June Wrap-Up: What I Read This Month

Hello lovely people! It's that time again, the end of the month, where everyone regrets not reading more in the past four weeks and vows to read twice as much next month. I ended up reading a decent amount of books this month, considering that I had exams at the beginning of the month and four summer classes to worry about. Without further ado, let's get into all the books I read in the month of June! :)

Title: Anna and the French Kiss

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Publishing Info: Published in December 2010 by by Dutton Juvenile

Number of Pages: 372

My Rating: 4/5

"I loved you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul."

I had been reading a lot of classics in April and May, so at the beginning of June I was in the mood for an easy, cute, YA contemporary book. Since everyone and their cousin has read Stephanie Perkins' Anna and the French Kiss, I thought I would finally read it, and it was just what I needed! For those who don't already know, this book follows the story of a girl named Anna whose super-rich novelist of a father moves her from her home in Atlanta to an elite boarding school in Paris to finish up her senior year of high school. Whilst there, Anna meets the attractive Etienne St. Clair, who is a complete and utter dreamboat (and yes, I just used the word "dreamboat," deal with it). I absolutely flew through this book, and would have given it five stars if it weren't for the way Perkins wrote some of Etienne's dialogue. Yes, we understand he has a British accent, you don't have to write silly phrases like "me mum" to make that clear to readers. Overall though, I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a fun, quick read!

Title: Throne of Glass

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Genre:  Young Adult, High Fantasy

Publishing Info: Published in August 2012 by Bloomsbury USA

Number of Pages: 404

My Rating: 4/5

"'You could rattle the stars,' she whispered. 'You could do anything, if only you dared. And deep down, you know it too. That's what scares you most.'"

I was clearly on a bit of a YA spree at the beginning of June, as I jumped right into Throne of Glass mere hours after finishing Anna and the French Kiss. I was a little dubious going into this book, because I've never really read any YA Fantasy, but I loved this book!! Celaena Sardothien is kick butt and has very quickly become one of my favorite heroins, and Sarah J. Maas' writing style made this whole world so believable and engrossing. I just really enjoyed and this and cannot recommend it enough if you're looking for a good fantasy read!

Title: The Royal We

Author: Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Genre: Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Romance

Publishing Info: Published in April 2015 by Grand Central Publishing

Number of Pages: 454

My Rating: 5/5

"Whatever this is... it doesn't happen twice in a lifetime. I'd rather work at this with you than settle for less with anyone else."

This. Book. Is. Fantastic. I won't talk too much about this here, as I've already written an entire review of it (which you can find here) but suffice it to say that this is, by far, the best book I read in June and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since! I cannot recommend this one enough.

Title: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Author: Douglas Adams

Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy

Publishing Info: Published in 1979 by Del Rey Books

Number of Pages: 193

My Rating: 3.5/5

"He felt his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."

"He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence and it was often difficult to tell which was which."

This book takes the cake for the wackiest book I read this month. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the books that is extremely hard to explain to someone who knows nothing about it. Basically, the book starts with a man named Arthur Dent who is saved by an alien posing as a human named Ford Prefect when the Earth is destroyed to make way for an intergalactic freeway, and follows the story of Arthur and Ford as they hitchhike throughout the galaxy. While that all sounds extremely bizarre and a little far out to say the least, the beauty of this book is the comedic aspect. Adams is so wonderfully witty and hilarious, and a lot of his comments about humans, while meant to be satirical, are actually extremely accurate. I would have rated this book higher than 3.5/5, however I was kind of lost and confused at some of the more sci-fi parts of the book. Overall, I really enjoyed this, however I do think I should reread it at some point because I think there are a lot of bits I didn't fully appreciate.



So that's it for June! I'm pretty with happy with the books I read, although I'm hoping to knock quite a few more books of my TBR list in July. I'd love to know what all of you read in June, and happy reading!

Review: The Royal We

Title: The Royal We

Author: Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

Genre: Adult Fiction, Contemporary Romance

Publishing Info: Published in 2015 by Grand Central Publishing

Number of Pages: 452

My Rating: 5/5

 "Whatever this is... it doesn't happen twice in a lifetime. I'd rather work at this with you than settle for less with anyone else."

I originally picked up this book after seeing it featured on Janet Maslin's 2015 summer reading list for the New York Times (which you can find here) and, to tell you the truth, I wasn't sure I was going to love it. I mean, the premise sounded pretty familiar- American college student gets a spot in a study abroad program at Oxford and falls in love with a prince- and I was worried this book was going to be glorified William and Kate fanfiction. To an extent, I suppose that is exactly what this book is, but boy was my first impression wrong!

The Royal We centers around our main character, Rebecca "Bex" Porter, who attends Cornell University with her twin sister and best friend, Lacey. Bex's whole life changes, however, when she applies to a study abroad program at Oxford University and ends up living down the hallway from Nick, the future king of England. Eventually the two fall in love and this book focuses on the ups and downs of their relationship over a ten year period. What made this book so wonderful, in my personal opinion, is not the romance between Nick and Bex but the wide range of supporting characters who help shape and develop their ongoing story. From the friends Bex makes at Oxford (who range from a highly impressionable, up-and-coming fashion designer to a descendant of the man who invented the font Garamond), to Bex's hilarious and endearing family, to Nick's own royal relatives (including cheeky younger brother Freddie and overbearing grandmother Queen Eleanor), Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan have created a world of characters so rich that you will feel like you are visiting old friends every time you flip through the pages. As the book goes on, you not only get to see how all this different people impact Nick and Bex but how they evolve and mature as they progress from university students to fully-fledged adults with families and responsibilities. Even if you were to completely disregard the story line, this book would still be completely fantastic due to the character development alone!

Another aspect of this book that I highly enjoyed was the complexity of the relationship between Nick and Bex. Their first encounters are not Kodak-worthy love at first sight moments, and in fact it takes them quite a good number of pages to even get together in the beginning of the book! The pair bond over binge watching tacky television shows into the early hours of the morning and start off as just very normal, relatable people.They have fights (even  a few break ups) and I love that even though Cocks and Morgan are depicting what sounds in theory like the perfect fairy tale relationship, the love story of Nick and Bex is far from predictable. Another important component Cocks and Morgan tackle in this novel is the many downsides of being romantically involved with someone in the spotlight. From the relentless paparazzi, to the nasty rumors, to the obsessive routine Bex must maintain in order to be considered a suitable girlfriend for the future heir, this book really makes you stop and ponder about the way celebrities are treated in our society and will make you think twice before taking a magazine headline at face value ever again.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, especially if you love a good bit of romance and an interesting look into the everyday workings of the royal family. This book is quite a long one, however don't let that intimidate you, because once you have turned the last page you will find yourself wishing there was more to the story (I know I did!). I would love to know if you have read this book and, if you have, if you loved it as much as I did. Below, I will include links to the Goodreads summary of this book (in case you are interested), as well as the link to Go Fug Yourself, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan's fashion blog! Happy reading everybody! :)

Goodreads summary

Go Fug Yourself 

Fridays on Five #2: Worst Fictional Fathers

Hello everybody! With Father's Day coming up this Sunday, I thought it was only appropriate that this second edition of Fridays on Five be devoted to talking about some of the worst fathers in all of literature. Stay tuned to read about some disastrous dads who will really make you appreciate your old man this Sunday.

1. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Let's face it, Heathcliff is pretty awful to all the characters in Wuthering Heights, bar a few scenes at the end of the novel where we see a glimpse of humanity in his character. This malicious attitude is, unsurprisngly, also extended towards his only child, Linton, the sickly son who comes to live with Heathcliff after his mother, Isabella Linton, dies. As far as parenting skills, Heathcliff is pretty much the antithesis of a loving father. Not only is he horrendously insulting to Linton at every available moment, but he forces Linton to marry the younger Catherine Earnshaw so he can control Thrushcross Grange after the death of Catherine's father and Heathcliff's ultimate rival, Edgar Linton. Charming, huh?

2. Claudius from Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Claudius may only be Hamlet's stepfather and not his biological father, however he is still just as awful a parental figure. Not only does he kill Hamlet's father and marry his widowed mother,  he spies on Hamlet's conversations with Opehlia and secretly plans his death not once but twice throughout the course of the play. Oh, and did I mention he lets his wife drink poisoned wine, knowingly very well that it will kill her? Pretty great guy, that Claudius.

3. Mr. Wormwood from Matilda by Roald Dahl

The tacky, sleazy Mr. Wormwood is the fictional father we all despised growing up. Most of the time he completely ignores his daughter Matilda because she is not a boy, however when he shows her some attention, Mr. Wormwood refers to Matilda with endearing terms such as "ignorant little twit." Perhaps his worst action as a parent is when Mr. Wormwood destroys Matilda's library book, an action that still crushes the hearts of book-lovers far and wide, including my own. I'll take comfort in the fact that you are universally despised by all, Mr. Wormood.

4. Vernon Dursely from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Ah, what do I even need to say about the dreadful Vernon Dursely, father to Dudley and uncle (as well of sort-of father figure for a while) to Harry Potter? While Mr. Dursely spoils the unbearable Dudley with massive piles of presents and loads of pampering, Harry is forced to live in a cramped cupboard under the stairs and work as a glorified servant for the rest of the house. Never mind the fact that Mr. Dursley almost ruins Harry's chances of ever attending Hogwarts by boarding up the entire house and then moving the family to a rocky outcropping in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and his wife, Petunia, isn't much better. Poor Harry.

5. Cronus from Greek Mythology 

If there was an award for worst literary father of all time, Cronus would, without a doubt, take the cake. In Greek Mythology, Cronus (also known as Saturn) is the ruler of the Titans and he and his wife, Rhea, are the parents of the Greek Olympians. In order to protect himself from a prophecy that he will one day be overthrown by his son, Cronus eats each of his children as they are born, and this continues until Rhea tricks him into eating a rock instead of a baby, Zeus kills his father, and then frees all of his siblings. Talk about a complicated family dynamic! So, next time you're angry with your dad, be thankful he didn't eat you when you were born, or something like that anyways.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and remember to tell all your fathers (who I am sure are 10,000 times more lovely than those mentioned in this post) that you love them on Father's Day and every other day of the year!

Fridays on Five #1: First Lines

I want to begin a segment on The Biblio-Files called Fridays on Five, which will consist of a post each Friday focusing on five things from one particular subcategory, whether that could be five books with green covers, five authors I have been enjoying recently, or, as is the topic of today's post, five of my favorite first lines in literature.

The first line of a book is crucial not only in drawing readers into the story, but also for setting the tone for the rest of the novel. I personally love opening a random book to the first page and rereading the first line, as it reminds why I love that particular book so much in the first place, or, if I haven't yet read the book, why I am going to love it. Without further ado, and in no particular order, here are some wonderfully witty opening lines.


"He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances."
-Voyager by Diana Gabaldon

Diana Gabaldon is incredibly short, sweet, and to the point in the opening lines of Voyager, the third book in her Outlander series (one of my personal favorite series). I won't say too much about these opening lines, as I don't want any spoilers for people who haven't read the first book in this series yet. If you don't already know the premise of this series, Outlander follows a woman named Claire Randall who is on her second honeymoon with her husband Frank Randall in Scotland in 1945, not long after the end of the Second World War. The couple is hoping to reconnect after a long time apart, however in a mystical turn of events Claire is transported back to 1743 where she meets Jamie Fraser, a gorgeous Scottish warrior, and an entire cast of entertaining 18th century Scots. I could talk about this book for days and days and days, and if you haven't read it yet you should absolutely go read it. Like now. What are you doing still sitting here?!


"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." 
-Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I think pretty much everyone in the history of humanity knows the first line of Jane Austen's beloved novel Pride and Prejudice, however this is one of my all-time favorite first lines, as well as my favorite book of all time, so I couldn't possibly leave it off of this list.


"I like hard work and I don't like pretending things are perfect." 
-Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Amy Poehler's memoir, Yes Please, is just as delightful and witty as she is, as conveyed by this first sentence. I loved loved loved loved Amy Poehler on Saturday Night Live as well as Parks and Recreation, and this book has quickly become one of my favorites. Amy is not only funny and entertaining, she is incredibly relatable and gives incredibly down-to-earth advice wrapped up in witty one-liners. I love this quote, I love Amy Poehler, and I love this book. 'nuff said.


"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
-Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Ah, what can I even say about Catcher in the Rye and its lovely-to-hate protagonist, Holden Caulfield? Holden is such a moody, stereotypical teenager and his attitude throughout this novel is perfectly summed up in the book's first sentence. J.D. Salinger is a master of words and almost every line in this book is quotable (and I do frequently quote them), and I recommend you read this book just for the prose, although the story line is also impeccable.


"The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman."
-Paper Towns by John Green

Before anyone says anything, yes I know that this is a whole paragraph and not just the first line of Paper Towns, but the whole opening paragraph of this book is so fantastic that I couldn't not include the whole thing. Paper Towns is by no means my favorite John Green novel (that award probably goes to Looking for Alaska), but it does, in my opinion, have the best beginning. The way John Green crafts sentences is pure magic. I swear that man could write a telephone book and I would eat it up like chocolate! His novels so perfectly sum up the feeling of being a young adult in today's contemporary world, as does this opening paragraph. Gah, I love it. You should definitely go check out some John Green novels if you haven't already.


So that about sums it up for this Fridays on Five edition. Comment some of your favorite first lines down below, as I would love to know what opening lines stand out to all of you. I hope you liked this first post, and I hope you keep reading The Biblio-Files! :)

Welcome to The Biblio-Files!

"You can never get  a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." -C.S. Lewis 

Hello, hello, and hello again! My name is Shannon, and I am the creator of The Biblio-Files. I am a 16 going on 17 year old student (Sound of Music reference anyone?) currently hailing from southeastern Michigan. This is the first proper blog I have created (although I have one or two failed attempts, oops) and I have always had a passion for writing so I am surprised it has taken me this long to start my own blog!

Ever since I begged my mom to teach me how to read as a little girl, I have constantly had my nose stuck in a book (something that has caused me to distractedly walk into a few walls over the years). In real life I am quite an introverted person, so I am hoping this blog will be an outlet for things I would never dare to say in person, as well as helping to bring me out of my shell a bit. There is no specific genre of books that this blog will focus on, as I have extremely eclectic tastes when it comes to books, however if there is something in particular you would like me to talk about feel free to get in touch with me because I love being recommended new, interesting books!
Here are some little bits and bobs about me, just in case you were wondering. :)

-I am a full-time high school student, although I do my school work online so I have quite a flexible schedule.

-My favorite subjects are English (which is probably obvious) and history.

-In my free time I like to draw, watch old movies, write letters, play the piano, go on bike rides, explore new places, and, of course, read!

-I am a first degree black belt in Choi Kwang Do, and am currently working towards earning my second degree black belt.

-My absolute favorite book of all time is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It is the first true classic I read back in 5th grade and I have a slightly unhealthy obsession with Mr. Darcy (especially when played by Colin Firth, *swoon*).

I think that's about all you need to know for now! I hope you enjoy my subsequent ramblings about books from this point on. :)