Read Play Blog: I want to live where?

"Read Play Blog is a meme about video games and books, posted every 16th of the month. Bloggers are encouraged to answer a discussion question, and recommend a video game that is similar to a book they liked. Hosted by Happy Indulgence Books & Read Me Away."

Which video game would you want to live in or be the main character of?

I thought long and hard about this, because a lot of the games I play are about survival and I'm not too sure I would want to be somewhere that has a lot of Zeds or Aliens coming after me. I finally settled on Guild Wars 2 because the world is so beautiful, and because when I play its more about exploring and completing the map rather than the fighting I think it would be a great adventure.

Kiseen, my Sylvari in Guild Wars 2

Recommendation

Another world that is great to explore is Borderlands 2, with many quirky and fun characters to interact with and mad questlines too. In the DLC it has a Dungeons and Dragons themed questline, and honorable mentions to Game of Thrones too.

My boyfriend and a friendly Skag in Borderlands 2

Currently Playing

Killing Floor 2 finally went to early access on Steam last month, and for a game that isn't even complete it is amazing. At the time of writing this post I've already hit 68 hours on it and I can't stop, even though its just wave after wave of Zed killing.

Top of the leader board but died to the boss, oops

It has an adjustable gore meter in game, this is max

Bought, Borrowed & Bagged (68)

Bought, Borrowed and Bagged hosted by Talk Supe is a weekly meme where you can share your book haul, ongoing events and news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead.
Please Note: All images link back to their GR pages.

New Books

Last month my flat mate came rushing into the flat after being shopping with her boyfriend and was squealing about something, after calming her down I came to find out that Sarah J. Maas would be at our local Waterstones doing a signing for the release of A Court of Thorns and Roses. We dedicded we would go together, but I realised whilst I had her books on my wishlist I hadn't actually read any of them! So I did what any sane person does and purchases all of them.

I had hoped to have read at least one before meeting her but I only got a bit of the way through Throne of Glass, but now I'm powering through them and I'm so in love with these books. Sarah J. Maas was lovely and signed all of them, personalising A Court of Thorns and Roses too.

Recently on Northern Plunder

Where Have I Been?
Summer Time Updates

Upcoming on Northern Plunder

Review: Patch Up by Stephanie
Read Play Blog: I want to live where?

Lauren's Progress

Read in 2015: 24 / 20
Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas
Oyasumi Punpun Volume 7 by Inio Asano
Oyasumi Punpun Volume 8 by Inio Asano
Oyasumi Punpun Volume 9 by Inio Asano
Highschool of the Dead Volume 4 by Daisuke Sato
Highschool of the Dead Volume 5 by Daisuke Sato
Highschool of the Dead Volume 6 by Daisuke Sato

Currently Reading:
Ten by Gretchen McNeil
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

News from Lauren

I already spoke about meeting Sarah J Maas and what is more newsworthy than that? Nothing much. It is the summer holidays at the moment and I'm just enjoying some downtime with my boyfriend, books, and video games.
At the end of this month I'll be moving into a new flat which is a lot better than where I am currently living so I'm really excited about that.
Please note that I've implemented a new drop down menu at the top but some pages are still in progress so the links haven't been added yet!

Summer Time Updates

I've been thinking long and hard about returning to book blogging and I realised one of the things putting me off was how unorganised I had left everything. Emails and bloglovin notification had been piling up, my Twitter feed is unreadable, and my queue empty on Tumblr.

I've been reading regularly now which has helped with my need to return, but I desperately needed a spring cleaning. At one point I even considered a new blog, though I ended up decided to just tidy up and organise what I already had.

So this post is a just quick update to let everyone know what I've been working on and intend to do.

Also a big big thank you to all the kind words on my previous post, I'm much happier now and things are looking better.

Books and Tea Updates

I run another book blog on tumblr - Books and Tea - which I decided should be my first re-entry into the book blogging world.

I have:
- Added a new theme to the main page
- Written a new about section
- Updated The Book Blogger Directory
- Kept the queue full of images

I still want to change the side bar image, create a 2014 and 2015 read books page, and work on a format for adding reviews there.

Northern Plunder Updates

So you have probably seen me stopping by a few blogs here and there, thats because I'm slowly making my way through bloglovin which has helped inspire me and I've found a few things I want to take part in.

I have:
- Started catching up with my bloglovin feed
- Draft and schedule reviews/posts here
- Cleaned up old posts (removed broken images/removed white backgrounds)
- Changed the main font here (hopefully it reads okay for everyone)

I still need to schedule more posts really, clean up my Twitter feed, and figure out what to do with the Facebook page, but my main thing I accomplisted was unsubscribing from all but one of the book tour hosts. I love taking part in book tours but I think that may have been what killed my passion here, as I felt like I was reading and posting because I had too, not becuase I wanted. Even though I enjoyed what I read it was still a bit too much.

Where have I been?

I met Laini Taylor last year, finally finished reading this

Hello and happy 2015.

Well that was a bit delayed but I hope this year has been treating everyone well.

I've had a few people wondering just exactly what happened to me, so many days passed when I wanted to put a hiatus post up but it never felt right.

As some of you may have noticed my reading significantly decreased last year, and eventually I just stopped. I tried encouraging myself that it was simply my university work taking over but ultimately I could no longer find joy in reading when I was so down myself.

 

I spent many months dwelling in unhappiness and not ready to face the reality of it or try and solve it, I finally did though throughout December and since then I've been focusing on myself and my own happiness, focusing on a better and brighter me.

 

It has been working. Self-care and self-love should never be frowned upon. I learned this the hard way.

 

2015 has been a much brighter year so far. I've started reading again and playing with the idea of blogging again. Oh and I'm single. Still feels odd to say that.

 

However I don't know whether to stay here and hope I'm not too out of touch with the followers and friends I had/have here, or to focus on using tumblr as the platform to book blog instead.

 

This is me now

Hopefully I'll get some replies here to help figure that out. 

All the best,

Lauren