Month: August 2015

Bookmark Lit Bulletin – August 2015

Posted August 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. 14 books read → Physical: 5 | eBook: 2 | eARC: 1 | Audio: 0 | ARC: 2 | Format mix: 4 In 2015… 127 books read of 175 Goodreads goal [73% complete, 12 books ahead of schedule] Blog posts this month: 18 books reviewed and 13 other posts | Challenges this month: 3I’m still feeling good about my reading progress! I’m very far ahead on my Goodreads challenge, so I know I’m going to get lazy with reading at some point… Overall, good month but less than last.Average rating for books read in July: 3.96 stars Highlights of the best and worst… Best of the Best | Pleasantly Surprised | Disappointed All of the books read this month: Average rating for books reviewed in July: 3.79 stars I’ve been incredibly good about cutting down on my book buying lately! I wrote recently about how my buying habits have changed, and that’s certainly reflected in my book hauls each month! The Secret Sister project has definitely given me the ability to anticipate a book or two each month, without buying them myself. I love it so much and want to start highlighting […]

ARC August Wrap-Up

Posted August 30, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

Hosted by Read Sleep Repeat Check my sign-up post here 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 → Finished 0 At least 2 books from my other physical ARC pile → Started 1 At least 2 books on my Kindle (eARCs) → Finished 1, Started 1 TBR to Choose From BOOKS FROM BEA → Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo | The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow | Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld | Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins | Juniors by Kaui Hart Hemmings |Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson | Newt’s Emerald by Garth […]

Review: Maybe in Another Life

Posted August 28, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

To be totally honest, it’s going to be hard to explain just how much I loved and appreciated this book. I absolutely could not stop reading. I say that about a lot of books, but I had to pull myself away multiple times because I was determined to stretch the wonderfulness out into more than just one huge sitting. It’s the kind of book where you really want to savor every word and write down every single line in a quote notebook. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of parallel universe books, especially if they’re in the form of a decision that splits the book in two. You get to see how the two alternate worlds play out as a result of that choice and see how the book ends. Did the decision eventually lead to the same end result? Or did things turn out totally different in both worlds? This is such a fascinating concept to me: the idea of fate and destiny vs. decisions impacting outcomes. Is everything pre-planned? Will we always end up in the same spot regardless of our choices? Or does each individual choice impact us in some way, creating an alternate universe (or millions of them) where each decision is played out in a completely different way? I’ll probably write a deeper dive into this at some point because I feel like I talk about it so much. But, moral of the story is: I knew this book was going to become a favorite […]

ARC Review: Cut Both Ways

Posted August 27, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Sigh. I don’t know. This book had the potential to be really interesting and thought-provoking, but it felt too much like an “issue” book. I don’t mind reading books with clear messages, but it tried to be a lot of things at once. Will’s parents are divorced, his dad’s an alcoholic, he discovers that he has feelings for his male best friend, and he gets his first girlfriend. Lots of drama. It really felt like he was a trainwreck and didn’t help anything with his blasé attitude. Faves The opening of the book was interesting and I completely agreed about his thoughts on divorce. I could relate to him and his feelings about his parents. Beyond that, this book was fairly addicting and fast to read (for the first half). I can’t think of much else that I liked. Oh, he always made fun of Joe Buck and his football announcing. I liked that too. Flaws I didn’t like the choppy, fragmented writing style. I feel like it only added to the fact that Will didn’t have a lot of legitimate thoughts on anything. He was so detached! There was SO much going on in his life, and he didn’t feel connected to anything. His voice was just… not there. He had no interests except from sex. It was LITERALLY all he thought about. Even when shitty things were happening to the people in his life, he still thought about having sex with them. It reminded me of the miserable main […]

ARC Review: The One Thing

Posted August 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 16 Comments

Faves I have to say, choosing to sign up for the ARC tour of this was completely random. I saw the description of the book and thought it may be interesting, but knew it was something I usually wouldn’t be drawn to. I couldn’t be happier that I decided to try this book! It was amazing. I really liked the main character, Maggie – her voice was real and interesting. I can’t lie that the fact that she lived in Connecticut was a major factor in this! I don’t often get to read books that happen in my home state. Aside from Maggie, I looooved all of the characters. Ben was easily my favorite; he was adorable and hilarious. Maggie’s parents (well, mostly her dad) were definitely interesting too. You don’t normally think about how something like this happening also affects your family. Her mom and dad had to completely alter their lives to make sure she was taken care of, but they didn’t realize how much that affected Maggie, too. She just wanted to try to live as normally as possible. I liked her father’s effort and concern about her. This book definitely made me think. I can’t imagine having sight and then going blind – you know what the world was like but you no longer get to see it. It made me wonder which would be “better,” being born blind vs. going blind. You don’t realize how many things need to change once you lose your eyesight. […]

Beat the Heat Readathon Sign-Up and Progress

Posted August 25, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

I’m joining the Beat the Heat Readathon! As usual, you may be thinking I’m crazy for joining another challenge and/or readathon. I mean, I JUST finished Bout of Books on Sunday and am still (technically supposed to be) participating in ARC August. Here are some details about this two-week long readathon, hosted by Novel Heartbeat and Phantasmic Reads: The Beat the Heat Readathon runs from August 24th at 12:00 AM to September 6th at 11:59 PM. What does this readathon entail, you ask? Well, read as much or as little as you want – the main point is to READ! You set your own goal, and for three weeks you read as many books as you can/want to reach your goal! There will be mini-challenges throughout the Readathon for participants, along with a grand prize giveaway at the end! Simple enough! Last year I made my own personal readathon during this time of year to challenge myself to get to all of those light, summery contemporaries before “summer” was officially over. I liked the idea of it but had only been blogging for a few months at that point, so it was pointless to try to host something like that. I found this readathon this year, so that’s even better. Goals and Potential TBR Overall goal → Read between 6-10 books during the two week time period August 24th through 31st → Read books for ARC August, as well as my Book Club’s pick for our July meeting (We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach) […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #53: YA 101

Posted August 25, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 10 Comments

Ten Books on the Syllabus for Young Adult Lit 101 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. I love this week’s topic: the top ten books on my syllabus if I taught a ____ 101 class. I decided to go with the general Young Adult 101 class. The first half of the semester would be the fluffy, feelsy books and the second half would be the heavier topics featured in YA. Second Chance Summer | Saint Anything | All the Bright Places | I’ll Meet You There | Tease Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda |Emmy & Oliver | Meant to Be | To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before | Anna and the French Kiss

Bout of Books 14 Wrap-Up

Posted August 24, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 11 Comments

Aaaand that’s a wrap! Another Bout of Books is in the books (lol, I’m so funny) and I actually met my goal for the first time! More info about Bout of Books for newbies: The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 17th and runs through Sunday, August 23rd in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 14 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team Here’s a summary of my goals and how well I did with them for this round of Bout of Books: Get all of the summery reading done! Read 5 books from the TBR below (hopefully at least one is a reread) » Check! (minus the reread thing, I didn’t get to that) Read only from this TBR of summer books I already own » Check! (minus the fact that one book is a Sarah Dessen audiobook that I was already reading, finished, and counted) Must read Nantucket Blue for August’s Book Buddies review with Cristina » Check! Participate in at least two challenges and/or Twitter chats » Check! (two challenges, no Twitter chats unfortunately) Challenge Posts & Updates Sign-Up Post and Progress Scavenger Hunt Four Seasons in Book Covers Reading Progress & Tracking Monday August 17th Started: Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland Continued: Keeping the Moon by Sarah […]

Inside & Out #13: Anne from Lovely Literature

Posted August 24, 2015 / Features, Inside and Out / 0 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. Anne from Lovely Literature Twitter: @amengelhart| Tumblr Tell me a little about yourself: I’m a 27-year old book nerd (and nerd in general) from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. I’m obsessed with the Marvel universe (Winter Soldier, yessss), video games (Dragon Age!) and of course, books of all types. I read a mixture of YA and adult genre fiction. I also have two high-energy dogs and spend the rest of my time outdoors. Talk about your blog (what you blog about/kinds of books, features, etc.): My favorite genre is fantasy, and I do review a lot of fantasy books on Lovely Literature. However, contemporaries are quickly gaining traction on my shelves! I also do enjoy writing discussions and ask my readers for their bookish advice in my Readerly Advice posts. I also have a co-blogger named Ashley who reads pretty much opposite of me, although it is my greatest victory that I pushed Kushiel’s Dart on her and she loved it! Favorite genre: Definitely fantasy, but this summer I have been loving contemporaries! Three books you recommend most often and why: Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey because it is a great […]

Review: Fangirl

Posted August 21, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Trust me, no one is sadder than I am that this book didn’t work for me. I mean, really, it had a lot of makings for a Lauren book. I used to read fanfiction A LOT about Harry Potter (I was particularly fond of a Draco/Hermione one that I’d give anything to locate again…) and I tend to love books with a college setting instead of high school. Unfortunately nearly none of this book worked for me, yet I couldn’t give it less than 3 stars no matter how much I tried. Let’s dig in a bit, shall we? Oh, Cath. MANY many people have said how much they related to Cath and how they saw so much of themselves in her. Relating to a main character is definitely not necessary for me to like a book. Hell, even LIKING a main character isn’t totally necessary for me. However, I did not like Cath at all. I couldn’t relate to her on really anything. I did not like reading about her at all. It makes me feel kind of… shitty… to be honest? You can tell that she definitely deals with some anxiety about loooots of things, but I couldn’t bring myself to be sympathetic. I honestly didn’t even realize right away that she had anxiety; I just thought she was annoying. It seems like she had friends (mostly through her sister) in high school and was better able to balance fanfic writing and social engagements. Sometimes people clam up in […]