Month: June 2016

Top Ten Tuesdays #92: Library Lovin’

Posted June 7, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 16 Comments

Ten Reasons I Love the Library This weeks topic is: Ten Reasons I Love X — could be a certain book, character, author, your indie bookstore, a fandom, a tv show, reading, a hobby, a genre. Honestly anything you want to gush about. 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. As you know, I recently did a Library Love post to share the books I currently had checked out from the library. I wanted to talk today about why I love the library in general! I feel like I’ve done a similar post before but honestly I can’t find it, so whatever. Enjoy the library goodness! (1) Free books, obviously! This is the clear reason the library is the best. At mine, the slip prints out and tells you how much money you saved by using the library. I love knowing that I got FREE books to read. I’ve been much better about my book buying habits lately: I generally only buy ebooks on sale, I typically read a book first then buy it, and I don’t aimlessly browse and buy books anymore. I’ve been cutting back on my spending in general so I don’t want to cut corners with books either. Obviously there’s nothing better than buying a book, […]

The Currently Reading Shelf

Posted June 6, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 13 Comments

There are so many awesome posts out there about being a book polygamist vs. book monogamist, and I LOVE them. Everyone’s reasoning for one over the other is fascinating to me and I will always read your posts on the subject. This is not exactly a post about reading multiple books at once. This is about that “currently reading” shelf on Goodreads. I have to say, I am anal retentive about keeping that shelf nice and clean. For me, the “currently reading” shelf consists of the books I am legitimately currently reading. I’m always reading one audiobook and one “real” book. Sometimes I read one physical copy, one ebook, and one audiobook. So at the most, my shelf is only going to have 3 books on it. I keep my “currently reading” shelf very tidy and up-to-date. If I haven’t picked the book up in a while or am thinking of quitting it, it’s off the shelf ASAP. Sometimes I start a book I want to read… and then something comes in from an ARC tour, or I realize I didn’t give myself enough time to finish it before a blog tour review is due. If I’m already reading a physical copy and an audiobook, I likely won’t keep a third book on there (unless I have an ebook going at the same time – which happens sometimes). I can’t handle the idea of having very old books on there. If you’re a reader who can pick up a book, start it, and then let it sit for months or even years […]

Hilton Head Island Vacation Recap

Posted June 3, 2016 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 9 Comments

As promised in my Bookmark Lit Bulletin, here’s a big ol’ recap of my vacation! I wanted to share some pictures and a bit about what we did. Hopefully it will entice you to head there on your next vacation 😉 Wednesday May 25th We suffered through work on Wednesday and left around 6:30 Wednesday night. We made a couple of stops but basically drove the 7+ hours straight to Harrisonburg, VA, where we stayed for the first night. Nothing too fancy – just a Motel 6 arrival at 2:00 AM! I drove the whole way down for the first day. Thursday May 26th The next morning, we grabbed some McDonald’s breakfast and hit the road around 9:30 for the rest of the trip. I made the boys drive on Thursday because I wasn’t in the mood to at that point. Chris went for about 5 hours and Kris finished up the trip for the last 3 hours. We finally arrived on Hilton Head Island around 5:30 PM! It was amazing to drive up and see palm trees. It’s been soooo many years since I have! Once we arrived, we settled into the hotel and left in search of food. We went to Dry Dock Seafood and Spirits because we wanted to kick off our vacation with some seafood right away. I asked for the Seafood Sliders (little sandwiches with seafood on each one) and she ended up bringing me a Seafood Platter. I ate it without complaints but told her the mistake beforehand. […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin – May 2016

Posted June 2, 2016 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 7 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. I was on a kick where I read way too many books at once and didn’t finish anything until May 5th. Kind of weird for me! I will say that ACOMAF was the main reason for this. I loved it but it took foooorever to read, then it gave me a nice book hangover. It was totally worth it though. Definitely a slow reading month overall. I brought so many books on vacation and ended up reading a total of less than 200 pages. At least it was nice on the beach! Average rating for books read in May: 3.54 stars All book covers link to their Goodreads pages Best of the Best • Pleasantly Surprised • Disappointed All of the books read this month: Average rating for books reviewed in May: 3.88 stars Thank you Ginger (my newly revealed Secret Sister!) for such a wonderful summery package. Adorable sticky notes, delicious candy, a book I’ve been coveting (First There Was Forever by Juliana Romano), a great smelling candle, and summery chapstick! It’s so wonderful knowing your identity now too 🙂 Won in a giveaway // The […]

ARC Review: True Letters from a Fictional Life

Posted June 1, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

This one got me going in ways I didn’t expect. I don’t read a lot of coming out stories (and admittedly, unfortunately, few QUILTBAG stories in general). I loved Simon and hated Cut Both Ways. This book had whispers of both books, but luckily landed more towards the LOVED end of that particular scale. Right off the bat, I loved the characters. James and his best friends Hawken and Derek had such great personalities. They were all funny too. At times, laugh-out-loud funny. I particularly thought that Hawken was such an excellent, supportive friend. He did nothing but try to help James and understand his perspective… even at times where most friends would have been nervous or scared away. Derek had his own way of being supportive, but he was great too. I loved the various get-togethers they had and just observing them as a group of friends. While I did enjoy all of the parties and gatherings, some of them felt a bit unnecessary. There were lots of different events that didn’t necessarily advance the plot or character development. I did like that it felt like this book was a “slice of life” instead of only focusing on the coming out piece. We learned about his whole life and those more random events just fleshed it out, I guess. Some of the other important characters were the members of James’s family. I don’t want to spoil their ~feelings~ and reactions to the “coming out” part of the story, but I will say […]