Month: July 2020

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | July 2020

Posted July 31, 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 decided to reduce my Goodreads challenge to 100 books instead of 120. Now I’m still behind, but it’s much more reasonable! I just know with all of the life changes (a puppy) and lack of interest in reading during these horrible garbage times… I’m never going to catch up with 15 books behind, but I can handle being behind by a few. I’ll probably catch up later when the dog requires a little less attention and is older. We’re going camping in a few weeks and I’m hoping to get some reading in then too. 5 books read in July 5 new books • 0 rereads • 0 DNF Pages read: 1903 • Average rating: 4 stars Sources: 2 purchased, 2 review, 1 borrowed Formats: [Review] 2 egalleys and 0 physical ARCs 1 hardcover, 0 paperbacks, 1 ebook, 0 audio, 1 combo Genres: 2 contemporary, 1 mystery/thriller, 1 nonfiction, 1 sci-fi Age Target: 2 young adult and 3 adult Check out my 2020 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 4 read this month […]

August TBR

Posted July 30, 2020 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 5 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. ARC August As always, I’m participating in ARC August! It’s been hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat for many years at this point and I’m pretty sure I’ve participated every year? As you may have guessed, it’s a month-long challenge to focus on reading review copies. I thought it would be easier to highlight some books here using my new Netgalley Shelf app. I did already read COBBLE HILL, so ignore that one, but these are some that I hope to read in time lol. I’ve been decent about reading review copies, even though I’m not reading much. Here are some of the top books on my TBR: The Boy Toy by Nicola Marsh Sorry Not Sorry by Sophie Ranald Simmer Down by Sarah Smith You Have a Match by Emma Lord Float Plan by Trish Doller The Black Kids by Christine Reed Recommended for You by Laura Silverman Well Played by Jen DeLuca My goal is to try to read 6 review copies during August. My reading has been so minimal that I’m barely even reading 6 a month, but I would rather have all of my reads be egalleys than have overdue books […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #298: Freebie

Posted July 28, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Freebie: New to the 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. I love a good freebie week! I decided to do one of the posts I randomly do throughout the year: my “On My List” post based on Jamie’s “New to the Queue” feature. I usually talk about books, movies, shows, podcasts, etc. on that one but this will be more focused on books instead. Here are ten books I just added to my TBR, five released ones and five unreleased/upcoming. Unreleased I’m a sucker for any Kinsella book, but they’ve recently either been a major hit or a major miss for me. I won’t turn them away though! LOVE YOUR LIFE comes out in October. I’m pretty sure THIS TIME NEXT YEAR is the wrong cover and I’m not sure when it actually comes out, but I always like stories that involve people bumping into each other and being “meant to be” in some way. I always love when they begin announcing Christmas books so I recently added a few to my list, including THE TWELVE DATES OF CHRISTMAS and 12 MEN OF CHRISTMAS. Cute covers and titles too! And lastly, THE DAY WE MEET AGAIN is actually similar to […]

Reducing My Goodreads Goal

Posted July 23, 2020 / Discussions, Features / 4 Comments

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a long time. I’ve debated it a few times on the blog within the last month or so, asked people their opinions on Twitter and Instagram, and just haven’t stopped thinking about it. The world has so many bigger issues right now and this has been taking up unnecessary headspace. I usually am *personally* against the idea of reducing my challenge. Once I’ve committed to it, I want to meet it. I won’t change it or “cheat” to meet the goal by making the goal smaller halfway through the year. Again, people can do anything they want, but I always thought this idea wasn’t for me. Why did that change for 2020? Why I Reduced My Challenge 1. 2020 is garbage for everyone I don’t think a single person expected 2020 to go quite like this. Honestly, most people (Chris and I included) expected this year to be kind of great. We thought we would accomplish a lot, spend more time with friends and family, enjoy our yard and local attractions, casually plan our wedding for next year… basically zero things on our list have been done (or even allowed!). I was really hoping that quarantine would make me read more, but I think my brain was always too focused on the garbage fire of a president, the pandemic, etc. – you know it all. Books can be a great escape, but I found that they weren’t the escape I wanted. I […]

Review Round Up | The Deck of Omens, You Should See Me in a Crown, and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

Posted July 22, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 2 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’ll be honest – I don’t have a lot to say with this one because I am the WORST and missed a lot of the book. I was rushing to finish in time for book club and listened to the audio during a work day while multitasking. I definitely understood the story and what was happening overall, but it was less impactful for me. I didn’t feel any kind of connection to the characters during this go-around. I think this was a satisfying and logical conclusion though! I enjoyed seeing where everyone ended up and how they ~fixed things~ in Four Paths. I think the main villain was a bit too obvious (not the actual motivation or anything but it was clear about a sketchy situation going on). I really loved the first book and honestly wish I took more dedicated time to sit down and physically read this conclusion. I think I would have fallen back into the world a bit better and focused on it more. I had super high hopes and expectations for this one because everyone around me online looooved it. It was super duper cute and I’m so glad we read it for book club in June! Liz decides to pursue the […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #297: Events

Posted July 21, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Events & Festivals 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 been fortunate enough to attend the bigger bookish events like ALA and BEA, but there are a few more on my bucket list too! Here are a couple I’ve attended and more on my list for the future… you know, when events are allowed to be a thing again! 😉 BEA I went to BEA back around when I first started blogging and it was an amazing experience to meet so many internet friends in real life! I remember feeling so damn excited waiting in line for the signed ARCs of SIX OF CROWS at the time. I went to a BEA party last year, which feels so weird to think about given the current COVID situation out there. I went into the city to attend the party above and meet Madalyn and her friends. It was a lot of fun! I hope to head back to BEA again someday 🙂 ALA Midwinter I went to ALA Midwinter a few years ago when it was in Boston because I live so close. It was awesome to see more friends and obviously meet Curious George 😉 This is another event I would […]

Spotlight: Suzanne Young

Posted July 20, 2020 / Uncategorized / 3 Comments

My new Spotlight feature highlights anything within the bookish world that I feel deserves a spotlight for a few minutes – publishers (or more specifically, imprints!), new or old favorite authors, bookish people/bloggers, covers or cover trends, topics/genres within books, and anything else that should be on your radar. Suzanne Young It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of all of Suzanne Young’s books. Seriously, I’ve enjoyed every single one of them without exception. I thought that, in honor of her new cover reveal that happened last week, I would share a spotlight on her books and amazing series! Suzanne Young has so much range in her writing. She has dystopian and near future sci-fi series, as well as creepy or heartwarming or generally fantastic standalones. Her writing talent seriously knows no bounds. Just Like Fate I’ve always been a sucker for books that involve some kind of parallel timeline or riff on multiverses. Every decision we make can totally change everything (the butterfly effect!). You never know what your life would be like if you made ANY decision in the opposite way. JUST LIKE FATE is the first book I read involving Suzanne Young (co-written with Cat Patrick). This story centers around Caroline and one seemingly-small decision. Her grandmother is sick and she’s been by her side the entire time. She’s finally deciding that maybe she needs a night away from it all. Should she stay with her grandma one more Friday night, or should she go to […]

The Bright Side (7/17)

Posted July 17, 2020 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 0 Comments

As we’re all going through the same global pandemic with various levels of “stay the F home,” I thought it would be fun to highlight the good things in each week, instead of dwelling on the negatives, the unknowns, and the uncertain future. I tend to do some kind of wrap-up or rundown of my week/month/etc. on Fridays each week (often linking up with Friday Favorites/Currently) so this isn’t too much of a diversion from that. ✨ Miller! Of course Miller is still a bright spot, but if you saw my post the other day – he’s a challenge too! Puppies are genuinely so hard and I didn’t remember it from childhood dogs haha. He’s a really good boy and easy to train, especially because he loves food ✨ Vacation/Puppy Play Date Chris’s company shuts down for two separate weeks of the year instead of offering PTO (ugh). One of them is always around the Fourth of July, so I took the week off with him. We were supposed to go to Niagra Falls with friends but obviously that’s been put off for hopefully maybe next year lol. We got together with a few of the friends who we were supposed to take the trip with because they kept the days off as well, because we needed to get all the dogs together! Miller was reintroduced to his sister Mayla and introduced to Baby Bella. They all were pretty good together! ✨ Picnics During Naptime When the pup naps in […]

If We Were Having Coffee…

Posted July 15, 2020 / If We Were Having Coffee, Personal / Information / Etc. / 2 Comments

I LOVE reading personal posts from other bloggers and seeing Jamie’s “If We Were Having Coffee” feature take off is so fun. Laura and Lindsey also have some great spin-offs of this feature too. I was very tempted to also make mine margarita-related (like Lindsey) but coffee is so ingrained in my daily life that it just makes sense to keep it. If you’re not familiar, it basically involves a fake little conversation about what’s been happening in our lives lately. Read on to see what’s been happening lately and feel free to chat back in the comments! If we were having coffee… I’d talk about how it’s been forever since I’ve done one of these posts. The most recent one was in February of last year. It feels like an eternity ago since 2020 has been simultaneously the longest year ever and the shortest year ever. If we were having coffee… I’d probably also start by asking how you’re doing. It seems like a dumb question though because honestly, is ANYONE having a good year? Anywhere? Probably not. It’s a perfect storm of shit at all times, only made worse by the dumbest person possible “leading” our country. I could go on and on about everything happening. A lot of it is fully necessary, like the Black Lives Matter movement and arresting Breonna Taylor’s murderers. A lot of it is NOT necessary, like DEBATING MASKS as if it’s a political issue instead of common sense. People bitch that Coronavirus is […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #296: Smile

Posted July 14, 2020 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 2 Comments

Books that Made Me Smile 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. There are a lot of reviews on my blog where I claim I was “smiling like an idiot” throughout the whole book. I decided to keep it simple for this one (anyone notice how lazy my TTTs have been lately??) and keyword search for “smile” to figure out which books I reviewed and shared how much I smiled while reading. Date Me, Bryson Keller This book was pure shippy goodness and I remember blazing through it in one sitting, even during the horrible quarantine reading mood I’m in. “I thought their chemistry built up REALLY nicely throughout the week and felt so real to me. It just made me smile and keep reading all night… I highly recommend this one if you need something similar to SIMON VS. but honestly? This had even more swoons and chemistry and smiley moments for me.” 10 Blind Dates I didn’t actually write this in my review but it was the book I used in the 2019 EOY book survey as the one that put a smile on my face or was the most fun to read. Totally loved it. From the 2019 EOY […]