Month: March 2020

Top Ten Tuesdays #281: Book Lover

Posted March 31, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Signs I’m a Book Lover 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. The topic for this week is signs you’re a book lover. I wanted to personalize it a bit to share some of the ways people know that I’m a book lover, including people in my normal non-bookish/online life! Book Blog & Related Social Media This one feels obvious, especially to all of you! But, a friend of a friend said once, “oh yeah, you read a lot. You even have an Instagram account about books, right?” I didn’t realize she had been suggested my bookstagram before so apparently people in my real life know about it! My best friends follow me there but I never thought about acquaintances also following or knowing I had all this stuff. I don’t post about it on my Facebook or other ~regular Lauren~ social media pages. Wall Art ft. Reading I have a few prints in my house about reading and books, which most of my real life friends certainly don’t have! i know friends with movie posters and other kinds of fandom things on the wall, but books are just mine 😉 Bookcases! I always get comments on having full ass bookshelves when people […]

April TBR

Posted March 30, 2020 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 3 Comments

My monthly TBR feature here shows my progress based on last month’s TBR, my plans for this month, and anything else I might be thinking about from a reading perspective. Sometimes I feature a little poll at the bottom so you guys can help me figure out a certain title I should read from a group of books. Last month’s progress: Woof y’all. Yes, I did a good job of sticking directly to my TBR for the most part (especially where it counts, like the review copies and blog tours)… but my reading is still kind of shitty. There are some moments or days where I’m in the mood to read, but the whole COVID-19 thing has not motivated me. I wrote a post on this actually. Anywaysss I’m behind on my reading challenge and just hoping this is a season of poor reading instead of a permanent change in my reading life. We’ll see! Magical Readathon I signed up for the Magical Readathon (OWLS) the other day and listed a whole TBR over there to meet the prompts to become a Professor of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts ??‍♀️?? These books all fall under various potential prompts for the readathon, which you can read about on that post instead. THE DECK OF OMENS comes out this month and I’m super excited for it. HOUSE OF EARTH AND BLOOD is from last month – more on that later. THE ART OF LAINEY is a super backlist book I have to read […]

Blog Tour: The Sea Glass Cottage

Posted March 27, 2020 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

More Purchase Links: Harlequin // Indiebound // Books-a-Million Target // Walmart // Google // iBooks // Kobo Review I’ve adored reading the Haven Point series by RaeAnne Thayne over the past several years; I get so excited when I see a new installment announced. I thought it would be fun to branch out and explore other stories by her. THE SEA GLASS COTTAGE was the perfect way for me to do so! I didn’t realize the setting of Sanctuary Bay was used in her other novels as well – I would totally have read those first. Either way, this works nicely as a standalone novel. The story centers around Juliet, her daughter Olivia, and her granddaughter Caitlin. There’s also a POV from Cooper, a childhood friend of Caitlin’s late mother. The three women are trying to live in the same house as Juliet recovers from surgery. Olivia comes down to help her mother and work at the family’s garden center in the interim. Caitlin is fifteen and has lived with Juliet since her mother’s passing when she was a kid. The relationships are strained between the three women for various reasons, primarily based in past issues. I enjoyed all of the characters reconnecting and the town had a few great side characters, like Henry, Melody, and Jake. I have to say that most of the characters had some pretty sad backstories, which was challenging and sometimes a bit of a downer to read. I say this primarily because of the current virus […]

Reading Lately /// Isolation

Posted March 26, 2020 / Discussions, Features / 2 Comments

Like a lot of bookish people, I was excited to dive in to a LOT of good books during self-isolation, quarantine, lockdown – whatever you want to call it. I’ve found that my shitty reading habits have continued from February though and I haven’t finished nearly as many books as I normally would. I find myself browsing my phone, wallowing in the news/social media, playing Candy Crush, and watching Chris play Animal Crossing. It’s just so hard to focus for a few reasons, which I’ll get into below. But! I won’t just use this spur-of-the-moment blog post to whine. I’m going to make myself think of a few solutions too. Problems Unmotivated to read in the first place I’ve had a weird reading year so far. It could be general reading burnout from the past handful of years, reading and reading and doing nothing else. It could be King of Crows being the only thing I wanted to read in January and then the only thing I could think about when I finished reading in February. Either way, that book got me, y’all. I just don’t want to read. I’ve been unmotivated BEFORE all of this started and clearly that’s continuing. This situation is just not helping like I thought it might. Mind-numbing games/media > books I get sucked into the news throughout the day, but primarily first thing in the morning when I catch up on things I missed. I just hate it. I’m doing what I personally can by […]

Magical Readathon 2020 – OWLS

Posted March 25, 2020 / Uncategorized / 3 Comments

So it’s no secret that my reading has been super off this year, especially in over the last month and a half. I talked about how my usual crazy reading schedule and plans don’t necessarily work for me when I’m not in the mood to read – it only works when I WANT to read or have a lot of things I’m excited about. I wanted to simplify my life and stop stressing about meeting challenges. Nonetheless, I have been wanting to join the Magical Readathon (OWLS and NEWTS) for months and months. I knew this would be the perfect thing to get me back in the reading mood since I’d been so excited for it. Without further ado, here is my sign-up and general plans for this April! Information The Magical Readathon consists of choosing a career path and taking Hogwarts courses to pass your OWLS and NEWTS exams. OWLS are in April and NEWTS are in August. There are twelve reading prompts for each magical subject in the OWLS: Ancient Runes // Heart rune: heart on the cover or in the title Arithmancy // Magical qualities of number two: balance/opposites – read something outside your favorite genre Astronomy // Night classes: read majority of this book when its dark outside Care of Magical Creatures // Hippogriffs: creature with a beak on the cover Charms // Lumos maxima: white cover Defense Against the Dark Arts // Grindylows: book set at the sea/coast Divination // Third eye: assign numbers to […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #280: Genre Freebie

Posted March 24, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Recent Fave Adult Contemporary Romance 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. My blog has had a mix of YA and adult titles for a while. I’ll always read YA, but I’ve noticed that the percentage of adult-oriented books has grown each year. I’m reading a lot of romances from my favorite publishers (Forever and Berkley) so I thought it would be fun to recommend some from those imprints and beyond. Central Park Pact Companion Series I just enjoyed this series SO much. The story is built around three ladies who realize that they’re all with the same man… at his funeral. Naomi, the fling, gets her love story in book one; Claire, the wife, gets book two; and Audrey, the girlfriend, has book three. I adored each of them, with the final installment being my favorite. I’ll be honest: while romance is certainly present, these are highly focused on the girls moving on with their lives in more ways than one, plus their sweet friendship. Sweetwater Springs Companion Series There are two novellas not shown here, by the way, and they’re fully worth reading in between! I’ve fallen so in love with Sweetwater Springs. This charming place has everything I love […]

Review Round Up | Undercover Bromance, The June Boys, and Marriage on Madison Avenue

Posted March 23, 2020 / 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! DNF: 33% While I enjoyed the first book in this series, I certainly didn’t love it like everyone else. I didn’t really like Liv, the previous MC’s sister, at all either. She was incredibly stubborn and overprotective to me. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled when she was the lead character for book two. She proved to be just as irritating in this one – maybe even more so since we were in her head. I enjoyed Mack as a character and thought he was way sweeter than his “smooth guy” persona implied from the previous story. I loved how quick he was to use his resources to help Liv take down the shitty restaurant owner she previously worked for. I didn’t read the synopsis of this one fully and was really just excited to see how book two would go, so I wasn’t fully aware that this had the heavier topic of sexual assault/harassment at the forefront. I didn’t realize it was central to the plot for whatever reason. I just couldn’t read it. Also, the first book had cute inserts from the romance that the book club was reading, and showed how it related to the story itself. This book didn’t have that in the […]

A Day in the Life // Work From Home (3/18/20)

Posted March 20, 2020 / Currently, Lifestyle, Personal / Information / Etc. / 2 Comments

I thought given the current situation of staying home and isolating, I’d share what my day looked like once this week! I’m bad at remembering to take early morning pictures so I apologize we’re missing the coffee-and-Kindle situation from when I first woke up. I fell asleep super early last night so I was really hoping to wake up around 5:30 to finish my book and relax with YouTube. As usual, I forgot to press snooze and woke up naturally at 6:15 instead. My boss and I had worked from home the day before since I had a cough in the morning. We were planning to kind of play it by ear since our office has two people in it and we could easily work from home. I expected to go in this morning when I woke up. I got out of bed to make my coffee, eat some pistachio loaf, and go to the bathroom. Chris left for work a few minutes before. He works as a machinist so he has to go in. I spent the morning finishing up SUPER ADJACENT for a blog tour coming up in early April. I also watched Book Roast’s announcement for OWLS, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and hopped in the shower. While showering, my boss texted that she would be working from home again today. I was surprised and a little mad I rushed myself in the morning, but overall happy to stay home for now. I got […]

Blog Tour: All Your Twisted Secrets

Posted March 18, 2020 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

iTunes | BookDepository | Kobo | Google Books Review Honestly I’d been stuck in a reading rut for a couple of months when this tour was coming around. Luckily, I had two bookish friends buddy read this book and discuss how addicting it was for the less-than-a-day it took them both to read it. I decided this would be the perfect thing to read to break myself from my reading problems! I’m a huge sucker for books with the kind of “Breakfast Club” setup, especially if it involves some murder mystery elements. I’d been burned by this kind of book before though so I was cautiously optimistic for ALL OUR TWISTED SECRETS. There’s a fine line between successfully using those “stereotypes” in a logical and realistic way, and relying on them to much to create the characters. I don’t like when the “mean girl” trope is too much because I just think it paints the wrong picture. Plus, I hope and think we’ve gone a bit beyond the traditional cliques in high school. I know they still exist but acting like they’re the end-all, be-all doesn’t seem to be true anymore. This book was EXTREMELY well-plotted, alternating perfectly between the past and the present. Something would be said in the room in the present and then the next chapter set in the past would provide background and context to that piece of information. I found myself racing through the pages, constantly wondering what might happen next to advance the connections […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #279: Spring TBR

Posted March 17, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 10 Comments

Spring TBR 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. Man who even knows what I’ll be reading this spring because CLEARLY I’m a million books behind and reading is my last priority at the moment. Ugh. Either way, I usually try to show a mix of the new/upcoming releases I’m excited to read as well as any ARCs I have on deck. Here we go! Spring Releases Admission by Julie Buxbaum | I keep getting excited about her books even though I’m behind on actually reading them. Nonetheless, I’m impressed she managed to take this topical admissions scandal issue and write a book so quickly on it. Should be good! The Tourist Attraction by Sarah Morgenthaler | I’m loving the idea of a diner set in Alaska! I actually think I’ve read ONE book set in Alaska so this’ll be fun. The Deck of Omens by Christine Lynn Herman | I seriously enjoyed this series-opener and have been really excited to read the next one! I think this was a book club selection the first time around so hopefully we’ll read it ASAP in release month too. House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas | I’ve said in a few places that I’m not […]