Month: November 2019

Top Ten Tuesdays #261: Bookmarks

Posted November 12, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #261: Bookmarks

Favorite Bookmarks 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 am obsessed with this topic! I love bookmarks and collect them pretty much on a regular basis. It’s such an easy item to collect without feeling like you have no space to store them. I used to have a feature on my blog called Inside and Out where people shared their favorite bookmarks (inside) and book covers (out). So, I’m pumped to show off some of my personal favorite bookmarks. Top to bottom: Hogwarts-themed bookmark from Etsy, two Lego bookmarks from Lego conventions, bookmark purchased at Acadia National Park, “Nevertheless She Persisted” from a local indie, and a Sailor Moon bookmark that I may have gotten as a gift but I don’t remember now! Top to bottom: Random bears bookmark from two friends for my 12th birthday, High School Musical bookmark I found at my dad’s house somewhere, Anna/Lola/Isla bookmark for my fave books, a Flower Fairies bookmark (my fave), a super old school Harry Potter bookmark from childhood!

ARC Reviews: Mooncakes and The Bromance Book Club

Posted November 11, 2019 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment
ARC Reviews: Mooncakes and The Bromance Book Club

I had really high hopes going into MOONCAKES – it looked like a very cute, inclusive love story with a good amount of witchy magic and Halloween feels. I planned to read it ON Halloween but got sidetracked with finishing some other books for the end of the month, so I read it over the course of one night (the next day). I received an egalley for review but ended up purchasing the paperback after my review copy expired (whoops!). This graphic novel is about Nova, a hearing-impaired witch, who lives with her two grandmothers. Her parents passed away but do appear in the story. When a wolf is discovered in the nearby woods, Nova goes to investigate. It turns out to be her childhood friend, Tam, a non-binary werewolf. The two, along with the Nanas, work to remove a demon from their town. Lots of family feels and little touches of side-stories that I’d love to read more about. An old flame reignites between Nova and Tam and it’s THE CUTEST. I love childhood-BFFs-to-more storylines. I have to say, a higher rating could very well have happened here but I seriously struggle with rating graphic novels. I know that they’re just as good as reading a novel, obviously, but I personally rush through them. It’s like I have a timer in my head saying I NEED to finish a comic in one sitting, just because I know I can. I blaze through them and it results in lessened enjoyment. […]

Five on Fridays [2]

Posted November 8, 2019 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments
Five on Fridays [2]

Five on Friday displays the the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc. I’ll generally be posting these biweekly and linking up with Friday Favorites (hosted by A Little Bit of Everything, Grace and Love, and Momfessionals). Previous posts can be found here! I did start my numbering over, since it’ll be a little different than my previous iterations… iTrackBites I’ve noticed that I’m not great at eating properly when I’m not tracking something. Yes, I am very tired of scanning foods or weighing things before I eat them, but I clearly need to do it for a while longer. I found that there’s a popular WW alternative called iTrackBites. The best part of this plan is that it costs a fraction of the price: it’s $35 for a year instead of over $20 per month for WW. There are multiple plans you can follow too – most of them are free! The two pro plans (Keto and Better Balance) are the only ones that require a subscription. The Better Balance plan is an EXACT dupe for the most recent WW Freestyle System. I think the Carb Conscious plan on there is reminiscent of the WW Points Plus program from a few years back. Anyways, this helps me understand why I’m hungry too – I realized I don’t have nearly enough protein in my life. You’ll see from the screenshots above […]

Guide to Holiday Movies Releasing in 2019

Posted November 7, 2019 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments
Guide to Holiday Movies Releasing in 2019

Welcome to the first and earliest installment in my holiday series on the blog! Everyone knows that this season begins for me basically on Halloween or the day after. I just want to enjoy my Christmassy stuff for two full months instead of one, and it costs you $0 to mind ya business and let me be happy. I normally refrain from making blog posts until we’re nearing the end of November, but I thought it would be fun to do a holiday movie round-up post BEFORE posting any of my holiday movie reviews, which always come throughout December. This means I’m sharing ALL of the holiday movies on my radar that are releasing this year. I wanted to get this post out early enough for people to make plans, set their DVRs, and order Disney+ in preparation. Without further ado, here are all the movies you could see this year and where to find them! Again, these are broken down by where you can find them. I thought I would get the smaller lists done first, so if Hallmark and Lifetime movies aren’t your thing, you’re able to skip out of this post before reading through them 😉 Anything you see in the purple boxes are synopses pulled from the relevant websites. Theaters Last Christmas | November 8th Starring Emilia Clarke, Emma Thompson, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, etc. Kate is a young woman subscribed to bad decisions. Her last date with disaster? That of having accepted to work as Santa’s […]

September-October Bookish Bullet Journal

September-October Bookish Bullet Journal

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. September new releases and review copies: Big release month in September, apparently! I’m not super surprised now that I look at this. September TBR: LOL this is a sad wrap-up. I didn’t read a lot in September because it’s always super busy, between alllll the things in my life happening at once. Anniversary, birthday, football, etc… all the good things I love! I don’t read as much during the month and clearly the books I DID read weren’t on my original TBR. September reading tracker: It took me a super long time to read one of my books and others were pretty long as well. Usually I don’t take an entire week to read a book – especially a contemporary romance – but that happened a lot here. Fall bingo card: I didn’t get my shit together on fall bingo until after I did some September spreads when usually I’d prefer to have that at the front of the season. Oh well. This is fairly accurate but I believe I finished a few more off after […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #260: Autumn

Posted November 5, 2019 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment
Top Ten Tuesdays #260: Autumn

Books with Autumn Vibes 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. Oh yes, do I love a falltime book! I’ve said a trillion times that these books, for me, tend to be heavier and non-contemporary. They’re the fantasy books I’ve been putting off, the retellings, the paranormal ones, the mysteries and thrillers…. You name it. I’ve read a lot this season, to be honest, but I think I’ve spent SO much time talking about my TBR over the last few months that I should focus on something ELSE I spend too much time on: book covers! Here are 10 books on my TBR (still managing to get that in, hehe!) that give me autumn vibes from their covers.

Blog Tour | Excerpt and Q&A – Meant to Be Yours

Posted November 4, 2019 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
Blog Tour | Excerpt and Q&A – Meant to Be Yours

Friends, I’m excited to highlight the latest release in the Happily, Inc series by Susan Mallery! This is exactly my kind of book. It’s a companion series focused around a “destination wedding town founded on a fairytale.” Like, if that doesn’t sound like a Lauren-book, I don’t know what does. It’s no secret I love small town companion series, especially when there’s a fun theme of the town and series. The Happily Inc website states that it all started when the owner of the local bank made up a tall-tale about the town helping people fall in love. It caught people’s attention nationally and thus became a hot wedding destination. The seven daughters of the original banker got married, had a lot of kids, and now this book series focuses on each of them finding their forever loves. Y’all, this website is ADORABLE. It has photos of what the townspeople look like, maps of the town, and more. Because I’m a completest about series, I plan to read the whole Happily Inc series in order. Today, I’m highlighting book number five: Meant to Be Yours. Check out the Q&A with Susan Mallery and an excerpt below! Meant to be Yours – Happily Inc Purchase links: Harlequin | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes & Noble Books-A-Million | Target | Walmart | Google | iBooks | Kobo About the Author SUSAN MALLERY is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels about the relationships that define women’s lives—family, friendship, romance. Library Journal says, “Mallery is the master of blending emotionally […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 2019

Posted November 1, 2019 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 3 Comments
Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 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. Back on track, baby! I talked about my weird reading schedule (basically structured every book like a readalong where I had a set start date and end date with page goals) for October and that really helped me. I don’t think I’ll do it all the time but just for a few months when I’m feeling like I need the motivation. This will probably be true for November, TBH. Anyways, I did a good job reading in October (including my focus on “heavier” fall books, aka non-contemporaries).      All of the books from this month: Check out my 2019 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 2 read this month | 37 read total | 93% complete Monthly Motif Challenge 2 read this month | 24 read total This month: Tricks and trades Retellings Reading Challenge 2 read this month | 7 read total | 70% complete Picky Pledge My goal is to work on Alexa and Hannah’s Picky Pledge, reading one book from my shelves per month that fits a category on this TBR idea […]