Month: April 2018

Lauren Lately | April 2018

Posted April 16, 2018 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 7 Comments

Because my Bookmark Lit Bulletin wrap-ups got out of hand, I wanted to break up my monthly wrap-ups into two posts: one personal and one bookish/bloggy. I created Lauren Lately here to highlight all of the personal happenings in my life: events, activities, shows I’m addicted to, things I’m obsessing over, recipes I’ve loved, and goals for the next month. I decided to space them out so this wrap-up happens around the mid-point of the month and the bookish one happens at the end of the month. ✨ Check out my most recent bookish and bloggy wrap-up HERE ✨ Crazy weekend home – bridal shower, secret santa, birthdays, and all the lies | Before we headed home, we spent one night at our favorite dine-in theater and saw Game Night. So funny! Then, our mid-March journey home was fillllled with plans. My friend wanted a surprise bridal shower, so we had our very late Secret Santa the night before as an excuse for all of us to be in Connecticut. We had this immense web of lies I won’t get into, but it paid off! She was definitely surprised and it was a fun day… well, as fun as a bridal shower could be, I guess! (So not my thing.) The next day, we had dinner out for my dad’s belated birthday and then my sister and I went to see Love, Simon and its PERFECTION. We both read the book and loved the movie just as much. I got my hair done […]

A-Z Book Survey, Round Two

Posted April 13, 2018 / Book Tags / 0 Comments

I did this book tag/survey from Jamie at The Perpetual Page-Turner WAY BACK in 2014 when I first started my blog. My answers were obviously quite different and I don’t even really want to link to it because good lord, the graphics from then make me cringe. In my quest for finding a fun book tag to do for today, I wanted to redo this one with updated answers! Author you’ve read the most books from: Thank you Goodreads, for making this very easy. I’ve read the most books from Sara Shepard, which is truly the least surprising news ever. I’ve read THIRTY-TWO books by her because I’ve read each of her super-long series and a lot of the standalones as well. This number continues to increase. Best Sequel Ever: I think the best sequel is probably a toss-up between PS I Still Love You by Jenny Han (5 stars, same as TATBILB) The Long Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (5 stars, which is actually more than book #1), or Rebel Angels by Libba Bray (5 stars, also up from the first book in the series). I also totally did this by only looking at the second book in a series as the sequel because otherwise it’d take me forever to investigate my archives. Currently Reading: I’m writing this on April 6th, so I’m currently reading The Chaos of Standing Still by Jessica Brody (also mixing in the audiobook sometimes) and Infamous by Alyson Noel. The latter is the final book in the trilogy and I’m so pumped Scribd had […]

Books Coming This Summer That I NEED

Posted April 12, 2018 / Book Lists, Features / 10 Comments

I try to be good about requesting books on NG (and now EW a bit more) that I’m genuinely excited about, instead of being click-happy and selecting stories in the moment. I started to realize when I went on a requesting binge last week that I have sooo many summer releases I’m looking forward to! I’m going to follow the technical definition of summer and feature some unreleased books publishing between late June and approximately mid-September. June Your Destination is on the Left by Lauren Spieller | I like the idea of a ~nomad~ family driving their RV around the country. The main character has to decide if she wants to keep her feet on solid ground and take the internship she’s offered. Dahlia Adler recommended this for fans of her book, Just Visiting, and that was enough of a recommendation for me. The Summer List by Amy Mason Doan | This is pretty much enough to sell me: “A tender yet tantalizing novel about two friends, the summer night they fell apart, and the scavenger hunt that reunites them decades later—until the clues expose a breathtaking secret that just might shatter them once and for all.” The rest of the synopsis gets even better too! Wild Blue Wonder by Carlie Sorosiak | I haven’t read her first book yet, much to my sister’s chagrin, but I WILL. Her second novel takes place in Maine so obviously that got bumped right up my list. It seems to have some intriguing magical realism […]

ARC Reviews: Frat Girl and The Elizas

Posted April 11, 2018 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

This is the kind of book I’d recommend to feminists and non-feminists alike. A lot of it was heavy-handed in the messages and would have maybe made more sense in the journal entries instead of internal dialogue, but the content itself was good. (More on that later.) I definitely figured that her study wasn’t going to be all black and white, and the really positive moments were so heartwarming. I loved the relationships that were developed between her and the guys, and one particular night where a few boys really stepped up to help. I didn’t do the Greek thing in college but this was a fairly accurate portrayal of a lot of the college experience in general; it felt real, which was refreshing. Bambi, Duncan, and Jordan were so great. The characters made me laugh and smile so much more than expected for “just dumb frat boys” (what the MC seems to think heading into the book). I think I would have liked more depth to Cassie’s character (and even a few other side characters, including her family). She came across as very preachy at times and it was hard to connect with her. I liked how she started to learn from her mistakes, and tried to grow from her existing biases as well. Some people calling her out made her realize she was working from a very “white feminist” angle instead of thinking of the bigger picture (her mentor talks about this early in the book and I […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #178: Never Reread

Posted April 10, 2018 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 4 Comments

Books I Loved that I’ll Never Reread Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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 is probably more up my alley than books I’d reread forever! I’m not the biggest rereader in general and there are some books that, even though I loved them, I don’t think I could bring myself to reread. Most of these below have to do with how freaking sad I was when reading them or finishing (because of the topics themselves) and have nothing to do with the quality of the book. These all hit me pretty hard while reading and I’m not sure I could put myself through it again! The Hunger Games by Suzanne Colins | This isn’t for the same reason as many of these on here, but I just… don’t LOVE this series as much as everyone else? I loved them at the time and highly enjoyed the movies, but my excitement about this series is over. All of the fun and hype went away and I find myself feeling more “meh” on it than ever wanting to reread. Come Away with Me by Karma Brown | This was such a powerful, heartbreaking, and even twisty book. I think rereading it wouldn’t leave me […]

A Year(ish) in the Life of a Newbie Wrestling Fan

Posted April 9, 2018 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 1 Comment

If you told me a few years ago that I would spend roughly 6-7 or more hours per week watching wrestling (sometimes closer to 10-12 if there’s a pay-per-view), I would have laughed at you. Seriously. I was never super interested in WWE or wrestling in general, and was one of those buttholes who completely wrote it off as “fake.” I remember watching on and off with my cousins throughout my childhood (late 90s/early 00s) and had a few classic wrestlers I loved at the time. My interest waned over time and I didn’t really get it. When we learned that some friends of ours liked wrestling, Chris decided to pick up watching RAW on Monday and Smackdown on Tuesday, just VERY occasionally. He played the WWE 2k15 games with the guys and enjoyed it. I barely glanced at the TV (usually just to scoff like a jerk sometimes) and would read a book while he watched and built Lego. I sloooowly started to turn my attention toward the TV a little bit more. I saw Morgan’s post (which is truly one of my favorite posts ever and I’ve read it a million times; check out her new blog here!) and became more intrigued by it all. I’m going to quote her post here because she makes the best points about this: “Wrestling is fake.” I’ll be the first person to tell you, wrestling fans know that WWE is scripted. And we don’t care. That’s different from fake by the […]

Review Round Up | Nice Try Jane Sinner and Obsidio

Posted April 6, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 3 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I had been looking forward to NICE TRY, JANE SINNER, despite never watching Big Brother (or most reality shows, really). The concept of that style of housing situation for college students definitely appealed to me though. It sounded like Jane would be an interesting main character to read about and I was eager to read this one for sure. I didn’t realize it was set in Canada, which was interesting! I honestly don’t know if I’ve read a book set there before… I was wondering why the place names didn’t sound familiar and some of the high school things were a bit different. As I suspected, Jane was definitely an interesting main character. She had a lot of things going on in her life and in her past (it took a long time to learn what the “event” was that kept being referenced). I didn’t really feel super connected to her, which is unfortunate when a book is written in the form of journal entries. Usually that style makes me feel close to the character, like I’m REALLY inside their head. I think it’s just that Jane was kind of hard to pin down; she would be funny and sarcastic sometimes but it was hard to figure out what […]

How are TBRs Working for Me?

Posted April 5, 2018 / Discussions, Features / 3 Comments

The whole TBR thing is pretty new to me. I started making TBR posts about a year ago just because I love the IDEA of them. I’ve found, since then, that they do a pretty good job of reminding me what books I was hoping to read within the month. I’ve only read my entire TBR one time – I’ll get to that later – but otherwise I think I do pretty well. Now that I’ve been TBR-ing for a little over a year, I thought I’d see how I’ve fared. I did a very brief wrap-up about this back in November (link below about mood reading) but wanted to expand more. (Again, this post at Pretty Deadly Reviews inspired me back then and now!) Other relevant posts to check out : about how my bookish planner is impacting my reading and blogging this year, whose books I’m actually reading, and my mood reading tendencies. Monthly breakdown February 2017 [50%] 8 books on the TBR plus a poll to decide between 3 options I ended up reading four of the books on my TBR, but that included the book that was selected in the “help me choose what to read” poll at the bottom. Not terrible, but not too great. I think the idea of having a TBR to choose from kind of motivated me to read the books on there. I feel like half is not bad! March 2017 [56%] 9 books on the TBR plus a poll to […]

In My Bag

Posted April 4, 2018 / Lifestyle, Personal / Information / Etc. / 7 Comments

A looong time ago, I did a guest post on Rachel’s blog about what’s in my purse. I still use that purse from time to time but lately they’ve gotten much smaller. I used to carry around a huge bag to and from work because I wanted to make sure I could fit a book in there. However, since moving to the city, I’ve found that I need something a lot smaller. I was using a really cute pink-ish bag from Charming Charlie for a while and decided to treat myself to something new during the Kate Spade surprise sale. Kate Spade Prospect Place Rima | I couldn’t resist this one when I saw it, even though I did narrow down my choice from 6 purses in my shopping bag. Whoops. I was looking at some larger totes for when I’m back in the office (still need one, but might check out an outlet sometime this summer), a backpack purse, and a few wallets or wristlets. I decided on this one because it looked small enough to be a nice cross-body and large enough to fit my Kindle/iPad depending on what I’m reading. #priorities Jessica Simpson Wallet | I bought this a while ago because my other Coach wallet was getting beat up AND was too big for the smaller purses I started to adopt. This one is tiny and doesn’t include a section for checks, which is fine because I basically just use those for rent now anyways! It has cute […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #177: Characters

Posted April 3, 2018 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 5 Comments

Characters I Liked… From Books I Didn’t Love Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, 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. Dang, this is a tough one! I feel like the main reasons I dislike books are because I don’t love the characters or can’t relate to them. However, there are definitely a few books that come to mind where I didn’t love the plot, premise, or writing style, but enjoyed the characters. Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway Character: Audrey For whatever reason, this book didn’t fully click with me. I absolutely loved Audrey and her friends though. I said in my review that “the characters were fun and EXTREMELY well developed” but I remember thinking that the plot was slow-moving and the humor was too forced sometimes. It annoyed me that a major plot point listed in the synopsis didn’t happen until much later in the book. I hate when things are spoiled for no reason; I sat there waiting for it to happen for the entire book when it could have been a “twist” or something unexpected. However, in hindsight, I would recommend this book to people who like funny books with great characters… but this was only a 3.5 star read for me. Just a Girl […]