Month: January 2019

February TBR

Posted January 31, 2019 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 10 Comments

My monthly TBR feature here shows my progress based on last month’s TBR, my plans for this month, and anything else I might be thinking about from a reading perspective. Sometimes I feature a little poll at the bottom so you guys can help me figure out a certain title I should read from a group of books. January Progress My major reading goal this month was to finish up the ROSE GARDNER series with the final three books, and I succeeded in that! I was cranking through them and finished all three in about a week, even while I had other reading obligations for blog tours and book club going on. PRETTY and ARCHENEMIES were for those two things, respectively. I finished THIS LIE as an audiobook to get the review copy done from Netgalley and FAMOUS was my first read of the year. NINE was a hold but I had anticipated it on my TBR for the month – woo! Up Next in February Review Copies (Egalleys) I Owe You One by Kinsella | Enchantee by Trelease | The Au Pair by Rous | Comics Will Break Your Heart by Hicks | The Dating Game by Roache | The Bride Test by Hoang I have been a failure at reading review copies so far in 2019. I think it’s because I got some unsolicited ARCs, which I’m actually very excited about in theory, but I wasn’t planning for them. I’ve also been shying away from fantasy so far this […]

Rose Gardner Mysteries

Posted January 30, 2019 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

As you saw in my recent post about cozy mysteries and September TBR, I’ve been itching for books featuring small-town heroines solving murders and being annoying too innocent. The first series I embarked on was the Rose Gardner Mystery books, novellas, and eventually spin-off series. I don’t want to do full-blown reviews like I have in other series binge reviews, so here are some highlights on the whole thing. | | | | | | These books did somewhat remind me of the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries movies that I love so much, but the town, local job, and main character don’t have the same appeal to me. I appreciated getting to know more about Rose and others in the town throughout the series though. Overall, the entire series got more and more interesting, complex, and BETTER with each story. Main characters Rose was overly innocent and naive, especially in the first book. She was under her mom’s thumb like nobody’s business and then went in the complete opposite direction when she was murdered (this was a good thing overall – her independence). The books were quite southern, which is generally not my cup of tea for whatever reason, but I was able to get used to it. I don’t know how to describe it but I was often frustrated by Rose as a character – her dialogue, interactions with people, and the way she was written overall. If I wasn’t determined to read this series and give […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #220: New to the TBR

Posted January 29, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 3 Comments

Most Recent Additions to My TBRs 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. I decided to take this one two ways. I don’t acquire a lot of books in general so I thought I would share books added to my physical or digital (owned) TBR aaaand those I added to my Goodreads lists (both under to-read and TBR-unreleased for upcoming books). It’ll be more than ten because I’m doing five books for each of these five categories! [Heads up that, as usual, I will be drafting this post before its TTT due date, so it will be a tiny bit outdated by the time it posts!] Digital Acquisitions – For Review I received an egalley of THAT’S NOT WHAT I HEARD to participate in the blog tour (yesterday!) but the others were simple Netgalley requests. I’ve heard good things about AU PAIR, COMICS has been on my TBR for a while and I’ve been pumped for it, and PASSION ON PARK and FLATSHARE have some great synopses. I’m requesting more and more adult rom-com fiction and I love it! Digital Acquisitions – Purchased Most of these were actually bought last year during the holiday season, especially MISS KANE (didn’t read yet) and SEASON […]

Blog Tour Review: That’s Not What I Heard

Posted January 28, 2019 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Review Stephanie Kate Strohm is one of those authors where I continued to add EVERY one of her releases to my TBR… and just let them sit there?? I’m not sure why because they ALL sounded like Lauren books. I finally read LOVE A LA MODE after requesting it from Netgalley and fell in absolute love with it. Her writing was wonderful and I knew I’d have to finally work my way through her backlist. THEN, I saw tour sign-ups for this new release and couldn’t resist. Phew, now that you’re up to speed… I have to admit that books where ONE misunderstanding is the entire plot (the kind where the MCs just need to have one single conversation to clear up the whole premise of the book) do not work for me usually. I tend to get frustrated because the whole thing can unravel if they just SPOKE to each other about the issue. HOWEVER, with this story, the experience was quite different for me. There were so many points of view, including everyone from teachers to students to the principal, which really made it awesome. I actually preferred all of those points of view over reading from Teddy and Kim’s perspectives. That was when I would be reminded that the two just needed to talk to each other to make everything better. The other people were more interesting as rumors were spread and the breakup somehow affected the entire school (including the faculty). My two favorite points of view […]

Read-Bait: Resorts, Camps, and Retreats

Posted January 25, 2019 / Book Lists, Features / 0 Comments

I used to do quite a few posts under this umbrella and am simplifying them a little bit to share some more! I’ve always loved books set in cute bed and breakfasts, hotels, or campgrounds. There’s something about this kind of insular setting where people stay, get to know each other, and sleep overnight. This is probably part of the reason I love boarding school books so much! I wanted to go slightly beyond the “vacation” aspect and talk about more specific places people may stay for a week or so – health resorts, marriage “boot camps,” summer camps – things like that. All of the books on this list (except TWO that I’ve already read) are on my TBR. Retreats and Resorts Nine Perfect Strangers was fascinating – the book alternates between these people (and a couple of the retreat’s employees) as they start their so-called wellness journey. I can’t get into the specifics really, as the story gets weird and wild, but I thought it was so interesting. Couldn’t put it down! The Last Resort is waiting in my Netgalley queue and is specifically about a resort that deals with failing marriages. When a tropical storm hits and traps everyone inside, some shit apparently goes down. Christmas at the Lakeside Resort was on my TBR for the holiday season but I never got around to it. When the MC inherits some cabins by a lake, she sets out to turn them into a little camping resort. This story seems lighthearted and more vacation-oriented […]

Popsugar Reading Challenge Ideas

Posted January 24, 2019 / Book Challenges, Book Lists, Features / 5 Comments

When I first posted my 2019 challenge sign-ups, I included some TBR ideas for a few of the challenges. I love having that kind of post to look on when I’m failing to remember what I planned. The one challenge I didn’t do that for, however, was the Popsugar Reading Challenge. The main reason is that it’s such a loooong list and my goal is to hit at least 40 out of the 50 prompt ideas. I wasn’t going to put 50 book ideas on there when I know it’s unlikely I hit that many. However, I keep finding myself looking and wondering what books fit some of those categories. I thought I’d share some of my ideas because so many people are participating this year and may also find it helpful! Some categories will have multiple ideas, some will have one, some will have zero. I’m also only putting books that I haven’t read… so there are some obvious ones that will not appear! I’ll link up some lists if they help too. Other resources: Popsugar Reading Challenge post and Popsugar Goodreads Group Already completed Published in 2019: Famous in a Small Town – Mills Meant to read in 2018: Nine Perfect Strangers – Moriarty Featuring an amateur detective: 34.5 Predicaments – Swank Item of clothing/accessory on cover: Pretty in Punxsutawney – Crompton Told from multiple POVs: This Lie Will Kill You – Pitcher About someone with a superpower: Archenemies – Meyer Still to attempt Becoming a movie in 2019 | Plenty of options HERE and HERE (for YA) […]

Review Round Up | Nine Perfect Strangers, The Last Best Story, and Those Other Women

Posted January 23, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

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 was trying to explain Liane Moriarty’s books to my boyfriend as I was racing through the pages of this one. I love that her stories are contemporary fiction at the heart, but always have some kind of suspenseful, mysterious, or thriller-y aspect to them. They always keep me reading and guessing as I go. This latest was no exception! However… it was definitely not what I expected; it got weirder and weirder as it went on, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. It’s reminiscent of her other works, but quite different at the same time. Getting to know the “nine strangers” was a lot of fun and I liked the multiple POVs throughout the story. Frances was the “main character” if I had to pick; she was mostly hilarious. I liked reading everyone’s unique circumstances for why they ended up there and what their goals/lives were. The second half of the book was unexpected but kind of fascinating, once I got over the initial shock of it haha. I enjoyed the ending of the story so much! This is one of the more interesting stories by Moriarty lately, as many of the other recent works have been somewhat predictable and disappointing by the […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #219: Meant to Read

Posted January 22, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Books I Meant to Read In 2018 but Didn’t Get To 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. I feel like my whole TBR could be put here. I am so bad about reading books I set out to read! I’m breaking this into a few shameful categories because I’m the worst. 2018 Review Copies Soooo I went a little egalley-heavy in 2018. I hope to remedy this and stay on top of things but my mood reading is still very THERE for review copies. I request something I genuinely want to read (it was even on my TBR before seeing it on Netgalley!) and then I’m just straight-up not in the mood for it by the due date. I might read it later when I want to, but sometimes that doesn’t happen either. Here are eight review copies where this happened. Valley Girls by Lemon | I kind of liked the first book I read by this author, but not fully – so I’m really not sure why I requested another book by her. Don’t get me wrong, my opinion could always change, but I just don’t think this book was logical for me to REQUEST. All That I Can Fix […]

Potential 2019 Rereads

Posted January 21, 2019 / Book Lists, Features / 4 Comments

I don’t do as much rereading as I could, should, or want to. I always tell myself I don’t have enough time with all of the other NEW books out there. However, the best kinds of rereads that sort of take away from this issue are (a) audio rereads because it’s like bonus reading time anyways and (b) rereads of books I read for the first time a VERY long time ago, so it’s like I’m reading it again for the first time. I’ve had success with some nostalgic series in the past. I hope to reread some more recent releases this year though, because lots of books have sequels coming out and I decided I wanted to be prepared! Last year, I featured SIX books I hoped to reread in 2018. Guess how many I reread? ONE. I reread Caraval in preparation of Legendary and it was an excellent choice, but good lord – I need to prioritize rereading more!! GOSSIP GIRL series by Cecily von Ziegesar Reason: This is one of two books I’m keeping on here from last year because… I’ve been itching for more nostalgic rereads after finishing the A-LIST series with Cristina, and this is the ultimate classic high-school-into-college series for me. Format: I absolutely would love it if this series had audiobooks, but they don’t (they might for the first book or something weird?). I recently went and purchased some of the paperback books because they were super cheap but I have to round out my […]

Review Round Up | Last Seen, The Proposal, and This Lie Will Kill You

Posted January 18, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

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 can’t believe this series is over… hopefully! The ending wasn’t exactly ambiguous but I suppose there’s always a chance Shepard continues the series multiple times a la Pretty Little Liars. Jokes aside, this was a REALLY strong end to this trilogy! The main issue I had throughout all of the books was that I was disconnected from the characters. I never warmed up to them or felt anything for them – didn’t care about the ships, was uninterested in any of their personal lives, etc. I’m not sure if, again, it’s because it was a mystery and I was on edge or not trusting anyone? But I just could never get on board with them. I think it’s an interesting twist when you know who the murderer/culprit is AND get to read from their point of view. Sometimes it can take a little bit of the fun out, but that was certainly not the case here. There were SO MANY twists and connections that were built throughout the whole trilogy that I never would have picked up on. Just because you knew the killer and what he was doing, definitely did not mean that you knew why he was doing it or how he picked his victims. […]