Month: December 2015

2015 End of Year Book Survey

Posted December 31, 2015 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 10 Comments

I loved filling out Jamie’s survey last year, so it was a no-brainer that I would join this year! This is the 6th time she’s hosted this little survey and it’s so fun to see what everyone chooses for the categories. Last year, I didn’t allow myself any duplicates. I’m going to try to keep them to a minimum for this survey, but it feels impossible. I’ll need to have a few. To learn more about it and see a blank set of questions, check here! [Graphics from/by her.] Number of Books You Read: 180 Number of Re-Reads: 10, including 6 Harry Potter books (#7 in progress now!) Genre You Read The Most From: Contemporary (over 50%!) 1. Best Book You Read In 2015? Totally cheating and adding multiple categories! (Not including rereads here either because then Harry Potter would win everything as usual.) Best of the best: Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid Contemporary: Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway Non-contemporary: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas Adult fiction: Nowhere but Home by Liza Palmer Nonfiction: Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti Backlist title: Pivot Point by Kasie West 2015 release: The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord 2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot | I was so hyped to read this book and was really disappointed. I shouldn’t have built it up so much in my head I guess. I was so convinced I […]

Book Buddies Review: Snowed Over

Posted December 30, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 1 Comment

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 Cristina’s blog! (Link at the bottom) View Cristina’s part of the discussion here. Going off of your question about holiday books and novellas, how does this one compare to other holiday-themed stories? Have you read a lot of them? Lauren: I generally read a handful of holiday books each December! I’ve noticed that most of them are more adult stories instead of YA. As you mentioned in your post, My True Love Gave to Me featured a great bunch of stories, but there wasn’t enough time to really get to know the characters. I read quite a few holiday books this year that didn’t really hit the mark for me, and this one falls into the “generally positive” category; I’d probably recommend this one because of how quick it was! Cristina: Prior to this story I had only read two “holiday” themed books, and they were both YA anthologies: My True Love Gave to Me and Let it Snow. It was definitely a nice change of pace to have a cohesive holiday […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #70: 2016 Releases

Posted December 29, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 13 Comments

Most Anticipated Releases For The First Half of 2016 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’m actually impressed I got this down to twelve books, because I ended up cutting out most of the debuts that I’ve already featured. I chose six books from authors I’ve previously read and six books from authors that are new to me (debut or non-debut). This was a hard list because my TBR-unreleased shelf on Goodreads is getting crazy. Stars Above by Marissa Meyer | February | DUH I NEED THAT EPILOGUE RIGHT NOW. Who gets married?! It could reasonably any of them, but I’ll be hyped it if it’s Cinder and Kai. Not sure why, but I feel like they need to do it first. When We Collided by Emery Lord | April | If I’m being totally honest, this is the number one book on this list. I just reaaaally need another Emery Lord book in my life right away. As usual I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things so far! The Epidemic by Suzanne Young | April | That cliffhanger from the previous book definitely has me anxious for this one. I’m excited and nervous to see what happens next! A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas | May | I know that […]

Inside & Out #21: Krystianna from Downright Dystopian

Posted December 28, 2015 / Features, Inside and Out / 4 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. Krystianna from Downright Dystopian Twitter: @dwnritdystopian| Instagram: @downrightdystopian | Goodreads Tell me a little about yourself: I’m seventeen years old and a senior in high school. When I’m not reading books, I can usually be found either playing Xbox or watching Netflix. It’s quite a life I lead, as you can tell. Talk about your blog (what you blog about/kinds of books, features, etc.): I blog mainly about young adult books of all genres, though sometimes there’s children’s or adult books too. As long as it’s intriguing, I’m bound to read it and review it! I also do interviews on my blog and occasionally recommend my favorite music. Favorite genre: Science fiction! Three books you recommend most often and why: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: I recommend this one so much because it’s what got me into the dystopian genre. Plus there’s still some people who haven’t read it! Gated by Amy Christine Parker: I found this book to be so entirely creepy and now that I think about it, it kind of connects with the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. If you like that show, check out Gated! The Wolves of Mercy […]

Merry Christmas! (including Christmas Song Book Tag)

Posted December 25, 2015 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 10 Comments

My favorite day of the year is here! I love Christmas so much. Realistically, I love the few days before Christmas more than the actual day itself… because once today is here, it’s over. I hope you’ve enjoyed all of the holiday reviews I’ve been sharing over the past month and added a few to your TBR. I wanted to say Merry Christmas if you celebrate, share THE ONLY holiday song you need, and also partake in the Christmas Song Book Tag (below the video)! And there are some pics of my Christmas decorations, if you care about that kind of thing. Holiday Pots on Bookmark Lit Introduction: 2015 Holiday Fun Review: Icing on the Lake Review: Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses Review: Christmas at Lilac Cottage Review: Decked With Holly Book Buddies Review: Snowed Over [link goes live on December 30th] Jana at The Artsy Reader Girl created the Christmas Song Book Tag earlier this month, and I knew it would be the perfect post to share on Christmas! You just match up the popular Christmas song with a book, based on the prompt. This was so fun. See her original post here! {Graphics by me} Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins This book is, first of all, one of my all-time favorites. Secondly, Anna is away from home studying in Paris. I loved the setting because I’ve never been there! It made me want to book a flight right away. Xander+Caymen from The Distance Between Us by Kasie West Another […]

ARC Review: Truthwitch

Posted December 24, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

PHEW. That was quite a read. I honestly had no idea what to expect with this one, but whatever my expectations were – they were definitely exceeded. I should definitely preface this review with: I don’t read high fantasy. Like, ever. I’ve come to realize that I tell people I like fantasy, but have really read a small amount of the genre. I prefer lighter fantasy or paranormal reads. This book, which is definitely a high fantasy, was kind of a stretch for my brain. The world-building was very complicated. I was confused at the beginning, but some things started to click into place within the first 70-100 pages. I think that hardcore fantasy readers won’t have a problem with this. I liked being thrown into the action though; it was interesting to see the two girls kicking ass but wondering why they were on the run. The whole premise of the book was just too cool. Essentially, there are people in their world who have powers and people who don’t. Some powers are more valuable than others, so Safi, the Truthwitch, is hiding hers. There are so many twists involving people wanting her, chasing her, or trying to kidnap her. She’s best friends with Iseult, a Threadwitch (meaning she can see the threads that tie people together or make up their feelings). Again, it took me a while to figure out what certain powers were and how everyone came together. I don’t think I could even describe anything else about […]

Holiday Review: Decked with Holly

Posted December 23, 2015 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

This month I’ll be highlighting different holiday or Christmas-oriented books on the blog. I love reading based on the season, so stay tuned for more wintery reviews. To learn more about what’s coming and my holiday book rating system, check here! Buddy Read with Rachel from Go Read A Book When Rachel reached out asking if I wanted to Buddy Read, I happily agreed! Then, of course, I messed up the date we were supposed to post and we ended up just having a casual Google Hangouts chat! She’s posting her review today as well, and we wanted to keep it informal. We both agreed that this book wasn’t the best, but was cute enough to read. Rachel gave it 3 stars and I was a little more generous with 3.5 stars 😉 We started out with how we both generally liked Dominic, but I had some reservations. In hate-to-love romances, there’s always some tension and dislike towards the beginning. He took it a little too far, with commenting nonstop about her appearance. She looked bad when they first met because she was seasick. He also jumped to a lot of conclusions about her right away and didn’t strike me as the sharpest tool in the shed. Lauren: It kind of bothered me how he didn’t seem to like Holly and judged her appearance for a long time. I’m a fan of the hate-to-love romance trope, but I don’t like that he was kind of mean about her. It took adding […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #69: Books from Santa

Posted December 22, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 19 Comments

Top Books I’d Like Santa to Bring Me this Year 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. This is always one of my favorite (and one of the easiest) TTTs for me. I tend to give my dad an Amazon wishlist full of books and he goes by that for 98% of my Christmas shopping. I think last year he gave me every book except two. This year, my list-making for him was a little harder. I chose 10ish books for my TBTB Secret Santa list, as well as the 46 on my wishlist for my Secret Sister. Believe me, I’ll be cutting that list down for next round because it left me with not a lot of options for Christmas! I asked my family for some older releases or books that somehow weren’t on other lists. Here are the top ten books I’d like for Santa to bring me this year! Because I’m in the mood, I’ll also share some of the other items on this year’s wishlist that aren’t books. Lola Carlyle’s 12-Step Romance by Danielle Young-Ullman | I think this book flew under the radar when it first came out, but it seems really cute. I’ve been admiring the cover for probably a year. The Notorious RBG: The […]

2016 Challenge Sign-Ups | Bout of Books 15

Posted December 21, 2015 / Book Challenges, Features / 10 Comments

I signed up for a lot of challenges last year because it was my first full blogging calendar year. It was a lot of fun and I actually met about 90% of my goals. (Damn you, Reread Challenge!) I plan to sign up for quite a few this year as well – some old favorites and some new ones! I started curating this post at the beginning of December and slowly added challenges as I saw them pop up. Here’s what I plan on tackling this year! Don’t judge me. Hosted by: Love at First Page and Gone with the Words | Details Purpose: Read as many Contemporary Romance books you’d like, based on different levels you choose at the beginning. They must be plain ol’ Contemporaries – just no paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, etc. Novellas (100+ pages) and rereads also count.Reading goal: Grand Slam level – read 21+ books | Contemporary Romance is my favorite genre, so I would be incredibly surprised if I didn’t read this many books. It sounds ambitious, but over 50% of my books read last year were in this genre. That’s about 90 books. This will be easy peasy, especially considering that I have 500+ books on that shelf to choose from. Other goals: There will be monthly topic link-ups to participate in, so that would be a fun thing to add to my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-up each month! Hosted by: That Artsy Reader Girl | Details Purpose: Read as many books published by 2016 debut authors in the Middle Grade, Young […]

Reviews: Love Like Crazy and Hollywood is Like High School with Money

Posted December 20, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I saw this book pop up on Amazon when I wasn’t sure what to read and decided to use the Prime eBook borrowing feature. I didn’t look at the Goodreads page or ratings or anything – I just jumped in and started the book. I’ve been wanting to challenge myself to do more of that kind of thing. I follow GR and my fellow bloggers a bit too much sometimes. Did my little risk pay off? Not really. I’ve never read a book with such inconsistent dialogue. One minute, I’m rolling my eyes at the cheesiness. The next, I’m swooning or laughing or smiling to myself. I don’t know how it’s possible. It’s like half of the book is trying too hard to be John green, and the other half is perfect at being itself. I was able to handle it for most of the book, but towards the end it really started to wear on me. One of the biggest things that bugged me was the instalove. I don’t use that term as often as some, but this was instalove in the purest form. They knew each other for about a day or two when Eppie was thinking she wanted to spend forever with Lincoln. Like, that’s a bit quick for me. The cheese factor started too early as a result of that. Things like “every inch of you is artwork” don’t make me swoon; they make me roll my eyes. When her friend Sam starts seeing Dan, Lincoln’s friend […]