Could I survive without technology?

Living without electronics is something that everyone says they'd be able to do until they actually have to and realise just how integrated a mobile phone is into their lives.

On Sunday night, my phone died. Not run out of power died – it randomly shut itself down, and then spent the rest of the evening trying to turn itself back on again, with no success.

The panic googling 'iphone stuck trying to turn on' yielded the result that there must be a software issue, and I should plug my phone into my laptop and try to force an update on it. This then led to me having to update my laptop first, and even then it didn't work.

Eventually, after a few hours on Monday morning of trying to either update or reset my phone, and managing nothing other than getting the phone stuck in restore mode, rather than just trying to boot itself up, I messaged a phone repair person and dropped it round to his house. He ordered the part he said it needed, and said it would arrive the next day and he could fit it then.

On Tuesday he messaged to say he had fitted the part, and it still wasn't working, so he would have to order another part. Granted, he didn't charge me any extra, but it was still another day without my phone. Today, I did get it back, although the face ID no longer works, but the phone itself is now working fine (fingers crossed).

But it was really strange to spend a few days without a phone. I still had my laptop, which I had Messenger on, but not Wattsapp. And I couldn't take it out and about, because I wouldn't have any WiFi, or be able to get in touch with anyone. I borrowed an old, unused, phone, and put one of my backups on it, and realised just how long it had been since I last backed up my phone and,  even with the backup, the phone was practically useless.

One of the strangest things, other than not having any contact with anyone when out of the house (I had my laptop in the house) was waking up in the morning. I rely on my phone for an alarm, and the next best thing I could come up with was my Apple watch – the problem being I had to take it off in the evening, charge it, and try not to fall asleep before putting it back on with an alarm set to wake me up in the morning. And then, when I wake up, one of the first things I do is to check my phone, and do a bit of scrolling on various social medias. I woke up in the morning on Monday and Tuesday and genuinely had no idea what to do.

I wish I could say that not having my phone for a bit made me more productive, but instead of sitting and scrolling, I ended up sitting and zoning out. I didn't end up doing anything extra because I couldn't sit and scroll. I just did nothing instead.

Possibly the hardest part was not being able to get in touch with anyone. When I was out of the house, and didn't have the WiFi to connect my laptop to, I was pretty much off-grid. No one could have got in touch with me even if they wanted to.

While I'm sure I could've survived without technology if I was born sooner, and had grown up in the 80s or 90s instead, it has become such an important part of everyone's lives, that going back to no technology now seems impossible. If you need to know the answer to something, need a torch, need a calculator, you just pull out your phone. Everyone has become so accustomed to having a phone on them at all times, and being able to access the internet, and get in touch with people whenever and wherever, going back to not having something as fundamental as a mobile phone is very difficult to get used to,

Thankfully, I was only without my phone for three days. It is now safely back with me, and I'm sure it missed me as much as I did it. In the event of a zombie apocalypse, or other such world altering events, I'm sure I could survive without technology – but as it is, I don't think I'm going to be trying to go off the grid at any point in the near future!

Anyway, that's all for now...

Bye!

A Review – The Wren in the Holly Library by K. A. Linde

This was one of those books I found on my nifty little audiobook library app, and reserved it just because I couldn't find anything else I wanted to read, and was trying to line up some audiobooks to listen to.

I ended up completely entranced in the story, and thoroughly enjoyed every second of listening to it.

So, without further ado (and because I wrote this review about an hour before I'm posting this) here is the book and my review!

She stole from a monster . . . now she must pay the price.

Street thief Kierse should have known something wasn’t right. Now she’s trapped in a library — with a monster. She can’t run. She can’t hide. And this man – this being, filled with terrible power and darkness — is well within his rights to kill her.

By trespassing, Kierse has broken the fragile peace treaty between monsters and humans. But instead of killing her, Graves does the unexpected: he offers her a job. A chance to find out who she really is.

Kierse has always known she’s different. That she can do things a little better, a little faster. And there’s that sense she has when danger is only a breath away. But if the old tales are true, there are worse things in the world than monsters.

Like a threat more ancient than legend. Like Graves. Or like Kierse herself . . .

Grab a copy!

My Review!

Life in New York became much trickier to navigate when the monsters arrived. After the Monster War, though, with treaties in place, there were laws that made it ever so slightly safer for humans to co-exist alongside monsters. That is, if the humans aren’t the ones to break the Monster Treaty first.

Unfortunately for Kierse, breaking into the house of a monster to steal from them certainly means that she has broken the treaty, and her life lays in the hands of the monster who caught her. He doesn’t have to hand her over to the authorities – she broke the treaty first. But Graves surprises Kierse, and doesn’t instantly end her life. Instead, he offers her another option – to come and work for him, to work a job. There is a spear that he needs stolen for him, and word on the street is that Kierse is the best thief there is.

There are some things that both Kierse and Graves don’t understand, though. Graves is unlike any of the monsters that Kierse is aware of, unlike any of the monsters who signed the treaty. She is used to vampires and werewolves, but meeting Graves breaks every assumption the world has had about monsters. Monsters not Magic was a big part of the treaty, but Graves definitely falls into the second category. On the flip side, Kierse should never have been able to break into his house. With magical wards surrounding the entire building, it should have been impossible for anyone to walk in, let alone without him knowing about it. Yet, Kierse had no issues walking directly through the wards without even knowing they were there. As Kierse and Graves attempt to learn things about each other, it helps to introduce the reader to the world. While learning what isn’t normal between the two characters, it lets the reader know what is normal in this new and strange reality, giving a base point to be able to work from as more characters start to be introduced.

Kierse was absolutely my favourite character in this novel. She is strong, fast, good at what she does and confident in herself, but she is not without weakness. She grew up fighting for survival, not knowing where her next meal was going to come from, and pickpocketing to get by. She has had more than her fair share of difficult circumstances, and has come out the other side victorious. She is a character that makes me want to be more like her. She inspires strength, while also showing that it is okay to need someone to lean on every now and again. Her relationship with her friends is also very heartwarming. They are her family, and she would do anything to ensure their safety – even work a job for a monster, knowing she might not make it out alive.

Graves’ character was one I couldn’t quite decide if I liked or not. There are times he is incredibly frustrating, with his tendency to withhold information, and only reveal what he deems necessary to, but he can also be tender and kind. He never truly made his way into my heart, though, and at the flip of a coin he could very quickly lose the trust I had for him, but also gain it back very easily. Never entirely knowing his plans made it difficult to know if I truly knew him or not, and Kierse reflects those thoughts and feelings with the way she mistrusts everyone but herself. With Kierse so firmly a favourite character, not being sure about Graves made this book incredibly fast paced with the tension of not really knowing what was going to happen next.

My favourite thing about this novel is that, even though there is a second book in the series on it’s way, there are no loose ends. Multiple story threads open up and start unravelling within the story, and all are tied up by the end of the book. While you will most likely want to continue following Kierse in the next book, there is no need to. The story in itself is over, and there is a definite ending, albeit a fairly open ending, with different characters starting to take different paths. There were even some characters that I forgot about while reading, as the tension started to rise, and even those characters came back into the story to join the ending. It was not a forced ending, everything came together fairly naturally, and the fact that everything was tied up so neatly at the end was incredibly satisfying. 

I listened to the audiobook of this novel, and I was genuinely surprised when I looked it up to find out this book was only 377 pages long. So much happens it felt like a much longer book, but it all plays out incredibly smoothly, and nothing feels rushed. This is truly a story packed full of events, and twists and turns, but it is not so long that reading it feels a chore. It will pull you in and ensnare you, only allowing you to break out at the end of the book.

And done!

It took me a few days to actually get around to writing this review, but now I've written it, I'm remembering how much I enjoyed this story, and that book 2 isn't out until JUNE! This story ends nicely wrapped up, but I just can't leave Kierse for that long! I loved her so much!

Anyway, that's all for now...

Bye!

February Reading Wrap Up

This February, I finally managed to get back into the flow of reading. I haven't read much for nearly a year, if not longer, so to actually have a list of books that I have read this month is quite a nice change.

The majority of them were audiobooks, as otherwise I would have had nowhere near enough time to get through as many books, but it still counts.

FOUR STARS

Worth a Shot by Amy Ewing

The Wake Up Call by Beth O'Leary

FIVE STARS

The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary

Blade Broken by Niranjan

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Queen Bee by Jane Fallon

The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary

In total, I read 7 books. 6 of these were audiobooks, and 1 was an ebook.

I have made a list of books on my ereader that I plan to read in March, and am hoping to read as many, if not more, books in March.

All the Beth O'Leary books will be getting reviews at some point in the future, so keep an eye out! They will all be together in one post, so it'll be a long one, but hopefully a good one!

I was pleasantly surprised by The Midnight Library. I already knew it was a very popular book online when I started reading (listening to) it, but it didn't really click with me for the first quarter of the book. For a while, I considered not finishing it, but I kept going, and I did end up really enjoying it. 

Queen Bee was a book I listened to on a whim. I saw it on a community bookshelf, and then it popped up on my audiobook library app as well. It was the quickest book I read, I finished it in just over 24 hours. 

Blade Broken was the only ebook I read last month, but it was one of the best. I did put a review up of this one as well, which you can read HERE!

Anyway. I'll stop rambling and get back to reading!

That's all for now...

Bye!