The Penguin Reading Challenge: February

You may remember that on New Years Day, the internet made me sign up to the Penguin Reading Challenge, where I elected to read some classic novels and was initially sent a list of 10 (I picked Persuasion by Jane Austen and loved it).  I got my first February newsletter on the 7th, which came with some new suggestions.

The newsletter is mostly a way for Penguin to get me onto their website and read articles about books and literature - this month there's links to pieces about love stories and 'book crimes', along with quotes, tips for writers and, of course, a lot of advertisements for their books and literature-themed merchandise. 

What I expected from the reading challenge was for 10 new book recommendations each month, or for me to be able to tell them which books I'd read so that they could tailor suggestions as time went on.  However, there's actually only one 'reading challenge' book suggestion in each newsletter which takes away the joy of choosing my next read from a selection of blurbs.  This month's selection for the "read the books you've always meant to" challenge is Love & Mr Lewisham by HG Wells, which I don't have a copy of, and in fact have never even heard of.  It sounds like an okay read, and I like the seance-y cover, but it's not something that I can easily pick up in a charity shop - which is why I picked the classics category in the first place.  Instead, I zeroed in on another of the books in the photograph:

It's the book of the month for a different challenge category, but I bought a copy of Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton on my last shopping trip of 2019 - I found it for £1 on the damaged books shelf in Waterstones and I've enjoyed Dolly's work on podcasts and in the media so took a chance on it.  This past weekend I've been to see The 1975 in three different cities so a lot of my time has been spent on trains, and I thought this would be a good book to keep me company over these four days. 

In truth, I ended up reading it in two days and I was completely engrossed in it.  The book starts out with Dolly's teenage experiences of meeting boys on MSN Messenger, a world I remember well despite being five years younger than her, so I expected that I was going to relate to her story and mirror a lot of her experiences.  However, after that point our lives are drastically different - she talks frankly about her experiences with alcohol, sex and her close-knit group of female friends which she has in abundance and I have little to none of.  Even though our lives are so different, I didn't want to put the book down and ended up having to buy another to keep me company on the remainder of my journey. 

There's a ton of glowing reviews printed on the book jacket but one compares this book to Caitlin Moran's 'How To Be A Woman', another of my favourites, and I think it's fair to say that if you like Caitlin's work then you'll probably like this too.  It's both heartwarming and heartbreaking, sometimes at the same time, and I'm glad Dolly has put all her mistakes down on the page for me, and hopefully a generation of girls, to learn from. 

Even though I didn't read the book that was recommended to me, I'm glad the Penguin newsletter prompted me to pick this out of the growing pile of paperbacks in my bedroom.  I've moved on to a book about Prince's Purple Rain and an Irvine Welsh short story collection to tide me over until next month's recommendation, join me again then!

TIMMTI: my Lookiero box

Hi friends,

It's been a little while - I've been off following The 1975 on tour so this entry is a little late.  Last month I followed Facebook's recommendation and ordered a box from the fashion subscription service Lookiero, which was due to arrive with me on 11th February.  Hermes actually brought it to me on the 12th and it looked like this:

I've never used a fashion subscription service before so I was itching to get into it and see what was inside.  Remember, I'd done a survey with all my measurements and preferences, plus I wrote a little note to my personal stylist letting them know what my likes and dislikes were. 

Inside, everything was neatly packaged up in tissue paper with a note on the top from my personal stylist, Kerry, which explained the outfits she'd picked out for me.

I was worried that the selections would be very generic and not my style, but the note touched on a lot of the things I'd said I was interested in, which was promising, so I carefully unwrapped the first parcel.  As you can probably see in the above picture, the first item was leopard print:

This camisole is from 'This Film's A Must', who I haven't heard of - actually, I haven't heard of any of the brands I got sent.  I do wear this sort of top fairly often and I thought the pattern and the trim were cute, but when I tried it on it was a bit too big.  I intentionally didn't look at the prices of the items until after I'd tried everything on and was surprised to find that the cost for keeping this cami was £29.70, which seems very steep for a basic item like this!  Since it doesn't fit, this one isn't a keeper.

Next in the package was this Soyaconcept velvet t-shirt.  It looks grey in the photo but is actually khaki, a colour I like but don't own.  I definitely told the site that I love velvet - I have enough black velvet clothing to make a few head-to-toe outfits - but when I tried this on I wasn't sure about it.  I think I see velvet as a fancy fabric (even though I wear it to work all the time) but t-shirts are more casual and a t-shirt made of velvet felt a little bit strange, like it was too decadent to wear to the shops but not formal enough to wear on a night out.  It was the cheapest item in the box at a sale price of £16.03, but as I can't see myself wearing it, I'll be sending it back. 

I was very apprehensive about the next item, these Tiffosi jeans.  They're 'one size fits all' and, looking at them, I laughed at the suggestion that I'd be able to wrench them over my thighs.  However, incredibly, they made it!  As someone who exclusively wears black jeans I was surprised that I liked the dark blue - I've tried blue jeans on periodically over the last few years and decided I wasn't ready to accept them into my adult life.  The only problem was the waist; I'm a super high waist kind of girl and these are regular fit so I'd feel really uncomfortable in them.  At £49.99 I'd have kept a high-waisted version of them, but I'm reluctantly returning these.  Tiffosi do sell on Amazon though and it's possible that they do these in different shapes so I think I might order a pair in my chosen style and see what they're like.

The next item didn't photograph well but I was excited about it.  It's a black leather jacket (although it almost looked grey in the box) by Carmakoma.  I definitely told my stylist that I wear a lot of black and leather jackets are very much my style; in fact, I've been willing this horrible winter weather to end so I can put mine on again.  There was a lot that I liked about this jacket, especially the 80s-style square shoulders that appeared when I tried it on.  It looked cool with the zipper undone and the sleeves pushed up, which is how I wear my leather jackets.  What I didn't love was the two poppers at the collar - they was annoying when they were flapping around unbuttoned at my neck and I wasn't so fond of how the jacket looked zipped up.  I was definitely in two minds about this one but I thought about the jacket I have hanging in my wardrobe and decided that I don't like this one enough to have both.  The price was fair at £45 and I'm now on the look-out for the perfect square-shouldered soft leather jacket with the lapel shape I like, but sadly this isn't it.

The final piece is this sequined pencil skirt from The Bohck.  Kerry the stylist said she'd picked this to match with the jacket and camisole for an 80s-inspired look - I'm sure I said I liked 80s and 90s fashion.  The sequins are a little scratchy but the skirt is stretchy and comfortable.  When I put it on I wasn't sure whether it suited me or whether it felt like it was announcing my stomach to the world but I liked the way I felt in it.  I usually wear a dress if I'm going on a night out - I have a couple of 'nice tops' but I usually just pull my jeans on with them, so this skirt will be a welcome addition to my event wardrobe (not that I go to many events).  It cost £34.70 which is double what I'd normally pay for something like this on the high street but I decided that this was the thing I would most like to keep. 

Overall, the Lookiero stylist nailed my style - there was nothing in the box that I didn't like, and most of my issues with the items were little things like details and slight size problems rather than being clothes I would never ever wear.  If I'm being honest though, I think I might be keeping the skirt because I feel guilty about someone picking out things for me only for me to send everything back - I wanted to like something enough to keep it.  I think that guilt complex might be one of the reasons that fashion subscription boxes like Lookiero (and Stitchfix, which Facebook is advertising heavily to me since I clicked on Lookiero) do well.  I'm not sure I like that feeling and if I continued ordering boxes like this I could see myself amassing a collection of clothes that cost more than I would normally pay, which I won't wear as often as things I've picked up in Primark or uncovered in a charity shop.  For that reason, although it's been fun filling out the survey and having someone send clothes they think I'd love for me to try on at home, I'm not going to get involved in fashion subscription boxes again.  

Let me know if you've ever tried a service like this and how it turned out! 

R x

TIMMTI Review: Amazon pens

Back on the 18th of January I ordered a set of pens that Buzzfeed thought might 'turn my frown upside down'.  Today I came home to this package:

At first I thought, "that's weird, I don't remember ordering anything from Wish", but once I picked it up and realised what was inside I remembered these pens.  If you haven't ordered from Wish before, this is what all of their parcels look like - my thumb is covering my address and home phone number which they print on the label for some reason because I guess China doesn't care about GDPR. 

Anyway, this is what was inside:

They're not exactly the same as the pens in the Amazon listing as the patterns are different but very much in the same cutesy family (and they match my sheets!).  As you can see, they came in plastic wrapping and not the sturdy box that some of the Amazon reviewers mentioned, but luckily none of them are missing or leaking.  The colour names are not immediately obvious from their casings but the lids have the colours listed on alongside a cute message:

There are 10 different colours, although that includes 'blue', 'light blue' and 'dark blue'.  As for how they look on paper, here's a demo:

A few of the colours took a minute to get flowing - you can probably see where the ink wasn't coming out and I've gone over the lines again in a few places.  Once they had a chance though they all look pretty good.  The 'blue' and 'dark blue' look pretty similar but other than that there's a nice selection of colours and I'll get good use out of them if they last, although I don't have high hopes for them lasting very long.  If they run out quickly I'll drop back in and let you know how much writing I actually managed to get done with them! 

Overall I think they're nice pens but I'm not sure they're worth the £3.59 I paid for them.  They're certainly cheaper than the name-brand fineliners on the market here but you can pick up set from The Works or the supermarket that work just as well, although their casings aren't as cute as these!