Capsule Library

Posted October 18, 2017 / Book Lists, Features, Personal / Information / Etc. / 1 Comment

Alexa from Alexa Loves Books | Kelly from Belle of the Literati | Hannah from So Obsessed With | Rachel from Hello, Chelly When I saw the Capsule Library posts by some of my favorite bloggers AND they turned it into a “tag” of sorts, I knew I had to hop in on it. It’s even better that Alexa tagged me to participate 😉 Header image is credited to them and their post links are up there too. You’re allowed to have 10 total pieces in your library, just like a capsule wardrobe. (You can also choose an actual clothing item and accessory for each of the items below too!) Here’s what you get: The Clothes: 5-7 authors (any/all of their books would be in library) The Accessories: 3-5 individual books (and series couldn’t be grouped into one) The Clothes Favorite authors and clothing pieces Old Navy Darker Wash Rockstar Skinny Jeans | Taylor Jenkins Reid My favorite jeans are sort of a mid-dark wash from Old Navy and I pretty much only wear skinny jeans. I know they’re going to be tight when I put them on, but I look great. TJR’s books are often really hard to read because she brings up so many uncomfortable realities about life and love. They make me cry every time… just like my skinny jeans when I’ve eaten too much 😉 But they’re too much of a staple to ever NOT have in my wardrobe… or library. Black Cotton/Jersey Swing Dress | Kasie West One of my favorite things to do […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #154: Food

Posted October 17, 2017 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 7 Comments

Ten Food-y Books | Books that Made Me Hungry Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic is “Top Ten Yummy Foods Mentioned In Books (Does a character eat something you’d love? Or maybe the book takes place in a bakery/restaurant that makes yummy things?).” I’ve done this topic before on the blog and am going to repeat myself a little, so bear with me. Books that made me crave certain foods based on specific scenes and settings Just Visiting made me crave a bacon tuna melt and diner food | A good portion of this book takes place in a diner where one of the main characters works. Bacon tuna melts are constantly consumed in this book and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever craved something so much while reading! There were some other diner-y meals in this one, like a big cheeseburger, that I desperately wanted too. Saint Anything made me crave pizza and french fries |There’s actually a lot of good food in Dessen’s books (because at least 3-4 of them, including this one, involve restaurants in some capacity). This book in particular though? Definitely didn’t help my CONSTANT pizza craving I have on a regular basis. The family-owned pizza restaurant featured here made me need pizza and fries regularly. […]

Lauren Lately | October 2017

Posted October 16, 2017 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 2 Comments

Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, recipes I’ve loved, and goals for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨ September week home | We ended up coming home for a little over a week in September. We wanted to help Jen out around the house while Chris’s parents were in Vietnam. We also had a wedding that corresponded well with the trip, so we decided to make a week of it. It was a very stressful but productive week home. I saw a lot of people and really kind of wore myself out. I think it’s partly because Chris and I really don’t see anyone but each other when we’re up in Maine. When we’re home, we see EVERYONE. I won’t bore you with the millions of errands I ran, but there are a few photos above – Abby on her throne, some delicious pho and Vietnamese iced coffee, and a wedding selfie of us. Chris’s surgery and laziness | So I honestly don’t have much to report since our week home. Chris got […]

Flights of Fantasy Challenge

Posted October 13, 2017 / Book Challenges, Features / 4 Comments

As you saw in my recent “get your shit together by the end of the year” post, I have completed all of my year-long reading challenges except for Flights of Fantasy. I’ve participated in this challenge each year because I do love fantasy books, but legitimately need a kick in the pants to read them sometimes. I could read contemporary romance (mixed in with a couple of mysteries maybe) allllll year and not know the difference. I struggle with fantasy a lot of the time because I get sidetracked and have a short attention span. It took me over a month to read THE CRUEL PRINCE, even though I was obsessed with it, just because I couldn’t SIT and READ it (I mean, until the night I sat and read over half of it in one sitting). But that’s just how I am with fantasy! The first half is struggle-city as I get used to the world-building or pacing, and then the action picks up in the second half and I fly through. I love the actual content within fantasy books and think they’re fascinating, but I don’t feel compelled to read them as often as I should. That being said, I now have only five books to go to complete the 2017 FoF Challenge. I decided to choose a goal of 30 books this year because I knew it would involve some effort to get that done. I’ve done 20-25 in the past and it was mostly a breeze. Below you’ll […]

Finally Fall Book Tag

Posted October 11, 2017 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments

The lovely Madalyn tagged me in the Finally Fall Book Tag and I was excited to partake! I love fall, as you probably know, and am looking for any excuse to celebrate it. You can read about my other autumn antics in a few posts here and here, if you’re curious. In fall, the air is crisp and clear: Name a book with a vivid setting The Thousandth Floor and The Dazzling Heights have a really interesting, unique setting. The books take place 100+ years from now and all of Manhattan, NYC is located in a thousand floor building. There are so many cool technological advances (and creepy ones that I hope don’t exist then!). The setting is a little hard to picture because HOW would all of Manhattan fit into one building?! Once you can somewhat figure that part out, the setting is extremely well thought-out and interesting to read. Nature is beautiful, but also dying: Name a book that is beautifully written but deals with a heavy topic This was a tough one for me! I haven’t read a lot of heavier books recently because I have favored the fluffy ones. I read All the Bright Places a few years ago and it definitely broke my heart. I think this book is extremely quotable because the writing is so damn good. Books with this topic are somewhat problematic, so I don’t know what to make of it in hindsight, but still fits the prompt here. Fall is back […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #153: Autumn Books

Posted October 10, 2017 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Ten Books that Remind Me of Fall Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. This week’s topic is “Ten Books With Fall/Autumn Covers/Themes.” I didn’t want to limit myself to just one of those options, so I pulled it all together and will be sharing ten books that remind me of fall. It could be because of their cover (fall-like or spooky, perhaps), the season they take place in, or the genre. I’ve done something similar with summery covers and TBH that was much easier.

ARC Review: The Nowhere Girls

Posted October 9, 2017 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

Initial Excitement & Summary I was over the moon when I got approved for this book. It ended up being one of those digital ones you can’t use on your Kindle, so I added it to my other ebook app. Loooong, annoying story: the book was set to expire on 9/13 (and I just happened to open the book up that day, thinking maybe I’d read it). I decided to binge it in one day to finish before it expired, updated Goodreads, and made my reading plans for after work. The next time I opened the book that day, it had expired. I spent a good 30-45 minutes trying to figure out if I could redownload it and screaming at my computer. I ended up just having to go to Netgalley and redownload it onto my iPad. SIGH. ANYWAYS, all of these issues led up to me just reading the book anyways. The story is about three girls from very different backgrounds who band together against the horrible boys in their high school. A former student was gang raped and no one believed her. Grace, Rosina, and Erin start “The Nowhere Girls” to take on the school’s sexist, lopsided views of what happened and try to make it a better place. Storytelling & Characters The chapters focus on the individual girls, plus a bunch of chapters called “Us.” I thought those chapters were incredibly powerful, as they focused on various girls around the town and what they were feeling. Those […]

Less than 3 Months to Go…

Posted October 7, 2017 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments

I always do a mid-year wrap-up to check on my progress for challenges and goals, but sometimes things just HIT ME when it gets this late in the year that I really don’t have that much time to get all my shit done. I made some gooood progress by the middle of the year but my reading since then has definitely declined. June and July were tough reading months since we were gearing up to move and then actually moving and enjoying our new city. We’ve spent a lot of time being lazy in the last few weeks because of Chris’s surgery, but we’re mostly watching TV shows and movies together. I work during the day while Chris watches his stuff and does homework, then we start watching our shows from 5 PM until bedtime. It’s a lazy life right now and I enjoy it most of the time, but I’m definitely grateful that he’ll be out and about more as time goes on and he gets used to the walking boot. Sometimes a quick trip to a little grocery store/restaurant or Target makes things better! I hope to get more reading in as the weather gets colder and I can be cozy in my bed. On that note… Books and Goals So Far Books read: 116 / 150 {Ahead of my Goodreads challenge} Click for a bigger image to see my reading year so far, thanks to my favorite spreadsheet ever… Challenges Contemporary Romance Challenge: 52 / 21 ✔️ Flights […]

What I’ve Been Watching

Posted October 6, 2017 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 7 Comments

I always highlight a few things in the media section of my Lauren Lately posts, but sometimes a nice round-up is the way to go. You’ve seen some of these in those posts but I wanted to highlight everything here. Recently Watched | TV Shows American Vandal | Huuuuge fan of this. It’s hilarious. It essentially pokes fun at all of the crime dramas we know and love, while focusing on a hilarious topic – graffiti of penises on teachers’ cars. There are a lot of awesome elements involved relating to teen habits, social media, and high school expectations. Really loved it. I’d be here for a season two but not sure how they could repeat the same magic. Sense8 | We really loved the first season and finally sat down to catch up. There was a large holiday episode (2 hours long) that kicked off season two, so we decided to start binge-watching when Chris got his surgery. I’m eager to see how they wrap up the show in the final special (and am SO glad Netflix went ahead to do it!!) Crazy, confusing concept but if you love major ships and friendship feels… watch this! Currently Watching | TV Shows Total Bellas | I got myself allll caught up on Total Divas and Total Bellas before the season started last month. I’m enjoying the new episodes a lot because the timeline is finally to where I actually started watching wrestling. The previous seasons were all from a few years ago […]

Bite-Sized ARC Reviews: 36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You & The Knowing

Posted October 5, 2017 / Bite-Sized Reviews, Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I know I have full reviews and I have mini review round-ups, but there are some books that could be reviewed in just a few sentences. This is mini round-up I’ll have sometimes for books that really don’t need much more than my small Goodreads review and progress updates say. First up, we have a pretty disappointing reality check for a book I was really excited about. I’ve heard about the 36 question study where people develop a connection by the end of it and the thought always fascinated me. When I saw a book based on that study, I immediately requested it. I wish I DNFed because it was not nearly as good as I expected. 🙁 Next, a companion novel I was SO excited for! I loved THE FORGETTING and was so excited to learn more about Canaan. I didn’t realize it was a companion novel at first, but I’m happy to report that it was as good as expected. Many thanks to Ellice for letting me borrow this one <3