Month: August 2022

Reviews: Family of Liars and This is Not the Real World

Posted August 24, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
Reviews: Family of Liars and This is Not the Real World

I really didn’t enjoy WE WERE LIARS. I remember it was one of the first books I read and reviewed for my blog and it just pissed me off. It’s had a resurgence lately thanks to booktok and I still don’t understand why people like it. In any case, I was randomly intrigued by FAMILY OF LIARS and decided to read it against my best judgment. I do think I almost liked it better than the first book? This one is actually a prequel novel, set in the late 80s. It features the parents and grandparents of the main character(s) in WE WERE LIARS. It definitely took an interesting turn or two that I didn’t expect and I was addicted while reading. The main reasons I’ve “enjoyed” these two books is because they’re short, generally intriguing, and easy to read. I knew I could crank it out for my #7booksin7days challenge. I don’t have much to say. It has very similar vibes to WE WERE LIARS with rich white people on an island off Martha’s Vineyard. This one was more historical, which I did find interesting. I didn’t like the characters very much but I don’t know that you’re supposed to anyways? Regardless, am I glad I read this book? I guess so – it was quick and easy and held my interest. At this point in my life, that’s all I can ask for. I was super into the Truman Show vibes of the first book when I first heard […]

ARC Review: Nothing More to Tell

Posted August 22, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
ARC Review: Nothing More to Tell

Karen M. McManus is truly the YA mystery queen. She hasn’t let me down yet and NOTHING MORE TO TELL was no exception. With a setup that included a private school, New England town, true crime TV show, and a murdered teacher, I knew I couldn’t go wrong. Brynn returns to her old hometown of Sturgis, MA after spending a few years with her family in Chicago. She’s come back to the St. Ambrose School with a small secret: she’s interning at a hot true crime show and trying to figure out who murdered their teacher, Mr. Larkin, four years ago. She falls back in with Tripp, one of her closest friends before she left who tried to push her away; she knows he’s hiding something. Tripp, along with two popular kids Shane and Charlotte, were the ones who found Mr. Larkin dead in the woods behind the school. As I said, I really enjoyed the setup for this one. There were lots of read-bait elements for me. I had a theory from the beginning as to whodunnit (and only about a quarter of the motive) and my suspicions did get confirmed and fleshed out later on. But honestly, there are a ton of twists in this one. There are so many characters who are semi-involved with things in ways you’d never be able to predict. I finished this book as the first in my “read 7 books in 7 days” challenge I worked on this month and it was […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | July 2022

Posted August 17, 2022 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments
Bookmark Lit Bulletin | July 2022

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 felt like I was doing okay during July but there was a big stretch where I didn’t finish anything. I read another cookbook to help keep me on track and squeezed in one more book on the final day of the month. Unfortunately I had another DNF this month, which meant that I wasted a few days during my vacation reading something and not completing it. Oh well, August is shaping up to be way better!      6 books read in July 6 new books  •  0 rereads  •  1 DNF Pages read: 2176 •   Average rating: 3.58 stars Sources: 4 review, 1 purchased Formats: 4 egalley, 1 hardcover, 1 mixed Genres: 4 contemporary, 1 nonfiction (cookbook) Age Target: 5 adult, 1 young adult Check out my 2022 challenge sign-up post for more details, goals, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge 2 read this month | 25/40 read total About the afterlife, by a BIPOC author Calendar of Crime Challenge  Primary action in July, holiday in July Breakdown: 1 purchased  | 0 borrowed  | 0 free/gifted | 4 for review All review copies were provided […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #386: Old Faves

Posted August 16, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #386: Old Faves

Books I Love Published 10+ Years Ago 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. It’s wild to think that 2012 was 10 years ago. Good lord. I went through my favorites shelf on Goodreads to pull these babies. They were all published in 2012 or earlier.

#7booksin7days

Posted August 13, 2022 / Book Challenges, Features / 2 Comments
#7booksin7days

I’ve been inspired lately to try to get back into reading and on track with my book life since I’ve been watching a lot more booktube. (I’m sure most people expected me to say booktok since that’s all the rage but honestly it makes me mad seeing every 3rd video on there recommending Colleen Hoover.) I watched a couple of people do “7 thriller books in 7 days” challenges and thought it would be exactly what I need to get me reading again. I’m currently a whopping 9 books behind on my challenge, so this would certainly help me eliminate a lot of that. I struggle with reading too many books of the same genre in a row though so this is a more broad and basic 7 books in 7 days. Honestly I have a feeling they’ll be mostly thrillers anyways since those tend to be the most addicting for me. I don’t have any real plans after work over the next week including this weekend. I decided to start today (Saturday) around 5pm so I was at a bit of a disadvantage haha. Luckily I’m already in the middle of two books (more below on that) so I figured I could finish one of them today and check that box. This coming Friday and Saturday I have some plans after work so we’ll see how I do then. I posted a July and August TBR the other day so I’ll use that for inspiration below. I also have […]

ARC Review: Carrie Soto is Back

Posted August 10, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
ARC Review: Carrie Soto is Back

Taylor Jenkins Reid really is something else. She’s never written a bad book (IMO) – even the one I didn’t LOVE was still a four-star read… and I’m even thinking of rereading via audio to see if my opinion changes! This book was fascinating. I wasn’t totally excited from reading the premise – a tennis player? Not interested really. I completely forgot that she was a very small side character in another book of TJR’s too. It took me a long time before I realized all of the Mick Riva connections between her newer stories. He sucks but what a fun tie-in between everything. Her historical fiction books have been so lovely lately! Carrie Soto is a badass tennis pro. She’s broken all the records and had a great career until she slowed down and retired after some bad matches and a downward spiral (ability-wise). She and her father are sitting at the tennis match when Nikki Chan, the newest phenom, breaks Carrie’s record (I had to double check this because none of the tennis information stuck in my brain)… and Carrie promptly unretires to win it back. She’s 37 years old and has been retired for 5+ years but feels like she needs to get it back. The story centers around her comeback, with a good section at the beginning going through her early career pre-retirement, as she competes in all of the major Opens. It was fascinating and felt SO true to live when TJR included commentary and […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #385: Funny Book Titles

Posted August 9, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #385: Funny Book Titles

Funny Book Titles 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 took the “funny” book titles route instead of “hilarious” like the prompt suggests. I think anything with a pun in it is pretty funny, so you’ll see quite a few of those here 😉

Review: Every Summer After

Posted August 8, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
Review: Every Summer After

It’s been a very long time since I’ve sat down and read a book from start to finish in a day, but that’s what happened here. I’d seen a ton of hype about this books months and months before release, but it wasn’t at the top of my TBR. I’m not entirely sure why because the plot is right up my alley – I love stories of childhood sweethearts coming back together! Alternating timelines between past and present! Lake house vibes! All the things I love. I finally saw someone with yet another five-star review a few weeks ago and decided to pick it up on a B&N trip. This story is about Percy and Sam. When Percy’s family buys a lake house a few hours outside of Toronto, she becomes fast summertime friends with Sam and his brother Charlie. The story goes back and forth between present day (where she hasn’t spoken to the boys for 12 years and Charlie calls to invite her to their mother’s funeral) and the past (each summer during her preteen and teen years is featured). You learn about how Percy and Sam came together and eventually how they fell apart, while watching their reunion unfold during the unfortunate funeral weekend in Barry’s Bay. I loved the lake vibes in this perfect summer read. On the surface, the plot of this is completely predictable and very similar to a ton of stories I’ve read before. I think that’s why I wasn’t sure why this […]

ARC Review: Something Wilder

Posted August 3, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
ARC Review: Something Wilder

I’ve come to know almost exactly what to expect from a Christina Lauren novel and write the same little spiel here every time I review their books. They’re usually addicting, romantic, steamy, and enjoyable from start to finish. This book though… was definitely a different experience! SOMETHING WILDER follows Lily and Leo. The two met and fell quickly in love when they were in their late teens and then Leo went back to NYC without ever speaking to each other again. Lily remained bitter and confused about what happened. Almost a decade later, Lily and her friend Nicole are hosting wild west/cowboy-style trips in the desert. She’s been struggling since her dad died, trying to find her way and make ends meet. Leo and his friends Bradley and Walter end up being members of their tour during their annual vacation, with their added (annoying) “friend” Terry. The group set off on their cowboy camping trip while Leo and Lily try to ignore their history. It’s kind of hard to review this one without giving away a big thing that happens around 30% in but I’ll try my best. The story abruptly changes – the synopsis explains that the trip goes “horribly and hilariously wrong” but I would argue its only the former. It’s not your typical Christina Lauren romance – there’s a lot of “heavier” stuff in here but I don’t even know if that’s the right world. It becomes more of a romantic suspense novel in some ways? You […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #384: Settings to Visit

Posted August 2, 2022 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments
Top Ten Tuesdays #384: Settings to Visit

Books Set in a Place I’d Like to Visit 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 have a few bookshelves on Goodreads based on certain places that I most often love to read about, or just for tracking purposes. One for Connecticut (my home state where I live/grew up and love reading books in), one for Maine (my favorite place where we lived for a year), and one broad “overseas” category. This used to be called “travel international” but I felt like that was implying all of the books were about Americans going to other countries, rather than books just set overseas – now it contains both. I’m going to include a handful of books from my overseas shelf because I still have not had the opportunity to leave the US. The Paris Apartment by Foley (Paris) // The No-Show by O’Leary (England and Ireland) The Weekend Away by Alderson (Portugal) Float Plan by Doller (various tropical islands) // The Hunting Party by Foley (Scotland) // The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Bayliss (sleepy English village at Christmas) // Love & Olives by Welch (Greece) Castle in the Clouds by Gier (Switzerland) // Girls Night Out by Steinke and Fenton (Mexico) […]