Bookmark Lit Bulletin – April 2016

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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Yet again, read more books than I planned! I was on a crazy binge this month for some reason. I couldn’t get enough reading, even though I’m super ahead on everything. I’m happy the ARC tour books have slowed down (my fault, I know!) but my final one for a WHILE is currently in my possession, and that’s it. Time to focus on Bout of Books and the Clean Sweep Challenge for May!

Average rating for books read in April: 4.07 stars
All book covers link to their Goodreads pages 

Best of the Best  •  Pleasantly Surprised  •  Disappointed 

All of the books read this month:

• [6 Apr] When We Collided by Emery Lord ★★★★
• [7 Apr] Dreamology by Lucy Keating ★★★★½
• [13 Apr] Right of First Refusal by Dahlia Adler ★★★★½
• [15 Apr] Two Summers by Aimee Friedman ★★★½
• [21 Apr] Queen of Hearts by Colleen Oakes ★★★
• [25 Apr] Dream On by Kerstin Gier ★★★★
• [25 Apr] The Epidemic by Suzanne Young ★★★★½
• [28 Apr] The Way Back to You by Michelle Andreani, Mindi Scott ★★★★

My Secret Sister sent me a “cravings” package this month and it was soooo perfect! She gave my my favorite snacks that I’ve been craving lately – Junior Mints, BBQ chips, and Oreos. She also gave me this really cute sunglasses case, which I didn’t know how much I needed until I had it! I always throw my glasses in my purse and then get mad when they get scratches. This case is super slim so it won’t take up a lot of space and will get the job done. I love the new cup for my desk at work because I needed a new, big one for water. Aaaand finally, the book: I’ve been wanting to read this one FOREVER and love the new paperback cover. She sent The Museum of Intangible Things by Wendy Wunder. Thanks for another perfect package, secret sister! <3

From publishers|Run by Kody Keplinger (ARC) /// Where We Fall by Rochelle B. Weinstein and Ask Me How I Got Here by Christine Heppermenn (finished copies)
ARC from trade| One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid (thank you Alexandra!)
Purchased from B&N and BAM | Your Perfect Life by Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke, Dirty Rush by Taylor Bell, Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave, and The Pretenders by Lisi Harrison
eARCS from Netgalley | With Love from the Inside by Angela Pisel, Just A Girl by Ellie Cahill, Been Here All Along by Sandy Hall, Wrecked by Maria Padian, Results May Vary by Bethany Chase, A Thousand Salt Kisses by Josie Demuth /// eARC from Author | Tone Deaf by Olivia Rivers

Purchased eBooks | Stone Cold Touch and Every Last Breath by Jennifer L. Armentrout, Now and Again by Jennifer Ellison, Don’t You Forget About Me by Kate Karyus Quinn, The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater, The Reece Malcolm List by Amy Spaulding, Paper Princess by Erin Watt, Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

$44.65 for a 14 books (10 digital, 4 physical)| Free, gifted, or ARCs: 15

April is always a great month, but it certainly gets busy at the end! So many birthdays, just like March. It becomes kind of a whirlwind; I barely remember what I did at the beginning of the month as result… Anyways! The first weekend of the month was big for us on de-cluttering and getting rid of clothes. We went through our drawers and closet to finally purge some things we never wear anymore. We brought a huuuuge bag of clothes to sell to Plato’s Closet and they didn’t take 80% of them, which was to be expected. BUT! We ended up getting over $30 for the clothes they did take, which is crazy. They never pay that well! It was pretty sweet. We ended up enjoying some Taco Bell because of that 😉 While we were in the cleaning mood, I ended up reorganizing my bookshelves and pulling out books to sell, donate, or return to people I borrowed them from. I don’t remember doing anything that weekend except cleaning everything. Super productive! Later in the month we went to visit Chris’s parent’s house because they got baby chicks! I’m glad we went when we did, because they are apparently already much bigger and not as cute anymore. They were so small! We both are afraid of birds so we didn’t touch them but we did admire them from afar 😉 The second-to-last weekend of the month involved all the birthday running around. My little sister and mom share a birthday, plus my best friends’ birthdays are right afterwards. I stopped by my mom’s house on her birthday in the morning to drop off her gift. Then, I went over to my dad’s house to see my sister. That night, Chris and I met with my friends at Chili’s to celebrate her birthday. After the dinner, we went to her apartment to play Fibbage on the PS4. It’s super fun – basically like Balderdash except filling in blanks instead of making up words and definitions. It was so fun to see everyone and hang out with some drinks. It’s been a while since we’ve done that! The next day, we ended up having a really awesome, random Sunday. We went to get ice cream and ended up going to a very random Polish festival that had GREAT food. We’ve been going around to more ice cream places in general because there are SO many near us that we need to try. We still have our favorite though. That’s pretty much the only reason we went. We obviously have been tracking the NFL Draft over the past few days. It’s annoying when your team does well and can’t pick as early, but I guess it’s a pretty good tradeoff 😉 I’m generally happy with who the Panthers chose in the first round, but I really think they should have gone after a cornerback instead. Oh well. They know better than I do!

I did an okay job of participating in two monthly book challenges on Instagram, but only lasted until around the 18th of the month. I just didn’t have the gusto to complete a few of the prompts. At least it gave me a lot of picture options to share here this month! Usually I struggle to find some 😉

We started watching Agents of SHIELD on Netflix but honestly after a few episodes, we’re not sold yet. We had difficulty paying attention for about 4 episodes. Does it get better as the series goes on? Do we need to give it more time?! We’re huge Marvel fans so I don’t know why we’re not connecting to this one as much as we expected!

We finally looked into getting back episodes of Fresh Off the Boat because for some reason our DVR had messed up a couple of them. They’re all on Hulu so we’ve been watching a few each week and trying to get caught up. God, I really, really love this show.

Freaks and Geeks is a show we started watching like two years ago and for some reason never got around to finishing! I think at one point we didn’t want it to end, so we just… stopped watching it so it never would? We went back into Netflix and realized we still had like 7 episodes left so we embarked back on the F&G journey. Amazing!

I also made it my goal to finally finish Chasing Life. I stopped watching when a CERTAIN THING happened in an episode because I was too distressed to carry on. I realized that since the show was cancelled, I really just need to finish it off and quit being a baby. Sad though 🙁

I signed up for five challenges in 2016, plus I’m hosting a super casual link-up challenge. Want to know why I chose these? Check it out here. The Contemporary Romance challenge also hosts a monthly topic to discuss, so I’ll be occasionally including that in my Bookmark Lit Bulletin posts.

During this Month

Bookish Bingo Readathon | Goal: 2-3 books | 3 read during readathon

• Two Summers – Aimee Friedman
• Queen of Hearts – Colleen Oakes
• We Should All Be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• {Started during RAT} The Vanishing Throne – Elizabeth May

Year-Long

Debut Author | Goal: 12 books | 0 read in April| 92% complete

• None in April

Backlist Books | Goal: 20 books | 0 read in April| 65% complete

• None in April

Flights of Fantasy | Goal: 20 books | 3 read in April| 60% complete

• Queen of Hearts – Colleen Oakes
• The Vanishing Throne – Elizabeth May
• The Forbidden Wish – Jessica Khoury

Rock My TBR | Goal: 21+ books | 0 read in April| 16% complete

• None in April

Contemporary Romance | Goal: 21+ books | 5 read in April| 105% complete

• Right of First Refusal – Dahlia Adler
• When We Collided – Emery Lord
• Two Summers – Aimee Friedman
• The Lost and Found – Katrina Leno
• A Season for Fireflies – Rebecca Maizel

Monthly Contemporary Romance Challenge Topic:

Top 10 Favorite Contemporary Romances of All-Time

 Seasonal

Spring Bingo Card | Hosted by Pretty Deadly Reviews

• Second chance • The Reptile Room – Lemony Snicket
• Set over 200 years ago • My Lady Jane – Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, Brodi Ashton
• Book meets another challenge • Winning – Lara Zeises Deloza
• Characters are not human • The Forbidden Wish – Jessica Khoury
• More than one author • This One Summer – Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki
• Set in space • The Martian – Andy Weir
• March/April/May release • Dream On – Kerstin Gier
• Green cover • The Vanishing Throne – Elizabeth May
• Rec’d by 1+ friend • Blue Lily, Lily Blue – Maggie Stiefvater
• Criminals • Rebel Bully Geek Pariah – Erin Jade Lange
• Flowers on the cover • Two Summers – Aimee Friedman
• Number in the title • Seven Ways We Lie – Riley Redgate
• Under 200 pages • Cruel Crown – Victoria Aveyard
• Retelling • Queen of Hearts – Colleen Oakes
• MC shares first initial • Unrivaled – Alyson Noel
• Nonfiction • We Should All Be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Ugly cover • Secrets of my Hollywood Life – Jen Calonita
• Written under a pen name • The Bad Beginning – Lemony Snicket
• Standalone • True Letters from a Fictional Life – Kenneth Logan

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May will have a few blog tours throughout the month (mostly right at the beginning), so I’m excited to share those books with you! One of them will also have Color Colors in the post, so that’s always fun for me! There will actually be two different Book Buddies reviews this month because Cristina and I pushed ours back from the end of this month. I have a couple of discussion posts as usual also. I’m sharing the fact that I feel like I’m a fake fantasy reader because I always have an issue reading fantasy books. I’m also planning on talking about some of the books I NEED that are so far away from being released. I also have a discussion about the currently reading shelf on Goodreads because I’m anal retentive about the amount of books that I mark as currently reading. For challenges, Bout of Books is taking place during the second week of the month, and I also have the Clean Sweep ARC Challenge throughout the entire month. There are two days in the middle of the month where I’ll be sharing my revisit to the world of the Series of Unfortunate Events books. I binge-listened to them in April and will be sharing my reread thoughts. I have a bunch of ARC reviews coming up in May because I read SO many in March and April that aren’t releasing until May and June.
May looks like a pretty low-key month until the end. We’re planning our trip to Hilton Head Island over Memorial Day weekend! I definitely need to get planning more specifics… like how we’re getting down there! We’re thinking of taking Chris’s car but we need to get it checked out first. We also have to look into hotels to stay in on the way down and on the way home. I keep crossing my fingers that a cheap flight will pop up but I think I would rather drive regardless.
Instead of listing a lot of books here again, I’ll just link you over to my Clean Sweep ARC Challenge TBR list that I just posted on Friday. I plan to focus primarily on ARCs for the month of May, but there are some other books I need to read because of book club, Book Buddies, and LIBRARY BOOKS.

A new element of the BL Bulletin! Whenever I have preordered books arriving in the next month, I’ll share them here. It won’t happen TOO often I would think, but it’s fun to share when it does. May and other approaching months definitely have a few I’m VERY excited about. For April, I preordered The Raven King, obviously. Anyways, here’s what’s arriving in May for me!

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas • May 3rd
 13 Little Blue Envelopes & The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson • May 3rd *
Summer Days and Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins • May 17th

* The two Little Blue Envelope books are preorders of the newly redone paperback copies! I love them so much.

 

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