Month: February 2015

Review: Get Even

Posted February 20, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments
Review: Get Even

Pardon my language, but what the actual fuck? I struggled with this book because I alternated between loving it and hating it throughout. Rating this one is a struggle for me and is based purely on comparison. I literally went to my ratings page and compared the book to the books under the 2.5 stars and 3 stars categories. I was leaning strongly towards 3.5 throughout the book, but towards the end found it slipping to 3… and now based on the final ending, it’s dangerously close to 2.5 territory. (Endings are very important to me!) So ummm where do I begin? This book was interesting. It’s about a group of girls who start “Don’t Get Mad” (…get even) in order to right some wrongs committed by people in their school. They target bullies and as a result do some bulling themselves. Whatever. Okay. The hypocrisy of these kind of things don’t bug me that much. Then, someone turns up dead and the members of DGM are the main suspects. The school is trying to figure out who’s in the group, while the girls are trying to figure out who the murderer is. But let me tell you – these girls are kind of stupid and annoying. They have the typical group of “opposite” girls from each circle in the school. Olivia, the popular drama star with a crappy home life; Bree, the rebel with a politician father; Kitty, the “Asian girl who isn’t good at math” (that’s exactly how […]

Random Bookish Thoughts: Book Ratings Pt. 2

Posted February 19, 2015 / Discussions, Other Memes, Weekly Memes / 7 Comments
Random Bookish Thoughts: Book Ratings Pt. 2

BOOK RATINGS (PART 2). I’ve talked once before on book ratings, when I talked about how I rate books, what it means to have a “valuable opinion” (according to some butthead on Twitter), and my generally high rating average on Goodreads. Now that I’ve gotten further into reading and reviewing books, I’ve been thinking about more topics on book ratings. There’s SO much that goes into rating a book once you finish. I’ve found myself coming up with these rating-related issues lately. Brittany posted a discussion about changing book ratings that helped me in thinking about this post. Sometimes you have no issue rating a book. You loved it. End of story! It gets between 4 and 5 stars. The harder ones to review are the MEH books. The ones that didn’t bother you too much either way. Do you penalize them because they didn’t wow you? Or do you say that because nothing outright offended you, you can stick to maybe 3 stars? It’s also fairly easy to rate books you hated. Obviously they’re not getting much more than something around 2 stars or less. Lately my ratings have changed SO MUCH. I posted on Twitter a while back that I changed my rating for Red Queen about five times after finishing it. I’ve come to find that there are four main instances where my rating may change between the time I finish the post, as I’m writing the review, and before the review is actually posted. (Part of the issue could be that […]

DNF Review: Losing It

Posted February 18, 2015 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments
DNF Review: Losing It

When did you decide to DNF? I was at the 60% mark. I know, I know. I could have just finished. But I just got so frustrated! Why did you quit? Sigh. I really wanted to like this book, but I could almost tell from the first few minutes that I wasn’t going to. The characters were just so BLAH to me. Bliss was as annoying and stupid as her name. She continued to lie, lead on her best friend, and make dumb choices despite knowing that she was doing that. I just was not at ALL invested in them. I truly didn’t care about anything. Garrick was irritating and overly possessive for no reason. It struck me as insta-love the vast majority of the time and I didn’t feel the chemistry. There was a whole lot of nothing happening too; there were multiple chapters around Bliss getting drunk with her friends that seemed to drag on with little reason. The bottom line is that I just couldn’t make myself care. I can safely assume that Garrick and Bliss end up together… I’m just not interested in hearing how or why. Another huge aspect was the audiobook narrator. There’s a good chance I would consider returning to this book and read the physical copy. The narrator sounded like she was 12 years old and thus made Bliss sound WAY too young – especially when the topic of the book was losing her virginity. It felt creepy. What was the last […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #29: Bookish Problems

Posted February 17, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 12 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #29: Bookish Problems

Book-Related Problems I Have 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. 1. I’ll never be able to READ ALL THE BOOKS! Every week there are new books that get released. On top of that, add in classics and backlist books I haven’t gotten to yet. There will never be enough time in my life to read all the books I want to read! I know everyone here probably has that same issue, but it’s a very sad feeling. This can also relate to the fact that I never know what to read next because I’m too excited about too many books. Do I read the one I’ve been really looking forward to? Do I read the one I just bought? Do I read the new release? Do I read the ARC? I don’t knooooow. I’ll never know! 2. I buy books on release day because I’m so excited… then let them sit on my shelf for weeks/months/years. You know how it goes – you’re all excited about a book release and you run to the store/internet to buy it that day…. and then it sits on your shelves for god-knows-how-long. This happens to me TOO MUCH. Day before payday and I have $20 in my checking […]

Review: Meant To Be

Posted February 16, 2015 / Book Reviews / 9 Comments
Review: Meant To Be

I’m truly not sure how this book ever managed to slip past my radar. Morgan, my amazing Broke & Bookish Secret Santa, gifted this one to me with the recommendation that it was one of her favorites. It wasn’t on my wishlist but she had a feeling I’d like it. AND THIS, people, is why recs are the best. I knew from the literal first paragraph that this was going to be a “me” book. There are certain things in life that just suck. Pouring a big bowl of Lucky Charms before realizing the milk is expired, the word ‘moist,’ falling face-first into the salad bar in front of the entire lacrosse team… Now I will be honest, books with characters who are overly clumsy usually kind of annoy me. Like really, you couldn’t come up with anything better to describe this girl? You’re just gonna have her fall into things all the time? Well, in this book it just worked. It was a part of her charm, but Julia was characterized so much MORE than just being a klutz. She was a book nerd, super smart, funny, snarky… everything I want in a character. I actually saw a lot of myself in her. I want to roll my eyes, but I’m pretty soon they’re going to get stuck in the back of my head, and penis puns are really not worth my permanent facial damage. Let’s talk about the romance though. *happy sigh*  I will read hate-to-love romances until the […]

Five on Fridays #13

Posted February 13, 2015 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments
Five on Fridays #13

Five on Friday displays the 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. We went to Foxwoods Casino for my friend’s birthday earlier this month, and it was so much fun! We stayed at a hotel down the road that had a shuttle for the casino. Our plan was to go bowling at the “high end” bowling alley, then go to a club in the casino. There weren’t any lanes for the alley so we hung around the bar section of the bowling place and played pool for a while. Some people went off to the club for a little bit while the rest of us hung there. We ended up getting a lane and bowling for the rest of the night. It was kind of expensive, but definitely more fun (in my opinion) than going to a club. I love seeing my college friends and wish it happened more often. I’m still not completely over how generous this community is when it comes to…well, everything – but loaning ARCs especially. I tweeted out that I was looking to borrow A Court of Thorns and Roses. Within minutes, I had two offers! I’m just so grateful to people who make me feel welcomed and loved. Thanks so much to Andi, for this one in particular! I have a few more ARCs of other books that Brittany is lending me, that should be […]

Read-Bait: “Death” and “Grief”

Posted February 12, 2015 / Book Lists, Features / 4 Comments
Read-Bait: “Death” and “Grief”

Here’s another post in a new series here at the blog: Read-Bait! Over the coming weeks, I’ll be featuring different words or phrases that catch my eye in book descriptions, the books I’ve read under those categories, and the books I plan on reading. I hope it shares some insight about my reading preferences and interests. As always, feel free to recommend any books you’d think I like! You know how it goes: you’re browsing Goodreads, clicking on books that look interesting, and checking out their summaries. All of a sudden you see a certain word or phrase in the synopsis that triggers an automatic reaction to click that “Want to Read” button. I call this “read-bait” – any word(s) that make you instantly think that you MUST read this book. One example for me is… Clearly this topic sounds a bit morbid, but hear me out. You all know you agree with me. When there’s a book about the various aspects involved with death, moving on, or grieving – I’m all about it. Whether the person in the book actually dies (not a spoiler, it’s in the synopsis!), or they’re getting over the death of someone, or they’re obsessed with the concept of death, or even if they’re in that “in between” place between earth and the afterlife… I am so on board. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin is a book I read a LONG time ago, but was my first introduction into books that occur after death. In this case, […]

ARC Review: Promposal

Posted February 11, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments
ARC Review: Promposal

I have some mixed feelings here. Promposal and I are not friends, but we’re certainly not enemies. There’s nothing really wrong with this book per se; nothing that got my blood boiling. But there also wasn’t really ANYTHING that made me smile, either. It’s one of those books that you read that just doesn’t affect you in any way. “Promposals” are the new phenomenon that involves asking people to prom as if they were proposing marriage, with big/extravagant gestures. These started to become big back when I was in high school and my boyfriend at the time actually did a great job of asking me to dances. We dated for three years so it wasn’t really necessary, but it was still thoughtful and appreciated  by me. When I saw this one on Edelweiss, I requested it immediately. I’ve always been fascinated by the different ideas people came up with and was looking for a book full of them. That’s not exactly what I ended up with. The book alternates points of view between two best friends, Camilla and Joshua. Camilla is pining over a boy in class who has never spoken to her, but ends up saying yes to an extravagant promposal from someone else. Josh is in love with his best friend, Ethan, but then Ethan asks him to plan a promposal… for another guy. I enjoyed the two separate (but connected) storylines, for sure, but it was like reading the same thing. The two characters were given absolutely no […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #28: Romance

Posted February 10, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 16 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #28: Romance

How do I like my romance? 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. This week’s topic is top ten things I like and dislike when it comes to romance in books. This is a great topic that relates to a topic I’ve covered on here in the past: my favorite and least favorite tropes that appear in YA books. Here’s my list for this week! Likes I’m a big fan of some of the usual tropes in romance. The classic best-friends-turned-lovers saga is one I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of. This is probably because I totally used to think I was going to marry the boy next door. Granted that definitely isn’t going to happen (and I don’t have any desire anymore – he turned into kind of a jerk), but it’s still fun to read about the stories where it does. This is especially sweet when it’s a childhood best friend who comes back into your life after being away for a long time. I also love the slow-burn romances – the ones where it takes a while for the character to even realize it’s happening. It just feels so much more real than love that happens too quickly. (You can see the opposite situation […]

Inside and Out #1: Lauren from Bookmark Lit

Posted February 9, 2015 / Features, Inside and Out / 7 Comments
Inside and Out #1: Lauren from Bookmark Lit

A new feature to admire pretty book covers and bookmarks, shared by YOU! Welcome to INSIDE AND OUT. This feature will include two of my absolute favorite book-related things: bookmarks (inside) and book covers (out)! I’ve invited guest posters to share their favorite book covers and bookmarks here on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. I’ll be kicking off the feature today with my own favorites! (There is still plenty of time to sign up – see the form at the bottom of the post and join in the fun!) Lauren from Bookmark Lit Twitter: @bookmarklit  |  Instagram: @bookmark_lit Tell me a little about yourself: Well obviously you already know quite a bit about me, since this is my blog and all. But, my name is Lauren and I run Bookmark Lit! I obviously love reading and mostly fill my free time with doing that. When I’m not reading (or sometimes while I’m reading, depending on what teams are playing), I love watching football. The Carolina Panthers are my team and it’s my dream to move to Charlotte, NC. You genuinely don’t want to be around me when they’re playing, win or lose. I honestly don’t have many other hobbies but I do like watching movies, binge-watching Netflix, going out to eat, and becoming obsessed with things for a few months and then losing interest. I’d love to pick up some crafty hobbies but I’m so lazy. Talk about your blog (what you blog about/kinds of books, features, etc.): I […]