’s so cheap for a hardcover! It’s such a beautiful book. I definitely had a lot of mixed reactions when I read it last month. It was a really magical experience though.

The other three books I bought this month were

• Black by Fleur Ferris

• Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

• Nerve by Jeanne Ryan

I bought Nerve here, but I bought Black & Nevernight from Big W (Yay for cheap books!). I was so excited to find them since my Target store didn’t have them. Black and Nevernight are both #OzYA and Nerve was recently adapted as a movie. I actually hadn’t even heard of it, which really surprised me because it’s a thriller and YA thrillers are my FAVOURITE! Black is also a thriller and I’m sure EVERYONE knows what Nevernight is about 😉 I can’t wait to read all of these! I’m probably being bias here too, but I love this edition of Nevernight so much more than the US one! Sorry 🙈

BOOKS I READ

I read 9 books this month (which again thanks to my love for graphic novels and short books sounds way more impressive than what it is, haha). I was in a slump for most of August. I read nearly all of these books during the first half of the month. It’s also safe to say that I failed ARC August spectacularly 😂 I only managed to read 2 ARCs. I’m still battling on okay with #ReadThemAllThon! My Gastly is now a Haunter!!  And I completed 3 badges.

My favourite reads of this month were: Saga Vol 2, Living Dead Girl, Last Seen Leaving and The Merciless II

Covers = My Review and/or Goodreads

2 STARS

Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige – I received an ARC of this via Netgalley. I am really sad to say that I did not like this book. The concept had so much potential, but once a Love Square started I knew this book was going to be a struggle to get through. The interesting parts were overshadowed by tropes and instalove. There were literally 3 love interests in this story. THREE. If it wasn’t a review book I think it may have been my first ever DNF.

4 STARS

  

Harley Quinn, Vol 1: Preludes and Knock Knock Jokes by Karl Kressel – Whilst I didn’t enjoy this as much as I enjoy The New 52 Harley it was still really fun and Harley will always be one of my favourite characters ever.

For Magnus Chase: Hotel Valhalla Guide to the Norse Worlds by Rick Riordan – I read this on my bus trip down to Perth. It’s a companion book for the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series. It was a fun and quick read! Perfect to read while you’re travelling. I loved learning more about Norse mythology and there were cool hints dropped about the next book in the series.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling – So after reading The Cursed Child it left me with the BIGGEST book hangover and all I wanted to do was drown myself in Harry Potter. I’ve never read this short stories collection so I figured it was the perfect time. Whilst it didn’t completely cure my hangover the stories were all really great. The Tale of the Three Brothers will forever be a favourite and I loved The Warlock’s Hairy Heart (what a strange sentence 😅) because it was a lot darker than I was expecting!

 

Hold Your Own by Kate Tempest – This is a collection of poetry based on the Greek myth of Tiresias. This isn’t the usual kind of poetry that I read, but I still really enjoyed it. I love anything to do with Greek mythology and I actually hadn’t heard of Tiresias before so this was really interesting! I definitely recommend it if you’re a poetry and/or Greek mythology fan.

The Merciless II by Danielle Vega – The Merciless is one of my favourite horror books and books in general so I was excited but nervous when I heard a sequel was happening. I LOVED this though! I did have a couple of issues, but overall it was exactly what I needed. I feel like I’ve been neglecting my love of horror lately so I can read current releases and popular series I haven’t gotten to and this reminded me that it’s my favourite genre for a reason. I felt really inspired after I read it and even wrote a few horror scenes for stories that will never leave my hard drive ever.

5 STARS

  

Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig – I recieved an ARC of this book via Netgalley and I LOVED IT! Being a YA thriller I realise it may not be everyone’s thing, but I devoured it. There were diverse characters and LGBT+ themes. The twists and turns were BRILLIANT. I thought I had everything figured out, but nope. THERE WERE NO ABSENT PARENTS. I hate comparing books, but I feel like this got everything right that, for me – personally, Gone Girl didn’t.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott – I actually posted a review for this (surprise!) so I won’t go into it too much again. It was one of the hardest books I’ve ever had to read though. It covers a lot of difficult subjects in an extremely respectful and realistic manner.

Saga Vol 2 by Brian K. Vaughan (writer) & Fiona Staples (artist) – Saga is becoming one of my favourite comic series ever. It’s so incredibly unique and the art work is STUNNING. This volume made me laugh and cry. I can’t wait to see what happens in volume 3!

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I’m not sure how my next month of reading will go considering my Kindle predicament as I really prefer reading ebooks – even if I have a physical copy. Maybe it’ll help get through my physical TBR though.

I’d love to hear the thoughts you have of any of these books!

Feel free to link to your wrap up/haul posts so I can drop by.

I hope you all had a fantastic August and have an even better September xx