Bollywood Romantic Comedies Recommendations

It was Valentine’s Day yesterday but I was a little late getting this written but hey, Valentine’s shouldn’t be just one day! So whether you want to celebrate with someone special or your friends or even have a chilling evening with you and only you I thought I would share my favourite Bollywood rom coms to watch! Bollywood films are some of my faves because I am telling you no one does rom coms like Bollywood.

They are my absolute favourites to watch and I can watch them again and again and still cackle at how over dramatic and hilarious they are. I live for the Bollywood dramatics!

So here are some of my favourite Bollywood rom coms that you should all watch:

Jab we Met – This film is one of my all time faves and Kareena is especially amazing in this!
Synopsis: Aditya, a heartbroken tycoon on the verge of committing suicide, aimlessly boards a train. He meets Geet, a high-spirited girl who plans to elope with her lover, and finds himself pulled into her crazy life.

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani – This film has me in hysterics, every single time I watch it. It’s ridiculous and one hell of a feel good film.
Synopsis: Prem falls for Jenny, a woman who is already in love with a man named Rahul. Despite this, he agrees to help her marry him and gets into various comical situations as a result.

Om Shanti Om – I loved this story so much! It will make you and cry and will have you dancing along to the dance numbers
Synopsis: Om, a junior film artist, is smitten by Shantipriya, a renowned actress, but is killed while trying to save her from a fire accident. Thirty years later, he is reborn and sets out to avenge her death.

Kal Ho Na Ho – Crying sobbing mess. But will also make you laugh. What more do you need?
Synopsis: Naina, a girl living a dreary life, finds a new meaning to her life when she meets Aman. Even though she loves him, Aman claims to be a married man and convinces Rohit, her friend, to woo her.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai – My absolute fave film as a teen and still such a wonderful film to watch.
Synopsis: After reading the letter her mother had written for her before she died, Anjali decides to bring together her widowed father, Rahul, with his true love who is also named Anjali.

Be warned that thses are the newest of Bollywood films but they are ones that I love watching. And still vividly remember even if it’s been a long time since I last watched them.

Bingeworthy TV Shows

So this is around the time that new seasons of all our favourite shows start. And as it gets older and darker I just love snuggling on the sofa in my blanket and a cup of tea and watch my favourite shows. So I thought I would share some of the shows I love watching.

Especially as the shows I love to watch are very different to the types of books I love to read. I love fantasy and sci-fi books but I when it comes to shows I love watching crime and thriller/mystery shows, even though I don’t particularly like reading those books.

Anyways here are my favourite shows:

1 NCIS – I have been watching this show since practically the beginning and it never fails me. I can watch this show every single day on repeat and never get bored! I love the characters and their banter and they have such great story arcs and one of the slowest of slow burn romances ever!

2 Criminal Minds – Another show that I love watching the repeats even though it is pretty dark at times but I love how the whole team is like a family!

3 How To Get Away With Murder – My sister convinced me to watch this and omg I love it! I love to watch all the episodes in the season over a few days though. So I always wait for the season to end before watching it. Look every episode leaves me wanting to know what will happen next and I can’t take that week wait

4 Sherlock – I watch the episodes ALL THE TIME I absolutely the BBC Sherlock. They are witty and sarcastic and has me totally engrossed every single time no matter how often I watch it

5 Ertugrul – This is a Turkish show inspired by the real history of Ertugrul, who is the father of Osman. Osman founded the Ottoman Empire. I am completely and entirely addicted and obsessed with the show and I highly recommend watching it!

So here are the shows I love to watch and often binge watch. Do you watch any of these? What are your favourite shows to watch?

Top 10 Tuesday – Book Characters I’d Love to Be Besties With

Hey booknerds! I’m taking part in another week of Top Ten Tuesday!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. You can find more information here

This week I am going to share characters I would love to be friends with. There’s always characters when you read about them, you instantly love them and wish you could hang out with them and just be friends with them and I have read so many amazing characters like that.

1 Samirah Al-Abbas from Magnus Chase by Rick Riordan – She is a badass and unapologetically Muslim and I just wish I was half as confident as her in her beliefs when I was her age.

2 Zainab from Love From A To Z by S.K. Ali – Another character who is unapologetically Muslim and I saw myself in her and I feel like if we were in school together we would definitely be friends

3 Ayesha from Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin – I really loved her and who she was and would love to hang out with her

4 Tessa from TID by Cassandra Clare – A fellow booknerd! How could I not be friends with her?!

5 Zainab Al-Qahtani from The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty – She is sassy and smart and I just want to be friends with her okay

6 Hermione from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling – She was the first character I saw myself in, a booknerd and studious. I would most definitely be friends with her.

7 Cress from TLC by Marissa Meyer – She is a fangirl and I could see us happily fangirl together for hours

8 Nahri from The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty – She is a badass and not afraid to stand up for what is right but she’s also smart about it. She would totally be an activist and we could campaign together.

9 Inej from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – I love her and although she would be intimidating at first I think she would be an amazing friend.

10 Audrey Rose from Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco – We would both totally geek out over all the human biology and talk about how fascinating the body is together

So here are the characters I would be besties with!

What characters would you be besties with?

My Magical Readathon TBR

I decided to take part in the Magical Readathon which is hosted by Book Roast and you can check out her video where she explains everything here. It will also have all the pdfs for you to decide what you will be reading.

So the magical readathon is based around Harry Potter and being a huge HP fan I just had to take part! In April we will be taking our O.W.L.S based on our chosen careers. And then in August we will be taking our N.E.W.T.S!

So this readathon starts April 1st and runs for the whole month.

After much deliberation I decided on my career and to pursue being a Healer! Seeing as I work in healthcare I thought it was the closest to what I would actually like to do! Yes, I am very serious about choosing my magical career lol

So the O.W.L.S I need to take and what I will be reading:

Herbology (Plant on the cover) – The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
Charms (Read an adult work) – The Dark Vault by V.E. Schwab
Defence Against The Dark Arts (Title starts with R) – Renegades by Marissa Meyer
Potions (Sequel) – The Extinction Trials Rebel by S.M. Wilson
Transfiguration (Sprayed edges/red cover) – We Are Blood and Thunder by Kesia Lupo

3 other subjects of your choice:

Ancient Runes (Retelling) – Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly
Care of Magical Creatures (Land animal on cover) – The Devils Thief by Lisa Maxwell
Divination (Set in the future) – This Splintered Silence by Kayla Olsen

So these are the books I will be reading. Hopefully I will get through all of them!

Will you be taking part? What career did you pick?

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo – Book Review

Ever since I read the Grisha trilogy back in 2016 I have been dying for a Nikolai book and when this book was announced all my fangirl dreams were answered!

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Nikolai Lantsov has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country’s bloody civil war—and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, the young king must find a way to refill Ravka’s coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.

Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha Squaller, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren’t meant to stay buried—and some wounds aren’t meant to heal.

I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this book. I had some issues with it and was a little disappointed. Yet there are things that I absolutely adored about it!

Firstly I do have to say that although I dove into this book thinking it will be Nikolai’s story, it did feel more like Zoya’s. There was a lot to do with how the Grisha magic system worked and how Zoya could become more powerful than she is now. I do have to say though her point of view was some of my absolute favourites! She is a badass, sassy, doesn’t take any crap from anyone, kind of person. I did like her character in the Grisha trilogy but by the end of this book, I was completely in love with Zoya. I need to see more of her, especially after everything that happened in this book.

Nikolai was as sassy and sarcastic as ever and I adored him. Though I do wish I got to see more of him, more outside the politics. I would have loved to see him more with Genya and the others. He does suffer a lot in this book yet somehow it feels a little out of character for him. How he went along with plans made by people he couldn’t possibly trust, with no scheme or back up plan. You know, how he would have in the trilogy. I am however extremely excited to see what will happen after the events of this book, there’s still a lot of unanswered questions.

Nina had her own point of view in this book too and I have to say that as much as I adored her in Six of Crows I didn’t as much in this book. I felt her grief over certain events in Crooked Kingdom was done really well and although it was heart breaking it was so good to see that. Yet the rest of her story felt unnecessary, I guess. I didn’t really see how her story fit in with the overall arc. But I did love seeing Adrick and a new character, Leoni. They were with Nina on a mission in Fjerda and I just love them. I hope we get to see more of them in the next book.

 

*mild spoiler about a relationship ahead*

 

One of the things I loved seeing was Nikolai and Zoya’s relationship develop. Leigh really killed me with that slow burn romance, just like in Six of Crows with Kaz and Inej. By the end of the book I was literally screaming, just admit it already! I love them two together and I am so happy to see my ship become a reality! Zoya would be an amazing Queen of Ravka and I need to see that happen, okay?!

Another thing I loved was the references to the Grisha Trilogy and the Six of Crows duology. From mentioning characters names to talking about a skill they learned from a character in those books and it reignited my love for these characters. I am still holding out hope that we see some of them in the next book.

I wish we had got to spend more time with Genya and David and the others. Though what we did see of them I loved. I really loved seeing Genya’s and David’s relationship and how much they have developed in the few years since we last saw them. They were so damn adorable! I want more in the next book please!

I think my main issue with the book is the pacing, I felt the beginning was really great and I was really enjoying it then it dragged a lot in the second half and then the ending felt a little rushed. I wish we had gotten more time and more details about how everything turns out at the end of the book. And there was a lot of politics in this book, which is understandable, considering the state of Ravka, but I did feel it slowed down the plot. Hopefully now that the backstory details have been given the next book will be a lot more fast paced.

Then we get to the ending and I just…died. That ending left me in shock with my jaw hanging on the floor. I know some people may not be a fan of the ending but I was literally screeching! After that ending I just need to know what will happen next because that last line…I have no idea how I am going to wait a whole year for the next book.

I felt a little underwhelmed with the book overall but the things I loved, like Zoya and Nikolai and that mind blowing ending made up for a lot of it. And although, it may not have lived up to the exceedingly high expectations built from years of adoring the Six of Crows duology it was still a good book and I am really looking forward to seeing where we will go next.