Month: August 2016

Wednesday Wrap-Up #1 | WOW & WWW

Posted August 17, 2016 / Waiting on Wednesdays, Wednesday Wrap-Up, Weekly Memes, WWW Wednesdays / 16 Comments

I don’t like to do too many weekly memes on the blog (anymore) and usually stick to TTT, but I thought it would be fun to occasionally post Wednesday memes I’m interested in. It won’t be weekly, but it’ll be fun to recap the previous week or so and talk about what books I have on the docket. It will be a combination of WWW Wednesdays and Waiting on Wednesdays (more details below!), as well as anything else I’d like to share. Waiting on…Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine and asks upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating. I’m currently waiting impatiently for… The Thousandth Floor by Katharine McGee Release Date: August 30th 2016 New York City as you’ve never seen it before. A thousand-story tower stretching into the sky. A glittering vision of the future, where anything is possible—if you want it enough. Welcome to Manhattan, 2118. A hundred years in the future, New York is a city of innovation and dreams. But people never change: everyone here wants something…and everyone has something to lose. Leda Cole’s flawless exterior belies a secret addiction—to a drug she never should have tried and a boy she never should have touched. Eris Dodd-Radson’s beautiful, carefree life falls to pieces when a heartbreaking betrayal tears her family apart. Rylin Myers’s job on one of the highest floors sweeps her into a world—and a romance—she never imagined…but will her new life cost Rylin her old one? Watt Bakradi is a tech genius with a secret: he knows everything […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #102: Beach Setting

Posted August 16, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 16 Comments

Ten Beach Settings in Books that I Loved 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 week’s TTT is the top ten books with X setting (boarding school, England, etc.). I chose one of my favorite bookish settings – BEACH TOWNS. I was thinking of the boarding school thing but I recently talked about this since it’s one of my read-bait terms for sure.I’m usually all about the summery, beachy contemporaries during the warm months. I often save books specifically for summertime for that reason. I don’t go to the beach very much, even though there are plenty closeby, so these books are a perfect alternative for me during the summer. Fluffy contemps are perfectly fine during this time of year, but the ones that are literally set on the beach or in a beachy town location are THE BEST. Here are ten of my favorite books with beach settings. Keeping the Moon and Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen The ultimate book setting is Colby, North Carolina. I’ve never had more desire to visit a fictional place in my life. Colby appears to be the perfect little beach town and acts as the main setting for a handful of Dessen’s books. It’s referenced in a few more. NEED […]

ARC August Check-In and Bout of Books Sign-Up

Posted August 15, 2016 / Book Challenges, Features / 4 Comments

ARC August is somehow already halfway over, so I wanted to check in on how I’m doing with my goals so far. I have to admit I didn’t really make a lofty goal because I was afraid of my mood reading biting me in the ass, but let’s remind ourselves what I set out to do regardless… My goal is to have a 1:1 ARC to regular/backlist ratio this month. I knew I couldn’t push it even though I’d love to have a 2:1 ratio. I decided to track all of the ARCs in this post until it was time to share my progress, so you’ll see how I’ve been doing below. I didn’t include all of the non-ARCs I read in-between just because it would muddy it up… but I did track if I read regular books in that week so I knew how good I was doing with my planned ratio! I also usually track the days where I continued reading a book, but I think that’s a bit obvious, so I’m leaving that out. Just the highlights (starting and finishing books) below. Progress/Tracking Week One (8/1 through 8/6) Non-ARCs finished: 0 /// ARCs finished: 2 Non-ARCs: None this week August 2nd: Finished WRECKED, Started IF I FIX YOU August 5th: Finished IF I FIX YOU Week Two (8/7 through 8/13) Non-ARCs finished: 3 /// ARCs finished: 1 Non-ARCs: Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, Truly Madly Guilty August 8th: Started GEMINA August 13th: Finished GEMINA Week Three (8/14 through 8/20) Non-ARCs finished: 1 […]

Bookish Lego Builds: SJM and Captain Underpants

Posted August 13, 2016 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments

As you may know, I build Lego often with my boyfriend. We collect sets, parts, minifigures, and just about any other Lego-related thing you can think of. He’s a better builder than me, for sure, but I love doing a bit of building too. I haven’t shared much of my builds yet on the blog but I’d love to start! In case you’re wondering about some Lego lingo, a “MOC” stands for “my own creation” and it basically means you built something from your own imagination, without being an actual set to follow the instructions for. The builds below are MOCs created by us for the local libraries, based on some of our favorite books. My Bookish Builds I decided to build two small vignettes of both books in the series so far. I’ll probably continue and make one for each book as the rest come out, just because these were super fun! You can see my Spring Court below, where Tamlin makes a painting room for Feyre. Down underneath is Night Court, where Rhys teaches Feyre how to read. (Sorry for the terrible lighting in the Night Court… although I guess it makes sense given the name!) A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas – Spring Court A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas – Night Court These builds were made to be featured in libraries across Connecticut over the next few months. Check this link out if you’d like to see some of the other bookish […]

Five on Fridays #22

Posted August 12, 2016 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 15 Comments

Five on Friday displays the the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc. Previous posts can be found here! Folks, this is a problem. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of Lularoe, but they have the literal most comfortable leggings on THE PLANET. Most people start out with just a nice black pair of leggings just to “see what the fuss is about”… and then slowly buy EVERYTHING. I don’t even want to tell you how many LLR items I currently own. I’m afraid to count and do all the math, to be honest. If you’re not sure what it is, basically it’s like the same thing as Mary Kay consultants, where people sell the clothing. All of the patterns are limited edition and only printed on 1,500-2,000 items. So basically if you love something, you need to jump on it! Hence the addiction. You can usually just shop through Facebook groups, online pop-up parties, and in-home parties. That being said… I’m having a Lularoe party on September 13th from 8-10 PM EST where I get free clothes if people buy things! Please seriously contact me if you’re interested in getting involved and I’ll find a way to send the invite your way! It has to be on Facebook. In any case, I love all my clothes lately and have spent sooo much money. I’m officially not allowed to buy any more Lula […]

Pokemon Go Book Tag

Posted August 11, 2016 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 10 Comments

I loved this tag when I saw it on Read at Midnight, but didn’t take the plunge until I was tagged by Lindsey at Bring My Books! I was pretty great about keeping up with this game when it first came out, but my addiction has slowed down. Alas, this is my relationship with games of all kinds. Regardless though, here’s the tag! SO FUN. I would first like to note that Squirtle is my favorite Pokemon. I think that’s important to say here. Anyways, I was a pretty big reader throughout my childhood so this is honestly a pretty tough question. I think there are some books that helped me through different stages of reading. I was a voracious reader through high school but dropped off a big in college, so there are a few formative books I see in my reading history. Some of these are… Childhood in general: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson Elementary school, early middle school: The BFG by Roald Dahl and (duh) Harry Potter Late middle school, early high school: Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard and Private by Kate Brian “Revisiting” reading again after college: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver I’m not a big classics person. I don’t even know which Jane Austen books I pretended to read in high school. I definitely want to revisit them as I get older because I’m hoping to have more of an appreciation for them. There are quite a few “classics” I read during school […]

Blog Tour | ARC Review: Results May Vary

Posted August 10, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

My Thoughts Honestly I went into this book with pretty high expectations. I really loved THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY and had been anticipating Chase’s next novel ever since. After the end of her debut, there was an excerpt for her next story. It was slated to be a companion to THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY and I was soooo pumped. Later, Chase talked about how her editor fell in love with this story instead, and wanted to publish them in a different order. I was slightly disappointed but still VERY excited to read her next story… no matter which one it was! Turns out, I had absolutely no reason to be nervous; my high expectations were truly met and definitely exceeded. This book – almost instantly – became my favorite book of the year. No exaggeration. Within the first page or two, I just had this weird feeling come over me that this book was going to be fantastic. I was completely captivated from the first page and never wanted to stop reading. I could see SO much improvement between her debut and her sophomore novels. That’s saying a LOT though, because I was incredibly impressed with her debut as it is! I always think I’m more of a plot-driven reader instead of character-driven. I like the characters to have personalities and be fully fleshed out, of course, but I more want there to be action and a story. Some writers change that for me. This book was really […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #101: Rewind – Covers

Posted August 9, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 28 Comments

Rewind: Do a Topic You Missed! Things I Like/Dislike on Book Covers 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. Back in June 2014, Top Ten Tuesday featured a topic perfect for me: top ten things we like or dislike on our book covers. This topic was literally a few weeks before I started my blog and I’m so happy I just saw it! I always always always talk about book covers on my blog. (Like, too often to even link everything this time. Just search for “covers” and you’ll see an abundance of things!) Book covers are my F A V O R I T E and I don’t know if I ever spelled out in a nice, concise, list-y way the things that I LOVE or HATE on book covers. Without further ado, I’ll tackle that today for you, my dear cover lovers. Keep in mind that obviously some of these covers fit multiple categories. I tried to keep them with the category involving the “element” I love most about the cover. Like, I love the watercolor elements on First & Then but the heart shape is what really makes me happiest. I’m definitely not linking to Goodreads here because I’m lazy and there are a LOT of covers, but you […]

4 Star Book Love

Posted August 8, 2016 / Book Lists, Features / 14 Comments

I feel like I spend so much time highlighting my FAVORITE books, especially for TTTs and other “best of” posts, that I end up leaving out quite a few solid four star books. Four stars is a great rating. It’s probably my most common rating too, which means they all kind of blend together and never get any attention. I was thinking about Magnolia one morning for some reason and wondered why I don’t talk about how much I enjoyed that book. I started thinking about other great four star books I’ve read and enjoyed, and this post idea was born. Magnolia by Kristi Cook From my review: “I loved the build-up to the romance in this book! It’s easily one of the best hate-to-love romances I’ve ever read. Add in the storm and I’m hooked. I was rooting for them right off the bat and thought they had the best chemistry in the beginning… It was fun to read about their families and their long history together. The hurricane/tornado situation was scary, but such a great event to bring the two of them together.” Just Like the Movies by Kelly Fiore From my review: “All in all, this was a really good book for me. If the author meant to make the whole book feel exactly like a clichéd romantic comedy, she certainly got that message across. I loved the references to the movies that they did talk about and thought they were pretty appropriate given their situations. The promposal element was great for me since I […]

Review: Tell Me Three Things

Posted August 5, 2016 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

So yes of course I’m going to take the obvious review style here and tell you three things about this extremely wonderful book that landed on my favorites shelf… Thing #1: Super realistic and relatable While some things about the main character, Jessie, bugged me, it really felt like a realistic portrayal of the inside of a teenage girl’s head. She wasn’t perfect and was a bit too judgmental about those around her in her new school, a lot of it felt like a defense mechanism. She moved across the country essentially on a whim and was reacting honestly to what she saw around her. I usually like there to be some kind of character growth around this, but I have previously loved books where this happened too. I think it’s a story worth telling because some mean girl situations ARE real and the people DON’T change. Aside from Jessie’s internal monologue, I really just felt like the book was so enjoyable and, again, REAL. I loved her voice overall. Thing #2: Adorable romance I shipped her and SN from the beginning… and knew who SN was from the beginning. Jessie did frustrate me as it got further and further into the book and she STILL didn’t know. HOW? It was so obvious to me! It did involve some of those classic annoying things were she assumes it’s someone else with zero evidence and is a dummy about it for way too long. Oh well. Regardless, I LOVED reading about the […]