Month: March 2019

Lauren Lately | March 2019

Posted March 15, 2019 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 4 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 ✨ What I’ve Been Up To Lazy days | We had a few weird weather days in the last month, so we’ve spent quite a bit of time relaxing. We’re hitting the GIVE ME SPRING feels hard right now, guys, but trying to enjoy skiing/snowboarding and snow while we can I guess. Above you can see me learning hand lettering, Chris playing Pokemon, and me reading. That’s about it! Local bookstore exploring | I went to two indie bookstores and one of my favorite chains at the end of February. I went to Book Club near my office for the first time (all of the pics above are from there lol). I’m going to an actual book club event at a brewery hosted by them later this month. We also went to Bank Square books in Mystic when we were there for the chowder fest, then headed to Books-a-Million (the closest is in the southern part […]

How I Use Google Keep for Organizing My Life

Posted March 14, 2019 / Goals & Planning, Lifestyle, Personal / Information / Etc. / 7 Comments

I’m a big proponent of Google’s document services and other apps. I love that I can sync everything up on my phone or computer instead of having things in one place, like when I use Microsoft Office. I’ve talked a lot about how I organize my bookish life with Google Sheets, but I figured I’d share some of my Google Keep love today! If you don’t know, it’s an app and website service from Google that essentially makes various sticky notes on a board. They can be lists, plain text, drawings, and more. I use the checklist option the most because I frequently use it for groceries and weekly to-dos. I know there are more sophisticated planning apps that use calendars and such, but this one really works for me for now. Here’s how I use it. Pinned Notes – Priorities When you make a note, you have a bunch of color and style options, as well as the ability to pin it to the top. I like this for my priority items for the week. As you can see below, I have different grocery shopping lists for each store I frequent. I also have a list of meal plans for the week. Sometimes the meal planning note lists out each meal for each day (like below) and other times it’s just a list of ideas for dinner based on groceries I have on hand. The pinned ones below show the weekly meals, priority shopping list for Target the day […]

Blog Tour | Book Review & Cover Colors: Small Town Hearts

Posted March 13, 2019 / Book Reviews, Cover Colors, Features / 9 Comments

Book Review The title “Small Town Hearts” and the synopsis promising a sleepy coastal Maine town were enough for me to add this to my TBR! The cute cover, bisexual main character, and coffeeshop workplace were other excellent selling points. I had high hopes for this one as a result! The story surrounds one summer, the one after graduation, where Babe encounters some ~issues~ with her friends and falls for a summer boy, while somewhat pining over an ex-girlfriend. I loved reading about her experiences with friendship and how friendships can change over the years… sometimes without you even realizing it. Her growing relationship with Lucy, her coworker, was nice to read as she learned the people who would support her and be there. (It also didn’t hurt that Lucy hated ketchup as much as I do!) Beginnings could be scary, and there was always a chance that the ending wouldn’t be pretty, but the middle was what made it all worth it… People weren’t meant to be preserved in amber. Maybe there were no happily ever afters. But there could be happiness, if I was brave enough to go for it. (ARC pg 194) Some elements of the story felt a little unlikely or uncommon, like both Babe and her friend Penny living by themselves in lighthouses and houseboats (just because they’re on coastal Maine doesn’t mean that would happen, on top of the fact that they JUST graduated high school lol)… but it honestly made the book a bit more whimsical and […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #226: Sequels

Posted March 12, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 13 Comments

Standalone Books That Need a Sequel (or Full Series or Companion Novels) 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’m always the kind of person who asks for MORE books in certain worlds (even contemporary worlds). I love sequels. I love companions where previous side characters become main characters. (Hello, Hundred Oaks!) I love reading a million books set in the same universe even if they’re not fully connected to each other in an actual sequel. (The Grishaverse is obviously the best example of this!) I didn’t want to make this about books that were supposed to get a sequel but it didn’t end up happening… but EFF IT, some will be that scenario. I also wrote a TTT a long time ago about characters I’d like to check in with, so you better believe I’d love some sequels for those books! (The best part of reading that post from 2015 is seeing that I DID get a sequel to 99 Days!) The Heiresses by Shepard | Sequel/full series | I know this book was supposed to be a series-starter, but it never got picked up for some reason. There were recent rumors of a TV show in development but those may […]

Back to the Grishaverse | Reviews: Crooked Kingdom and King of Scars

Posted March 11, 2019 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Well folks, this has been a whirlwind. I was thinking, about a week before KING OF SCARS was released, about how excited I was to read Nikolai’s story. I suddenly panicked – were SIX OF CROWS/CROOKED KINGDOM characters going to end up in his book? What is the timeline in the Grishaverse for these stories? The fact that I kept putting off CK for various reasons, which I’ll get into later, crept into my mind. Did I finally need to read it first? The answer was, semi-unfortunately, yes. I needed to read it. One of the KoS points of view is from a SoC/CK character and the events take place after. Whoops. So now I wouldn’t be able to read one of my most anticipated reads ON release day like I planned, but I would somehow have to squeeze in a book from a different series first… one that I didn’t want to read. I enjoyed SIX OF CROWS but not nearly as much as everyone else. I met Leigh Bardugo as my first author I met in real life, got a signed ARC of the book at BEA, and was basically on cloud nine. It took me FOREVER to get into the story once I started reading though. I switched to the audiobook and liked it just fine. Everyone mentioned how CROOKED KINGDOM kinda destroyed them and I was (a) nervous about being the black sheep and (b) not looking forward to being destroyed, potentially. However, sometimes you have […]

Another Post About Scribd (and TIPS!)

Posted March 8, 2019 / Discussions, Features / 8 Comments

I’ve talked about my love for Scribd on the blog multiple times. It’s set up like a cross between Audible and most library ebook/audiobook apps (Hoopla, Overdrive, etc.). It allows you to pay $8.99 a month to have access to their library of books and other kinds of media or documents. I have used them on and off for multiple years. Their unlimited system was amazing… until they removed it… but then they brought back a lighter version… and now it’s unlimited again! I was so excited to see the changes to a better “credit system” so naturally I was even more pleased with the service now that they’re back to unlimited books/etc. I’m not partnered with them or anything, but they do offer two months of free reading and listening by signing up through my referral link. I also get free months if you sign up! If you like this post and want to try it out, help ya girl out! Okay, back to business – Scribd has gone back to their “unlimited listening and reading” plan. There are a few caveats I’ve learned about, but I thought I’d talk about my favorite service again and how you can make it work for you. What is Scribd again? They’re a website and app service where you pay $8.99 a month to have access to books, audiobooks, magazines, documents, and sheet music. You can save titles to your account so you don’t lose them for later, as well as add them to […]

Review Round Up | Field Notes on Love, Girls with Sharp Sticks, and Springtime at Hope Cottage

Posted March 7, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 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! THIS WAS SO CUTE. I was determined to finish another book in February to keep up with 10 books per month, so I ended up scrambling to read this between the last two days. I read so much of it in one sitting on the 28th, both because I “had to” and definitely because I wanted to. Seriously, let me say again, it was ADORABLE. I’m a sucker for those weird circumstances where people meet, especially when traveling. In this case, Hugo was planning a cross-country train trip with his girlfriend (Margaret Campell), when she surprisingly broke up with him. He decided to continue on the trip with the one caveat that that whole thing was nontransferable and booked under HER name. He needed a new Margaret Campbell, put out an ad, and found Mae. The vast majority of the book takes place on the train. I love the idea of this kind of journey, so reading about it was almost as good as doing it myself. I didn’t find it boring or repetitive to read about them talking and spending time one-on-one. Even though the side characters weren’t IN the story that much, they felt fully fleshed out. Alfie’s siblings (he’s a sextuplet!) and cute parents, […]

Spring Bingo TBR Ideas

Posted March 6, 2019 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 2 Comments

Hosted by Pretty Deadly Reviews Another season, another round of bingo! As usual, I’m here to share some of my best ideas for filling this card out. I’ll be honest: most of the boxes on my cards get filled out somewhat organically, where I read a book and THEN see that it fits. I still really enjoy making these seasonal lists, thinking about my long-term TBR plans, inspiring myself whenever needed, AND hopefully helping others find books for them too! Completed so far / current reads Author shares last initial: Springtime at Hope Cottage by Annie Rains (both R last names) School setting: Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young (boarding school – creeeeepy one) Set outside the US: Enchantée by Gita Trelease (Historical fiction / fantasy set in Paris) Ideas for the rest Warm climate: The Last Resort by Marissa Stapley (luxury resort in the Mayan Riviera) Weapon on the cover: Windwitch by Susan Dennard (sword) Three word title: Again, But Better by Christine Riccio (obvious lolol) Novella: A Wedding on Lavender Hill by Annie Rains (novella in the Sweetwater Springs series) Yellow cover: The Dating Game by Kiley Roache (bright yellow, eh?) Standalone: Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen (self-explanatory) Spring release: Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno (have a borrowed ARC – comes out in May too) Water on the cover: One Night at the Lake by Bethany Chase (look at that lake y’all) Book you own: Everything Must Go by Jenny Fran Davis (on my Picky Pledge TBR!) Large cast […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #225: Characters to Switch With

Posted March 5, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Characters I’d Like to Switch Places With 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 a different one! I like that. I think I usually focus on characters I’d want to be friends with, or book settings I’d love to be transported to… but actually BEING a character? Love that! I’m going to TRY to think of other reasons sometimes instead of just picking all of the girls with cute book boyfriends 😉 I didn’t think of how hard this would be though… there are so many MCs going through undesirable things, which makes their stories interesting! I should do a follow-up on MCs I WOULDN’T want to switch places with!

2019 Reading Bullet Journal Setup

Posted March 4, 2019 / Goals & Planning, Personal / Information / Etc. / 14 Comments

Friends, I got sucked back in. I took a brief detour into the bullet journaling world a few years ago and it was just Too Much for me. I was tracking things just for the sake of tracking them and making pages; I wasn’t doing anything actually beneficial. I acquired a bunch of markers kind of soon after I quit the bujo life and was sad they may just sit there. WELL, after creeping hard on Kristin’s bullet journaling life, I decided to finally come back to it. This time, I’m focusing only on books and reading. I didn’t get another Bookish Planner this year and think this will be a fun creative option for me instead. Here’s how I set up my bullet journal for 2019! I spent a lot of time watching flipthroughs and setup videos on YouTube, plotting my pages out with sticky notes and testing out my pens and markers! It was such a fun feeling to get back to. General Setup I thought I’d do a run-through of the general setup of my planner because I have it in sections or categories. I didn’t want to get bogged down with page numbers quite as much, so I just planned on writing an index in order of section. It’s not overly helpful but it’s better than nothing? haha. Section 1: overview and yearly goals/resolutions The first section includes my yearly goals and resolutions, as well as some of the general reading THINGS I’ll be following throughout […]