Bookmark Lit Bulletin | September 2024

Posted October 9, 2024 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. I had a weird reading month in September, which is kind of par for the course – I always expect to do less reading when I’m bopping around for my birthday and beginning-of-fall plans. I read nearly an entire graphic novel series and just a few full-length novels so my numbers look good at least. 10 books in September 9 read • 0 reread • 1 DNF Pages read: 3,143 • Average rating: 3.9 stars Genres: 5 graphic novel, 3 mystery/thriller, 2 contemporary Formats: 5 paperback, 2 ebook, 2 mixed, 1 egalley Sources: 5 purchased, 2 preordered, 2 library, 1 review Age Target: 5 young adult, 4 adult, 1 middle grade Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! ADORED This Series binge // // // Popsugar Reading Challenge: 36% 52 Book Club: 65% Book Cover Bingo: 84% 24 in 24: 29% Breakdown: 7 hardcovers | 10 paperbacks | 1 egalley | 1 ebook | 0 audiobooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest […]

Recent Reads | The Examiner and The Unwedding

Posted October 3, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

Janice Hallett has very quickly become an auto-buy author for me. I’m now officially caught up on all her books (sad!) because I completed her backlist before diving into her new release, THE EXAMINER. Hallett always writes in mixed media or epistolary format so you spend a lot of the initial pages wondering where all of these emails or texts or audio notes will take you. THE EXAMINER is much of the same, except for a little bit longer… It takes a while to figure out what the mystery actually is. The premise is a bunch of students are taking a Masters course in art at a college and something goes haywire, or someone goes missing, or someone dies. You don’t really know right away as the messages are just the students getting to know each other and eventually having disagreements. The story evolves into a lot of wild revelations. I’ve always thought some of Hallett’s premises are a bit far-fetched (primarily the TWYFORD CODE in some ways as well as ALPERTON ANGELS). That hasn’t affected my enjoyment of these books though, as one of them was five stars. I will admit that the EXAMINER was a bit too wild for me. It didn’t feel realistic that all of this would actually happen. I’m not saying all of my books need to be super realistic (ex: I read cozy mysteries or books like FINLAY DONOVAN where the amateur sleuth figures complex mysteries out) but with each reveal and twist, I […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #454: Hype

Posted October 1, 2024 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 3 Comments

Books I Read or Avoided Because of the Hype 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 this one! I wrote a post a while back about books I’m afraid to read so you’ll likely see a bit of overlap on here in one of the sections, but I definitely can let the hype of a book affect my reading. READ AVOIDED

October TBR

Posted September 27, 2024 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 1 Comment

My monthly TBR feature here shows my progress based on last month’s TBR, my plans for this month, and anything else I might be thinking about from a reading perspective. Sometimes I feature a little poll at the bottom so you guys can help me figure out a certain title I should read from a group of books. October TBR September was a good month for getting ahead on my reading challenge but I definitely read a ton of graphic novels to get me there! I had a DNF as well that I counted since I read more than 50% of it, which is my standard practice. I’m going to finish the month strong to prepare for some longer releases in the rest of the year! Newer (Owned) Releases I’ve acquired all of these over the past few months, either from preordering or BOTM. I really hope to get to all of them because they are super promising reads. I preordered WORST CASE SCENARIO and picked up HEMLOCK HOUSE from the store recently because I straight up couldn’t find it anywhere. The other four books are from BOTM. I will definitely be reading THE GOD OF THE WOODS beginning the end of September into October because it’s my mystery book club’s pick for October. Library Books I have a lot of overdue library books right now and am making a concerted effort to read a few ASAP! October is the beginning of the fantasy months for me […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #453: Fall TBR

Posted September 24, 2024 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

Fall TBR 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. If there’s one TTT you can always count on seeing from me, it’s a TBR list! Fall is my favorite season and right when I begin getting into heavier, longer books and genres other than contemporary romance and mysteries. I definitely still read those but you’ll see fantasy and even science fiction start to creep up in my reading. I’m going to arrange this one by month (release date and/or when I plan to read the book) rather than in different types of reads. I’ll let you know if the book is a review copy, highly anticipated release, or based on my mood 😉 I’m writing this post a couple of weeks before it goes live so you may have already seen some of these September reads on my “currently reading” shelf by now! September I have a bigger list for September because I’ve actually read more this month than expected and somehow have been in the mood to keep it up! I also know there’s a good chance many of these will shift into October or November, but want to stow them here for now. These ones are quick mysteries and contemporary […]

Recent Reads | I Need You to Read This and Such Charming Liars

Posted September 13, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I was one of the people who loved THE GOLDEN SPOON but I totally understand why people didn’t. That book was exactly what I wanted and expected it to be – basically a cozy mystery taking place at GBBO. I wasn’t expecting high-stakes thrills. Because of that, I went into I NEED YOU TO READ THIS with the same expectation. I think, for that reason, I enjoyed this more than others (though not as much as her adult debut). Her mysteries are not fully cozy but they’re not fast-paced thrillers either. I think this one took a while to get grooving – the main character was going through a lot but it wasn’t necessarily a thriller. Yes, she wanted to figure out what happened to the previous Dear Constance but there weren’t scary moments necessarily. I got halfway through the book and didn’t feel like anything happened. I thought some of the “twists” were incredibly obvious while others would have been, in my opinion, impossible to figure out (and not in a good way). I always hear people talk about “fair play mysteries” where you as the reader have all the information you need to solve the crime or mystery within the pages. No random boogeyman can come out and be the culprit. While I *do* think this technically counts as a fair play mystery, one of the elements came out of nowhere and it didn’t feel fair in a way. I won’t spoil it. The ending or whodunnit wasn’t […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | August 2024

Posted September 5, 2024 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. I feel like I can’t get past the eight-book hump which always puts me on track or one book behind on my reading challenge! I know September will be harder because of my birthday and the usual things I do in early fall. I hope to get another 8-9 books done at least! 8 books in August 8 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Pages read: 2,776 • Average rating: 3.44 stars Genres: 4 mystery/thriller, 2 contemporary, 1 nonfiction, 1 magical realism Formats: 4 mixed, 3 egalley, 1 hardcover Sources: 4 review, 2 preordered, 1 purchased, 1 borrowed Age Target: 6 adult, 2 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Popsugar Reading Challenge: 36% 52 Book Club: 63% Book Cover Bingo: 84% 24 in 24: 29% Breakdown: 5 hardcovers | 1 paperback | 0 egalley | 1 ebook | 0 audiobooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. Physical Books Purchased at RJ Julia event: East Coasting by Chitnis, The Pairing by McQuiston BOTM: Like Mother, […]

September TBR

Posted August 30, 2024 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 0 Comments

My monthly TBR feature here shows my progress based on last month’s TBR, my plans for this month, and anything else I might be thinking about from a reading perspective. Sometimes I feature a little poll at the bottom so you guys can help me figure out a certain title I should read from a group of books. September TBR I was generally okay in August but had some stretches where I didn’t read very much. September is typically a tough reading month for me because it’s my birthday and usually I do a lot of things to enjoy the end of summer and hopefully some fall-like weather. You’ll definitely also see a lot of holdovers from last month… Egalleys I have some already published egalleys I didn’t include here even though I definitely should do a recap on that at some point. I had THE EXAMINER and TILL DEATH DO US PART on here last month and I’m kind of shocked to still have the former on my TBR. I thought I would have read it asap because of how much I love Hallett. I just had a lot of mysteries to read in August and it meant that I couldn’t double up with my formats like I do. I also hope to maybe get ahead with REMEMBER ME TOMORROW since it publishes in October. Preordered & New Releases Again, the first three are from last month. I definitely assumed I’d get to them but alas. […]

Recent Reads | Death at Morning House and Just Playing House

Posted August 28, 2024 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

Much like the INHERITANCE GAMES series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Maureen Johnson’s TRULY DEVIOUS books are some of my favorite ones to read – I can’t explain why or how these series are so cozy to me but the writing style, unique character voices, and fun mysteries have a lot to do with it. I’ve said over and over again that Johnson could write a hundred TRULY DEVIOUS books starring Stevie Bell and I would read them like they’re Nancy Drew mysteries. There’s something indescribable about her writing style that will keep me coming back over and over again, even as I stray away from young adult fiction. When I heard (during her last book’s tour stop at RJ Julia) that she was pausing the TD series to bring a new standalone mystery set on a creepy island, I was still pretty excited. This book ended up having very similar vibes to TD but with juuuust a bit less magic for me. I think the story could have honestly fit into the series and starred Stevie – that’s how similar it felt at times. Truthfully, I think that I missed Stevie and that’s the main reason I wish it was a TD book; this main character was kind of annoying. Marlowe is very stuck on the girl she left behind in her hometown when she leaves for the summer so it’s hard to get invested in any other romance potentials on the island or even if we SHOULD ship her with […]

Ranking Books by Favorite Authors | Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Posted August 22, 2024 / Book Lists, Features / 2 Comments

I thought this was going to be a more common series on my blog but I basically wrote one post and never tried it again! The idea came from the late Grace at Rebel Mommy Book Blog. I still miss her positivity in the book community and hope I can keep doing this post justice! Previous installments include Sandhya Menon, Rachel Lynn Solomon, and Christina Lauren. Today I’ll be featuring… Jennifer Lynn Barnes I wrote my review for the latest Jennifer Lynn Barnes book and realized that she’s definitely one of my favorite authors. I always forget that she wrote one of my favorite YA duologies THE FIXER – that series is due for a resurgence like THE NATURALS has gotten! I’m not going to rank series (since that’s what she usually writes!) – I’m going to actually rank individual books across all of her series, much like I did in the TTT the other day. 5 Stars The Long Game // Clearly JLB knows how to finish a series! The sequel to THE FIXER is one of my favorite books by her. I just remember wishing she’d continue this series and let’s hold out hope she could if people start reading it again, okay?? The Final Gambit // I really enjoyed the way she initially wrapped up THE INHERITANCE GAMES series, before writing some spinoffs. I think it had a super satisfying ending with lots of final twists along the way. 4.5 Stars The Fixer // If you actually look at average […]