Month: January 2015

Books and Bloggers Swap Sign-Up

Posted January 6, 2015 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 2 Comments

Books & Bloggers is a book swap created by Chaotic Goddess Swaps, the lovely ladies who also hosted the 12 Days of Christmas Swap I participated in during the holidays! They offer fun swaps throughout the year with various themes. Of course I HAD to sign up for this one when I saw it! Sign-ups end on January 12th and you have to ship your packages out by January 24th. The Books & Bloggers Swap was created to swap three books with a fellow blogger. You share your wishlists (Amazon, Goodreads, etc.) and favorite genre when you sign up, so you and your partner swap based on that! The three books include: One book you love One book you haven’t read but are interested in One book off of your partner’s wish list I think this one is going to be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to finding my partner and planning out some books… and of course seeing what books I end up with! Want to join me? Maybe we’ll get paired up! Sign up here!

Top Ten Tuesdays #23: 2015 Debuts

Posted January 6, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 15 Comments

Most Anticipated Debuts (2015) 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’m pretty bad at figuring out and/or knowing off the top of my head if an author is a debut or not. I just don’t keep track of that stuff (yet) since my blog is so new. Everyone feels like a debut to me! Regardless, there are some that pop into mind immediately (um Red Queen) and some I needed to do a bit of investigating to remind myself that it was in fact a debut. Regardless, all of these have been on my TBR for quite a while and I’m very excited to get to them this year! The Night We Said Yes by Lauren Gibaldi: I like books that alternate between “then” and “now.” Definitely really excited for this one. Emancipated by M.G. Reyes: Kind of sounds like The Breakfast Club except all the kids are living in a house instead of Saturday detention. I’m down to give it a try. Last Year’s Mistake by Gina Ciocca: Another one with alternating chapters, this time between two people instead of two moments in time. Still down with it. Even When You Lie to Me by Jessica Alcott: Okay yes I’ve talked about how much I don’t care […]

Random Bookish Thoughts: Confessions

Posted January 5, 2015 / Discussions, Other Memes / 24 Comments

Bookish Confessions I’ve been keeping this draft going for quite a while because I’ve been thinking of all the different book-related “secrets” I keep. These can be things that aren’t realllly secrets because I’ve spoken about them before occasionally, but sharing them here can still qualify as a confession, right? Right. Other things I haven’t discussed with anyone before, so I’m definitely curious to hear your thoughts on them! So without further ado, here are six bookish or blog-related confessions I want to share. Everyone should start the New Year with a clean slate, amirite? My reading history is spotty. This is pretty much the one thing I’ve discussed before, but I feel like I should clarify a little bit. I was a HUGE reader back in elementary school and middle school. I used to go to the library multiple times a week with my mom and get countless books. Over the summer when my sister and I were bored at my nana’s house, we would walk down to the library and read all day in the sun. It was glorious. My reading in high school definitely continued, but dropped off a bit. This became especially true when I got my license. I was never home, and when I was, I was watching TV or immediately going to bed. Most of my reading (okay, probably all of my reading) happened right before bed for an hour or two. I did a good job of keeping up with the book […]

Blog Tour Review & Favorite Quotes: Gone Too Far

Posted January 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Review This is definitely a book that got stronger as it progressed. The first person perspective threw me off a little because I feel like most of the books I’ve read lately haven’t been. It’s a completely different reading experience, in my opinion. Some of the writing felt awkward at first because of that, but then I definitely got used to it. A lot of character names were introduced right away and I felt like they all blended together, but again I slowly got used to it and they all started to differentiate. Our main character, Piper, was definitely a character that developed over time. It was reminiscent of the character development in Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas. The character starts out with pretty general characterizations, (she’s interested in photography and just your average high schooler) and then becomes more involved with some darker stuff. She isn’t a villain or anything that serious, but she gets mixed up in some bad things for a little while. It’s very cool to see a character develop and change in a non-traditional way. Also, there were some majorly swoony scenes with a cute boy… which is always a plus. I like when there’s a realistic romantic relationship included in mystery/thriller books. It adds a little something else to the plot. I like books where I’m suspicious of every character because it makes things more interesting. I’m normally very bad at solving the mystery before the end of the book. I had a lot […]

Five on Fridays #11 and Life of a Blogger #1

Posted January 3, 2015 / Five on Fridays, Life of a Blogger, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

This week I’ll be combining two features on my blog! plus I write my Five on Friday post each Friday that I actually have some non-bookish updates. (My life is boring, folks.) I’ve also been wanting to join in with the Life of a Blogger meme, hosted at Novel Heartbeat, which happens on Thursday. On weeks where I don’t have a lot of updates, I’ll participate in Life of a Blogger instead of Five on Friday. It’ll just be a way for me to add some personal updates and info each week in one of two formats! This week, the Life of a Blogger topic is New Year’s, which I was going to include in my Five on Friday post anyway! (Also yes I realize it’s not Friday) New Year’s I’ve actually done a wide variety of things on New Years Eve over the past few years! When I was a kid I would just stay up late with my parents and watch the ball drop. In high school, we would go to my friend’s house every year and hang out until the ball dropped. His mom would always make us great food and one of my friends would bring monkey bread. So good. This tradition kind of fizzled out throughout college because less people would be home and some people would be hanging out with their college friends. Freshman year of college, a friend and I went to a house party and it was pretty lame actually. The rest […]

200 Word Review: Only the Good Spy Young

Posted January 1, 2015 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

I finally made it to the first Gallagher Girls book that isn’t a reread! It was nice hearing a story I hadn’t read yet. DAMN this book got crazy, though! Just when you start to think it’s a fluffy story that is more romantic than spy-filled, you’re wrong. This book was definitely action-packed, which was certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the last book. Things are starting to get wild. Cammie’s spy activities are much more high stakes in this one. Instead of spying on her ex-boyfriend or other boys, she’s pretty much trying to stay alive. Part of me still doesn’t know who to trust or what’s going to happen. The one thing that continues to bug me is how immature Cammie seems. Maybe I’m so far removed from high school that I don’t remember what it was like, but I can’t help but feel like her voice is a bit more 12 year old than 17 year old. (I think part of this has to do with the audiobook narrator, though.) Regardless, I’m really excited to continue with the series and see what happens next! Pretty decent cliffhanger with this book.