Month: May 2019

Lauren Lately | May 2019

Posted May 15, 2019 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 3 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 We are officially in the busy section of 2019 for me! Starting with my friend’s bachelorette trip to Charleston last month, through May and into June, we will be quite busy. We have another wedding we’re in (both Chris and me!) in August but luckily there isn’t a whole lot going into it. We had a little birthday celebration for my friend Cassie during Easter weekend, where we got new cartilage piercings and tacos for lunch. We also went shopping to get the matching Easter outfits that Natasha and I always wear for my family! I snuck in some reading time before Easter while everyone else was sleeping and then we had a nice day at my mom’s house. We don’t have a reason to celebrate Easter but we do it anyways? lol. I’m super busy with birthday things in April, as you all probably know by now (five super important people in my […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #235: Page to Screen

Posted May 14, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Page to Screen Freebie: Books I’d Love to See on Screen 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 tend to love when books are adapted for TV or movies. I’m not quite as territorial as I used to be, wanting to keep the magic of a certain book or author all to myself. It’s so exciting because I genuinely feel like adaptations as a whole are getting even better and truer to their written counterpart. A recent TTT featured a few books I read specifically BECAUSE they were getting the adaptation treatment, so it even works out for motivating me to read certain things. Today I’ll be talking about books that I’d love to see on screen in one capacity or another! TV Shows Summer series by Jenny Han | I know that love triangles are maybe a litttttle outdated for TV (??) but I still feel like this series deserves something. A TV show would be really nice. Each season could be maybe half of a book, or summer? Or just have three long seasons, one for each summer, with a break in between? I just want to live at Cousins Beach and see it on my screen! Belly grows […]

Blog Tour | Review: Romanov

Posted May 13, 2019 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

When I signed up for the Retellings Challenge this year, it was definitely intended to be an actual challenge for me. I love retellings in theory and have read a decent number of them, but I still focus so heavily on contemporary fiction. Add in the fact that ROMANOV is also historical fiction, and I knew it would be a great push out of my comfort zone. I’m a fan of the movie Anastasia of course because WHO ISN’T? so I signed up quickly for this blog tour. Killing a lot of birds with one stone! I digress. I was right: this book was definitely different than the other stories I have been reading this year! The Russian folklore/themes were a really nice change of pace for me. Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy other genres ? It’s clear that Brandes did a lot of research on the history of the Romanov family and what the setting would have been like during that time. The story begins with Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov and her journey, with her family, into exile. She is tasked with stealing an ancient spell (through a doll) along with them. The first half or so of the book involves their travel and the rest of the book involves the more ~magical~ elements. I loved that the spell was connected to the Russian nesting dolls I’m familiar with. It personally took me a little while to get into this, but I feel it’s for a lot of […]

Bout of Books 25 TBR and Tracking

Posted May 10, 2019 / Book Challenges, Features / 2 Comments

Another round of Bout of Books is here! I’ve signed up for every single one of these bad boys since I started my blog and even if I sometimes fail spectacularly, there’s something so fun about curating a TBR list and setting some goals, even just for a short period of time. Here’s more information if you’re unfamiliar: The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 13th and runs through Sunday, May 19th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, Twitter chats, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 25 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team I hope to get some good reading done during this time period because it’ll be right after my friend’s wedding weekend (where I’ll be doing ZERO reading) and I’ll want to catch up or get ahead for the month. I don’t think I have any major plans during that week, aside from the WWE PPV Money in the Bank on Sunday the 19th. I won’t get much reading done that day, but maybe some time before the show. I hope to get a few different types of books done (format-wise and genre-wise) throughout the week. My goals and general TBR ideas are below! Goals As usual, I looked at the reading […]

The Cookie Book Tag

Posted May 9, 2019 / Book Tags, Features / 8 Comments

I saw this tag over on Chasm of Books and thought I should give it a try! It’s been way too long since I’ve done a book tag and I am currently still savoring my Girl Scout cookies, so why not?! It was created originally by Sorry I’m Booked. Chocolate Chip: a classic book that you love or really enjoyed I don’t read a lot of classics and frankly have barely liked most of them. Can we all accept the fact that Harry Potter can probably be considered a classic now?? Hopefully? Because that’s really the best answer I have for this one. I like The Great Gatsby too though… Thin Mints: a fandom you really want to join or a hyped book you want to read There are a lot of books and series out there that I’ve been sleeping on or never had the chance to read. I wasn’t into the whole Mortal Instruments thing for some strange reason back in the day. My reading buddies at the time all loved it and for some reason I never read them. I wish now, even though it seems a bit crazy, I read them so I could keep reading all the new releases. It feels like the kind of series that gets you with the nostalgia factor and I don’t know that it’d hold up for me to start now. Shortbread: an author you can’t get enough of I have yet to be disappointed by Emma Mills. She just writes the […]

What Does Mood Reading Even Mean?

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

I was inspired by a recent comment on my post about my Seasonal Reading to write a post about this. It’s something I’ve never thought about before but it makes a lot of sense… What exactly does mood reading mean to you or to other people? SO many of us say we’re mood readers all the time, but it clearly doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. Here’s the comment in question: Amy mentioned that mood reading, for her, is that she reads a genre or trope until she’s sick of it. She doesn’t read anything else until that “mood” passes and is fulfilled from multiple books. I LOVE knowing this – that everyone has their own way of dealing with mood reading, and even their own way to “define” it. I’ve talked a loooot about mood reading tendencies since I’ve started my blog. I’ve even discussed how I don’t really feel like I’m a mood reader anymore, at least on a book-to-book basis. I read seasonally, which is the post that brought this comment/thought to my mind, but is that even mood reading? Is it more seasonal reading, or is than offshoot of mood reading? WHAT IS MOOD READING?? History of Mood Reading To recap my thoughts on this topic, here are various ways I’ve discussed it over time (oldest posts to newest): Seasonal TBR Moods – 2016 It’s cool that this topic comes full circle because of me talking about “seasonal reading” and how that connects to mood […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #234: Characters Like Me

Posted May 7, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

Characters that Remind Me of Myself 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 always try to find ways to relate to the main characters I read about in my books. I think it makes the reading experience a lot more fulfilling when there’s just one tiny thing that connects you with someone – either what they’re going through, their relationship with their families, their inside jokes with their friends, their fashion sense… I don’t have to fully relate to character experiences to relate to the characters themselves and that can make things even more interesting. Molly // 99 Days and 9 Days & 9 Nights by Katie Cotugno I could relate to Molly. I feel like life can be so messy at times and it’s nice when books can explore all of the messed up parts; it makes me feel something different for once… I truly could relate to all of the different emotions that Molly felt and her utter confusion about what was right for her… I’ve been in so many odd romantic entanglements in my life; it was nice to read a story of someone who doesn’t have perfect feelings about one person, but mixed feelings on a couple of people. I […]

Review Round Up | Fumbled, The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project, and There’s Something About Sweetie

Posted May 6, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 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 really enjoyed INTERCEPTED, despite the incessant internal hashtagging that the main character did. There were some parts I didn’t love about that book though, so I was slightly concerned but optimistic about FUMBLED. I really had nothing to worry about though, because this book was even better than the first! I loved TK when he made appearances in the first book so I was super excited to see that this starred him, in a second chance romance. Poppy and TK were together in high school… and TK has no idea that her nine-year old son is his. When they cross paths again at a club where Poppy works, sparks fly and she knows the truth will have to come out. I appreciated that this piece of drama was not dragged out; the honest moment happened early on instead of way-too-late like it would in most books. TK and Poppy had reasonable arguments, discussions, and conversations about everything. I loved their openness. There were actually quite a few moments where I expected there to be friction between them (about money, parenting style, etc.) that were handled perfect well and logically. It was genuinely refreshing to read in a romance novel where one person is a celebrity/athlete and […]

Goals & Challenges After 4 Months | Check-In

Posted May 3, 2019 / Features, Wrap-Ups / 2 Comments

I always do a midpoint check-in around July to share my general progress on reading goals and challenges, but I thought it would be fun to do a quick check-in now. I’m noticing major progress on my challenges but veryyy little progress on some of my specific reading or blogging goals. I’ll be including pages from my bullet journal to get my point across too 😉 I didn’t bother including personal goals for this particular check-in because I’m just kind of struggling right now, balancing a lot of expenses and stresses. Also, quick note, all of this progress is as of the last day of April. I always set a variety of reading, personal, and blog-related goals for the year. I tried to outline them nicely in my bullet journal to track them a little more often, since I tend to write the post and forget about it until the midpoint check-in! I wish I could tell you that the bullet journal thing was helping buuuut instead I just feel guilty when I ignore this page in my updates 🙁 Continue to not feel pressured to read and enjoy other hobbies ✔ Yep good on this one. Reading when I’m in the mood and not reading when I’m not in the mood. I took a little break in April when I went on a trip and expect a similar situation in June when I go to California. Read 50% or less contemporary novels ❌ LOL this is actually the goal I’m paying […]

March-April Bookish Bullet Journal

Posted May 2, 2019 / Features, Goals & Planning, Personal / Information / Etc., Wrap-Ups / 3 Comments

When I mentioned the idea of sharing layouts from my reading-related bullet journal on the blog, most of you seemed interested to read about it! I can’t justify making one post each month dedicated to the 3-4 bujo pages I make during that month, so I thought doing a little bullet journal update every two months would be fun instead! In these posts you will see all of the new pages I added during the past two months. I shared my first set of bujo pages in the post I linked above, where I talked about the overall layout of my journal and showed my February layouts. I didn’t start the bujo in January, so there ya have it. Here’s what I’ve been doing for the past two months! (Sidenote: I’ll be showing any other pages that get updated in the midpoint of the year too, so the post for the May-June bujo in July will show any yearly challenges or graph pages that I update at the end of the month, just to show midyear trends and such!) March bookstagram: I didn’t end up doing this beyond the first few days of the month, but oh well. I love how the “bookstagram” title came out on the page! That’s worth it alone 😉 I usually will do two columns – one for the actual promp and one for the idea I have for the photo (location, props, and book titles). March TBR: I’ll be keeping this book stack format, with […]