Unravel me
Unravel me is a meme made by myself that shows aspects of my life. This time: Me, myself and a reading slumb.
Honestly, I wish I could give you a 100% accurate recipe on how to get out of a frustrating and almost never ending reading slumb, but I can´t. Right now I find myself in one and it is more than annoying. I blame work at the moment, because it really does take up a lot of space in my life right now. When I get home I´m too tired to pick up a book and I just feel like relaxing on the couch or going to bed early.
Maybe if I had a really, really awesome book waiting for me I could dust myself off and try to read a book again, but nothing seems to grab my attention that way. There are actually a few really great books on my night table, don´t get me wrong! Books like Shatter me or World After, but still...
Today I will force myself to read. It sounds like it will hurt, but I know that my future self will be grateful to my present self in the end. Maybe all it really takes is a little force to get out of a reading slumb...A little force never hurt nobody?!
Have you ever been in a reading slumb? And how did you get out of it? Tell me in the comments!
Unravel me
Unravel me is a meme made by myself that shows aspects of my life. Have you ever wondered what my favourite genre is? Yes? No? Then now is the time to find out, because I´m about to let you all know!
Three years ago my favourite genre would have probably been Adult Paranormal Romance. I can´t really say why, but this has changed over the last few month. First of all I drifted off from the Adult genre and settled on YA and I´m totally happy with that. There is something really fresh and innocent about this genre, which I really love.
And now the words you´ve all probably been searching for in this post: My favourite genre right now is the dystopian genre! Yes, you´ve read correctly! Nothing fascinates and thrills me more these days than this wonderful genre.
There is something really wonderful and intriguing about a world that is perfect in its imperfection! I´ve read my first dystopia when I was still in school. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was a nice read for me, but it didn´t overwhelm me like so many other new dystopias these days do. Still, this genre never really left my mind and I was thrilled when I discovered a few really awesome dystopias like The Hunger Games or Divergent in 2012/13.
I can´t wait to read more of this fantastic genre and I don´t think that I will ever get bored! There is just too much to discover and too much to learn from those thought-through worlds!
What is your favourite genre? I´d love to know!
Unravel me
Unravel me is a meme made by myself that shows aspects of my life. This time I will enlighten my readers with the knowledge of how this blog got its name.
The journey to find the perfect blog name was a hard one. It all began about 5 years ago, when I decided to make a book blog. Since then my blog has changed a lot and I´ve closed and reopened it several times.
When it all began my blog was called "Buchkind". I originally wanted to do this whole book blog thing in german and first that worked quite well for me. But I soon discovered that a huge english-speaking book blog community existed and I wanted to belong really bad, which is why I changed it all to english. It had a really positive side effect, because it helped me to improve my english, which was really,really helpful in my english classes.
Soon after that I changed my blog name into "Reading Against All Odds", but I still wasn´t very satisfied with it. I went with it though, because I couldn´t think of anything else.
In my last year of school I went to London and with a few classmates I visited a little bookstore that caught my attention. I was mesmerized by the interior and the books I saw. I soon stumbled upon one of my favourite children books: The little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. The artwork was - and still is - so beautiful that I had to buy it at that time.
It still took me several weeks to come up with the name "The Yearning Mermaid". I was staring at some pages in The little Mermaid and then I realised me that I wanted a mermaid themed blog. I began to play around with the word mermaid and things like "The book mermaid" or "The story mermaid" came to my mind, but it sounded lame. I don´t know when it happened, but after a few hours I had found my personal and perfect blog name. "The Yearning Mermaid". This name is full of mystery and longing and it is sweet. It fits me in a way and now I can´t really think of changing it anymore. This name belongs to me now. It always will.
How did you come up with your blog name?
Unravel me
Unravel me is a meme made by myself that shows aspects of my life. This time I will discuss/tell you what I think about the New Adult genre that popped up in the last 2 years.
I had been in a really, really bad reading slump in 2013 and even before that - in late 2012. I felt like I could not read a book without being overcome with boredom.
Three month ago I gave reading another shot (why didn´t I just do that earlier?!) and I remembered how much I love venturing out into other worlds.
A thing I noticed, though, is that in my absence from reading another genre had popped up. The New Adult genre.
At first I was confused... Young Adult, yes, but New Adult? I saw that most covers of this genre are full of naked men or men and women embracing/kissing/etc, but all of them carry the message of open sexuality.
Apart from the fact that I don´t usually appreciate covers like that (I´m more into abstract covers), I had to admit that I really liked the idea behind this new genre. It often bothers me that Young Adult books don´t deal with sexuality, or if they do then a certain scene will fade to black. It annoyed me in a way, because I believe that there are decent ways to describe sex, without being provocative.
Since then I´ve read a few NA novels, but came to truly love only one of them, which could also have been part of the YA fraction if you ask me.
"Freak of Nature" by Julia Crane is considered New Adult, because the characters have sex and because it is described in the book. Still - I think it would also have been appropriate for young adults, because there was an innocence to it I came to appreciate.
Other New Adult novels focus too much on the sex part and I find it hardly interesting to read about two characters making out all the time. That is the reason why I also believe that there are a few really awful NA books that focus only on sex, which can be so tiring. The plot comes second and thought-through characters are not important.
That is why I normally try everything to avoid NA books when there is no paranormal, fantasy or dystopian part in it.
Am I missing out on a few really great NA books? What is your opinion about the NA genre and do you have any reading suggestions for me?
Tell me in the comments, I´d love to know!
