bookstagram – Metal and the Geek

Why Do I Keep Doing This?

Hello there.

You may be asking yourself where the hell have I been, or why I haven’t really done much of anything with this blog for about a year.

I don’t have an excuse. I just lost interest in blogging. It felt like I was creating content for no one. That’s always a shitty way to feel about your content creation.

I also constantly feel like I have no clue what I am actually doing with this blog with my whole Metal and the Geek brand.

When I started Metal and the Geek, I had this idea in my head of what I wanted it to be and what I wanted it to become and I feel like I failed miserably at all of it.

I wanted this blog to grow. I wanted to start my YouTube channel and have it cover mostly books but expand into all of my other geeky loves.

I have started filming more consistently for my YouTube channel but I could have been further along if I had just stopped listening to my brain.

Booktube has grown so much in the time that I initially entered it and then disappeared from it. I feel like I am slowly finding my home on booktube, but it’s difficult when it all feels very cliquey at times.

I just honestly want to be able to make some more booknerd friends that I can shit talk bad books with but gush over all the great books out in the world as well.

I am sure you are aware that the world has been a giant clusterfuck. While it has been stressful in ways that I cannot express, it has also given me some time to film videos and figure out how I want to grow Metal and the Geek.

I filmed a Bookshelf tour: https://youtu.be/jPl0k5pvwYY

I made a video with book reccomendations based off of songs from my favorite band: https://youtu.be/Ei1P5Pvc3Dw

I don’t know, I love booktube. I am just trying to figure out my place in all of this.

I am also trying to figure out what to do with this blog, my instagram…just everything.

It may take me a bit more time to figure out my exact direction but once I do, It will be good! It sucks when you feel like you’re not good enough to be a part of a community, but I have started to shake off that feeling.

I hope you are all staying safe and keeping yourselves healthy both mentally and physically.

Stay Geeky. Stay Metal.

5 Star Predictions – Will I Love These Books?

Check out my five star predictions video!!

Magic for Liars – Book Review

Any time there’s some element of magic involved in a story, it typically catches my attention.

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey popped up on my radar while watching a book tube video. I had not heard a single murmur about it before this, and I instantly wanted to read it. So I did!

Magic for Liars Summary

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magic. She is perfectly happy with her life—she has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It’s a great life and she doesn’t wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.

But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach.

Magic for Liars Review

I loved this book!

It had a murder mystery, it had magic, and it had the right amount of humor sprinkled in. I really loved the main character of Ivy. She’s pretty flawed, and the way Sarah Gailey wrote her, she felt so real to me. I wanted to be her friend, and her assistant in this case.

Don’t go into this thinking you’re getting some adult Harry Potter with murder. While the magic is there, the murder mystery and the characters are at the forefront of this novel. We don’t get great explanations as to how the magic system works in this world, and we don’t get to know much about the magical events until the end.

While I enjoyed the story, I called the ending right from when Ivy reaches the school.

That didn’t ruin my enjoyment of this novel AT ALL. I have been struggling for weeks to find a book that would really capture my attention and this did the trick.

I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, quick, and slightly magical read.

It did lose a star for the predictability of it, I still loved it very much!

This gets four out of five metal horns from me!

Unpopular Opinions Trend

The Unpopular Opinions Tag and Trend has been around in the online book community for some time now. I took part in it at the beginning like everyone else, but now I am getting bored of it–not just bored, but irritated by it. I wanted to open a discussion to see if I am alone with this, or if other people are also tired of this trend.

Negativity

My main issue with the Unpopular Opinion thing is that it keeps spreading weird amounts of negativity. There are so many things I could write full blog posts on how I dislike something someone loves, but why? Why alienate people? This past week on twitter my feed has been bombarded with these so-called “unpopular opinions”. We get it, Becky, you don’t like that book everyone seems to love. WHO ACTUALLY GIVES A SHIT? It’s just getting old. If you get your rocks off by shitting all over stuff, then maybe it’s time to do some self-reflection.

Opinions are Like Assholes

Here’s the thing, can we maybe just share what we love and ignore what we don’t?

(I am not talking about politics here, if there’s one jackass that shouldn’t be ignored it’s Trump, because blink once and he’s fucking something else up)

I mean it’s okay to dislike something, but do you really need to waste the energy of constantly talking about it? Instead, share things you love!! If someone makes a negative comment about it, then mute them, block them, do whatever you have to do to keep your sanity. It’s the internet and people can easily make shitty comments, but you don’t have to waste your time replying. They’re not entitled to your time and energy.

Spread Positivity

I am on a little life quest to become more positive. So that is probably why this trend bothers me so much. I would love to see more positivity brewing in the book community because sometimes it feels we really lack that. I am signing off from this rambling now.

Spread positivity and love!! There’s enough hate in the world at the moment!

American Panda – Book Review

American Panda by Gloria Chao

ISBN: 1481499106

Published: February 6, 2018

Length: 311 Pages

An incisive, laugh-out-loud contemporary debut about a Taiwanese-American teen whose parents want her to be a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer despite her squeamishness with germs and crush on a Japanese classmate.

At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies.

With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth–that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.

But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels?

My Thoughts: I Loved this book SO much!

I always feel that I connect so much more to books where the characters are either immigrants themselves or their parents are immigrants. It’s a different life when you have to balance cultures. This book really shows those struggles.

Mei is doing what she feels she should do because of guilt. When you have parents that have been through so much and moved to the United States to give you a better chance at life, you do become overwhelmed with the feeling that you cannot fail. I connected with that.

For me the story was wonderful. Heartbreaking in some parts, and just made the characters seem real. I see many reviews from white Americans that say this is a stereotype, but it’s not. It happens with many immigrant families because typically immigrants have to work twice as hard sometimes three times as hard to get the same respect and privileges of white Americans.

People’s experiences aren’t tropes.

I think Gloria Chao wrote a real book, and finally, a YA novel that isn’t about a high school student. Mei is in University and struggling with what she should be doing with her life. I think Mei also had a great sense of humor and I just really enjoyed this contemporary read.

It reminds me of my own WIP, and it’s inspired me to finish proper edits and get my story out there as well.

I gave this book Five out Five Metal Horns!

Also, If you really want to check this out but are currently on a budget, the Audiobook is available on Scribd. With the Link below you get Two free Months and can cancel at any time, and with your two free months, I get a free month as well!