May GeekyClean Crate Review- By The Angel (Contains Spoilers)| It'sCarenzaB

As someone who is a regular subscriber to Fairyloot, I thought it was time to try a new subscription box. Following the March Fairyloot box, I discovered an amazing company called GeekyClean which has a monthly subscription box in which they send out five bath/candle items themed around a certain book or series. When I saw what the theme was for May, I knew I HAD to have it as it was By The Angel which is based on Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter Chronicles and if you follow me on Instagram, then you will know I am a massive fan of her books.

As you can see the box is quite small. Most subscription boxes are quite big, so having something quite small is unusual. They also have an amazing promo card for this months theme and next months theme (Game of Foams). All the information about the products is stuck to the top of the box rather than on a separate card.

The first item in the box was this High Warlock of Brooklyn candle. I'm assuming it's based of the TV series as it has the actor from the TV series. It smells of Red Grape, Wine and Musk. It's not one of my favourite scents in the box as I really don't like musk, but apart from that I'm happy to have a candle based of everyone's favourite High Warlock.

And true to the character, there is lots of glitter!

For the first time ever, I received some book inspired make up. If you have been following my blog since I started it, then you'll know that I started it as a beauty blog and so this made me laugh a little bit. It is inspired by Adamas and is this beautiful bronze-brown colour. Even though I don't wear a lot of make-up, I will probably wear this as it's a very nice colour and it's book inspired.

Something I was very excited by was this Parabati bath bomb. Firstly, I love baths so this was perfect. Secondly, the scent is really fresh which is the type of scents I like. It smells of Cucumber, Lemon and Patchouli which together makes a perfect scent for this time of year.

While I may not be a huge fan of perfumes, I do love this Lord of Shadows inspired roller ball perfume. It smells of Dragonsblood, which is quite an orange-y scent. I'm going to be wearing this when I finally start Lord of Shadows to fully amerce myself in the book.

The final item is my favourite item, but it was also the item I couldn't get a good quality image of. It is the green item in the left bottom hand corner of the image. It is a Team Will or Team Jem soap. If you saw my March Fairyloot unboxing, then you will know that there was a candle that was Lime and Cherry scented. This is exactly what it smells of. I love that scent and I am so happy that there are more items with this amazing scent.





So that concludes my review on May's GeekyClean Crate. For under £20 plus postage, you get a lot of things and good value for money. I plan on getting their crates again in the future as sometimes I don't get round to reading the books sent out in subscription boxes.
Love,
Carenza x

April Fairyloot Review| It'sCarenzaB

So now that my exams are (finally) over, I can focus more on blogging as I definitely neglected it more than I planned to. As May is almost over and I now have my May Fairyloot box, I figured I still needed to post my unboxing from April. I know that everyone has already posted theirs, but I still wanted to share mine as writing reviews are some of my favourite posts to write.

The first item was a ceramic mug designed exclusively by Risa Rodil. If you saw my January review, then you will recognize her name as she designed the Night Circus pillow case. I love having more bookish mugs to add to my collection, especially when the mug has my FAVOURITE quote from ACOMAF on it.  

The next item was this Bone Season inspired tote bag made exclusively by Miss Phi. As you guys know, I am not the biggest fan of the Bone Season, but I do like this bag as the typography and design is very pretty. I'll be getting some use out of this on my many trips to bookshops!

Fairyloot did something really cool and included a little gemstone notebook from Portico. There were twelve different gemstones and I got Septembers, and as my birthday is the very end of August, this was pretty close. If anyone does have the August gemstone and was born in September, I'd be happy to swap!

This is my absolute favourite item in the box! It is a little dream jar enamel pin designed exclusively by House of Wonderland. I've attached it to my lanyard that I have to wear and have been getting lots of complements for wearing it.

Fairyloot has been killing it with the candle game lately. In April's box, there was a candle inspired by Reverie made exclusively by Meraki Candles. It smells like a dream and I love it. Meraki Candles is probably my favourite candle company as they have so many different candles.

Through this box, I received my first bookish magnet. It was designed exclusively by Fairyloot. I really like the design and have stuck it on my fridge to add a bit of colour in the kitchen.

The book in April's box was Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis. I had never heard of the book or the author and am really looking forward to reading it.

As always, it came with a signed book plate, which I have yet to stick in my book.

My reading buddy hashtag for April. Once again, I didn't find my buddy.

Fairyloot is amazing at working with publishing houses and in this months box there were promotional items for Spindle Fire and Hunted, both of which I want to read.











So that concludes my review of Fairyloot's April box. As I said in the beginning of the post, I am now going to start posting regularly again now that my exams are over. I have a couple more unboxings for you guys this month.
Love,
Carenza x

April Wrap Up 2017| It'sCarenzaB

We are some how almost half way through the year and up until April, I was having a really good time with my reading. In March I read 10 books, but in April I only read 4 and 2 of these were rereads. As exams approach, I have no time to read and when I do have time to read, I'm too tired to  read. But, the books I did read in April I really enjoyed and I actually have reviews for all of them.

The first book I read in April was a reread and that was 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher. Seeing everyone talk about the TV series on Netflix (which I have not seen as I don't have Netflix) made me want to reread the book that I read when I was either 12 or 13. This book holds a very special place in my heart, which I go into more detail in my review. I still love this book and gave it 5/5 stars. I hope one day I can watch the TV Adaption.

The next book I read is probably a book that is going to make it on to my top books of 2017, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This book is unbelievably important to the world we live in. THUG only came out at the end of February and it already has a film deal, if that doesn't show how important it is, I don't know what will. I loved Angie's writing style and I can't wait to read more books from her in the future. I also gave this book 5/5 stars.

The other book I reread was Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare. With Lord of Shadows coming out this month (May 23rd),  I was in desperate need of a reread in preparation of my most anticipated release of the year. My opinions and feelings have not changed for this book. I still love it as much as I did last year when I read it last year. Still a 5/5 star rating from me.

The final book I read in April was probably the most disappointing book I read that month. I did not enjoy reading The Bone Season, but I heard that The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon was better. I didn't enjoy it. I gave it 2/5 stars and I am doubting whether I will continue with this series.   

So that concludes my April Wrap Up. How many books did you read in April? Have you read any of the books that I have read? What did you think of them?
Love,
Carenza x

Book Review Monday- The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon| It'sCarenzaB

In March I read The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon and soon after I started the sequel, The Mime Order. I finished it in April as I had a very bad reading month in April. I wasn't the biggest fan of The Bone Season and I had seen mixed reviews on The Mime Order, but I wanted to gather my own opinions on The Mime Order. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of The Mime Order, but I still wanted to review it.  Like all my reviews, this will contain spoilers for the books in this series (bar The Song Rising as I haven't read it).

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon- Contains Spoilers

Non-Spoiler Thoughts

As I've already said, I wasn't a fan of The Mime Order. This book is over 500 pages and I personally feel that nothing very exciting happened until the last 50 pages. I wasn't a huge fan of The Bone Season, but I wanted to give The Mime Order a chance. I am doubting if I will enjoy The Song Rising and if I will continue with this series at this point. I gave it 2/5 stars on Goodreads.

Cover Chat

While I have problems with the series, I do love the covers. Samantha Shannon has been blessed by the cover gods. Like I mentioned in my Bone Season review, it was the covers that drew me in.

Plot

Paige Mahoney has escaped the brutal prison camp of Sheol I, but her problems have only just begun: many of the survivors are missing and she is the most wanted person in London...

As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on the dreamwalker, the mime-lords and mime-queens of the city's gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take centre stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner.

Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided.

As always, this was taken of Goodreads and the page is linked here. 

Opinions

I was really hoping that I was going to like The Mime Order (TMO) more than The Bone Season (TBS), but unfortunately I liked it less. So far this year, my problem with books has been the pacing and this books pacing was by far the worse I have read. Everything just seemed to be dragged out and it took me a while to finish this book because of the pacing. I understand that you can't just have action scenes all the time, but this book had some very good actions scenes and then the character building scenes in-between just dragged the book down.  

I touched on this in my TBS review, but I do not like the main characters, Paige and Warden. I find them very irritating and self-centered. All the decisions they make come out of nowhere and there is very little character development. The only character I vaguely like is Nick. Nick is such a sweet character and is so protective of Paige.

Considering the events of TBS, Paige doesn't seem too traumatized. Usually in the second book of a series, the main character is close to having a break down due to events in the first book. While I am glad that Samantha Shannon steered away from this stereotype, I would have liked there to have been more of an impact on Paige and The Seven Seals.

I did enjoy Jaxon as a "kind of villain", as compared to the actual villain (who after reading I still have no idea why they did what they did), was very good and I felt scared of him. Jaxon's character is definitely one of the most developed in the series as he as already gone on a huge journey between two books.    

I finished this book a little over two weeks ago as I'm posting this and I still have no idea what actually happened in TMO. It went in a completely different direction to TBS and seemed to have very little to do with what happened in TBS. It would have been more enjoyable if I had understood what had happened and actually answered some of the questions I had from TBS.

My main issue with the plot was Paige's betrayal of Jaxon. To me, it came out of nowhere and felt like an attempt for Paige to have power. While I can see how Jaxon treats the other members of The Seven Seals is bad, the way Paige publicly challenged him was unnecessary.  

I am doubting if I will continue with this series, but as I have book three (The Song Rising), I will read that before the year is out. I am not the hugest fan of series more than four books (The Mortal Instruments and Harry Potter being exceptions), so it is interesting that this is going to be a seven book series.

So that concludes my review of The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon. Let me know what you thought of it and you are completely welcome to disagree with me. Just a quick note, I will not be posting regularly on here for the month of May due to exams at the end of the month. I hope you guys can understand, but once they are over, I will be posting lots on here!
Love,
Carenza x