Month: May 2023

Bout of Books 37 | Last Minute TBR & Reading Plans

Posted May 10, 2023 / Book Challenges, Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 0 Comments

It’s been a long time since I’ve participated in Bout of Books! When I was reminded it was kicking off this week (technically Monday), I decided to hop on board. I had read about 20% of Queen of Shadows that day so I made enough reading progress to feel good about joining late 😉 Here is more information about the readathon: The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 8th and runs through Sunday, May 14th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, daily Discord questions, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 37 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team Reading & TBR Plans This is a good week to get a lot of reading done for a few reasons. It’s playoff season for various sports we’ve been enjoying lately (basketball and hockey) – I don’t pay full attention to these because I’m not super invested, so I like to read during the games instead of scroll on my phone. I also plan to drive around a lot this week (primarily between heading to the office and errands one day and driving 2 hours roundtrip for an author event on Friday). That’ll be some good audiobook time! Chris will be out of town on Friday and Saturday for work so I will have time […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #408: Recommendations

Posted May 9, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

Books I Recommend the Most 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 feel like the first books that come to mind for this TTT are the books I recommend to “non-bookish people” or the people who don’t use bookstagram, blogs, or booktok. They’re the books I would tell my mom or coworker or friend to read – the more casual readers. This was basically from memory and my feeling in this moment… the first ten books I thought of when I saw the prompt!

Challenge Check-In and TBR Ideas

Posted May 4, 2023 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

I’ve gotten to the point in the year where the challenge prompts are not easy to fill organically or naturally anymore – it’s time to make an actual effort to finish things off! As of the end of April, some challenges are definitely looking better than others! Here’s a quick check-in (more detailed than my monthly wrap-ups) on my challenges, how many books I’ve read, what books I can read to finish off some more prompts, etc.! Popsugar Reading Challenge Status: 27 books read out of 50 prompts (54%) Goal = 40 prompts completed It’s pretty good to hit over 50% on a challenge like this around April! Just goes to show it can be easy to fill in certain prompts more so than others. Here are some of the reading plans I have to potentially finish up this challenge and/or get close to my goal. (There are some prompts I’m sure I won’t get to and/or won’t bother planning for them, so this isn’t an exhaustive list of all the prompts left!) Bought from indie bookstore: Legends & Lattes – actually kicking off May with this book so it’ll be finished soon! I bought this from RJ Julia, my favorite indie in Connecticut. About a forbidden romance: Once Upon a Broken Heart – I’m excited to finally get to this series this year! I fully plan to read this and the second book in September/October so I can dive into the final book in the trilogy when it comes out in October. […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | April 2023

Posted May 3, 2023 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 2 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. April was a pretty good month again, all things considered! We went to the Bahamas with a couple of friends for 5 days so I did a little bit of reading by the beach… but not as much as I would have if we were solo! I definitely failed at my readathons and am just too busy over the next month to think about completing any others. In any case, let’s see how April went! 9 books in April 5 read • 3 reread • 1 DNF Pages read: 3310 • Average rating: 4.25 stars Genres: 4 mystery/thriller, 4 fantasy, 1 contemporary Formats: 6 mixed, 1 hardcover, 1 ebook, 1 egalley Sources: 3 borrowed, 3 owned, 2 library, 1 review Age Target: 5 adult, 3 young adult, 1 middle grade Here are all the books I read this month and the challenges they applied to! Kicked off the Series Reread Popsugar Reading Challenge: With a love triangle (TOG) 52 Book Club: High fantasy and April challenge – contains chocolate (TOG) Buzzword Reading Challenge: N/A Must Read in 2023: N/A Romanceopoly: N/A Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge: N/A Popsugar […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #407: Random Books

Posted May 2, 2023 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

First 10 Books Randomly Grabbed from My Shelves (and My Thoughts / TBR Plans!) 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. This worked out pretty well because I actually have about 10 bookshelves to pick from (I have more at my dad’s house and randomly here but they’re mostly ARCs and super old copies I need to donate). There are 10 ~good~ shelves to pick from at least! I had Chris go to each shelf and randomly pick a book from each. Here are the results! I’ll Be There for You // This is a cute, random coffee table book about Friends. I have read it and it was pretty good, but obviously nothing to write home about! They All Fall Down // This book has survived a lot of unhauls and I really should get to reading it at some point haha. I don’t know why but it still calls to me! Lore Olympus // I picked this up last month and haven’t emotionally prepared to begin this series yet. Pride and Puppies // I bought this at the used bookstore recently – it’s like the 3rd or 4th book in a series that I’ve started but figured I may as well add it to my […]

May TBR

Posted May 1, 2023 / 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. May TBR April was an interesting month haha. I ended up getting sucked into the ToG reread and throwing away my TBR a little bit. I had planned to participate in two readathons and basically didn’t finish any books or focus on them at all because of my vacation haha. I did read a few books from those TBRs at least… just not during the actual readathons lol. Throne of Glass I thought I would get to QOS in April but it just didn’t happen. After finishing it up (the reread portion of my series binge!) – I’ll be tandem reading EOS and TOD. I’m not sure I’ll actually get to KOS to finish the series without feeling like I’ve overdone it! haha. There’s also a very good chance I end up being desperate to finish the series right away. I have this series as Kindle books and audiobooks but don’t think I’ll actually read another physical book while tandem reading – it’ll be too hard to keep track of even if it’s a contemporary romance. Recently Published Review Copies I have some holdover review copies from April or earlier that I […]