Month: February 2020

Huge True Crime Podcast Round-Up

Posted February 12, 2020 / Media, Personal / Information / Etc. / 2 Comments

A few years ago, I posted three podcast recommendation posts: one for true crime and some comedy, one with my current rotation (including wrestling and general podcasts), and another true crime update. Surprisingly, I’ve only really featured podcasts in my Lauren Lately and Five on Friday posts since then! That means I’ve shouted them out very randomly across about three years. I thought it was high time for a BIG update on my podcast recommendations. Yes, these are all true crime-related. I’ll give brief descriptions and general feelings about them underneath and they’ll be in alphabetical order, so I don’t have to worry about ranking them. These are all ones I’ve listened to between mid-2018 and early 2020, and I’ll let you know if they’re ongoing or if they’ve wrapped up. Quick list of true crime-ish podcasts I’ve recommended in the past: Unconcluded, The Fall Line, My Favorite Murder, Thin Air, Dirty John, Up and Vanished, Serial, Criminal, Missing Richard Simmons, Accused, In the Dark, Finding Tammy Jo, S-Town, and Unresolved Show: A Killing on the Cape Style: About one case Status: Complete Snapshot: This one was an interesting, professionally-made podcast about a murder that happened on Cape Cod. It was made by 20/20 and there’s also an episode you could watch about it. Was the convicted man actually the one who committed the crime? Show: A Murder on Orchard Street Style: About one case Status: Complete Snapshot: Super similar to A Killing on the Cape, as it was also made by […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #274: Love Freebie

Posted February 11, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 12 Comments

Love Freebie: Newest Book Boy Faves 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 don’t remember the last time I did a roundup of my new favorite book boys, so I thought it would be a good topic of discussion for today! I have a generally terrible memory about books (I could forget the ending of a book one day after reading it – that just happened to me actually ?), so I’m very grateful that I make a “book boyfriend” shelf specifically for this kind of thing! Here are my recent favorite book boys:

December ARC Reviews: The Pretenders and Blitzed

Posted February 10, 2020 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I read THE SIMILARS super early, months before it came out, so I feel like I’ve been waiting for the sequel forever. I was soooo addicted to it and I’m pretty sure read it in one sitting. I think reading the first one so quickly and being super addicted meant that I overlooked some things with my rating? The writing here in THE PRETENDERS wasn’t particularly great and I definitely noticed it this time around because I read it much slower. It was moderately addicting when I really got going and pushed myself to read it though. I mostly enjoyed it but the writing and internal dialogue of the main character, Emma, got super repetitive. There was a love triangle, which I saw coming based on the ending of the previous book. I don’t mind them if they make sense and this sort of did, but it was also super weird. She was stuck between Ollie, her best friend from childhood, and his clone, Levi. So, basically the same dude with different personalities. Again, I could SEE the reason for its existence and how the two guys were different from each other, despite the clone stuff, but it annoyed me a lot. The ending was absolutely batshit and unexpected, so that took it to a different level! I’m not sure those twists were necessary (some things seemed like twists for the sake of them and not because they made the book better). Overall, I’m glad I read this duo. I’ve […]

Reading Out of my Comfort Zone

Posted February 7, 2020 / Discussions, Features / 10 Comments

I’ve been struggling with this a lot lately: how do you balance reading books that you genuinely want to read and know you’ll enjoy, with also trying to read out of your comfort zone a bit more? I cannot figure out how to do both and be happy about it. For example, I joined Romanceopoly with the intention of reading some fun books. When I made my tentative TBR post / list of ideas, I came across quite a few squares with prompts that don’t interest me usually. I don’t read paranormal romance and have historically not loved it but there are so many squares within that genre. Fated mates? Ugh. Oldest paranormal romance on my TBR? Double ugh. I rolled my dice for February’s picks and groaned at both of them – I got the paranormal romance one (oldest on my TBR or recommendation from a friend) and the other roll was for a historical romance not set in London. I could very easily read a historical fiction book NOT set in London, but the romance element isn’t my cup of tea. BUT how do I know that? I’ve never read a Tessa Dare or Lisa Kleypas before. Maybe I’ll love it, but I’m stubborn. I’m finding myself unwilling to give up precious reading time to something I’m not sure about and it doesn’t feel great. I read about 10 books a month, give or take. That really doesn’t feel like a lot when you have hundreds of possible […]

ARC Review: Of Curses and Kisses

Posted February 6, 2020 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I am a member of Sandhya’s Street Team because I support her and love her books. However, this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review. When I first saw the announcement for this book and series, I was straight-up over the moon. It immediately became one of my top most anticipated reads. When I was accepted to join Sandhya’s street team and was given an egalley of this book, I was even MORE excited. I dove into it pretty quickly. Unfortunately I didn’t FINISH it just as quickly, but I’ll get into that later. As you can see from this post, I was so effing excited: Like… excuse my French but are you fucking kidding me? I need this series more than I need the air I breathe. Everything about this is perfect and has me written all over it. The author, the boarding school setting, the fairytale retellings, the possible fake dating/hate-to-love trope… Good lord. I’ve been turning a corner on Royal-related books lately and this one will 100% be perfect for me. I just know it. I was in a bit of a slump in September 2019 when I started reading this (woof) and unfortunately that hindered my interest in it. I put it aside for maybe a week or two after starting because I had a few other required reads to sneak in between. When I picked it back up in October, I wasn’t quite as excited to keep reading. The premise […]

Currently: February

Posted February 5, 2020 / Currently, Personal / Information / Etc. / 22 Comments

Currently is hosted by Anne in Residence, where we link up and discuss what we’re currently doing, feeling, etc.! The topics change each month and this post is about what we’re loving, embracing, tasting, wearing, and preparing. I like to link up on things like this occasionally and have done my own “currently” posts in the past as well. Currently loving… Our new TV: We knew we wanted to get a new television around the Super Bowl because that’s when the best deals happen for them (correct, not Black Friday!). My dad called me in late January (the day of the Royal Rumble) to tell me the sales were kicking off at places like PC Richards and Target, so we spent the whole day looking at the screens and finalizing our choice. We’re SO happy with the one we selected! We also bought a new TV stand for underneath since our old one was super small (just like the TV was lol). We managed to shop around, buy both the stand and TV, and set everything up JUST in time for the Rumble to start! We were excited to host Chris’s sister and her husband for the Superbowl this weekend too. Tati Beauty’s Blendiful: So there have been some mixed comments and reviews on this one so far but I genuinely adore it. Before I get into that stuff, let me explain: Tati came out with this new sponge/puff sort of duo that you can apply your entire face with. I used […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #273: Almost-Five-Star Predictions

Posted February 4, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 16 Comments

(ALMOST) Five Star Predictions 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. View my previous post on Five Star Predictions HERE! King of Crows / Girls with Razor Hearts / Four Days of You and Me / 10 Things I Hate About Pinky Lucky Caller / Chasing Lucky / My Calamity Jane / The Happy Ever After Playlist In Five Years / You Say It First / The Switch Up / One of Us is Next Because I’ve written about this annually for a few years now, I thought I would come up with a slight spin on the topic. I posted my 2020 Five Star Predictions already so now it’s time to predict the other books that MIGHT get five-stars from me, or will ALMOST hit five-stars. I feel like it’s hard to think of which books will be perfect, but there are plenty of books I will read this year that could hit somewhere around 4+ stars. So here we go! Layoverland by Gabby Noone | I’m a huuuge fan of any book set in purgatory or in between life and death / heaven and hell. This is an unproven author because it’s a debut, but I have a really good […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | January 2020

Posted February 3, 2020 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

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 always like to kick off the year strong and end the month ahead on my Goodreads goal! I usually manage to finish an entire book on January 1st when I’m chilling at home but this year that was not the case. Nonetheless, I still had a good reading month. I had a slow period around the midpoint but ended up getting back on track every once in a while. 10 books read in January 10 new books • 0 rereads • 0 DNFs Pages read: 3,811 • Average rating: 4.0 stars Sources: 6 for review, 1 library book, 3 borrowed Formats: [Review] 4 egalleys and 1 physical ARC 1 hardcover, 0 paperbacks, 1 ebook, 1 audio, 2 combos Genres: 5 contemporary, 3 mystery/thriller, 1 fantasy, 1 sci-fi Age Target: 3 adult, 7 young adult, 0 middle grade Check out my 2020 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 10 read this month | 10/40 read total Prompts read: Great first line, with a map, same title as show, author with flora or fauna in their name, set in […]