Month: October 2016

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 2016

Posted October 31, 2016 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 6 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’ve been complaining everywhere about how sloooow this reading month as been for me and even that didn’t change my reading habits. I have to say, this is the least amount I’ve read since I first started blogging. Seriously. The previous month that comes CLOSE to this level of non-reading is in September 2015 when I read 10 books. I know I should relax and let it go but it’s kind of crazy to me. All other months have 11 books or more completed. I’ll get more into why I read so little later on, but let’s just say TV and podcasts took over my life! Average rating for books read in October: 3.5 stars Highlights & Lowlights All of the books read this month: Year-Long Seasonal Fall Bingo Challenge 7 books this month • 63% complete Books read for October: Reviews Blog Posts My Secret Sister slayed again with the Halloweeny package! I got it the day I was home sick from work, which was such perfect timing for the Halloween bath bomb. It was such a great way to relax on my day […]

Drafts I Haven’t Finished & Published

Posted October 28, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 9 Comments

I follow a lot of “lifestyle” blogs in addition to book blogs… especially if they involve sports/football. One of my favorites is Love, Fun, and Football. Erin wrote a post the other day that’s a part of a “Back to Blogging” link-up hosted by Alyssa Goes Bang. Phew, that’s quite an introduction for this post! Anyways, I liked the topic idea: blog post drafts I haven’t hit the publish button on yet. For me, they’re mostly book centered and they’re mostly incomplete… hence why I haven’t published them yet. There’s something that’s just preventing me from finishing them too. Which of these would you be interested in? Should I finally just POST them?! On Fandoms and Obsessions I made some observation on Twitter a few months ago about how I can tell my fandom “transitions” by going through my Tumblr page. I have a tendency of obsessing over something, posting a lot about it, then getting obsessed with the next thing and posting a lot about it… and so on. I can track how my fandoms change throughout the course of 2016 pretty easily. I made a post that goes from January through now and talks about each of those fandoms a little bit. I’m pretty sure none of them are book-related, so it would be a fun personal post to finally finish. I got through listing them all out but couldn’t decide how to flesh it out – GIFs, why I like(d) it so much, etc.? Get to Know Me Uncomfortably Well […]

Review: The Thousandth Floor

Posted October 27, 2016 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments

Initial Excitement I mentioned this book way too many times on the blog before it came out, so clearly I was ready. I loved Gossip Girl and still enjoy reading about rich and terrible main characters. Call it a guilty pleasure if you must, but I don’t care – there’s something about it I love and it makes me nostalgic. This book promised to be a futuristic, sci-fi GG. Color me incredibly intrigued, okay? Quick Summary The main area of NYC that we know and love has been transformed into a thousand-floor tower, where everyone tends to work, live, and go to school. The higher the floor, the richer you are. Most of the main characters lived up towards the top, while a few were closer to the bottom. The story alternates between Avery, Leda, Eris, Watt, and Rylin as their lives become intertwined and secrets are revealed. Storytelling, Setting, and Feels I was promised a futuristic Gossip Girl and that’s what I got. The story itself was really intriguing because all of the characters had so many secrets. They were all certainly less-than-perfect and often ruthless in getting what they wanted. They broke the law and partied and spent insane amounts of money. Seriously, GG all over it. Adding in the futuristic elements and the tower itself was SO fun and a nice twist on the typical mean-rich-people-YA story. The setting of the tower was unreal. I wish I could picture it better, but it sounds like they just put everything in […]

Wednesday Wrap-Up #2 | WOW & WWW

Posted October 26, 2016 / Waiting on Wednesdays, Wednesday Wrap-Up, Weekly Memes, WWW Wednesdays / 14 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 Amateurs by Sara Shepard Release Date: November 1st 2016 As soon as Seneca Frazier sees the post on the Case Not Closed website about Helena Kelly, she’s hooked. Helena’s high-profile disappearance five years earlier is the one that originally got Seneca addicted to true crime. It’s the reason she’s a member of the site in the first place. So when Maddy Wright, her best friend from the CNC site, invites Seneca to spend spring break in Connecticut looking into the cold case, she immediately packs her bag. But the moment she steps off the train in trendy, glamorous Dexby, things begin to go wrong. Maddy is nothing like she expected, and Helena’s sister, Aerin Kelly, seems completely hostile and totally uninterested in helping with their murder investigation. But when Brett, another super user from the site, joins Seneca and Maddy in Dexby, Aerin starts to come around. The police must have missed something, […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #112: Halloween

Posted October 25, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 20 Comments

Ten of my Favorite Halloween Costumes and Books I’d Pair with Them! 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 topic is… Halloween related freebie: ten scary books, favorite horror novels, non-scary books to get you in the Halloween/fall mood, bookish halloween costumes, scariest covers), scary books on my TBR, etc. Well, I really don’t read horror books or anything remotely creepy most of the time, so I decided to make this one a little more personal. I’m featuring some of my favorite Halloween costumes I’ve worn, then matching book recommendations to them! It may be based on a certain character or aspect of the costume; you’ll see 😉 The costume: My college friends and I dressed up as “milestone birthdays” as a group during our senior year. This is one my all-time favorite costumes. We hit various birthdays throughout your life. From left to right, we have the 1st birthday with a onesie and pacifier, the 16th birthday with all the girly pink, the 18th birthday with clubbing outfit and cigarettes, the 21st birthday with shot glasses, and the 50th birthday with a modest sweater outfit. The book: The Year We Turned Forty by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke // I didn’t LOVE this book but I did really enjoy it as […]

ARC Review: The Sun is Also a Star

Posted October 24, 2016 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Initial Excitement Any book involving fate or destiny in some capacity will immediately make it onto my TBR. Of course, any book by Nicola Yoon was also going to make it onto my TBR right away as well. I loved her debut so incredibly much and remember blazing through it in one afternoon. She became an auto-read author after just one book. So, needless to say, I had high hopes and expectations for this book… and it didn’t let me down! Summary in a Second Natasha’s family is on the verge of being deported back to Jamaica. Daniel is headed to a Yale admissions interview because his Korean parents are forcing him down that particular path. The two meet by chance (or perhaps by fate) and spend a whirlwind day together in New York City. The story has countless instances where destiny brought them together; if certain things didn’t happen or happened a few minutes later, their paths never would have crossed. This is something I’m always interested in, but the concept usually is found in my favorite parallel life/universe books instead of straight contemporary stories. Storytelling & Setting The story alternates between Natasha, Daniel, and other people and concepts they come across. I loved reading random chapters here and there from other people involved, like the lawyer or their parents. There were even some chapters that were just about certain things, like African American hair care or scientific concepts. It all just worked together so seamlessly. I’ll be so sad if […]

Cover Colors: Emma Mills Double Feature – First & Then and This Adventure Ends

Posted October 21, 2016 / Cover Colors, Features / 14 Comments

It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with book covers. I love the colors, the typography, the different designs that cover artists can create. I even have a guest post feature where people share their favorite book covers and bookmarks! I decided to start up this random feature where I draw color inspiration from my favorite book covers. I may create an outfit, pick out some nail polish, or design a quote graphic. Today’s first cover is… First & Then by Emma Mills This is one of my favorite covers ever. The colors and raindrops are so cute, and I love that they make the shape of a heart in the middle. This colorful outfit isn’t the best fit for football season (when the book takes place), but it’s too cute to resist. I had to tie in a copy of Sense and Sensibility, since Dev reads Jane Austen all the time (and this is the book that Ezra picked up for her). I chose heart-shaped earrings to match the cover of the book, and a football necklace for Dev to wear to support all of the people she knows on the team. It’s cute, casual, and colorful. First & Then by bookmarklit featuring a lace crop top Today’s second cover is… This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills Again, Emma Mills freaking SCORED with her book cover. I ADORE this cover. I think I might love it more than the previous one? Don’t make me decide. I would literally frame both of them and put them […]

Book Series I Need to Start

Posted October 20, 2016 / Book Lists, Features / 12 Comments

So far this year, I’ve read almost an equal amount of books in series and standalones. I’ve been trying to get better about continuing series that I start, but I don’t think I have as big of an issue with it as some other bloggers seem to. I’m usually good about finishing series… but there are plenty more (published already) series I really want to get started on. Sometimes there’s nothing better than waiting for all of the books to be out and then going on a binge. I plan to hopefully do that with some of these books. (Some I might not wait, but regardless! Worth checking out.) I have this broken down by genre because it makes the most sense. The last “other” category includes retellings and paranormal-like books. I didn’t have enough of those two to make separate categories. Yes, I’m being picky about keeping everything even. Without further ado… Fantasy books are definitely more likely to be in a series, so I tried to really scale back here! There are plenty more I’d like to start at some point, but these are the highlights. I even own quite a few of these, if not all of them… I don’t know how I keep putting some of these ones off! I own a few of these as well. There are more companion series for contemporary romance than a straight-up series. I believe three out of these six are companion-like series and the other half are straight-up series with the […]

Book Buddies: Daughter of Deep Silence

Posted October 19, 2016 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Book Buddies is a discussion-style “review” that takes place with Cristina from Girl in the Pages. (You can check out past posts here.) We both read the book, have a discussion, and post our conversation (plus other fun things sometimes!) here. Book Buddies is a seasonal feature that now happens four times per year. Be sure to check out the other half of our feature and discussion on Cristina’s blog (link below)! Check out Cristina’s post here! We’ve decided to bring some new elements into our Book Buddies posts, so it will be less Q&A discussion between the two of us, and more personal applications to the book. I’ll also be including (at least for this particular book) my Cover Colors feature for both book covers – the redesigned paperback, which I read from, and the original hardcover. I will be sharing my quick thoughts on the book in this post for those of you who are looking for a review or recommendation as well, don’t worry! 😉 Cover Colors Daughter of Deep Silence by bookmarklit featuring Maybelline I’ll let Cristina analyze the covers and why they may have been changed, but I have to say – they both really intrigue me, plot aside. I don’t get why the cover was changed and how the paperback edition really makes sense with the story itself. The hardcover does a perfect job of capturing what happens in the book, in my opinion. As for my Cover Colors and collage above… I loved playing […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #111: Names

Posted October 18, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

Ten Character Names I Love 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: Ten Characters I’d Name A Child/Dog/Cat/Car/Etc. after — we did this topic back in 2011 and thought it might be fun to revisit it…feel free to spin it how you need! This is really fun. I’m terrible about remembering names though. I just went through my “read” list on Goodreads and pulled out names (even if they were common ones) that I loved. Most of these names were actually already on my ~favorite name~ list before reading the books, but it helps that I saw them again 😉 I split these into boys and girls names. As you can see, I do kind of like more unique names! I’m not sure if I would really name a child a few of these (Frances, Aster, Ronan, and Griffin) but the rest are definitely ones I’d enjoy naming a kid or pet. I’ve always loved Lucas, Reed, Tucker (I know this is a last name, but I love it as a first name!), Harper, Avery, and Piper. A lot of these are definitely not because I enjoyed the character themselves. Some of these people were real buttholes and their inclusion here is purely name-related. And now for the […]