About Me

INFP | Bookworm | Trekkie | Fangirl | Gamer | Comma-Abuser

The Blogger

Brin isn’t my real name; I use it as my general internet pseudonym. There is a (kinda) funny story behind the origin of the name: I was a huge fan of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – an RPG from BioWare. The name Brin Guivera was my very first character’s name (via the in-game name generator). I thought it was cute so it has followed me around ever since.

My real name is Ruth (but I will answer to either Ruth or Brin). I decided to name my blog Brin’s Book Blog because I liked the alliteration mainly. It definitely sounded better than Ruth’s Book Blog which was my other option… I’m not really very inventive when it comes to naming things, I guess. 😉

My Reading Journey

Right now I’m hitting middle-age (it comes to us all unfortunately) though I still feel young at heart despite what my body screams at me – I always got on at other people for getting tired and falling asleep while reading, watching TV and the like when I was younger – now I’m one of those people!! It sucks but what can you do? – just call me Miss Naps-A-Lot!! 😆

I was (and I still am) a ferocious reader. I was always encouraged to read by my parents; they always had massive tomes lying around the house when I was growing up and I cut my teeth on a mixture of classics, fantasy, and Stephen King novels (what a combo!)

The first book I ever read by myself was The Sly Fox and the Little Red Hen (which I talk about in more detail here). I still have a fondness for the Well Loved Tales series. I learned to read mainly by begging my mum to read the exploits of the little red hen again and again until finally I knew every word off by heart and I could follow along with the book.

As a youngster, I was a huge lover of fairy tales. I had very well-read copies of Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale collections on my bookshelf.

Truth is, I have always loved books. Going to the library was my favourite pastime when I was a child and even well into my teenage years – I preferred reading to socialising and was mostly an introverted soul (this hasn’t changed as I’ve gotten older!) Getting my own library card was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life (well, at least until that point).

My favourite books when I was really young were The Secret Garden, The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, and Watership Down but it was when I discovered Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings that I really discovered my passion for reading (I was nine).

Other Interests and Personal Details

One of my favourite television shows as a child was The Storyteller (created by Jim Henson) a series which retold various European folk tales. As a child, I also had a great love Jim Henson’s other projects. I loved The Muppets, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. My viewing habits were well-informed by the time I reached my teens and I have always favoured fantasy as a genre, probably largely due to these fantastical projects being ingrained into my brain…

Oh, and I’m also a huge Disney fan! The Jungle Book was my absolute favourite.

I’m also a gamer – I spend a lot of time playing games especially RPGs and story-based games. BioWare is probably my favourite developer but I also really love the smaller game studio Spiders. I am a huge fan of their Mars games – Mars: War Logs and The Technomancer – the latter being one of my favourite games ever. I also really loved their latest game GreedFall so they are definitely a studio to watch. My other favourite games are Knights of the Old Republic (both games), the Mass Effect series, the Dragon Age series, the Dishonored games, and The Fallout series. I am also a huge fan of the Animal Crossing games and recently got sucked into New Horizons for the Switch.

I also have a love for documentaries (especially true crime) and spend a lot of time on unresolved/unsolved mysteries forums. It’s amazing to see so many crimes being solved due to advances in DNA testing.

As for more personal stuff; I met the love of my life when I was eighteen (at a wedding no less!) and we are still going strong twenty-odd years later. I am a reader and he is not but we have so much other stuff in common that it hardly matters. He is very supportive of my blogging and my excessive book-buying binges although he has started to complain about the lack of space due to my over-flowing bookshelves!

Brin’s Book Blog

I made the decision to start this book blog on August 4 2013. I dove in headfirst but I really struggled to find my feet at first. Being a newbie blogger is not easy, the bigger blogs might make it seem effortless but it is a lot of work running a blog – a fact this blogger only realized after they made the plunge!

I started, then stopped for a while when my mum got sick. I then decided that I really did want to make a go of this blog and I came back with a vengeance. Blogging has been enormously therapeutic for me, especially after losing my mum.

I’m not going to lie – the decision to start a blog of my own was a bit of a nerve-wracking one (like who would really want to read my scattered opinions!) but I do enjoy reviewing books almost as much as I enjoy reading them so it was a bit of a no-brainer really.

I have veered away in more recent years from my blog being a review space and it could probably be described more as a book appreciation zone rather than a place strictly for reviewing (though I still do review books, just not as frequently as before).

Blogger Style

I would dearly love to be funny but alas I can never really pull it off without sounding vaguely sarcastic and/or silly. My reviews tend to be on the serious side but I do try to inject humour where I can (not always successfully but I am working on it).

On this blog, I also do not always stick to talking about books although that is my main focus. Sometimes I blog about television, movies, even about my own personal struggles with my mental health.

I blog mainly to share my love of great books, to have a place to share my thoughts, and sometimes just to get things off my chest that are bothering me. I love this community and I intend to be a part of it for many years to come!

Here are some of the places you can find me:

Twitter

Instagram

Goodreads

Tumblr

Bloglovin’

Booklikes

Pinterest

Youtube

104 responses to “About Me”

  1. imaginativeminds

    Thank you for following my blog! I had the same thought when it came to making my blog! I kept thinking who’s actually going to read it? No one is ever going to come across my blog, boy was I ever wrong! Looking forward to your future post!! 🙂

    Reply
  2. bringuivera

    You’re welcome – same to you!! I know what you mean – it took awhile but I get a fair amount of traffic now and I really appreciate when people take the time to comment! 😀

    Reply
  5. Gene'O

    Hey, I found you because WordPress generated a random “related” link to one of my posts. I like your style! I’ll be back.

    Reply
  9. librarylady

    I love book review blogs. That’s what mine started out as, but I discovered that while I love books, and reading is my favorite thing, I don’t so much like the reviewing process. Who knew? My blog has morphed into something other than I intended, but I have fun with it.

    Reply
  10. J.C

    Sorry this is so late, but many thanks for the follow! I love finding book blogs and I really liked your right guy vs wrong guy post; I agree, love triangles seem to be a growing feature of YA.

    Reply
  14. Bonnie Brown

    Your blog looks great! You have an Ah-mazing master list of reviewed books. With a YA section yay! Ill be going there to source some books :p
    Also thankyou for following me! I’ve only start my blog two/three months ago and I am always to surprised when people like and follow my blog!

    Reply
  15. gwenkate

    I love your blog — and you taste in books! I’ve read Wildwood Dancing and Cybele’s Secret, but never tried any other Juliet Marillier books. Which do you recommend I start with?
    I also have to mention I love your choice to stick with a pseudonym from childhood. I’m hoping mine (yes, Gwen and Kate are both pen names – shh!) will stick a while too 🙂
    Can’t wait to read more!!

    Reply
    • Brin Guivera

      Thanks! I really <3 your blog too! It looks like we share very similar tastes!! 🙂

      Hmmm…I would probably recommend going with Daughter of the Forest or Heart's Blood. HB is probably the most accessible since it is a standalone but DotF is my favourite overall.

      Lol – thanks! I just really liked my character's name so I have kinda stuck with it! 😀

      Reply
  27. twinsturnpages

    Thank you so much for following our blog!! We agree it was very nerve-wracking at first to start a blog and it makes our day to see someone with such similar interests to us who would chose to follow our blog!! We are very new to the book-blogger community and we would just like to say we love your blog!

    Reply
    • Brin

      Thanks lovely – I am pretty happy with it (finally!).

      Thanks so much for the nomination. I will definitely participate. Thanks for thinking of me. 🙂

      Reply
    • Brin

      Hi Nicola – thanks for stopping by to check out my blog. I am also looking forward to reading more of your posts. 🙂

      Reply
  33. Marjorie

    Thank you so much for following my blog, it’s lovely to find your blog today too, we seem to have some things in common: our love of books, and I also met my other half when I was eighteen too! We are still going strong too!

    Reply
    • Brin

      Hi Marjorie – thanks so much for stopping by! We do seem to have a fair amount in common. 🙂 Looking forward to seeing more of your posts.

      Reply
    • Brin

      Thanks so much for the nomination! Sorry for the delay in response (for some reason your post went to my spam folder). 🙂

      Reply
    • Brin

      Thanks so much for stopping by and for the lovely comments! I really love your blog too. 🙂 Looking forward to chatting more with you.

      Reply
  43. Cheryle

    Hi Brin: Thank you for stopping by and following my blog. You have a nice voice and you blog looks interesting. I will be back. In love and light Cheryle

    Reply
  47. Cinderzena

    Your blog looks and reads amazing !! Thanks so much for following me. Its much appreciated as I’m about to hit 200 followers!! Your blogging story is so inspiring. I’m revved up to keep trudging on my own bloggety blog! Thanks so much once again! I cannot wait to read more of your posts!! <3

    Reply
    • Brin

      Thanks for stopping by my blog! I am always on the lookout for new blogs to follow and yours definitely caught my eye. 🙂 Congratulations on almost hitting 200 followers – that’s a huge milestone! Loving your posts and looking forward to seeing more of your content. 🙂

      Reply
  48. arv!

    Book lover? you’re lucky…I feel book lovers are a different breed…they cannot be nasty or bad characters! anyways, this is a lovely blog!

    btw, where are you from?

    Reply

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