suzanne collins – as told by zaheerah

Monthly Rewind: March 2025

April 7, 2025April 7, 2025by Zaheerah1 Comment

A R T

Okay! So I’m giving you a little snippet of the art that I made for my team’s newsletter at work! Since it hasn’t been released yet, I don’t want to share the full art in case anyone from work is reading this post (if you are, hi 👋🏼) Since this one will be released around the same time of the company’s anniversary, this is a birthday artwork to celebrate Penguin’s 90th year as a company. I was super happy to work on this one especially as I grew up reading books from Penguin and Puffin (which is celebrating it’s 85th year!) so to be able to make a piece of art that will be shared internally was a super proud moment for me!

B O O K S

In March, I read 5 books, 2 short stories and 1 manga volume.

Pole Position by Rebecca J. Caffery

I know F1 romances have been a biiig thing for sports romance readers for a while and I’ll be honest, I have no interest in F1 at all. But something about sports fiction really intrigues me even when I have zero interest in sports. I was browsing the HarperCollins sale and those ladies on their TikTok livestreams do a great job at emptying your wallets because I did end up picking Pole Position. Sadly, I did not enjoy this one at all.

The more I read this book, the more I got annoyed at the characters. It’s a very easy to read book, but that’s the only nice thing I could say about it. It is a romance between two competitive race car drivers, Kian, an industry golden boy, and Harper, a cocky rookie, whose name is more known on the tabloids than it is on the roads. It was just SO bland. All these tropes shoved into one book and it still could not save Kian and Harper. How can you even call this enemies to lovers when the switch up happens in like a second and even then, WHY? Harper is annoying as hell, made even worse with his borderline constant sexual harassment of Kian. And Kian’s not that great either when he helps a drunk Harper and makes a move on him DESPITE his entire internal monologue being like let’s not mess with a drunk guy. *proceeds to mess around with a drunk guy* Why even bother making this an age gap romance when the both of them act much younger than their actual ages. Definitely not the one for me.

The Wizard’s Bakery by Gu Byeong-Mo

A young boy finds refuge in a magical bakery that is open all the time – which creates enchanted baked goods that can have devastating effect on its consumers. I really enjoyed this book but MY GOD, but I feel like I need to warn readers that this book touches about the subject of sexual assault and child abuse. The description and cover presents to you a story that appears to be whimsical and light-hearted. The main character is a young boy who runs away from home following abuse and is taken in by the bakery and in return helps the bakery owner run his online store. Here the boy discovers the devastating effects of magical enchanted goods. Different customers return after their goods fail to act out their wishes and the baker reminds them that magic has a cost and it will not bend to the will of the people who wish in bad faith. I thought the book was fantastic, but a lot darker and sinister than the marketing of this book would have you think.

The Age of Video Games by Jean Zeid & Rouge Emilie

What a lovely way to present and honour the history of video games that really manages to touch up all aspects of the industry! From Pong to even the current day mention of Genshin Impact and the impact of mobile free-to-play games! I wasn’t a fan of the art, but it is quite charming! The text is too much, I thought, some points in the book it just overwhelms the art on the page.

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Books

Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time

December 1, 2020by ZaheerahLeave a Comment

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature once hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, but has now moved to That Artsy Reader Girl! Each week, a new topic is put into place and bloggers share their top ten (or your own amount) accordingly. This week’s topic is Book You Want to Read Again, so I decided to adapt it slightly to books you wish you could read again for the first time. Because there of them, way more than ten, and if you’ve been following me long enough, half of this list should not be a surprise.

The Poppy War by R.F Kuang
This is one of many books that really go without saying many words. To quote me back in 2018, “Believe the hype. It is truly worth it.” Two years later and this story STILL lives in my mind rent-free. I would happily erase my mind to see Rin, Kitay and Nezha meet again for the first time.
Jade City by Fonda Lee
I first read Jade City last year, and I have already re-read it three times. I’m currently in the middle of a read-along to re-read Jade City and Jade War again. I think it’s safe to say that I don’t wish I could reread this for the first time, I just want to re-read this series all the time.
Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine
Listen, the way I would do anything to experience the same form of happiness I felt when I discovered Khalila Seif for the first time is unreal. Rachel Caine was always more known for her Morganville series and her adult fictions, but I will never shut up about this series. I feel like this series is way underappreciated in YA. A definite re-read is in order.
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johhnson
My sister bought me a copy of this because my favourite youtuber at the time, charlieissocoollike, had talked about it. And I never would have expected to have liked it so much. I remember spending one summer just re-reading it because I loved it so much. The later books in the series were decent, but I would have been satisfied if this was just a standalone as well. I really loved the concept, and the way Maureen Johnson used Jack the Ripper was so interesting.
Thief by Malorie Blackman
I had read this book way before I discovered any sort of book community online. I think I mentioned it before that I picked it up by accident. I think this might have been my first ever dystopian book and Malorie Blackman book. I vaguely remember being really scared of this book, like a lot.
Angelfall by Susan Ee
I associate Angelfall with a particular moment in my life, the first year of college to be exact. Which is when I started my site and one of the few years of education where I wasn’t stressed out, and I was actually quite happy with my life. A friend of mine from my gaming class had recommended it to me, and we were so obsessed with talking about it all the time. I think one of my first reviews was Angelfall. The sequels didn’t live up to my expectations but getting to experience Angelfall at the time I did was so memorable.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
I think this one doesn’t need any explaining. I know, you know, we know. Let’s move on.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I’ve mentioned this before, but I was the girl obsessed with THG in secondary school. Like seriously obsessed. Somewhere in the attic are all my old Hunger Games memorabilia collecting dust. This is another book/series where I associated it to a specific timeframe in my life: secondary school before the fear of GCSEs really settled in and life was probably the least stressed I had ever been. Consider this another apology if you knew me during my Hunger Games phase, even I die a little bit inside thinking about it.
The Foxhole Court series by Nora Sakavic
Some questionable stuff happens in this series, but nothing remains as iconic as Kevin saying “Did you know I’ve never been skiing? I’d like to try it one day, though.” to a bunch of reporters.
The Astonishing Colour of After by Emily X.R. Pan

This is one of those books that was so dream-like to read. It’s very low conflict and very character-driven. I’m not someone who get emotional that easily but the ending to this book had me sobbing like a brand new person.

What’s on your TTT this week? Leave me a link or let me know in the comments!

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Books, Lifestyle, Zaheerah Talks

Books That Defined My Decade

January 9, 2020by Zaheerah2 Comments

This post was entirely inspired by Kate @ Your Tita Kate’s post, The Books That Defined My decade. I never thought to even reflect on my decade, but after reading Kate’s post, I immediately wanted to do the same.

I have a terrible memory, so I don’t remember much from my childhood, which makes me feel like I didn’t genuinely exist until 2010. At the start of this decade, I was eleven years old, turning twelve that March and, at the time of writing this post, I am twenty-one, about to turn twenty-two this March. I went from primary school, secondary school, college and university all in this decade alone. And just thinking about that blows my mind. In some sense, it shouldn’t because it’s just time passing but, at the same time, that is a lot of significant milestones in my life. I went from a child to a young adult, and reading Kate’s post made me realise that’s not a small thing. Reading is a big part of my identity, especially during this decade is where I had more choice over the books I read. While Kate’s post is more about books published in each specific year, my list is naming the books that I read in that year that made the most significant impact on me. So not all of them were great reads, but I feel like they deserve some acknowledge from impacting me in some way.

I’m going off what years I’ve put in my Goodreads profile but I feel like I might be off by a year or so hence I’ve added some books here that I actually read in 2009.

Thief – Despite Malorie Blackman being of the UK’s most beloved children’s author, I never read her acclaimed series Noughts & Crosses. Instead of the books, I knew her by were Thief and Hacker. I think this part is due to the face we didn’t have her books in my primary school library. (Maybe we did, and it was always being borrowed?) But anyway, I found Thief by accident when someone had randomly left it lying around after Golden Time. (lol remember Golden Time?) Anyway, someone remind me actually to read Noughts & Crosses in this decade.

Theodore Boone – The early 2010s was before I joined proper social media, so my ability to find books were severely limited. I don’t even remember how I managed to find Theodore Boone because it wasn’t from my school library, nor did anyone buy it for me. But I loved this series a lot as a kid. I used to watch a lot of crime shows with my family, so reading a series set in a similar environment to all the shows I was watching, but with a protagonist my age blew my mind.

The Lighting Thief – Funnily enough, this was the last time I actually up a Rick Riordan book before picking up the second one in 2019. I really loved The Lightning Thief, but my school library didn’t have the rest of the series so sadly, and with my fish brain that forgets everything every five seconds, I never got around to finishing this series. I tried continuing the series, but life got in the way. I really hope to get back to this series soon.

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