Month: January 2017

The Impact of Digital

Posted January 18, 2017 / Discussions, Features / 19 Comments

This post is one of three in the Impact of Book Format series I’m starting on the blog. You’ll see how I feel about ebooks, physical books, and audiobooks over the course of three Wednesdays. Getting a Kindle was one of the BEST things for me, back before college started. I was so excited for it. I got one of the early ones that had 3G on it, because I knew I’d need it when I visited my grandparents in Maine (who didn’t have wifi at the time). I used to vacation there twice each summer and a few other times each year, and I was always concerned with running out of books. This Kindle was my savior, to immediately order new ones if needed. I primarily use it now for egalleys and a few ebooks, but not as much as I used to. Today’s topic is the impact of reading digital/Kindle books, compared to other means of reading. It makes me read faster I really don’t know what it is about reading on a Kindle, but I finish books so much faster! Am I the only one who experiences this?! I don’t know. I just sit there and click-click-click onto the next page so much faster. Maybe the act of turning physical pages slows you down? I honestly am not sure what else to say about this because I can’t think of a legitimate reason for why this is true. I just notice that reading books on my Kindle […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #124: Underrated

Posted January 17, 2017 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 16 Comments

Top Underrated Books I Read in 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 highly encourage all of you to make shelves on Goodreads for the books you read in each year. I wish I had a dollar for every time I used my “2016-read” shelf for sorting things like this! I decided to go with the literally underrated books on Goodreads that I read (minus shorter novellas and such). Not all of the books were necessarily published in 2016, but I did read them in 2016. (None were published in 2017 either because obviously they don’t have a lot of ratings yet if so!) I tried to keep the books under 500 Goodreads ratings, but I couldn’t resist adding the final book, which as around 700 ratings. I really enjoyed all of these stories and hope more people pick them up! Some ended up on my all-time favorite list, so I seriously suggest you get reading, friends! This Is Your Afterlife by Vannessa Barneveld | Sometimes We Tell the Truth by Kim Zarins Game On by Michelle Smith | Liars and Losers Like Us by Ami Allen-Vath Wrecked by Maria Padian | Winning by Lara Deloza All I Want for Christmas by Jenny Hale | The Lost & Found by […]

Lauren Lately | January 2017

Posted January 16, 2017 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 6 Comments

I always get annoyed with myself that my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups are too long and that no one wants to read that much. I get carried away on all sides – the bookish and the personal. So! My solution was to create Lauren Lately to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, and goals for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. (After all, I base all of my book stats around the month ending anyways and my personal life is more flexible 😉 ) ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨ Christmas Days Off | Because Chris had Christmas Eve Eve off from work, I took the day off too! We went for a nice wintery hike and really enjoyed that particular trail. Later that same day, we went to my mom’s house to watch The Family Man. I used to love watching it every year with them, but it has been a while since we’ve all seen it. It’s sort of Christmassy, because the main plot gets started on Christmas, but not as much as I remembered. It was great to relax with a beer, taco dip, and pepperoni bread. Christmas | We definitely had a jam-packed Christmas as usual, but we were able to eliminate one stop on Christmas day. We went […]

Cover Love for 2017 Releases

Posted January 13, 2017 / Book Lists, Features / 13 Comments

Part three of my incredibly-random-usually-once-a-year feature is here! (Check out parts one and two if you’re so inclined.) I wanted to focus on some of my favorite covers of upcoming releases for 2017. I’ve shared bits and pieces of them throughout the year in other situations, but here’s a roundup in my usual format. No links because there’s too many, but enjoy regardless! 😉 Check the link below to see them on my GR shelf. From my Cover Love shelf on Goodreads Which are your favorites? I can’t resist Jupiter Lemon’s and seriously can’t stop talking about that book for some reason. I hope it lives up to my lofty expectations at this point!

ARC Review: Caraval

Posted January 12, 2017 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

This book was insanely cool. Completely lived up to the hype for me. I went in expecting an atmospheric, magical story, and that’s exactly what I got! I absolutely loved it. There were a few things that bugged me a little that prevent it from getting a full five stars, but I would still count this among my favorites. The plot, in a few words: Scarlett, our main character, had been writing to the creator of Caraval, an insane traveling circus (to put it mildly), for years, in order to try to get him to come perform. Her grandma had gone years ago and told her and her sister, Donatella, all about it. The girls finally receive invitations, plus one for her fiance, and decide to sneak away from her father before her wedding. A sailor named Julian comes along with them for the final ticket because Scarlett hasn’t actually met her fiance. Her sister essentially gets kidnapped when they arrive and the mission of this year’s game is to find her. Loved It Magical Setting and Atmosphere The setting was easily the best part of this story. I loved learning about Caraval and trying to understand how it all worked. They warn you that it often feels real – and it partly is – but it’s mostly a game. It was amazing to follow Scarlett along as she tried to figure out what in the fresh hell was going on up in there. The atmosphere and magic of the story was […]

The Impact of Audio

Posted January 11, 2017 / Discussions, Features / 26 Comments

This post is one of three in the Impact of Book Format series I’m starting on the blog. You’ll see how I feel about ebooks, physical books, and audiobooks over the course of three Wednesdays. As someone who almost always has an audiobook going for the commute, getting ready in the morning, and driving anywhere, I’ve become pretty well-versed in them. I know what I like and don’t like from narrators. I know the best genres to listen to via audio… and the ones that will quickly confuse me or lose my attention. I’ve been perfecting my audiobook listening over the past year or so, after getting off to a rougher start. I shared my experience in a guest post at one point and have wanted to give somewhat of an update with this post too. Reading ALL the time The thing I love most about audiobooks is the fact that you can literally listen whenever you want, as long as the task isn’t too distracting. If I lived alone (aka if my boyfriend wasn’t talking to me all the time) I would definitely listen to them 100% of the time I was doing chores around the house. You can listen when you cook, clean, do laundry, drive, get ready for work, take a shower… the list goes on. I even plan to casually reread a few (hopefully) this year while I’m at work, just to refresh my memory during some meaningless tasks I have to complete. For example, I print […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #123: Didn’t Get To

Posted January 10, 2017 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 25 Comments

Top 2016 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn’t Get To 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. Last year I yelled at myself for not getting to SO many books and I have to say… I totally did not succeed in even reading those 2015 releases in 2016. I read two out of those ten. Good lord, someone punch me. I need to get going on actually reading the books I get all jazzed up about. Hopefully I can manage that for 2017! Once Upon a Kiss by Robin Palmer | The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry Chasing Spring by RS Grey | The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock The Leaving Season by Cat Jordan | The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven | The Last Boy and Girl in the World by Siobhan Vivian Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch | The Society by Jodie Andrefski The Loose Ends List by Carrie Firestone | With Malice by Eileen Cook The Choices We Make by Karma Brown | The Season by Jonah Lisa and Stephen Dyer A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody | Unscripted Joss Byrd by Lygia Day Peñaflor The Graces by Laure Eve | How to Make Out by Brianna Shrum I’m Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl […]

ARC Review: History Is All You Left Me

Posted January 9, 2017 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

I’m not totally sure where to begin with this review, but let me just say – Adam Silvera is now on my list. (That sounds bad, but I obviously mean must-read-all-this-author’s-books list.) HISTORY IS ALL YOU LEFT ME is the first book I’ve read by him, but I’ll definitely be going back and reading his debut sometime soon. Do yourself a favor and do the same, if you haven’t read him yet. I’m already predicting I’m going to love that one too. The synopsis honestly wasn’t super appealing to me, compared to the books I usually read, but I decided to try it out for some reason. I’m obviously glad I did. Griffin has OCD (something I was kind of nervous to read about) and recovering from the sudden death of his ex-boyfriend/best friend (something I also don’t do as well with). I like reading books where characters are moving on from grief, but those books generally take place months later when the person has had to some time to cope. This book completely exceeded my expectations. Literally within the first paragraph, I loved his writing style. I don’t know why but there’s just something about it that clicked with me instantly. The rest of the book was very much the same – such an engaging style that’s easy and enjoyable to read. Griffin was an interesting character. His OCD was actually quite interesting to read about and wasn’t overwhelming *there* to make it feel like a book exclusively about […]

Coming Up for Bookmark Lit in 2017

Posted January 6, 2017 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 18 Comments

I feel like this title implies something ominous. Every time I see a blog post title that says “the future of this blog” my head immediately goes to “they’re quitting!” instead of just “they’re revamping!” So, yes, never fear – I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I don’t even really think this post talks about a ~new direction~ in the traditional sense, so don’t worry about that either. It’ll still be 90% books and 10% me, like it always has been. I hadn’t really hit a blogging slump in my 2+ years. I did recently hit a reading slump that derailed me a little bit, but I was still working on the blog and discussion posts. Lately I just haven’t had the same motivation to post five days a week and write an individual review post for each book I read. I’m reading less and posting less reviews, so I’m posting more “creative” posts or discussions, which has me running out of ideas. I invented a few new features and split up my monthly wrap-up posts, so there are less brand new things each week and more meme-style things. I’m totally okay with this, but it’s just different for me. Spurred by my recent resolutions post for 2017, here are some blog-specific changes happening! Reviews We’ve all seen (or written) the posts about writing reviews. They don’t get as much traffic or as many comments as other kinds of posts, so many bloggers are consolidating them or not posting them as often. […]

Reviews: Monstrous Beauty and Snow Like Ashes

Posted January 5, 2017 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

This book was a very spur-of-the-moment choice! I needed a book to fit the “sea creatures” square on my fall bingo card, and Carrie recommended this one to me. I found it on Hoopla and started right away before Thanksgiving. I found myself drawn to it, turning the audio back on in the office while I worked (since I was alone that week). I rarely read blind recs like this because I’m more likely to add them to my TBR and maybe read them eventually, but I’m SO glad I listened to Carrie and went for it. The story was very interesting, as it alternated back and forth across time. I’ve read maybe one book about mermaids and am definitely thinking I should get going on a few more now. The audiobook narrator was SUPERB with all of her accents and the ability to sound like both time periods she was narrating. She was seriously a difference-maker for this book. I predicted a few elements throughout, but was overall very impressed with how the author wove together the story and both timelines. There were mermaids and ghosts and all sorts of things I didn’t see coming! I don’t want to give too much away about the plot itself, but I thought there was a good mix of action throughout. I was always eager to see what was happening in the other timeline, which kept me enthralled most of the time. It’s really hard for an audiobook to consistently keep my […]