Blog Tour – Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta – My Favourite Quotes

Thank you to Macmillan and Colored Pages Tours for having me on the tour!

I will be sharing my favourite quotes as part of the tour! But before I share them here is the synopsis of Gearbreakers which I think you should all check out!

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Two girls on opposite sides of a war discover they’re fighting for a common purpose–and falling for each other–in Zoe Hana Mikuta’s high-octane debut Gearbreakers, perfect for fans of Pacific Rim, Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga, and Marie Lu’s Legend series.

We went past praying to deities and started to build them instead…

The shadow of Godolia’s tyrannical rule is spreading, aided by their giant mechanized weapons known as Windups. War and oppression are everyday constants for the people of the Badlands, who live under the thumb of their cruel Godolia overlords.

Eris Shindanai is a Gearbreaker, a brash young rebel who specializes in taking down Windups from the inside. When one of her missions goes awry and she finds herself in a Godolia prison, Eris meets Sona Steelcrest, a cybernetically enhanced Windup pilot. At first Eris sees Sona as her mortal enemy, but Sona has a secret: She has intentionally infiltrated the Windup program to destroy Godolia from within.

As the clock ticks down to their deadliest mission yet, a direct attack to end Godolia’s reign once and for all, Eris and Sona grow closer–as comrades, friends, and perhaps something more…

So here are my favourite quotes:

Yeah, we’re small. Yeah, we’re human. But we’re also gearbreakers and we’re here to dismantle the fuckers who thought we’d just sit back and take it.

I cannot choose what I have been made into, but I can choose what to do next.

Remember fear is a waste of time. A waster of breath. I don’t fear death and I don’t fear godoloia and I sure as hells don’t fear what you think of me.

It does not matter if I can survive it. What matters is if I can see it through.

We haven’t lost and we haven’t lost everything so we can keep going.

You do not get to love someone and think they won’t feel it.

Because you choose sides in war and I choose the one that makes me feel human and this I will not apologise for.

About the author:

Twenty-year-old Zoe Hana Mikuta is a Korean-American writer currently attending the University of Washington in Seattle, majoring in English with a creative writing focus and minoring in History of Religion. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado, where she developed a deep love of Muay Thai kickboxing and nurtured a slow and steady infatuation for fictional worlds. She enjoys writing deteriorating worlds inhabited by characters with bad tempers, skewed morals, and big hearts. Her YA wlw sci-fi debut, GEARBREAKERS, is upcoming from Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan Publishers June 29th, 2021, with an untitled sequel to follow summer 2022. When she needs to unwind, Zoe sews runes onto the belt loops of her jeans and embroiders ‘Bite Me’ on the back pockets. She hopes if she feeds the crows around her campus enough croutons, they’ll begin to gift her quarters, so she can say her laundry is bird-funded.

Blog Tour – My Favourite Quotes From Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin

Hey booknerds! Today, as part of the blog tour for Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin, hosted by Coloured Pages Tours, I am sharing my favourite quotes from the book!

If you don’t know what the book is about here is the synopsis:

From the author of Ayesha at Last comes a sparkling new rom-com for fans of “You’ve Got Mail,” set in two competing halal restaurants

Sales are slow at Three Sisters Biryani Poutine, the only halal restaurant in the close-knit Golden Crescent neighbourhood. Hana waitresses there part time, but what she really wants is to tell stories on the radio. If she can just outshine her fellow intern at the city radio station, she may have a chance at landing a job. In the meantime, Hana pours her thoughts and dreams into a podcast, where she forms a lively relationship with one of her listeners. But soon she’ll need all the support she can get: a new competing restaurant, a more upscale halal place, is about to open in the Golden Crescent, threatening Three Sisters.

When her mysterious aunt and her teenage cousin arrive from India for a surprise visit, they draw Hana into a long-buried family secret. A hate-motivated attack on their neighbourhood complicates the situation further, as does Hana’s growing attraction for Aydin, the young owner of the rival restaurant—who might not be a complete stranger after all.

As life on the Golden Crescent unravels, Hana must learn to use her voice, draw on the strength of her community and decide what her future should be.

So here are my top 10 quotes from the book!

Just promise you’ll be careful with your heart, okay? You deserve someone who puts you first.

I only meant that an intelligent young woman – I assume you are intelligent – would not lay all her cards on the table. Gather information, consider your options, and then act accordingly.

I couldn’t hide who I was.

Find your principles and see your story through to the end, no matter what.

Anger was easier, feeling justified in my tactics more satisfying. Trying to change my world was the harder path, and less likely to succeed.

Real change is a boulder we keep pushing, but don’t fool yourself into thinking it doesn’t push back. Because it does. And sometimes it pushes back hard.

If things are changing, that means we’re still alive. Only living things change.

I know now what I will and will not tolerate. I know where my line is, and what I am willing to lose to defend my heart.

Keep chasing the story in your heart.

Choice. That’s what my parents had gifted me. There’s nothing more powerful than being able to make up your own mind about something. Nothing headier than reaching out your hand and saying: This. I choose this.

Do also check out the other posts as part of the blog tour and check out my bookstagram (@thetsundokuchronicles) for a giveaway!

More about Uzma:

I am the author of AYESHA AT LAST (2018), a retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in a Toronto Muslim community. My second novel HANA KHAN CARRIES ON (2021) is inspired by the movie ‘You’ve Got Mail’ and set in rival halal restaurants. I also write a funny parenting column for The Toronto Star, and have written for The Atlantic. I live in Toronto with my husband and two sons. Find out more at www.uzmajalaluddin.com and thanks for visiting!

Top 10 Tuesday – Book Quotes Make My Heart Burst

A Top 10 Tuesday post for you all today! I couldn’t resist this prompt as I love sharing my favourite quotes! I’m going to be sharing my favourite quotes that make me swoon and my heart burst from all the emotions from my favourite ships.

I wish I could live a thousand lives so I could fall in love with you a thousand times. But if all we get is this one, and I share it with you, then I will never want for anything. – A Sky Beyond the Storm

“May I confess something?” Ali gazed at her in open sorrow. “I never really wanted to be out of your debt” – The Empire of Gold

I cannot promise never to die, habibti. But before death, there is life. No matter how short our hours are or how swiftly time flees, there is life. And since there is life, habibti, let us live. Let us not squander even one second of it. – The Candle and the Flame

Love is looking at someone as if the stars shine in their eyes – The Beautiful

She believed in such a world, where everyone got a turn, a season in the sun. – Love From A to Z

Habibi. Hayati. Roohi.
My love, my life, my soul, the words meant, but their meanings went deeper than that.
Habibi was for friends and love that was real enough.
Hayati was when love became an all-encompassing thing. Deeper and deeper, until one became the others life.
Roohi was when a soul twined with its match and loved with the force of a thousand suns. When it slipped beneath the heart and tangled in the very fibres of an existence. – We Free the Stars

“Do you not listen to me when I speak?” he answered shakily, his lip quirking up. “I love you. I have always loved you.” – These Violent Delights

I knew my heart was claimed by you. – Ayesha at Last

For nothing, not the sun, not the rain, not even the brightest star in the darkest sky, could begin to compare to the wonder of you. – The Wrath and the Dawn

I would have come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting. – Crooked Kingdom

So here are my favourite quotes that make my heart burst and leave me a wreck. Do share yours!

My Favourite Quotes from the Ember in the Ashes Quartet by Sabaa Tahir

A Sky Beyond the Storm is finally out in the UK! I am so excited to dive into this final book but also terrified because I know Sabaa will put us through pain and I am scared for Elias and Laia.

But until I can read the final book here are some of my favourite quotes from the first three books.

An Ember in the Ashes

Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be.

I’d rather die than live with no mercy, no honour, no soul.

Nan always said that as long as there is life, there is hope.

I do not doubt, I do not hesitate. I am the Lioness’s daughter, and I have the Lioness’s strength.

When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.

For tonight, maybe we can just be Laia and Elias.

Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after.

A Torch Against the Night

Failure doesn’t define you. It’s what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.

What point is there in being human if you don’t let yourself feel anything?

You are my temple. You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release.

The stars are so different when you’re free.

The problem with greedy people, Pop once said to me, is that they think everyone else is as greedy as they are

For you, I’m Ilyaas.

Don’t you see? So long as you fight the darkness, you stand in the light.

Standing by someone during their darkest times creates a bond. A sense of obligation that is less a weight and more a gift.

There is hope in life.

This is what it means to have faith, to believe in something greater than yourself.

A Reaper at the Gates

Hope is stronger than fear. It is stronger than hate.

Skies save me from the men in my life and all the things they think they know

Curse this world for what it does to the mothers, for what it does to the daughters. Curse it for making us strong through loss and pain, our hearts torn from our chests again and again. Curse it for forcing us to endure.

This isn’t the end for us, Laia of Serra. I cannot give up what we could have. I don’t care what bleeding vow I made. Do you hear me? This is not our end.

Strange, how silence can speak as loudly as a scream.

The stories we tell have power, of course. But the stories that go untold have just as much power.

I will find you, Laia. I will find a way. This is not our end.

Everyone believes that nothing concerns them until the monsters are knocking on their doors.

Remember that fate is never what we think it will be.

The Tribespeople say that the heavens live under the feet of the mother. So great is their sacrifice. And indeed no one suffers in war more than the mother. This war will be no different.

So these are just some of my favourite quotes in this series! Share some of yours in the comments! But please no spoilers for Sky!

My Favourite Quotes from The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty

The Empire of Gold readalong is over and I hope everyone who took part enjoyed it! Today I will be sharing my favourite quotes from this book and let me tell you, there was A LOT.

I have also shared my favourite quotes from The City of Brass and The Kingdom of Copper

I loved this book and honestly it has some incredible quotes and scenes and here are some of my favourite:

1 Kan wa ma kan…It was and it wasn’t – This is such a beautiful way to describe the fantasy worlds and even this trilogy.

2 Nahri was a survivor and it was time to get to work. – This is Nahri in a sentence.

3 I do not believe ambitious men who say the only route to peace and prosperity lies in giving them more power – particularly when they do it with lands and people who are not theirs. – Yaqub just stating facts in this book.

4 “Birthmark,” Ali managed, his voice pitched. “Completely natural. Since birth.” – Every single interaction between Ali and Yaqub was pure gold and I wish we had gotten more of it.

5 All Ali wanted to do right now was pray, to cry out to God and beg Him to make this right. – I love how Ali always turns to Allah and asks for His guidance and help.

6 Ali…I thought I made very clear to you I never intended to let you out of my debt. – This was a whole theme in this trilogy and I am here for it. I love them two so much.

7 Not wanting to be destroyed by despair doesn’t make you a coward, Ali. It makes you a survivor. – I think this is something we should all remember especially this year.

8 People are often afraid of what they don’t understand. – This line is very apt considering what is happening all over the world right now.

9 Don’t you sound like quite the revolutionary? People would call me a fanatic of I said that. – My heart felt for Ali who was constantly made out to be an extremist by those wanting to discredit him because they did not want to relinquish power.

10 I think it a mistake to judge the Creator by the misdeeds of mortals – Shannon really voicing all the things I feel in this book about my faith

11 There’s no one else here, my friend. You don’t need to keep up this front. – The fact that Ali and Nahri can only feel truly comfortable and vulnerable with each other and show their true selves is one of my favourite things about their relationship.

12 We die and we bleed and it’s a debt the powerful never repay. – The people always pay for the crimes of the powerful. This book is full of parallels with the real world and it hit me hard.

13 That made it worse, this passing of barbed baton between women who, no matter how clever, how powerful, would always be known y the men to whom they were attached. – This is such a poignant quote and honestly so relatable.

14 I would rather make a mistake than have my choices stripped away – I related to this so much.

15 “Our faith prioritises justice,” Ali argued. It tells us to stand for justice, no matter what. We are to be a community that calls for what is right, that stands as witness.” – I was so incredibly proud of Ali here and how no matter what he has gone through he has never compromised on his belief and this is what has pushed him throughout the trilogy.

16 It is not blasphemous to say this world is vast, that much of its history remains shrouded. There are things God set beyond our understanding. – This is something we should all remind ourselves because there is so much we don’t know.

17 It’s me Emir joon just me, no tricks – This scene had me so emotional

18 “May I confess something?” Ali gazed at her in open sorrow. “I never really wanted to be out of your debt” – Not me crying, nope.

There are so many more quotes I highlighted throughout the story but here are some of my favourites. Do share yours!