Bookmark Lit Bulletin – October 2015

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.

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13 books read →  Physical: 5 | eBook: 2 | eARC: 0 | Audio: 1 | ARC: 2 | Format mix: 3
In 2015… 150 books read of 175 Goodreads goal [86% complete, 6 books ahead of schedule] Blog posts this month: 14 books reviewed and 15 other posts  |  Challenges this month: 1I had a feeling that October would continue to be lazy, but I had a couple of graphic novels help me get back towards reading more! Sometimes you just need to feel good about the number of books you’ve read and a book of any length will help. Overall, great average rating for books too.
Average rating for books read in October: 4.21 stars
Highlights of the best and worst…
Best of the Best  |  Pleasantly Surprised  |  Disappointed 

All of the books read this month:

• [2 Oct] Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt ★★★½
• [3 Oct] Saga, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples ★★★★½
• [3 Oct] Saved By the Bell, Volume 1 by Joelle Sellner, Chynna Clugston Flores, Tim Fish ★★★★
• [3 Oct] Saga, Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples ★★★★★
• [5 Oct] How to Be Bad by E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle, Sarah Mlynowski ★★★
• [7 Oct] Signs Point to Yes by ★★½
• [8 Oct] We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach ★★★★
• [14 Oct] Illuminae by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff ★★★★
• [16 Oct] The Boy Most Likely To by Huntley Fitzpatrick ★★½
• [19 Oct] Resonance by Erica O'Rourke ★★★★½
• [21 Oct] The Deal by Elle Kennedy ★★★★
• [22 Oct] The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes ★★★½
• [28 Oct] Water on the Moon by Jean P. Moore
• [29 Oct] A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis ★★★★½
• [30 Oct] The Lies About Truth by Courtney C. Stevens ★★★★½
• [30 Oct] Hotel Ruby by Suzanne Young ★★★½

Secret Sister Project

My Secret Sister is the BEST. This month, I had a Halloween/fall-themed package containing: a little mug with a sweater; Sliding Doors DVD (I’ve been wanting to see this ever since I saw it mentioned on Hannah’s blog!); stickers for my planner; sticky notes and cards; my favorite candies for the season (Reese’s pumpkins and candy corn); a can koozie; homemade cookies; and three books from my wishlist: Unsweetined by Jodi Sweetin, Winterspell by Claire Legrand, and Magnolia by Kristi Cook. SO WONDERFUL. I ended up getting Magnolia out from the library earlier this month because I was dying to read it and I’m SO happy to now own my own copy (because I loved it!).

Other books acquired

Kindle eBooks: The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutoski (thanks SS!), Nowhere but Here by Katie McGarry (couldn’t resist the Kindle sale), Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot | Physical copies: First & Then by Emma Mills (preordered), Saga Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan (duh)

Audiobooks: I decided to get my Audible account back and use some of my credits this month, because I apparently had a separate account that had accidentally been charging me! – Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, A Madness so Discreet by Mindy McGinnis, The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo | Library books: I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (for my IRL book club), A Madness so Discreet by Mindy McGinnis (for book buddies, and because I wanted to alternate between the audio and the physical)

Top Ten Tuesdays: Quitting: topics I’ll never quit reading about and bookish habits I need to quit; Author duos I’d like to see write books together; Wishes for the book genie to grant me; Halloween/autumn book recommendations

Inside & Out: Shannon {It Starts at Midnight} and Laura {Scribbles & Wanderlust}

Discussions, Tags, and Wrap-ups: My #LibraryGoals; The Evolution of Blog Tours; Lunar Chronicles Book Tag; September Bookmark Lit Bulletin; Five on Friday #17

October was another crazy month. Go figure. There were lots of huge life events, actually. I went to the Big E fair with my mom early in the month but didn’t end up going again with Chris. The weather was shitty during the first weekend of the month. We did go pumpkin picking to get ready for Halloween and falltime. It was fun, but our usual patch (the one I went to when I was a kid) now charges for most of the activities – including entering the patch! We had to choose already-picked pumpkins outside of the “paid” area. It was lame. We also got some apple cider and cider donuts from a local orchard because those are my fucking favorite. I hope to stop by there a few more times and MAYBE go apple picking if the weather is okay. The following weekend, we went to New York City to see The Room in theaters with a couple of our friends, then stayed over in Hoboken at her place. (I won’t get into this movie because you’ll see a review coming up next month that explains it a little better!) Chris’s birthday was the following Monday and we took off the day from work to celebrate. We, shittily, had some errands to run for most of the day, but we did take a detour into a couple of Lego-related stores (seriously, what else is new?) and had pizza at home. Sounds like a pretty good birthday for my Lego-obsessed homebody boyfriend. Last weekend, his parents went away to California and we watched the house for them. We dealt with the dogs and made sure things went well from Wednesday to Monday. It was awesome to have a gorgeous house to ourselves as if we were homeowners (but it was a little disorienting, because I went home every morning to get ready for work). Aaand of course during that weekend, I was a part of my best friend’s wedding! It was hard to go back and forth between the house and our apartment while getting stuff done for the wedding. Thursday, we did nails. Friday, I got out of work early for errands, a hair appointment, the rehearsal, and then the rehearsal dinner. Friday night we went out to a couple of bars for my friend’s “bachelorette” (she was pregnant until September and no she got pregnant after they were already engaged). It was fun but she got way too drunk so that was kind of hilarious. Saturday was the wedding! It was actually at the venue where my dad got married so that was kind of weird. Regardless, we went to my friend’s aunt’s house and got ready then went to the venue. The wedding went off without a hitch and my friend looked gorgeous. This weekend, we’re probably at Brickfair New Jersey right as you’re reading this post (if you’re reading this on Saturday). We didn’t have Halloween plans and decided just to go for it, even though it’s over 2.5 hours away. Oh well, something sporadic and fun!

I’ve still been working on Friday Night Lights, although not as religiously! I’ve been trying to get back into reading in the morning instead of watching. I think I should give myself a weekly routine where I read 2 days and watch 2 days, then Friday is a freebie to do whichever I’m more in the mood for 😉
Yessss, Heroes Reborn. This is really the only fall show that we’ve been successfully keeping up with. We have so many that got backlogged while we were staying at Chris’s parents’ house for a week. We’ve been so excited to see some of the old characters finally get reintroduced.
I’m not really a scary movie person, but I always revisit my childhood favorites at this time of year: Halloweentown (all of them), Tower of Terror, and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We ended up cramming all of them in at the end of the month because October (well, just like every month) flewwww by. 

Year-Long

Fairytale Challenge| 2 books this month | Scarlet and Cress – Marissa Meyer
Reread Challenge| 1 book this month | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling
105 Challenge| 2 books this month | Already owned Kindle book: Cress – Marissa Meyer; Memoir or nonfiction book: The Disaster Artist – Greg Sestero
TBR Pile Challenge| 2 books this month | Scarlet – Marissa Meyer, The Disaster Artist – Greg Sestero
Library Challenge| 3 books this month | Magnolia – Kristi Cook, A Madness So Discreet – Mindy McGinnis, I’ll Give You the Sun – Jandy Nelson
Flights of Fantasy Challenge| 5 books this month | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling, Truthwitch – Susan Dennard, Scarlet and Cress – Marissa Meyer, Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo
Audiobook Challenge | 4 books this month | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling, Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo, A Madness So Discreet – Mindy McGinnis, The Disaster Artist – Greg Sestero

During this Month

The Lunar Chronicles Readalong | 2 books this month | I read both Scarlet and Cress this month for TLCReadalong! I’m glad I waited to read the previous book until the beginning of this month because I was really in the mood to keep going with the series. Now I’m waiting for Winter with everyone else! (And I know, I should read Fairest too!)

 Seasonal

Lose Time RRReading | I joined in with this fun readalong that goes from now until the end of the year. So far, I’ve read 8 books for it. | More info/books
Back to School Bingo | September, October, November | Some decent updates for this month! Check it out below…| More info/books

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Honestly… I can’t think of anything going on in November. That is a very welcome change. We’ve been so busy pretty much since summertime and November may be fairly relaxing. We have a few small things, starting with Chris’s sister’s birthday. We’re probably going to do a triple birthday get-together for him, Jen, and his cousin, because all of their birthdays are between the end of September and beginning of November. We’re still trying to figure out our Thanksgiving plans too. Usually, we go to my mom’s house in the morning and Chris’s family’s in the afternoon. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?!) the Panthers are playing the Cowboys (my mom’s team) on Thanksgiving… so I need to be with her in the afternoon instead. Hopefully we can just reverse the order of the dinners (even though his family likes to eat late). We’ll see what happens… all I know is I am totally not missing that football game! I feel kind of lame because I can’t think of any other November activities, but that’s probably a good thing.
The usual posts will be here for Inside & Out and Top Ten Tuesday. For some reason, there seem to be more more reviews scheduled for next month too. I have a lot of discussion posts sitting in my drafts, so hopefully I’ll pull one of those together to post in the month. I do have a discussion planned for the difference between bloggers and readers, because I’ve noticed how much blogging can change our reading habits. I also filled out the Harry Potter spells book tag, so you can look out for that in November too. I have a couple of Five on Friday posts planned… but if my month stays that boring, you probably can’t count on that happening…

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