Month: July 2019

Lauren Lately | July 2019

Posted July 17, 2019 / Features, Lauren Lately, Wrap-Ups / 1 Comment

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 Lobster rolls and local exploring | Chris and I went to a local lobster roll and ice cream shop when exploring into a new county near us. We had great food and walked through the woods to see their fairy gardens! They also sold nice plants and just had a great vibe in general. We went down to a skatepark nearby Chris was meaning to try too. Jen’s Mystic bachelorette | Chris’s sister chose Mystic for her bach location because she wanted something near the ocean and relaxed. It was perfect! I’ve never been on a bachelorette trip with such a small amount (meaning ZERO) of drama. Everyone was a virtual stranger to everyone else and there were no cliques at all. We got along great and had a fun/relaxing time! Book club, grad party, and the beginning of porch time | I’ve been going to book club at a local […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #244: Auto-Buy Authors

Posted July 16, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 4 Comments

Adult Fiction Auto-Buy Authors 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’ve talked about my usual auto-buy authors over and over again, so I thought I would focus specifically on the ones who are writing “adult” fiction instead of my usually-stacked-with-YA list! I tried to go with people whose books I genuinely have bought or requested immediately when I saw they had a new release coming. Some are newer to me and some are tried-and true. Either way, you can bet your ass these authors’ new books end up on my TBR right away! Taylor Jenkins Reid Jenny Hale Bethany Chase Annie Rains Karma Brown Nicola Moriarty Liane Moriarty Helen Hoang Sophie Kinsella Beth Kendrick

Late ARC Reviews: One Night at the Lake and The Flatshare

Posted July 15, 2019 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I’m genuinely shocked I waited this long to read ONE NIGHT AT THE LAKE. I’ve absolutely adored Chase’s other books – they’re some of my all-time favorites. One of my book clubs decided months ago that they wanted to read this one but they needed to wait until it was released… unlike me. I just have the worst memory so I kept putting it off and now here I am in July. I DIGRESS – on to the book! This book was very much not quite like her other books. I can’t say that it’s a bad thing, by any means, but it was my least favorite from her so far. I like that she had a bit more mystery in this one (not majorly – I would still classify this broadly as contemporary fiction but not necessarily romance). I definitely wanted more development in some spots. I hate to say this too but I didn’t really like Leah… or June that much either. It made a lot of chapters either frustrating or kind of boring as a result. June was a very bland character for me and Leah was too much on the opposite end of the spectrum… she was annoying. I liked how well the chapters alternated, going back and forth across time. June’s took place in present day, when she first returns to Seneca Lake with her now-fiancee (ex-boyfriend of her friend Leah, who died that summer 7 years prior). I thought that Chase masterfully wove the […]

Reviews Made Me Reconsider

Posted July 12, 2019 / Discussions, Features / 5 Comments

I’ve been thinking of writing this post for a while but was afraid it would come across as mean or bashing these particular books and authors. I know a lot of people don’t enjoy writing bad reviews for books (I love a good rant sometimes, but not all the time!), so I wasn’t sure how to approach this. AND THEN I said screw it, because it’s my blog and I do what I want. There are plenty of books out there that make their way onto my TBR and then the reviews start rolling in… and I change my mind about reading them. Of course, the reverse is also true: I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read a book and then some glowing reviews came in and I decided that I should try it out. Here’s a little list of some of those books and why they’re on or off my radar now, thanks to my favorite bloggers. Again, but Better by Riccio | I did actually start reading this one but didn’t jive with the writing style, to be honest. I stopped reading it because many, many others did not enjoy this one as much. I saw Chelsea discussing her thoughts on it, plus reviews from Madalyn (which wasn’t necessarily bad but just mixed!) and Amber (mostly about the writing and telling instead of showing) that didn’t make me want to prioritize finishing this book. The Wedding Date by Guillory | This is a weird one because I went on to […]

Christmas in July

Posted July 11, 2019 / Book Lists, Features / 6 Comments

You guys know how much I love reading Christmassy books during the holiday season, usually just between November and December. This year I thought it would be fun to do a little “Christmas in July” list to share which holiday books I’m already thinking about for my 2019 reading list. I was somewhat inspired by YA Book Nerd’s recent TTT about Christmas romances! I won’t actually read any of these books prior to November, I’m certain, but here are some early reads for your TBRs 😉 Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella Series: Shopaholic Pub date: October 17, 2019 Celebrate Christmas with the ultimate Shopaholic! The brilliant laugh-out-loud festive novel from the Number One bestselling author. Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) adores Christmas. It’s always the same – Mum and Dad hosting, carols playing, Mum pretending she made the Christmas pudding, and the next-door neighbours coming round for sherry in their terrible festive jumpers. And now it’s even easier with online bargain-shopping sites – if you spend enough you even get free delivery. Sorted! But this year looks set to be different. Unable to resist the draw of craft beer and smashed avocado, Becky’s parents are moving to ultra-trendy Shoreditch and have asked Becky if she’ll host Christmas this year. What could possibly go wrong? With sister Jess demanding a vegan turkey, husband Luke determined that he just wants aftershave again, and little Minnie insisting on a very specific picnic hamper – surely Becky can manage all this, as well as the surprise […]

Review Round Up | The Lovely and the Lost, Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck & Fortune, and Passion on Park Avenue

Posted July 10, 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’ll be 100% honest: if Jennifer Lynn Barnes didn’t write this book, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up based on the synopsis alone. The MC was found in the woods by a family who trains search-and-rescue dogs, and she quickly joins that family business with them. There’s a survival element here that doesn’t usually appeal to me, but I DID like the idea of tracking down a missing child and solving a mystery in that way. It’s purposefully hard to connect with the main character because she had such a closed-off upbringing. She’s meant to be challenging and distant, so I understood why I wasn’t able to connect with her on the level I usually might’ve when reading a book. I loved her though – she was fierce and extremely loyal to her found family. Jude, Free, and her mother Cady were all fascinating characters. I loved getting to know the people surrounding the state park they went to to find Bella. There were a LOT of twists and turns for a book I would generally consider to be more of a contemporary book than a mystery book. I’m totally counting it as mystery for my challenges ? There were a lot of elements at the […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #243: Characters

Posted July 9, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Recent Favorite Main Characters 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 week is a character-related freebie, so I thought I’d share some of my recent favorite main characters I’ve read about! I have a Goodreads shelf specifically for main characters I wish I was friends with, so that helps me here quite a bit 😉 Naomi, Claire, and Audrey from The Central Park Pact series by Lauren Layne Olive from The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren Alex and Henry from Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston Kristen from The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez Sweetie from There’s Something About Sweetie by Sandhya Menon Poppy from Fumbled by Alexa Martin Kailyn from Meet Cute by Helena Hunting Millie (and friends) from Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins Nikolai, Nina, and Zoya from King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo Babe from Small Town Hearts by Lillie Vale

2019 Mid-Year Challenge Progress & Future TBRs

Posted July 8, 2019 / Book Challenges, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

I always do a middle-of-the-year recap to see how I’m doing on my goals, challenges, statistics, and TBR plans. Sometimes it’s the kick in the pants I need or the moment when I decide to let myself off the hook for once. Either way, last Wednesday’s post was about all of the books I’ve read and their related statistics, as well as my general goal progress based on the resolutions I created at the beginning of the year. Today, you’ll see my challenge progress and potential TBRs/plans for me to finish things up. I’m a big fan of reading challenges and decided to expand a little bit. Instead of doing ones I’d finish very easily, I wanted to do some more specific ones with categories that would open up my reading a bit more. Monthly Motif Challenge Goal: 2 themed books monthly ||| Current completed: 16 JANUARY – New to you author Pretty in Punx – Crompton This Lie Will Kill You – Pitcher The Last Best Story – Lehrman FEBRUARY – Cover love King of Scars – Bardugo I Owe You One – Kinsella Small Town Hearts – Vale MARCH – Royalty, kingdoms, empires, gov’t Her Royal Highness – Hawkins The Goose Girl – Hale Enchantee – Trelease APRIL – Crack the case Last Girl Lied To – Flynn You Owe Me a Murder – Cook MAY – One sitting reads Saga, Vol. 5 – Vaughn Saga, Vol. 6 – Vaughn JUNE – Diversify your reading What If It’s […]

May-June Bookish Bullet Journal

Posted July 5, 2019 / Features, Goals & Planning, Personal / Information / Etc., Wrap-Ups / 2 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 feel like my bullet journal usage is increasing quite a bit, which is nice! I feel like I was stuck in my rigid selection of page layouts for each month (new release tracker, reading tracker, and TBR), but I’ve been trying to make readathon or challenge-specific pages to enjoy tracking other things! This round-up of layouts will likely be longer and bigger than the previous time I posted about this 😉 May ARCs and New Releases: I really like the way this page turned out at the top! As usual, I tracked my review copies with asterisks next to the titles, highlighted the release weeks, and included other releases I’m excited about. May TBR: Phew this looks like a bad month for reading from my TBR! I don’t remember why I read so off-base but I think this was one of those months where I included too many options, especially review books I wasn’t overly into. May Reading Tracker: Now that I look at how lopsided my tracker is, I can tell […]

Summerathon Reviews: The Summer House, The Unhoneymooners, and The Rest of the Story

Posted July 4, 2019 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

I participated in Summerathon recently, where we focused on reading summer-oriented and beachy reads. Here’s a super quick roundup of these summertime books I read during the readathon! I always told myself that I seriously needed to get going on reading some of Jenny Hale’s summer-oriented books. She does such an amazing job of describing winter/Christmas scenes that I just should have known how well she could paint a summery scene as well. I could perfectly picture the town of Waves and the beach houses there, including The Beachcomber (soon-to-be Bed and Breakfast). The main character, Callie, and her best friend Olivia (along with her son Wyatt), always dreamed about buying the property when they were kids and finally are able to do it now, so they move to the small town and begin remodeling. Callie meets the local rich “playboy,” Luke, and is swept off her feet. The story had a similar setup to many Jenny Hale holiday books, where the love interest is rich and fancy. These books are so easy to read and just fulfills that little “what if some rich guy falls in love with me” fantasy that everyone has thought about at some point. This story had a couple more serious elements, as alluded to in the synopsis, but it was generally a light summer read. I wish I had the chance to actually read this on the beach, because it’s the perfect read for laying out in the sun. I absolutely need to get […]