Thursday, November 19, 2015

Oh Kae Read's One Month Bloggaversary!!!


  One Month!

  I can't believe it has been a whole month since I decided to start my blog! I am very excited about my progress in the last month. I have a better grasp on a lot of aspects of book blogging now. I can certainly thank the helpful book bloggers that I have spoken with on Twitter for their advice. I am so proud of myself for keeping up with what I set out to do as well! I only hope I can keep going, keep growing, and really make this blog a special and happy place for myself and other readers!

  Since starting this blog, I have also been reading a lot more. I am so glad to be back on a regular reading schedule, because I really went for a long time putting off any reading. I get in bad mindsets every once in a while where I don't do the things I love. This blog has gotten me to push myself a little harder to just keep reading. I am so thankful for that.

  I have also gotten to talk to some nice people that I have a special thing in common with, being book lovers! I love chatting with fellow bibliophiles, and now I have a way to connect with them and it has been amazing. 

  I can't wait for many more months to come! I am excited to get even better, meet even more cool people, and to just keep on reading! Thank you so much to anyone who stops by my blog to check out my updates and reviews. 

Happy Reading,
  Miranda Kae

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Top Ten Quotes I Loved From Books I Read In The Past Year Or So

  Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To participate, head over there and find out the weekly theme.
  This week I am listing my top ten favorite quotes from books I have read in the past year (or so). I have read a lot of great quotes in a lot of great book, so it will be fun to get to share them here with everyone! There are in no particular order. All books will be linked to Goodreads.
  1. “Sunshine, if I ever disappear, please tell people that I ran after the Devil, trying to get my soul back.” Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke 
  2. “Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.” The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
  3. “I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets.” The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
  4. “She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.” Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
  5. “But then, maybe “I don’t believe in you” is the cruelest way to kill a monster.” White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
  6. “That’s how fear grows. When you keep it locked inside and never let it out, it starts to eat you alive.” Nightmares by Jason Segel
  7. “Hours of crisis often call for sacrifice. In matters of consequence, when have doubt and fear given the best advice? Why not heed faith, courage, and honor?” Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
  8. “Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.” Asylum by Madeleine Roux
  9. “Adult life is terrible, Hazel. Never grow up.” Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley
  10. “Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their true image.”  Psych's Guide to Crime Fighting for the Totally Unqualified by Shawn Spencer (James Roday) (For those who don't know, I am a HUGE Psych-O. I've seen every episode like a million times. It is my favorite show ever.)
  So there is my list! I enjoyed all of these books and am glad that I get to share some of the amazing quotes from them. If you enjoyed the quotes, I highly recommend checking out the books! Let me know in the comments what some of your favorite quotes from books are or leave the URL to your list.
Happy Reading,
  Miranda Kae

Friday, November 13, 2015

Friday Finds #3

  FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you 'found' and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list... whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library - wherever! (they aren't necessarily books you purchased). Friday Finds is hosted by A Daily Rythm!
My Finds:





  All the books have links to Goodreads if you are interested in checking them out! Leave me a comment and let me know what books you have found this week or a link to your Friday Finds post. 

Happy Reading,
  Miranda Kae

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Shelf Control #3: Ready Player One


 Shelf control is a weekly meme hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Shelf control is about the books we have on our shelves that we have not yet gotten around to reading, but want to.


My pick this week:

Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Published: 2011
Pages: 372

Synopsis (Courtesy of Goodreads)It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

  Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

  And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune — and remarkable power — to whoever can unlock them.

  For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved — that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. 

  And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

  Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt — among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life — and love — in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

 A world at stake. 
 A quest for the ultimate prize. 
 Are you ready?

How I Got It: I received this in the "Play" Loot Crate when I was still subscribed

When I Got It: February 2015

Why I Want To Read It: I love video games and futuristic dystopias. This book became pretty popular a while back, and I remember hearing great things about it. Since it has 2 themes I am particularly fond of, I think I would really enjoy it.
  Leave me a comment about a book you own that you have not read yet, or leave me a link to your Shelf Control blog posts. Happy reading!

~Miranda Kae

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Ten Book To Movie Adaptations I Still Need To Watch


    Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. To participate, head over there and find out the weekly theme.
  This week I am counting down the top ten book to movie adaptations that I still have yet to see, but need to! I have seen a lot of excellent book to movie adaptations, as well as a lot of bad ones. Hopefully, when I get around to watching these 10, they will fall into the former category. (These are not necessarily books that I have read, they are just movies I have not seen that were based on books) All books are linked to Goodreads. Here is my list:

10. The Witches
Original Book: The Witches by Roald Dahl published in 1983.
Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads): This is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES. Real witches don't ride around on broomsticks. They don't even wear black cloaks and hats. They are vile, cunning, detestable creatures who disguise themselves as nice, ordinary ladies. So how can you tell when you're face to face with one? Well, if you don't know yet you'd better find out quickly-because there's nothing a witch loathes quite as much as children and she'll wield all kinds of terrifying powers to get rid of them.

Movie Adaptation: The Witches premiered in 1990. Directed by Nicolas Roeg and distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment.

9. The Golden Compass

Original Book: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman published in 1995 as the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy.
Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads)Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her. In this multilayered narrative, however,nothing is as it seems. Lyra sets out for the top of the world in search of her kidnapped playmate, Roger, bearing a rare truth-telling instrument, the compass of the title. All around her children are disappearing—victims of so-called "Gobblers"—and being used as subjects in terrible experiments that separate humans from their daemons, creatures that reflect each person's inner being. And somehow, both Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are involved.

Movie Adaptation: The Golden Compass premiered in 2007. Directed by Chris Weitz and distributed by New Line Cinema.

8. Inkheart

Original Book: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke published in 2003 as the first book in the Inkworld trilogy.
Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads)Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.
  Characters from books literally leap off the page in this engrossing fantasy. Meggie has had her father to herself since her mother went away when she was young. Mo taught her to read when she was five, and the two share a mutual love of books. He can "read" characters out of books. When she was three, he read aloud from a book called Inkheart and released characters into the real world. At the same time, Meggie's mother disappeared into the story

Movie Adaptation: Inkheart premiered in 2009. Directed by Iain Softley and distributed by New Line Cinema.

7. A Clockwork Orange

Original Book: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess published in 1962.
Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads)A vicious fifteen-year-old "droog" is the central character of this 1963 classic, whose stark terror was captured in Stanley Kubrick's magnificent film of the same title.
  In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?"

Movie Adaptation: A Clockwork Orange premiered in 1971. Directed by Stanley Kubrick and distributed by Warner Bros.

6. The Silence of the Lambs

Original Book: The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris published in 1988 as the second book in the Hannibal Lecter series.
Synopsis (courtesy of Goodreads)There's a killer on the loose who knows that beauty is only skin deep, and a trainee investigator who's trying to save her own hide. The only man that can help is locked in an asylum. But he's willing to put a brave face on - if it will help him escape.

Movie Adaptation: The Silence of the Lambs premiered in 1991. Directed by Jonathan Demme and distributed by Orian Pictures.


5. The Time Traveler's Wife

Original Book: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger published in 2003.
Synopsis (Courtesy of Goodreads): Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, have known each other since Clare was 6 and Henry was 36, married when Clare 23 and Henry 31. Impossible but true. Because Henry unintentionally jumps in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity, past and future. His experiences can be harrowing or amusing.


Movie Adaptation: The Time Traveler's Wife premiered in 2009. Directed by Robert Schwentke and distributed by New Line Cinema.

4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Original Book: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky published in 1999.
Synopsis (Courtesy of Goodreads)Charlie is a freshman.
  And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.
  Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

Movie Adaptation: The Perks of Being a Wallflower premiered in 2012. Directed by Stephen Chbosky and distributed by Summit Entertainment.

3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Original Book: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson published in 1971.
Synopsis (Courtesy of Goodreads)'We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive ..."' Hunter S. Thompson is roaring down the desert highway to Las Vegas with his attorney, the Samoan, to find the dark side of the American Dream. Armed with a drug arsenal of stupendous proportions, the duo engage in a surreal succession of chemically enhanced confrontations with casino operators, police officers and assorted Middle Americans.

Movie Adaptation: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas premiered in 1998. Directed by Terry Gilliam and distributed by Universal Pictures.

2. Requiem for a Dream

Original Book: Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. published in 1978.
Synopsis (Courtesy of Goodreads)In Coney Island, Brooklyn, Sarah Goldfarb, a lonely widow, wants nothing more than to lose weight and appear on a television game show. She becomes addicted to diet pills in her obsessive quest, while her junkie son, Harry, along with his girlfriend, Marion, and his best friend, Tyrone, have devised an illicit shortcut to wealth and leisure by scoring a pound of uncut heroin. Entranced by the gleaming visions of their futures, these four convince themselves that unexpected setbacks are only temporary. Even as their lives slowly deteriorate around them, they cling to their delusions and become utterly consumed in the spiral of drugs and addiction, refusing to see that they have instead created their own worst nightmares.

Movie Adaptation: Requiem for a Dream premiered in 2000. Directed by Darren Aronofsky and distributed by Artisan Entertainment.

1. American Psycho 

Original Book: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis published in 1991.
Synopsis (Courtesy of Goodreads)Patrick Bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

Movie Adaptation: American Psycho premiered in 2000. Directed by Mary Harron and distributed by Lions Gate Films.

  So there it is! The list is long, but I think there are a lot of potentially good movies in here that I need to check out. I have not read all of these books, but I feel I should probably do that as well. Leave me a comment letting me know some book to movie adaptations you still need to see or leave me a link to your post. Happy reading!!

~Miranda Kae

Monday, November 9, 2015

Weekend Mini Haul!


  Over the weekend I went to the comic book store and the bookstore with my boyfriend. I manged to leave with goodies for myself from both places! I wanted to quickly share what I found because I am just very excited.
  • I Hate Fairyland by Skottie Young. I am so excited about this comic! I just want to share this with everyone. It looks cute and adorable, but is actually a mature comic. I already know I want Gert, the main character, to be my next cosplay. I am absolutely in love! I recommend everyone check out this comic!
  • Nimona by Noelle Stevenson. The first time I ever saw the cover of this graphic novel, I knew I wanted to read it. It is based on her web comic. After hearing all of the positive feedback about it, I wanted to read it even more. I am a few chapters in and I already am loving it! 
  So those are the goodies I bought over the weekend! Did anyone else buy any new exciting books, comics, or graphic novels? Lemme know in the comments! I linked both of my finds to Goodreads, so check them out and add them to your TBR!! Happy reading!

~Miranda Kae

Friday, November 6, 2015

Friday Finds #2



  FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you 'found' and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list... whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library - wherever! (they aren't necessarily books you purchased). Friday Finds is hosted by A Daily Rythm!
My Finds:




      All the books have links to Goodreads if you are interested in checking them out! Leave me a comment and let me know what books you have found this week or a link to your Friday Finds post. Until next time, happy reading!!!

    ~Miranda Kae

    Wednesday, November 4, 2015

    Shelf Control #2: Ender's Game


     Shelf control is a new weekly meme hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Shelf control is about the books we have on our shelves that we have not yet gotten around to reading, but want to.

    My pick this week:

    Title: Ender's Game
    Author: Orson Scott Card
    Published: 1985
    Pages: 324

    Synopsis (via Goodreads)The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Enter Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the result of decades of genetic experimentation.

      Is Ender the general Earth so desperately needs? The only way to find out is to throw him into ever-harsher training at Battle School, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when his training begins. He will grow up fast.

      But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. His two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Among the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

    How I Got It: My brother gave me his copy. (I know, my big brother is amazing.)

    When I Got It: August 2015

    Why I Want To Read It: This book is famously good. It has won awards and even gotten a movie adaptation. Besides those obvious reasons, my brother read and enjoyed this book. My brother is NOT a reader! He rarely reads, let alone enjoys reading, books. So, for my brother to say a book is great, it really must be!

      Leave me a comment about a book you own that you have not read yet, or leave me a link to your Shelf Control blog posts. Happy reading!

    ~Miranda Kae


    Happy Reading,
    Miranda Kae