Blog Tour: Your Destination is on the Left

Posted June 22, 2018 / Book Reviews, Cover Colors, Features / 0 Comments

Review After traveling with her family in a caravan of RVs since seventh grade, Dessa is ready to figure out the next steps in her own life. The caravan makes decisions as a group by voting, instead of allowing individual voices to be heard. This works for a while, for most situations (like when and where to go next), but can be harder when someone wants to break free and carve their own path. Dessa is a great artist that, for some reason, didn’t get into any art schools. She’s surprised by her acceptance into an internship with a great artist in Santa Fe, NM, so the caravan heads there. I loved getting to know her grandmother and the artist, Fiona – they were two of my favorite characters. Many of the side characters, like her family and Cyrus, were hard for me. I understood that they needed and wanted to keep everyone together as a group, but it often felt like people were forced into things. Dessa knew what was right for her and no one wanted to let her do it. I appreciated that she fought for her independence and tried to make everyone understand that SHE deserved to make her own decisions. She’s old enough to decide what to do next. Cyrus was an okay love interest sometimes but I wasn’t really sold on the ship… which is weird, because friends-to-more is my jam usually! The two of them have been traveling together since they started and it seemed […]

State of the ARC | End of Q2

Posted June 21, 2018 / State of the ARC, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

State of the ARC is hosted by AvalinahsBooks, which is a fun way to share our ARC progress (or lack thereof!). Instead of linking up monthly, I’ll be making a quarterly post to check in on my ARC-related progress, especially as it pertains to my 2018 Netgalley & Edelweiss Challenge progress. I will not be including physical ARCs here because most of them are borrowed from friends and/or I don’t have as much trouble reading ones from the publisher. This will only be to help me with NG & EW. Current Netgalley Percentage: 71% Each quarter, I’ll recap the ARCs I read from my Netgalley and Edelweiss accounts… Egalleys Read: 12 …and then I’ll share which ones I have left to read, listed in release date order. 2018 Releases: 14 Backlist: 18

Current YouTube Subscription Roundup

Posted June 20, 2018 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 3 Comments

After sharing that I’ve been waaaayyy too into YouTube lately in my last LL post (and Kristin being interested in who I watch), I decided to do a quick round-up of my current favorites. I think most of them are fairly well-known in their niche, so I won’t go crazy talking about them. I am currently subscribed to less than 40 channels (and many of them I don’t watch), so I’ll focus on some of my current favorites. I’m also going to embed a video that’s either a recent favorite of mine, or encapsulates who they are as a channel! Beauty I used to watch a lot of these back in the day, then stopped, and recently started again. It’s important for me to watch videos where people have the same skin type as me (meaning, oily ones!) because obviously they’re the most helpful to me. I love all of these channels A LOT and they’ve gotten me right back into beauty YouTube as a result. Nikkia Joy I have to put my girl Nikkia first because she is my absolute favorite. She’s SO funny and genuine. She is also the absolute master at combating oily skin. She has how-to videos about keeping your skin matte, reducing pores and cakey foundation, etc. that have been viewed millions of times. I love videos like this one because then I learn what she’s loving lately… and go buy the same stuff! Casey Holmes She’s another favorite oily girl. She also has rosacea and […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #188: Poolside / Beach Reads

Posted June 19, 2018 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Books to Read by the Pool or Beach Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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. I posted my summer TBR (bingo and otherwise) last week, so I’m going to use this space to recommend some summertime books for you. I love reading fluffy contemporaries – bonus points if they’re actually set in a beach/lake town – by the pool or while I’m laying on the beach. Here are some of my recent favorites that fall into this “throw into your beach bag” category! There are always a lot of adult contemporary books that I love reading in the summer. There are books with great beach settings, people returning home to their small town for the summer, and even some mysteries to be solved. These three were all pretty addicting reads for me and I’d love to have any of them on the beach to read! THE SUMMER LIST involved two old friends forced back together to complete a scavenger hunt. There were glimpses of the past mixed in throughout, so you got a really good sense of their friendship and how it went wrong. HERONS LANDING is a promising series-starter set near Seattle in a cute small town. It had a nice […]

Blog Tour: The Summer List

Posted June 18, 2018 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

This book was so well-crafted; I loved watching everything unfold and the many secrets fall into place. It did sometimes feel a little disconnected because there were three “points of view” and times that it switched between. There were italicized chapters involving two girls and a religious summer camp, which took place back in the 1970s/1980s; chapters with two different girls throughout their history of friendship in the late 1990s; and chapters with the present day women and their scavenger hunt. The latter two focused on Laura and Casey as they grew closer and then grew apart. The italicized chapters from farther back in time were a slight mystery that eventually tied into everything later. I always forget how much I enjoy stories like this, with multiple generations and different time frames between chapters. This one had light moments about friendship, sweet moments with Laura and her father’s bond, and heavier moments about health, family secrets, and breaking up. It’s a heavier “beach read” if I had to give it that label. I love books about scavenger hunts or bucket lists, especially when there are so many layers to why they were hunting in the first place. The scavenger hunt history was intriguing to read about, and everything fell into place from there. Even when I thought I had most of the secrets figured out, there was more to come. Things that could have been obvious but didn’t click into place until the very end. It was a fascinating journey […]

Lauren Lately | June 2018

Posted June 15, 2018 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 4 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 ✨ June marks the super busy time for me! We’re moving at the end of the month and had soooo much to do in the interim. There’s more to come after this posts, where things get even busier. Here’s my life from mid-May to mid-June! Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor | I know I already did a full recap of this trip, but I wanted to include a few pictures here. Definitely read the whole thing if you want more details! It was so much fun. It’s genuinely the most beautiful place I’ve been. If you have a chance to go, please do. Victoria Mansion and food spots | We went to a Portland attraction, the Victoria Mansion, this month. It’s really cool because they kept most of it authentic to the time people lived there. We went to Highroller Lobster Company after, which was amazing. We split fries, a “lobby pop” (piece of lobster […]

Summer TBR Lists: Bingo and Beach Reads

Posted June 14, 2018 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 4 Comments

You know I’m a big-time seasonal reader. Light, fluffy, easy contemporary books throughout the summer, and the longer fantasy books during the fall and winter. I mix mysteries, thrillers, and sometimes sci-fi or paranormal in throughout the year whenever I need a break. This summer will be kind of weird, reading-wise, because I’m going to be moving and finally have all of my physical books in the same place as me! I wanted to sift through some books I plan on reading over the next few months that suit my bingo card, summertime beach reading, and some ARCs where they apply. Summer Bingo Books already read | Blue cover – The Summer List by Amy Mason Doan LGBT+ – Sam and Isla’s Last Hurrah by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan Science fiction – The Similars by Rebecca Hanover A book you’ve been putting off | Asian author | Illustrations I have been putting off a lot of books and ignoring my physical stack, so there are plenty of options here. I’m sticking SHE REGRETS NOTHING here as a placeholder. I want to read CRAZY RICH ASIANS before I see the movie, so I definitely hope to get on that one as soon as possible. EVERYTHING MUST GO has been sitting on my shelf since I bought it a few months back and I believe there are illustrations because it’s a journal-esque book? Reread | Set during wartime | Realistic fiction I’ve been wanting to reread GOSSIP GIRL for a couple of years […]

Review Round Up | The Complication and Sam & Isla’s Last Hurrah

Posted June 13, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 2 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I cannot believe this series is over, honestly. I have loved every single book almost as much as the previous. My average rating for all the books is somewhere between 4-4.5 stars because of how PERFECT they are. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when authors continue to add more books to a series to keep things going, I get nervous that they’ll just stretch things too much and ruin everything. That is 100000% not the case for the PROGRAM series. I have never read one of the six books and thought “this is too much and/or not needed.” The world keeps expanding and I keep gobbling them up. As another piece of intro before the actual review: I was in a big reading slump, mostly with physical copies. I’d pick up my Kindle and binge a book in 1-2 days, while whatever physical copy I had started reading would sit around for weeks. I knew that my library hold coming in would snap my slump for physical copies. One of the major threads that definitely came to a head in this book was the “morally gray” area of The Program and Adjustment doctors. Many of them genuinely thought they were helping, but they […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #187: Travel Bug

Posted June 12, 2018 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 5 Comments

Recent Books That Awakened the Travel Bug In Me Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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. I love books that inspire me to travel, even though I truthfully haven’t ever taken myself up on those urges. I still need to acquire a passport (yikes) but absolutely plan to have an international trip planned within the next 2-3 years. I’ve done posts like this before (some on my TBR and others outside of the US). I decided to expand beyond international travel here because there are plenty of US-based books that inspire me to travel somewhere or by some method. Ireland Love & Luck by Welch | The Upside of Falling Down by Crane Both of these books surprised me by how much I wanted to see Ireland by the time I was done reading! I have to admit, that particular country has been low on my list. After spending 26 years in the US and spending a good portion of that time brainstorming my first international trip, that wouldn’t be high on the list. I have changed my mind a bit now! It seems gorgeous and picturesque. Trips: By Road or By Foot Amy & Roger […]

New Cover Love Additions

Posted June 11, 2018 / Book Lists, Features / 4 Comments

Just use the search bar on the side if you’re looking for more cover-oriented posts because MAN do I post too many to even include links anymore! Today’s installment of Cover Love features some new covers I added to my Goodreads shelf. They’re most likely newer releases or upcoming releases, because I usually add to that shelf as soon as a gorgeous cover makes its appearance. Here are some recent/new/upcoming favorites!