Bookmark Lit Bulletin | April 2019

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days.

I knew April was going to be a garbage reading month, as evidenced by the fact that it took me the entire first half of the month to read multiple books. I finally got back into the groove once the bachelorette trip was over mid-month! I made a little version of ARC April for myself to focus on only reading review copies and I did such a good job of keeping that promise. I still managed to complete 9 books (yes, two were novellas, leave me alone) and DNFed another.

    

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All of the books from this month:

L-R: Includes a wedding, set on college campus/university

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Breakdown: 1 bought  | 0 borrowed  | 0 free/gifted | 14 for review
All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review.

Review Copies – Physical

From Forever Romance: The Summer House by Hale and Welcome to Last Chance by Ramsay
From Grand Central: Fame Adjacent by Skilton

From Wendy @ Book Scents: The Lovely and the Lost by Barnes
From TLC Tours: Only Ever Her by Whalen

Review Copies – Egalleys

From Flux: Ricochet by Berla
From McElderry Books: All Eyes on Us by Frick
From Page Street Kids: The Bone Charmer by Shields
From Simon: Hungry Hearts by various authors, Virtually Yours by Tash

For blog tour (FFBC) via Netgalley: Romanov by Brandes and Last Girl Lied To by Flynn
For blog tour (TLC Tours) via Netgalley: Summer on Mirror Lake by Ross
From Berkley: Well Met by DeLuca
From Page Street: Stealing Home by Wallace

Library Books

None!

Purchased Books

Purchased for book club: The Life Lucy Knew by Brown

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My recent personal / life update found in the last Lauren Lately HERE.

• [3 Apr] Serious Moonlight by Jenn Bennett ★★★★
• [10 Apr] Last Girl Lied To by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn ★★★★
• [12 Apr] The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale ★★★★½
• [12 Apr] The Cottingley Secret by Hazel Gaynor ★★★★½
• [12 Apr] Everything Must Go by Jenny Fran Davis ★★★★
• [18 Apr] The Bride Test by Helen Hoang ★★★★★
• [18 Apr] Meet Cute by Helena Hunting ★★★★★
• [22 Apr] Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins ★★★★
• [22 Apr] Don't Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno ★★★★
• [26 Apr] The Truth About Leaving by Natalie Blitt ★★★★
• [26 Apr] The Dating Game by Kiley Roache ★★½
• [26 Apr] You Owe Me a Murder by Eileen Cook ★★★½

• [1 Apr] Bookmark Lit Bulletin | March 2019
• [2 Apr] Top Ten Tuesdays #229: Read-Bait
• [4 Apr] Unreleased Excitement
• [5 Apr] Spotlight: Forever Romance
• [8 Apr] Series I’ve Religiously Read
• [9 Apr] Top Ten Tuesdays #230: Outrageous Bookish Things
• [11 Apr] Seasonal Reading: Updates and Discussion
• [15 Apr] Lauren Lately | April 2019
• [16 Apr] Top Ten Tuesdays #231: Rainy Day
• [17 Apr] Egalleys Over Physical ARCs
• [19 Apr] Spotlight: YA Anthologies
• [23 Apr] Top Ten Tuesdays #232: First Reviews
• [24 Apr] Seriously, How Have I Not Read This Yet? (Pt. 2)
• [25 Apr] Balancing All the Forms of Entertainment
• [29 Apr] May TBR
• [30 Apr] Top Ten Tuesdays #233: Quotes

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March: Personal ARC April Challenge ✔️
May: Finish Spring Bingo and get back into challenges

I did exactly as I wanted to for my ARC April – I read only ARCs, plus two novellas I had been meaning to read! It was really nice to catch up on review copies and try to get my Netgalley ratio closer to where I want it to be. I have a decent one compared to others, I’m sure, but I want to get it to 80% by the end of 2019. Hopefully I can keep it up!

It took me a while to think of a good goal for May, to be honest, so I decided to keep it somewhat simple – read a lot of books for my challenges! I want to complete the Spring Bingo card 100%, which shouldn’t be too hard. I only have three squares left. I also wanted to spend some time with the two challenges I neglected last month in ARC April: the Retellings Challenge and the Picky Pledge. I have a few books that may work toward the Picky Pledge, so I’m glad to catch up there (I wanted to read one per month for the 12 prompts but I had to skip April). I know it’s super early in the year still but I have some harder prompts left for the Popsugar Challenge so I may need to reevaluate my picks!

Bookish Bullet Journal Mar-May | My first bujo wrap-up post will be coming very soon! I told everyone I would do a post to chronicle three month’s time in the bullet journal, so you can see my reading progress and what layouts I created.

The Cookie Book Tag | I haven’t done a book tag in quite some time and was in the mood to put one together! As you may have guessed, this one is related to cookies of all kinds.

What Does Mood Reading Even Mean? | I’ve spoken at length about my reading tendencies and how I used to be a very moody reader, unable to follow TBR posts. I’ve changed that and evolved quite a bit over time, where I can now read whatever book needs to be “up next” based on required reading. I’m discussing mood reading and trying to unpack what that phrase means to different people.

Romance in Mystery Novels | I learned, from reading a few mystery books in recent months, that I VERY rarely enjoy romance in that genre. It’s mostly because I end up not trusting anyone (due to the nature of the stories) but it’s also because I’m hyper-focused on figuring out the mystery or whodunnit; I don’t care about romance.

Spotlight | I will probably have another Spotlight post up, highlighting another publishing imprint or topic within the book world. Not sure yet.

Reviews Made Me Reconsider OR Books I’ll Never Read | I can’t decide which of these will happen. They won’t be published too close to each other because they’re fairly negative, but I’m really in the mood to discuss these topics. The first one is about books I’ve decided I’m not reading because of friend reviews. The second is about books I’ll likely never read for various reasons. I’m not sure I’ll ever post both of these because they’re kind of similar, so we’ll see!

Check out my May TBR post! ?

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How was your reading in April?
What do you have up next in May?

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