Month: May 2022

Top Ten Tuesdays #378: Comfort Reads

Posted May 31, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Comfort Reads 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 don’t really reread books that often so it’s hard to decide on comfort reads for me. There are definitely books that made me feel cozy or comfortable, but I think it’s easier to cover comfort AUTHORS for this one. There are certain authors where I know I’ll enjoy the book and have a good reading experience. Reading their books is like coming home. Here are some books by these authors. Annie Rains / Sarah Dessen / Taylor Jenkins Reid Morgan Matson / Emery Lord Lauren Layne / Christina Lauren Emily Henry / Elle Cosimano / Rachel Lynn Solomon You’d find a lot of these authors on any lists I’ve written about favorite authors or auto-buy authors, but there are some new ones on here too. For example, I don’t think I could count Elle Cosimano as a favorite author because she’s only written two books in one series so far, but I know whenever I pick up a Finlay Donovan book, I’ve loved it and felt immediately like I was coming home… even just after two books! Many of these are easy read authors like Christina Lauren or Lauren Layne – […]

June TBR

Posted May 30, 2022 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 0 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. June TBR I got behind yet again in April because I spent the last week of the month with friends on a vacation, which meant I didn’t really have solo time for reading… despite hoping I’d get to enjoy some time with my books in the hot tub! In any case, I hope (as usual) that I can get back on track in May. The month is somewhat busy at the beginning but I’m hoping some car rides will allow for audiobooks… woof. Review Copies I’d love to get ahead on some review copies that are coming out later this summer, like SUMMER ON BLACKBERRY BEACH and THE TRUE LOVE BOOKSHOP. I’m desperately needing some summery romance books so a few of these will hit the mark! SOMETHING WILDER is the latest Christina Lauren and I actually don’t even know what it’s about, but it looks summery. I’ve also been super into thrillers lately so I’m hoping that I’ll keep up with reading those, like VERY BAD PEOPLE and THE COUNSELORS. And finally, I have an audio review copy of I KISSED SHARA WHEELER – I really hope to get to that […]

Review Round Up | The Paris Apartment and Book Lovers

Posted May 27, 2022 / Book Reviews / 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! While not my favorite of Lucy Foley’s three books I’ve read, it’s a bit different from them at least! Both THE HUNTING PARTY and THE GUEST LIST involve remote locations/islands where someone is murdered and everyone is a suspect. THE PARIS APARTMENT has a different setup, which I appreciated. Jess is heading to her brother Ben’s new place in Paris because she needs to escape her previous life… only when she arrives, he’s nowhere to be found. Jess begins creeping on the apartment buildings’ inhabitants and trying to figure out who knows something. I didn’t find this one to be quite as addicting as her other books for the beginning portion at least. I did sit down and read the final third in one sitting, which is always a good thing for me! As with most mysteries, I had a few theories and felt like I knew what happened. I enjoyed that this book was paced out nicely with surprises and twists – there’s one revelation around the 50-60% mark that definitely impacted the rest of the book and made me more intrigued. The final portion of the story was interesting and definitely ended in a way I didn’t expect! I honestly don’t have a ton to […]

My Highest Rated Authors

Posted May 20, 2022 / Book Lists, Discussions, Features / 1 Comment

As I wrote yet another glowing review for a Rachel Lynn Solomon book, I wondered if there’s any other author that I consistently rate as high. Taylor Jenkins Reid is up there. Anyone else? Katie Cotugno? I started thinking about this and decided to roll through all of the authors I’ve read and figure out which ones I’ve rated the highest in my years of book blogging. It was a little tedious but my parameters were the following: (1) I needed to have read three or more books by the author to count them for this experiment, since two books can sometimes be a fluke. Novellas or short stories in anthologies did not count as “one book” in the totals to determine if the author should be included, but… (2) …I did include novella book ratings in the rating calculation. For example: I read four books by the author, one of which was a novella, so that was counted for ratings purposes. I didn’t include short stories within anthologies because then I’d have to go into the review post and find the individual story rating. (3) I did not include authors where I’ve only read one series by them (3+ books). Saying I loved the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy doesn’t necessarily mean that Holly Jackson herself is on my highest rated author list, since I’ve only fallen in love with one series by her. For all I know, her next series may not hit me as hard. I did include […]

ARC Review: See You Yesterday

Posted May 18, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Rachel Lynn Solomon DOES NOT MISS. She really doesn’t. Is this what I start all of my reviews for her books with?? Maybe. Whether she’s writing YA or adult, I end up loving it. Add in the fact that this book featured one of my favorite tropes, and I was sold. I love books where people are stuck in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over again. Usually there’s some kind of message or lesson they need to learn and they try to go through each day differently to figure out what it is. The first one I read and loved was BEFORE I FALL and I will pick them up every dang time. In this story, there were quite a few twists to the typical Groundhog Day story that made it a winner. Barrett begins her first day of college with a physics class and ends it with burning down a frat house. When she wakes up the next morning and realizes she’s reliving the same day again, she’s eager to right those wrongs. She soon learns that the boy sitting next to her in physics, Miles, is also stuck in the time loop with her. I’ve never read one like this before! It was a unique take on the story because they were able to work together to figure out how to get out of it. These stories can admittedly get a little repetitive. Sometimes hearing the same dialogue bits or repeating scenes with slight differences […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #377: Excited to Get But Haven’t Read Yet

Posted May 17, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

Books I Was SO Excited to Get and Still Haven’t Read Yet 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 kind of think this topic was made for me based on the past two years of my reading life! There are SO many books I was really jazzed up for and they’ve just sat on my Kindle or bookshelf. I feel like I do an okay job of reading my absolute favorite authors’ new releases but anything else just sits there. Even still, I’ve slacked! I broke this into two categories since I don’t really buy new books as much – egalleys I received for review and can’t believe I haven’t read yet, and the books I’ve preordered or purchased that I was pumped for and still need to read. Review Books I’ve adored all of Jenn Bennett’s books but for whatever reason, I didn’t immediately read my review copy of ALWAYS JANE. I think the overall plot didn’t sound as interesting to me and then my friends were saying it was their last favorite of her books. I’m sure I’ll get to it soonish! I would have thought getting a review copy of NOTHING MORE TO TELL would be an instant […]

ARC Reviews: The No-Show and The Wedding Season

Posted May 12, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Oh man. This was such a fascinating reading experience and not what I was expecting at all. THE NO-SHOW story centers around Siobhan, Miranda, and Jane, as they all date Joseph Carter. They each suspect him of cheating or think he’s hiding something when he doesn’t show up for their Valentines Day plans. The story alternates between their three perspectives, so I expected this to be some kind of John Tucker Must Die story (like Cristina said in her review!) where they all figure out what’s happening and go for the jugular with this dude. Overall… that was kind of masterfully written. I shouldn’t have doubted Beth O’Leary like I initially did. The first 3/4 of the book was honestly a little tough to get into. I mean, this dude is dating three women. Why would I want to read that? Who am I supposed to root for as a couple? Are the girls going to get together and seek revenge? Well, without spoiling anything, things certainly changed in the final act. I got very unexpectedly emotional and it was not a light or girl-power-filled “rom-com” like I thought it would be. I’ll leave it at that! It’s hard to fully review this without majorly spoiling where things go. I think this was definitely worth the read and in the end, I REALLY enjoyed it. I think I could have rated it a bit higher but it was not the most fun to read for the first half or so. I […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | April 2022

Posted May 11, 2022 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 1 Comment

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 had a lovely reading month in April because my books were highly anticipated AND I loved them all. I wish I managed to finish 2 more books before the end of the month, but I didn’t end up doing any reading on my vacation during the final week. Oh well. 4 books read in April 4 new books • 0 rereads • 0 DNF Pages read: 1376 • Average rating: 4.63 stars Sources: 4 review copies Formats: 4 egalley Genres: 4 contemporary Age Target: 4 adult Check out my 2022 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 4 read this month | 18/40 read total Featuring a party, by latinx author, fulfills prompt from past challenge (written by a woman), title begins with last letter of previous read Calendar of Crime Challenge None this month – all contemps! Breakdown: 1 purchased | 0 borrowed | 0 free/gifted | 9 for review All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. For Review From Macmillan: I Kissed Shara Wheeler (audio) by Casey […]

May TBR

Posted May 4, 2022 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 1 Comment

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. May TBR I got behind yet again in April because I spent the last week of the month with friends on a vacation, which meant I didn’t really have solo time for reading… despite hoping I’d get to enjoy some time with my books in the hot tub! In any case, I hope (as usual) that I can get back on track in May. The month is somewhat busy at the beginning but I’m hoping some car rides will allow for audiobooks… woof. Review Copies I did a great job of focusing on upcoming releases in April – I love when I can delete covers from the previous month’s TBR here! The only holdover is ALWAYS JANE. Usually I dive right into Jenn Bennett books but this one hasn’t had amazing reviews, so I’ve been hesitating. I recently got a review copy of THE CHANGE and it’s actually already been published so hopefully I’ll get to it soon. Seems intriguing! Otherwise, VERY BAD PEOPLE and SEE YOU YESTERDAY are early May pubs so I should hop on them as well. I have other May egalleys I want to read but I’ll leave […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #376: One-Word Reviews

Posted May 3, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 1 Comment

One-Word Reviews for the Last 10 Books I Read 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 only read 20 books so far this year (currently 4 behind thanks to a vacation with friends aka no time to read!) so my previous 10 books account for half of the books I’ve read so far this year. I like this prompt but it made me think a little bit harder than I expected. I use a lot of the same adjectives to describe books so I had to think out of the box. Also, found it very hard to keep it to one word! Here are the words I’d use to describe each of these books (top row first, left to right): Unexpected // Chemistry // Happy-Making // Perfection // Fun Yummy // Frustrating // Unique // Unenjoyable // Addicting