Month: January 2015

Bookmark Lit Bulletin – January 2015

Posted January 31, 2015 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 12 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin is a monthly feature where I look back on everything I did and everything I plan to do next. I’ll also be updating my challenge progress here each month and linking up wherever I need to. Living in a fort for two weeks – As you may know from a previous post on here, Chris and I built a blanket fort in our living room. We figured we’d keep it up for about a week… and ended up living in it for two weeks. Honestly, we probably could have gone even longer, but we went skiiing one weekend and just had to sit on the couch afterwards. (Laying on the floor = not good for a sore body) Blizzard Juno – This week we had a bit of a blizzard. No big deal. I think our area got maybe a 15-20 inches of snow. I worked on Monday but it started snowing part of the way through the day, and luckily my boss said that we could work from home the next day. She’s pretty famous for making us come in during bad weather, even though most of our work can be done from home. Anyways, they ended up shutting down roads and not allowing people to drive anyway! The wind was even more intense than the snow, though! Luckily that meant that Chris’s car had snow surrounding it, but not a lot that needed to be cleared on the top. It only took us about 10 minutes […]

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Posted January 29, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

This is definitely not going to be an easy book to review! I got to the end and wasn’t even sure how to pull my thoughts together enough for a rating. I mean this in a very good way, but Holly Black’s books can just be so delightfully weird that half the time I don’t even know if I fully understood it. This was certainly a unique read with lots of nuances and secrets; it had a slow and steady plotline that didn’t really have a formal “climax” with a lot of action. I enjoyed that though. I completely forgot how much I love Black’s writing style; I know it’s not for some people. She is the absolute QUEEN of magical realism, this I know for sure. It gave the book an old-school folklore feel while also being set in modern day. The Darkest Part of the Forest takes place in a very unique New England (yay!) town that happens to have faeries living in the forest. I won’t get too much into the actual plot, because I feel like the action is very slow-burn and I wouldn’t want to spoil any of the plot points aside from the ones in the summary. Ben and Hazel are siblings who have spent their lives in love with a horned boy that has slept forever in a glass casket in the forest. Things start getting a bit crazy around the town as the faeries, who usually leave them alone, start injuring the townspeople. […]

Book Buddies Review: Siege and Storm

Posted January 28, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Book Buddies is a discussion-style review that takes place with one of my two buddies. (Learn more and see past reviews here) We both read the book and then have a private discussion about it. We post our discussion as a review on the last Wednesday of each month. You’ll be able to see our similar/different opinions on the overall book, characters, writing style, etc. – just like a regular review. The first half our discussion will take place right here, and the second half will be on Kaitlin’s blog! (Link at the bottom) View the first part of the discussion here. Be warned that there are some spoilers included! You can probably tell which questions to avoid, like the one about the ending, if you haven’t read the book yet! Did you start to feel different about any of the characters or did you like/dislike them the same? Kaitlin: Honestly, this book I felt like Mal was getting really annoying and not someone I would always want to have around. I understand that he was trying to protect Alina from the Darkling but sometimes he would just be so over protective. He was always questioning Alina’s actions and trying to hold her back. Sometime’s you just got to stop running and fight what you’re avoiding. I still really like him but just not as much than in the first book. Then my admiration for the Darkling has grew! As much as I would not to like him, I can’t. He is so smart and […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #26: Book Club

Posted January 27, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

Reading List for my YA Book Club Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make LISTS of our top ten books based on that week’s prompt… and then we stalk other people’s answers to add a million books to our TBR. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. I WANT A BOOK CLUB. I joined one last year and ended up attending one meeting. They just weren’t reading books I’d want to read. I get that it could expand my horizons and all that crap, but I just want to read Young Adult at this point in my life! I’ve debated starting one up, but don’t know if there’d be any interest out there. (Hey, anyone reading this live in Connecticut? Lmk) I think I’d like to focus on new books for my book club, so here’s the schedule for my YA New Releases Book Club!

Review: Yes Please

Posted January 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

God Amy Poehler is the coolest. I absolutely loved every second of this book. Luckily I had adjusted my expectations a little bit when I saw some reviews that this wasn’t completely a humor book. She mixed in some serious stuff and actual advice too, which I ended up loving just as much. (Well, maybe not just as much. It would be great to have a whole book on the hilarity that is Parks and Rec.) I loved how authentic this book felt. She doesn’t sugar coat anything – her advice or her stories. She gives sex advice and talks about doing drugs; she’s fearless. Even before starting the audiobook portion of my read, I was reading everything in her voice. It felt like she was talking directly with me as if we were friends (like the synopsis says). I really enjoyed the variety of the content, too. Nothing was stiff or formal. It felt more like a scrapbook than a memoir. She had random haikus, handwritten notes, personal photos, chapters from people like Seth Meyers, and lots of lists. I think that was a major reason that this held my attention better than other nonfiction books do; I was anxiously awaiting the next topic because I had NO idea what it could be about. She had a lovely chapter full of her friends and coworkers…followed by a chapter that’s subtitle was “things I learned on mushrooms.” It kept me on my feet and intrigued. I can’t emphasize enough how […]

Review: Princess of Thorns

Posted January 22, 2015 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments

There is no salvation without sacrifice, no light without darkness, no triumph that doesn’t carry the seeds of its own destruction bouncing in its pocket. GUYS holy crap! This story is just beyond words. But I am going to try to use some words anyways. The book started out very complicated and confusing. I was fascinated by the world that was being built, but you are definitely thrown right into the middle of the action. It starts with Aurora and her brother Jor as small children with their mother. It explains some of the curses on their lands and on them. Then it flashes forward 10 years and Aurora (disguised as her brother) is suddenly woken up by a guy named Niklaas and we learn everything else from there. I will admit that the first 100 pages or so were slow. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mindset at the time. Regardless, I kept feeling like I was going to be the black sheep and not end up liking this one. How could a book that moved so slowly for the first 100 pages ever get better? Well. It did. There was gradual world-building, which is nice, but there just wasn’t much action. I was admittedly kind of bored as the two traveled along and didn’t encounter anyone else. Once a few more characters and some action was introduced, I was hooked. I read 2/3 of the book in one night. I absolutely loved the gender-bending aspect of the book, where […]

Reread Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Posted January 21, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Luckily I started reading the Harry Potter series when the first three books had been released already. There wasn’t a lot of wait time in between those ones. I started book one in 1999 over the summer and got the next two books for Christmas that year. I remember actually laying underneath my Christmas tree and starting to read Chamber of Secrets almost instantly. It’s funny because a lot of people generally say that this book is their least favorite of the books. I don’t remember having a least favorite! When Andi was reading the books (for the first time!) recently, I saw quite a few people telling her not to be discouraged by this book because the next one gets much better. It started coming back to me that this book was a little slower than the rest. Of course, it’s still amazing, but it’s definitely not as fast-paced. At times, it’s also less interesting than the rest. I’ve said before how I’m generally not a big rereader of books. (Okay, I just started rereading a few months ago for the first time ever.) This series is the ONE that I said I would reread someday. The Reread Challenge this year is definitely helping motivate me to achieve this goal. I know so many people out there who have read the whole series countless times in their life… I just decided to start now. Oh well. Eeeeek. My instant reaction was being mad that the audio copy of Prisoner of […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #25: Books that Evoked Strong Feelings (Freebie)

Posted January 20, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 30 Comments

FREEBIE: Books I Have Very Strong Feelings About Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make LISTS of our top ten books based on that week’s prompt… and then we stalk other people’s answers to add a million books to our TBR. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Because I am not the most creative at coming up with my own things (you can tell this by the lack of lists I’ve been posting on my blog in general), I browsed the Broke and Bookish site to see what some old topics for this were. Since my blog is newer, I’ve missed out on many years of TTT’s. I chose the topic of “books I have very strong feelings about.” Two categories here are good feelings and books I enjoyed. The other two…not so much.

ARC Review: All Fall Down

Posted January 19, 2015 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

AHH THIS WAS SO GOOD GUYSSSS. Throughout the whole book, I kept wondering when I would find a flaw. I really couldn’t, for the most part, until the very end of the book. My first impression was that this book had a more mature feel to it than the Gallagher Girls, which was nice. The one thing that’s recently bugged me during my GG reread was that Cammie felt too immature to me. I was really looking forward to seeing what Ally Carter could do with an older character. Of course, Grace has her own problems that did at times make her seem younger than her age. There were times when she got angry and pouty that were reminiscent of a bratty teenager… but when you think about everything she’s been through, you kind of understand why. She seemed overdramatic at times, but she always said what was on her mind and wasn’t afraid of the backlash. She was kind of a badass, while also being funny and very sarcastic. This book is about Grace trying to prove that her mother was murdered and not killed in the fire. She has very foggy memories of that night, but does vividly remember seeing the bullet holes in her mother’s chest. She tries to find the Scarred Man that she remembers from that night, as she believes he’s the one who killed her mother. I loved that Grace developed as an unreliable narrator in some ways; you start to doubt her memories […]

Sunday Post #4

Posted January 18, 2015 / Sunday Post, Weekly Memes / 10 Comments

The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, where you share news about your blog on a weekly basis. It can include what you’ve been reading, what you’ve posted, what’s coming up next, and any books you added to your shelves! I haven’t done one of these in a while, because I usually don’t blog on the weekends much. It’s not exactly a post you can create ahead of time either, because you never know what books you might finish after you schedule it! Regardless, here’s what I did this past week and what’s coming up next week. Random Bookish Thoughts on blogging (some tips for newbies) Top Ten Tuesday: Books I meant to read in 2014 but didn’t Bookmark Lit Bulletin for Mid-January wrap-up Blog Tour Review: Perfect Couple by Jennifer Echols Review: All Lined Up by Cora Carmack Review: The Secrets of Lily Graves by Sarah Strohmeyer Book to Movie Review: The Maze Runner (Book by James Dashner) I am loving The Darkest Part of the Forest right now. I love her writing style, but it’s definitely not for everyone. I was reading Yes Please in hardcover form for a while, but I switched to the audiobook because a) she narrates it herself and it’s awesome and b) I needed to fill the time before my next HP audiobook comes in at the library! I’ve wanted to read The DUFF for a while and I’m finally going to do it next! I’m in a great […]