https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog daily 0.75 2026-06-13 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/reading-manga-for-the-first-time monthly 0.5 2026-06-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/5bc7992e-e4fc-495a-9acd-da76435c2d6b/Screenshot+2026-06-13+211854.png Blog - Reading Manga for the first time - So, I have never read manga before, and for full transparency, I did not believe I ever would. I think I have always had a misconception that Manga was a very unusual genre of graphic novel. I had heard rumours of different plotlines for some strange Manga novels, and so even though it shouldn’t have put me off, it did. Upon further research, Manga is simply a Japanese graphic novel. They have a distinctive illustration style, like Anime, which means that the characters have very large eyes and are more emotive/expressive that other drawings. There are different types of genres within Manga, suited for different age groups, and includes romance stories which I did not expect. My prior experience with Manga has only been watching Anime shows like Pokémon, and Haikyu!!, which I did very much enjoy. So why did I think that I wouldn’t like Manga? Short answer: nobody likes change. I like to stick to my romance and fantasy books, and rarely venture out into other genres. Now this is what I’m hoping to change, starting with my first Manga. Weapon of choice: Your Name by Makoto Shinkai. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/83172872-e9a8-4bf6-a437-2ffcc4f076ce/Screenshot+2026-06-13+212446.png Blog - Reading Manga for the first time - Your Name by Makaoto Shinkai - 3 stars https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/0953c811-37d1-4377-8f5f-7b917bacc83d/Screenshot+2026-06-13+214548.png Blog - Reading Manga for the first time - Overall, what I have learnt is that I shouldn’t be limiting myself to different cultures and different reading experiences. Bottom line is I love to read, no matter what the premise is, where it is set, or what the plot-line is… within reason of course. My next goal going forward will be to research more Manga comics that have themes that I enjoy like romance or fantasy, and expand my TBR list into other categories I haven’t considered much like horror, sci-fi and non-fiction novels as well. I think the lesson learned is not to stick to your comfort zone as you might find your next favourite read when you least expect it. Your Name by Makoto Shinkai, 3 stars. https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/may-reading-wrap-up- monthly 0.5 2026-06-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/57c0852c-aefc-40a0-b880-6f4cd54bbd65/Starside.png Blog - May Reading Wrap Up! - Starside by Alex Aster - 4.5 stars Romantasy - Enemies to lovers - Trial games - Sword magic I really enjoyed this book, so much so that I think I may need to correct the rating to a full 5 stars! I found the magic system with the swords of this book really refreshing, especially considering at the moment I feel like some romantasy books can feel extremely competitive. The backstory of each character was really interesting, and it was easy to see the motivation for each of them to win the trials. I found the plot-twist at the end so incredibly enticing for the next book! Stormside has been announced to release 17th November 2026, and you best believe I’m booking the day off work to read it all in one-sitting! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/f4fc6528-19c9-47db-8733-58615708dc8c/The+Fault+in+Our+Stars+cover+art.jpg Blog - May Reading Wrap Up! - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - 5 stars YA fiction - Cancer kids - Young love - Legacy I won’t go into much detail about this one as it has it’s own blog post, but I re-read this book after wanting to annotate it, and it did not disappoint! I found this one to be incredibly nostalgic, and I had a great time re-watching the film immediately afterward. No notes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/6eae6704-0555-4430-a1b1-61020c8d807a/still+house.png Blog - May Reading Wrap Up! - Still House by Christian White and Summer De Roche - 2.75 stars Audiobook only - Thriller - Suspense - Mysterious tenants I found this book was quite entertaining to listen to, and at parts I fully admit that it did give me chills! The reason why I marked this book down was because when the mystery was solved, and it was revealed that there was no wicken/paranormal/other worldly explanation for everything, I was a bit disappointed. Of course, the book was more understandable this way, and does feed into how we expect the worst and not the most obvious explanation sometimes, but that meant it was not as much fun as I was expecting. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/7fd40d80-9e31-4c77-9af5-48cac0784254/Screenshot+2026-06-07+154048.png Blog - May Reading Wrap Up! - The Right Move by Liz Tomforde - 4 stars Basketball/Flight attendant romance - fake dating - he falls first What a great next installment to the Windy City series! I was so excited to see how the story would continue on, and I was over the moon that we got to hear Indy’s story! It was refreshing to hear about her fertility journey throughout the book, and how important real-life discussions are in a relationship. It meant that despite the big celebrity aspect of the story, it was still very believable and realistic. I’m adding Caught up onto my TBR pile as I write! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/a268165d-1017-4c35-b64b-60f6766af61f/Screenshot+2026-06-07+153933.png Blog - May Reading Wrap Up! - Stuck with you by Ali Hazelwood - 3.5 stars Novella - STEM co-workers - forced proximity - both fall hard and fast I always find that Ali Hazelwood’s STEM novellas are such a great way to add to your reading goal, enjoy a little buffer novella, and still have a fab time reading and connecting with characters. I do find that with these books, I would always love for more pages to have more backstory behind the characters, how and why they got into a STEM career, dating history and more time to enjoy their plotline, but I did have a good time reading about their romance. I find it very frustrating when there are communication issues like there were between the MFC and the MMC, but I do understand that there must be some level of conflict that is a fast way to induce a 3-act break up. I will be continuing the series of Ali Hazelwood novellas - I just wish they were main story lines so we had more time reading them! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/dc92c4e4-718d-4b73-8e73-c2e6a15868e9/Screenshot+2026-06-07+154010.png Blog - May Reading Wrap Up! - Chaos Theory by Nic Stone - 3.5 stars YA fiction - mental health rep - addiction - friends to lovers Looking back on this book, despite not giving it a particularly high rating, I cannot deny that this book is not memorable. I still connect with the anxiety/mental health theme written throughout this book, and I also found it incredibly interesting to read about addiction from a young person’s point of view. I liked that ultimately the couple realised that they both needed to put in the work with themselves before they got together and had a positive successful relationship, which despite being such a mature decision makes sense - the characters are written like they are a lot older than they really are, which is a great way to subtly portray how they have had to grow up a lot faster than other children because of their internal battles with addiction and bi-polar disorder. I think that any teenager should read this book during their high-school years, if they can’t relate to it then only to realise what others could be going through. https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/booktok monthly 0.5 2026-05-14 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/the-fault-in-our-stars monthly 0.5 2026-05-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/ed0a29a7-42e1-4524-b1d7-26d78ec38827/The+Fault+in+Our+Stars+cover+art.jpg Blog - The Fault In Our Stars - John Green - Make it stand out Trigger warnings: terminal illness, grief, death. https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/annotating-a-book-for-the-first-time monthly 0.5 2026-05-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/c7684e9c-0e2e-49aa-88a9-5a1be55d3927/The+fault+in+our+stars+-+annotation2.jpeg Blog - Annotating a book for the first time! - As a beginner to annotating, I was very apprehensive about the idea. As I’m working towards my yearly reading goal, I was honestly concerned about how writing, highlighting and tabbing would slow down my reads, choosing to focus on quantity over quality. Sometimes I do struggle with the competitiveness of reading, especially with influencers that can read hundreds of books a year. Obviously, this is not comparative as everyone reads at different paces, and these content creators often read for a living, but even so I feel a need to consume every book as fast as possible. I wanted to re-read one of my favourite books for awhile now, and I thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to refresh my reading experience and try annotating the book. As I prepared, like all good researchers, I began to watch lots of videos and read some articles about the ‘best ways’ to annotate. I was very concerned about doing it the wrong way, and I wanted to ensure that everything would be perfect - that meant, the right coloured tabs, the best pen, writing really insightful comments and no mistakes. I tried to search and see if someone had annotated the exact same book so that I could use their themes as my own, prioritising how the book would look, and not about how it would make me feel. Regardless, I did find myself getting very excited to try something new, which I haven’t experienced with reading for awhile now. Don’t get me wrong: I ALWAYS get excited to start a new book, but this was different. It was a new way to absorb the story, especially considering that I have previously read this book before, with a different goal - to change the book, to write in it, and to make it mine. I do have a certain protectiveness over the novel as I read it when I was younger, and so it was very fulfilling to have a copy that was just for me, my thoughts and my feelings. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/478589ae-eddb-45a8-a487-464a0aa95864/The+fault+in+our+stars+-+annotation1.jpeg Blog - Annotating a book for the first time! - Also because this was not my first time reading it, I did have some ideas with what themes I wanted to highlight. As the book was ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ by John Green, I decided to highlight themes of romance, morality, emotional/physical pain and character development. Looking back on it now, there were themes that I didn’t use much, such as character development, as I got engrossed with other themes and quotes, but there were also themes that I used a lot more frequently. I found that if I did have a thought and I hadn’t written the theme down, I could write what I felt in the margins of the pages and with time I found that I wasn’t as precious over the book as I was at the start… Half way through the book I found that I cared more about expressing how I was feeling over certain lines than worried about how it would look. I began to realise that any comments weren’t to be read by anyone else, but for me to process what was happening in the story, and how parts of it I could relate to myself. If I wanted to doodle next to certain quotes, I could. If I wanted to highlight a normal, simple sentence, I could. There was no right or wrong way to annotate the book, only whatever I thought had meaning. The fun is that nobody will write the same things that I will, or highlight the same quotes that I will, because the book was uniquely mine and belonged to me. Very cheesy… but very true. I started to understand underlying themes of the book that I hadn’t before, all because I connected the dots with certain quotations that I may not have remembered without tabbing the book. If I found something with a similar theme, I could start to see how prominent it was shown with how many tabs there were, and I was able to see if there was any foreshadowing within the first half of the book when I looked back at the highlighted sections. Overall, it definitely enhanced my reading experience, although I would be careful in future which books I decided to annotate. As much as I enjoyed the experience, I would most likely be saving annotating for re-reads, non-fiction books and other stories from my favourite authors. Personally, I won’t be annotating any fantasy, sci-fi reads as I find these books take me a long time to read anyways, but when I want to slow down and enjoy a book, I think it would be fun to try again. https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/eyagd3i7qxci8cppfd2b7lb4uhtltr monthly 0.5 2026-04-18 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/Blog Post Title One-3zaa9-zlxng-g4tl4 monthly 0.5 2026-04-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/fadd1084-a770-41be-9536-d93b21f90289/Redeeming+6+cover+art.jpg Blog - Redeeming 6 - Chloe Walsh - Make it stand out Trigger warnings: abuse, grief, suicide, addiction, arson. https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/category/Advice%2FGuidance+Page monthly 0.5 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/category/Blog+entry monthly 0.5 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/category/Book+Review monthly 0.5 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/home daily 1.0 2026-04-12 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/about daily 0.75 2026-05-14 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/contact daily 0.75 2026-05-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/1722379595.727487-GAVMBQOIGFHFVLFZSGOK/imgg-od3-rzx9rq_5.png