Month: September 2014

Bookmark Lit Bulletin: September 2014

Posted September 30, 2014 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

Hello friends! As you know, I introduced the Bookmark Lit Bulletin as a way of reviewing what I posted and did throughout the month. A lot of bloggers participate in Sunday Post or Stacking the Shelves memes, but I try to stay off the blogosphere on weekends. To that point, I post the Bookmark Lit Bulletin twice a month to serve that purpose. The first is posted for a mid-month update on the 15th, and the second is posted for a monthly wrap-up on the 30th or 31st. I post my book haul at the end of the month. For past bulletins, click here! As I’ve said a hundred times before, this month was super super busy in my personal life. Unfortunately I only managed to finish 10 books this month, which is kind of small considering how well I did last month! Most of the books were really enjoyable though. I’m happy I was given the opportunity by On The Same Page ARC tours to get two books this month (Damsel Distressed and Famous in Love). With ARC tours, you’re given a week to read the book before you have to send it along to the next person. Unfortunately that made me have to stop in my tracks with the book I was reading (my ARC of Trial By Fire, thanks Macmillan!) to read these two. Luckily it hasn’t been too hard to pick right back up with it when I can, though. I’m just grateful I had the opportunity […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #9: Hard to Read

Posted September 30, 2014 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Top Eight Books that were Hard for me to Read & Two Books that will be Hard for me to Read

Musing Mondays #9

Posted September 29, 2014 / Musing Mondays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

Describe one of your reading habits. I’ve talked before about how long I went without a library card, but I’ve been thinking lately about how amazing and important library cards actually are. One of my reading habits over the past five years has been to just buy books. When I was younger (elementary school and middle school), the library was an amazingly huge part of my life. I would spend summer days at my grandma’s house walking to the library with my stepsister, getting ten books, and reading them outside in the shade all day. I would go with my mom and check out a bunch of books to read by the pool. I would go to the library after school and read books in comfy chairs until my mom would pick me up on her way home from work. I spent my college years not reading (and buying books when I did sit down to read). My library card expired and I didn’t see the sense in renewing it when I was hardly home anyways. This continued after college, to when I moved into a new town and didn’t get a library card there either. Now that I’ve settled a little more into another town, I FINALLY went to get a library card. Now that I have one, I’m addicted to the library. I made excuses for YEARS because I was too lazy to go get a new library card. I spent I-don’t-even-want-to-know-how-much-money on books that I could have […]

200 Word Review: Private series

Posted September 29, 2014 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

In honor of my intentions to finally finish the Private series by Kate Brian, I’m going to post a brief review here for the first 12 books of the season. Yes, somehow I’ll review all twelve books in less than 200 words. I want to play catch up a little bit because I know once I read the final books, I’ll want to post those reviews. It’ll feel too weird posting them without having some other semblance of a review for the rest of the series. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on the entire Private series so far… The series is about one of my favorite topics: boarding schools. Reed heads off to Easton Academy, where she falls in with a group of rich girls in a sorority-esque “club” called Billings House. LONG, LONG story short – a lot of crazy shit happens with her and her friends over the course of their school years, like people getting murdered or going missing, vacations, fires, friend drama, administration trying to shut them down, breakups and makeups, etc. I won’t get too spoilery, but there was a major TWIST at the end of the last book I read (#12 – Vanished). It didn’t really make a lot of sense and I wasn’t overly eager to get into the following books. Regardless, I have to finish the series off since it’s been an important part of my reading life since middle school. If you like books about boarding schools and “mean girls,” this […]

The Book Blogger Test Tag

Posted September 27, 2014 / Other Memes, Personal / Information / Etc. / 3 Comments

What are your top three book hates? Folding down page corners / dog-earring Folding the book in half so the cover gets all bent (I wish I had a dollar for every time I scolded friends who did this to MY books I lent them) People who shame others for reading YA when you’re not technically in the “age group” — read what makes you happy!! Describe your perfect reading spot. I’ve shared my 10 favorite places to read in the past, but I think my overall ideal reading location would be somewhere outside in the shade with lots of pillows and blankets, a perfect temperature outside, with a coffee (or a margarita! or a beer!) next to me. Tell us three book confessions. I hate cover reveal posts on blogs. I’m sorry! I’m just sick of seeing the same cover over and over again. If you post more promotional things than reviews, I just don’t see the point.. If it’s your most anticipated read of the coming year and you’re excited about the cover, that’s perfect, but otherwise I’ll skip right by that in my feed. I think I’m starting to prefer my Kindle to real books. I know, I know. I really do love the feeling of holding a REAL book in my hands, but it’s so much easier to hold a Kindle. Plus I can read in the dark! I went through a book dry spell for quite a few years. College was just not conducive to […]

Review: Just Like Fate

Posted September 26, 2014 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Wow, this book left me sitting there with a dumbfounded look on my face. The story is about Caroline, who is faced with a tough decision in the wake of grandmother’s impending death. Should she escape her family for the night to attend a party with her friend Simone? Or should she stay with them by her grandmother’s side? This decision splits her world in two: she lives out both of the timelines for the reader to enjoy. The book alternated chapters between STAY and GO, which was surprisingly not too confusing. Sometimes I had to peek down at the bottom corner of the page and remind myself of which one I was reading, but otherwise it was not hard to follow. What a freaking cool concept. I’ve been obsessed with the parallel life theme for as long as I can remember. Going into this book, I assumed the GO timeline would piss me off because I couldn’t imagine leaving my family in a time like that, especially for a party. Somehow I actually much preferred the GO timeline to the STAY one. I don’t know why; I think the STAY decision led to more boring consequences for me. One of my favorite things about the book was the “glimpes” into the other timeline from the one we were reading. For example, she would say “I could never imagine a world where ___ happened” …. while that exact thing was happening in the other timeline! It was really, really cool. […]

Five on Fridays #1

Posted September 26, 2014 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 4 Comments

Today I’m introducing a “new” meme on Bookmark Lit. Friday Finds was getting to be too much work for me each week – I generally add a LOT of books to my TBR list each week. It took way too long to get the book images, create a post, link to the Goodreads, etc. If I only added a handful of books it wouldn’t be an issue. Regardless, I’ve seen this sort of post on a number of blogs lately but none of them seem to be attached to a specific meme. (Just to give some credit where it could be due, I’ve seen this kind of thing on Hello, Chelly! and Rosie Reads). This meme will basically be the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc! Without further ado, here’s the first Five on Friday! I’ll admit that I didn’t like this song at first. I miss the old T.Swift with her country songs and long curly hair. However, once I went to my college for alumni weekend, my friends and I listened to it literally on repeat and I haven’t been able to stop yet. It’s now one of those songs that reminds me of a super fun weekend with friends. I tend to scream it and go crazy in the car when it comes on, just like my friends and I did. My boyfriend said he could just […]

Random Bookish Thoughts: Blogging Schedule

Posted September 25, 2014 / Discussions, Other Memes / 15 Comments

Today’s Topic: Blogging Schedules! Random Bookish Thoughts, a “meme” that (ironically, based on today’s topic) has no real scheduled posting day. Any time I think of a random bookish topic, I’ll share my thoughts on it. You’re encouraged to join me in the comments if you have any thoughts, too! Do you have a blogging schedule, or do you post whatever, whenever? What’s your schedule look like if you have one? How often to you post reviews vs. memes/other topics? I started this blog without any intention of creating a schedule for myself. I joined in on a weekly meme for each day of the week (aside from weekends) because I wasn’t sure what to post. You’ve heard my thoughts on weekly memes before. I like them – I think they can help inspire you to post when you normally may not cover that topic or even write on your blog for the day. Everyone’s responses are different and interesting; it brings people together. Aside from those memes, I posted reviews whenever I happened to write them; I posted other recommendation lists whenever I was inspired to. Now that I’m entering the third month with my blog, I have definitely created a blogging schedule that I (mostly) follow. I like to post every day on here, even if it’s just the daily meme or a recommendation list.

Bookish Adventures

Posted September 25, 2014 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments

Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art & Montague Book Mill My boyfriend and I took some time off this week and were able to have some bookish adventures! We were originally going to head up to Boston for the day, but Chris has been sick since the weekend and wasn’t sure how much walking around he would be able to do. I’m grateful that he agreed to this day though, because he is generally a non-reader (although I am slowly converting him! He’s listening to the Lord of the Rings audiobooks while working and has checked out some Lego books from the library. The key for helping non-readers is finding books about topics that interest them!). We ventured up into the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, which is around an hour from where we live in Connecticut. It’s so pretty up there with tons of farmland – it was the perfect time of year, too, since the leaves are starting to change! Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art Our first stop was the museum located on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst. We were randomly looking into museums we could go to that were closeby and discovered this one. It was so cute – everyone remembers reading Eric Carle books as kids. The two featured artists within the small museum were Simms Taback, author of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, and Louise Fitzhugh, author and illustrator of Harriet the Spy. I only took a few pictures inside the […]

200 Word Review: That Summer

Posted September 24, 2014 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

I don’t want to say I was disappointed, because that seems a bit harsh, but it definitely didn’t exceed my expectations. Why? The characters – ALL of them – were so selfish. I get that there was (kind of?) a reason for it in terms of the book’s moral, but I just found myself SO sick of their shit. Nothing. Happened. At. All. The book took place over the course of a month or two and literally Haven worked, ran into her sister’s ex, complained about her life, and spent time with her friend. Oh, and there was a random supermodel show that pretty much added nothing to the plot. I’m okay with the fact that this book was only about family issues, but it was just missing the spark of something else. ANYTHING to get some more action. The moral/message of the book was pretty clear and I liked the way it ended. The narrator had the most childish voice. I get that the MC was 15, but holy shit it felt like a 12 year old. Overall, I did like the book. It didn’t blow me away and it certainly isn’t one of Dessen’s best, but I can’t say I regret listening to it.