Month: July 2015

Bookmark Lit Bulletin – July 2015

Posted July 31, 2015 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 4 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin was created to wrap up each month and prepare for the next. I share my life happenings, book haul, books I read and reviewed, posts I shared, challenge updates, and more from the previous month. I also let you know what may be coming up on the blog in the coming month. You can read past bulletins here and learn more about the feature here. July books completed: 22 (Listen: 8 | Read: 14) Number books reviewed this month: 16 Books completed so far in 2015: 113 Number of other posts this month: 15 Goodreads Challenge Status: 65% complete Guests on Inside & Out: Dahlia & AndiOverall, not a bad month over here! I got A LOT of reading done and am very ahead on my Goodreads challenge. At the time of writing this, I’m 12 books ahead of schedule! Woo! Average rating for books read in July: 3.8 stars Highlights of the best and worst… Best of the Best | Pleasantly Surprised | Disappointed Average rating for books reviewed in July: 4.0 stars Physical copies From my Uppercase Box: The Witch Hunter by Virgina Boeker | Purchased at Books-a-Million: Two Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt + Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid | Preordered and delivered from Amazon: Jesse’s Girl by Miranda Kenneally […]

Blog Tour Review: Never Always Sometimes

Posted July 30, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

I love books about bucket lists and road trips and other FUN teenagery things (that I never did as an actual teenager). I had a good feeling about this book and its premise, and I was pretty hooked by the first few pages. Here are a few reasons you should pick up this book: Friendship & Banter David and Julia had some amazing chemistry. Dave, who was in love with Julia for YEARS, is obviously harboring some romantic feelings for her (no spoilers on whether or not that pans out!)… but they have such great banter and overall friendship chemistry! The inside jokes about Mr. Marroney (throughout the whole beginning of the book) seriously made me laugh out loud. I knew I would like the two of them right off the bat. The Never List Like I said, I’ll probably read any book about a bucket list. This one, oddly enough, is kind of the opposite of a bucket list! They make a list of things they’ll never do in high school – all of the cliches that high school can be to other people. They decide, with a few months left in senior year, that they’re going to make up for lost time and just DO them all. I absolutely adored the premise. Very reminiscent of Since You’ve Been Gone, which I also loved. Relatability I loved that Julia and David have different family backgrounds and situations. I feel like this allows for really anyone to relate to them in […]

Book Buddies Review: The Treatment

Posted July 29, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 0 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 Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. Some spoilers ahead! Do you agree with Sloane’s parting words at the end? She explains how the NOW is all that really matters; the memories don’t matter as much. Kaitlin: Well, I think this really depends on the person. I personally think that childhood memories are super important to have because they are the ones that are truly carefree and fun and happy. Sloane could have had a childhood that was happy and I would like to remember that stuff but if she didn’t have a good childhood then obviously you wouldn’t mind letting go of those memories. One important factor in her childhood though was Brady. Based on what I’ve read, Brady and Sloane have been pretty close for a lot of their years in her life and that’s something you don’t want to forget, especially because Brady is no longer around. She does have James and her parents to feed memories to […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #49: Book Nerds

Posted July 28, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 10 Comments

Ten Eight Characters Who Are Fellow Book Nerds Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, 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. So, I’m pretty terrible about remembering book details after I finish the book. Something like “the main character is a big reader” would not stick with me in most cases. So, with that alert in mind, here are EIGHT (whoops) books with characters who are book nerds… as far as I can remember: The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord… because of Quiz Bowl and Pride & Prejudice references Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan… because of The Strand Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell… because of the comics shared on the bus Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell… because of the fanfiction and Simon Snow Kissing in America by Margo Rabb… because of the romance novels read by the MC Between the Pages by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer… because of the fairy tale Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon… because she has nothing to do but read all day Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller… because she always carried a book when she moved

Inside & Out #11: Andi from Andi’s ABCS

Posted July 27, 2015 / Features, Inside and Out / 8 Comments

Admiring book covers and bookmarks, shared by you! Welcome to INSIDE AND OUT. This feature includes 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. Sign-ups are always open (see bottom of post)! Check out past posts here. Andi from Andi ABC’s Twitter: @andiabcs| Instagram: @andiabcs| Facebook | Pinterest Tell me a little about yourself: I am always so bad at this! Um, I’m a mid 30 year old YA reading gal and proud of it. I hail from the fabulous city of Boston, MA and I’m a HUGE Patriots, Red Sox and Bruins fan. I’m a shopaholic and proud. And yes I have a strong Boston accent. Oh and I’m a huge pusher of Anna and the French Kiss (Lauren will tell you! It was the first thing I made her do. <–truth) Talk about your blog (what you blog about/kinds of books, features, etc.): My blog is my baby. It consists of YA books for the most part. I review fantasy, contemporary, Sci-fi, dystopian, romance. I also have a weekly feature called The ABCs where a guest poster selects an accessory, book and clothing item they are lusting after and tells my readers why they want each. Favorite genre: I love a lot of different kind of books but I have to go with contemporary. I love a good love story with real life issues and circumstances in […]

Read-a-Thon Wrap-Up: Make Me Read It

Posted July 26, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 8 Comments

Starts at 8:00am on July 20th and ends at 12:00am on July 27th #MakeMeRead tag on Twitter/Instagram Check out the intro pages (Val’s or Ely’s) and the rules below: Look at the books you own, either physical, e-book or ones you’ve borrowed from the library and pick out a few you really want to read, or feel like you should read. It’s up to you how many you pick, personally I’d pick a few more than you expect to be able to read in a week. Example: if you think you’ll only read two, pick out five books or if you think you can read seven, pick out ten. Make a list of these books on your blog, or make a video, or a Goodreads shelf or post a picture on Instagram—whatever is easiest for you. Then get friends, other bloggers/booktubers etc. to vote on which books you HAVE to read. When the read-a-thon comes along, you read the books in the order of most votes. For example, if one book gets 10 votes—you read that first, then the one that got 7 and so on. If there’s a tie, then it’s your preference. The goal is to read as many as possible. Wrap-Up The read-a-thon started on Monday of last week and ends late tonight, so here is my wrap-up! I had a few obligations to read during it, so I didn’t do as well as I hoped in the beginning… but I’m glad I forced myself to read some […]

ARC August Sign-Up

Posted July 25, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 11 Comments

One of my favorite ladies, Cristina at Girl in the Pages, signed up for this event and encouraged me to do so when I commented on her post. I took a look at some of my ARCs and found that most of them had the scary September release date. Realistically, this challenge is very timely! Without further ado, here’s my sign-up post for ARC August, which is hosted by Read Sleep Repeat. Here are the rules: It may be a physical ARC or and eARC but it MUST be an ARC Yes it can be an ARC that has released as long as it’s an ARC I’m not going to nitpick much HAVE FUN WITH THIS! Feeling like you are being “forced” to read is the best way turn a fun event into a yucky obligation. Update post! I personally will do a post for each Saturday in August but that’s just me. You can update once a week, every other week or once for the whole darn event. This update can be in the form of a blog or tumblr post, vlog, link to your “ARC August 2015″ shelf or even an instagram pic! I want to make this as easy and low pressure as possible for you. Personal Goals Because I have a really big potential TBR below, I honestly don’t expect to finish all of these. My goal is to finish about half of the books in each category: At least 3 books from my BEA haul At least 2 books […]

Novella Reviews: Harmonic, Happy Again, Secrets and Lies, and Just One Night

Posted July 24, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

I’m usually not a huge novella fan, but I really enjoyed all four of these! I figured I would share some very brief thoughts on each novella, so you can judge if they’re worth the time. THIS WAS SO GOOD. I absolutely loved reading from Del’s sister’s point of view for this 100 page novella. It was nice because it felt really like a mini book, instead of just a few pages. Addison’s story picks up right where the previous book left off and gives us a little taste of what’s been happening recently. I suspect that some of the issues from this book will continue into the next one, so I highly recommend reading this. Beyond that, I looooved Addie’s relationship with Laurel. Yay, for LGBTQ! This was a perfect thing to hold me over until Resonance‘s release. (At the time of writing this, it hasn’t come out yet.. but at the time of this is posting.. YAY IT’S HERE) Honestly, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first book. When I saw this novella was coming out, I was actually pretty excited! I actually ended up liking the novella even more than the original story. It was a super cute, quick read. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re looking to know what happened next with the characters. I shipped them way more the second time around. I definitely wish I took a few notes on this one before deciding to write my review much, much later! Oh well. This […]

A Love Affair with Scribd

Posted July 23, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 17 Comments

If you listen to audiobooks or read ebooks at all, you really need to check out Scribd. I’m kind of obsessed, and I’m here today to tell you ALLLLL about it. Similar to my lengthy love-filled post about Book Host, this will give you the details about Scribd and why it’s the freakin’ best. Also, I was definitely not paid for this – I just want to shre the love. If you’d like to ignore most of this post and get down to the TL;DR, click here! What is it? Scribd is a monthly subscription that offers ebooks and audiobooks. The best part is that it’s UNLIMITED. There are very few, if any, that offer the feature of unlimited. You can download the app on your phone or tablet, or use the internet browser on your computer. The best part is that it’s only $8.99 a month. If you’re thinking about joining, sign up here and I get free days! (You da best.) Why is it better than other options? With a subscription like Audible, you spend $15/month and get ONE audiobook. With Kindle Unlimited, you get unlimited books and some audio for $9.99 a month – but the book selection is pretty bad. The reason I love Scribd is because the selection is actually pretty great. They have a lot of new releases and backlist, both for ebooks and audiobooks. I was surprised to see some pretty great new releases on there, and they’re updated quite a lot. You […]

ARC Review: All We Have Is Now

Posted July 22, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

This book definitely made me think. I have to say that I’ve had a lot of “end of the world” books on my radar in the past, but this is the only one I’ve read. (Unless you count Station Eleven, which was more post-apocalyptic.) You know it can end in three ways: (1) the world actually doesn’t end, (2) the world actually does end, or (3) you don’t know what happens because the book ends before you find out. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, but I was pleased with the ending overall. Sorry, I got ahead of myself. I’ve also never read a book involving kids that are runaways/homeless. Emerson and Vince were really likable characters, but I feel like they were somewhat underdeveloped. We got a bit of their story and background, but a lot of the story was focused on some random memories mixed in with the current happenings. I’m not sure why, but I just wanted a bit more. I loooved the whole “pay it forward” concept that drove the first half of the book. Carl, a man they meet on the suicide bridge, grants them one wish and asks that they pay it forward if they can. I don’t want to spoil too much about that, but it was a great plot element. Carl’s chapters were actually incredibly enjoyable and I was wishing for more of him all the time. Towards the end, when they meet the skeptics, I really started to […]