Author: Lauren (Bookmark Lit)

Read-Bait: “Private School”

Posted February 5, 2015 / Book Lists, Features / 16 Comments

Here is my first post in a new series here at the blog: Read-Bait! Over the coming weeks, I’ll be featuring different words or phrases that catch my eye in book descriptions, the books I’ve read under those categories, and the books I plan on reading. I hope it shares some insight about my reading preferences and interests. As always, feel free to recommend any books you’d think I like! You know how it goes: you’re browsing Goodreads, clicking on books that look interesting, and checking out their summaries. All of a sudden you see a certain word or phrase in the synopsis that triggers an automatic reaction to click that “Want to Read” button. I call this “read-bait” – any word(s) that make you instantly think that you MUST read this book. One example for me is… The minute I see a plot summary for a book involving some kind of special school, I’m on board. I loved the idea of attending boarding school when I was younger: living with your classmates, walking to class like you’re at college – it all sounded awesome. My first foray into this category was the Private series by Kate Brian. It featured a girl who attended private school on scholarship and got involved in some pretttttty crazy shit, including murders, mean girls, and boy drama. Along that same vein, when Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar branched out and gave Jenny her own series, The It Girl, I was in heaven. Jenny was headed […]

Review: The DUFF

Posted February 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

OH MAN. This makes the second book by Kody Keplinger that I read in basically one sitting over the course of one day. I kept trying to put it down and go to sleep but I just couldn’t. Her stories just grab me in a way that makes me want to keep reading and reading until I reach the end. It’s basically a contemporary romance with the addiction level of a mystery/thriller. I had this book on my radar for a while, even before I heard there was going to be a movie. My dad got it for me for Christmas and I’ve been anxious to get started ever since. The Read The Duff Read-a-long motivated me to get my butt in gear after finishing up a few review books. BUT I DIGRESS. I seriously loved this book. I’m not surprised. It has everything I generally enjoy reading in a YA romance book: the banter, love-hate relationship, realistic main character, perfect writing and pacing, great friendships, family relationship building… the list goes on. I’ve found both books I’ve read by Keplinger to include all of these elements, which is why she is my queen. She just has an addicting writing style and compulsively readable storylines. Bianca is given the name “Duff” by the school’s playboy, Wesley. When he comes up to her and calls her that, she throws her Coke in his face. He wants to use her to get close to her friends. The nickname sticks with her for a long […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #27: Long Overdue

Posted February 3, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 24 Comments

Books I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read… Because Everyone Else Has! Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make LISTS of our top ten books based on that week’s prompt… and then we stalk other people’s answers to add a million books to our TBR. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. This week’s topics are books you can’t believe you haven’t read yet, like certain YA staples in a specific genre. There are so many books and series out there that I feel like EVERYONE has read. I feel a little out of the loop! There are staples within the YA genre that everyone also has a strong feeling about (sometimes good, sometimes bad!). Many of these I plan to read at some point – someday – but some of them I’m not sure if I’ll ever bother with. I decided to keep the genre wide open because there are so many different ones across different genres that I need to get going on. (And yes, there are a couple more than ten. Not sorry!) Which of these have you read? Are you a black sheep like me and haven’t read any? Which live up to the hype and which don’t? Jellicoe Road / The Selection / Throne of Glass / City of Bones / Vampire Academy / Divergent / Cinder / Uglies / Percy Jackson / Delirium / Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour / Obsidian

February TBR and Books & Bloggers Swap Reveal

Posted February 2, 2015 / TBR Lists, Uncategorized / 15 Comments

In honor of being home “working” on this snowy day, I had plenty of time to mess around on the computer and do bloggy things. (Primarily this means making lots of graphics for posts and trying to whittle down that 300-post Bloglovin feed!) I haven’t shared a TBR post in a few months so I figured today would be a great day – especially because of the holiday approaching this month that’s all about LOOOOVE. You can clearly see that I’m planning on packing in the contemporaries this month. I’m currently in the middle of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and I’m enjoying it… for the most part. I’m definitely invested in the story and interested to see what’s going to happen, but my attention span is struggling. I can only read a few pages before letting myself get distracted by the internet. I’m not sure if it’s just because January was a big fantasy month for me and I’m over it (for now), or because of the book itself. Regardless, today I started Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill and am hoping that’s a nice contemporary break. It should only take me a few sittings to finish it. I have two swoony E-ARCs to read this month too and I’m super excited! Promposal by Rhonda Helms sounds cute and right up my alley; I always am interested to hear how people get asked out to dances! “Promposals” were just starting to get big while I was in school and I […]

Review: All Broke Down

Posted February 2, 2015 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I honestly don’t have much to say about this book except for one word and any words that have the same definition as it: STEAMY STEAMY STEAMY Seriously though. People weren’t lying about this book. It was s-e-x-u-a-l. Aside from that, this book was a lot of great things. I really did love it more than the first book, and I think the main reason was the characters. Dallas was very meh for me in All Lined Up but Carson was the BEST. It was a little too unbalanced. (And even so, the fact that he was way to overprotective/territorial over her in this book bugged me. I’m NOT the kind of person who things that type of behavior is cute. It’s a bit too controlling when you flip out about anyone talking about your girlfriend. I get where he’s coming from, but let’s relax a little bit.) DALLAS AND SILAS THOUGH. I loved them. Both of them. For very different reasons. It’s a typical opposites-attract kind of story, and the main drama point of the book is obviously: can these two ever be a successful couple if they’re so different? Silas is a guy who was a major dick in the previous book but came a very long way in this one. He has a bad history with his family and feels like he’s constantly going to fall into bad habits. Dylan, on the other hand, is a part of a wealthy family that expects her to be a perfect […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin – January 2015

Posted January 31, 2015 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 12 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin is a monthly feature where I look back on everything I did and everything I plan to do next. I’ll also be updating my challenge progress here each month and linking up wherever I need to. Living in a fort for two weeks – As you may know from a previous post on here, Chris and I built a blanket fort in our living room. We figured we’d keep it up for about a week… and ended up living in it for two weeks. Honestly, we probably could have gone even longer, but we went skiiing one weekend and just had to sit on the couch afterwards. (Laying on the floor = not good for a sore body) Blizzard Juno – This week we had a bit of a blizzard. No big deal. I think our area got maybe a 15-20 inches of snow. I worked on Monday but it started snowing part of the way through the day, and luckily my boss said that we could work from home the next day. She’s pretty famous for making us come in during bad weather, even though most of our work can be done from home. Anyways, they ended up shutting down roads and not allowing people to drive anyway! The wind was even more intense than the snow, though! Luckily that meant that Chris’s car had snow surrounding it, but not a lot that needed to be cleared on the top. It only took us about 10 minutes […]

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Posted January 29, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

This is definitely not going to be an easy book to review! I got to the end and wasn’t even sure how to pull my thoughts together enough for a rating. I mean this in a very good way, but Holly Black’s books can just be so delightfully weird that half the time I don’t even know if I fully understood it. This was certainly a unique read with lots of nuances and secrets; it had a slow and steady plotline that didn’t really have a formal “climax” with a lot of action. I enjoyed that though. I completely forgot how much I love Black’s writing style; I know it’s not for some people. She is the absolute QUEEN of magical realism, this I know for sure. It gave the book an old-school folklore feel while also being set in modern day. The Darkest Part of the Forest takes place in a very unique New England (yay!) town that happens to have faeries living in the forest. I won’t get too much into the actual plot, because I feel like the action is very slow-burn and I wouldn’t want to spoil any of the plot points aside from the ones in the summary. Ben and Hazel are siblings who have spent their lives in love with a horned boy that has slept forever in a glass casket in the forest. Things start getting a bit crazy around the town as the faeries, who usually leave them alone, start injuring the townspeople. […]

Book Buddies Review: Siege and Storm

Posted January 28, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Book Buddies is a discussion-style review that takes place with one of my two buddies. (Learn more and see past reviews here) We both read the book and then have a private discussion about it. We post our discussion as a review on the last Wednesday of each month. You’ll be able to see our similar/different opinions on the overall book, characters, writing style, etc. – just like a regular review. The first half our discussion will take place right here, and the second half will be on Kaitlin’s blog! (Link at the bottom) View the first part of the discussion here. Be warned that there are some spoilers included! You can probably tell which questions to avoid, like the one about the ending, if you haven’t read the book yet! Did you start to feel different about any of the characters or did you like/dislike them the same? Kaitlin: Honestly, this book I felt like Mal was getting really annoying and not someone I would always want to have around. I understand that he was trying to protect Alina from the Darkling but sometimes he would just be so over protective. He was always questioning Alina’s actions and trying to hold her back. Sometime’s you just got to stop running and fight what you’re avoiding. I still really like him but just not as much than in the first book. Then my admiration for the Darkling has grew! As much as I would not to like him, I can’t. He is so smart and […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #26: Book Club

Posted January 27, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

Reading List for my YA Book Club Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make LISTS of our top ten books based on that week’s prompt… and then we stalk other people’s answers to add a million books to our TBR. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. I WANT A BOOK CLUB. I joined one last year and ended up attending one meeting. They just weren’t reading books I’d want to read. I get that it could expand my horizons and all that crap, but I just want to read Young Adult at this point in my life! I’ve debated starting one up, but don’t know if there’d be any interest out there. (Hey, anyone reading this live in Connecticut? Lmk) I think I’d like to focus on new books for my book club, so here’s the schedule for my YA New Releases Book Club!

Review: Yes Please

Posted January 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

God Amy Poehler is the coolest. I absolutely loved every second of this book. Luckily I had adjusted my expectations a little bit when I saw some reviews that this wasn’t completely a humor book. She mixed in some serious stuff and actual advice too, which I ended up loving just as much. (Well, maybe not just as much. It would be great to have a whole book on the hilarity that is Parks and Rec.) I loved how authentic this book felt. She doesn’t sugar coat anything – her advice or her stories. She gives sex advice and talks about doing drugs; she’s fearless. Even before starting the audiobook portion of my read, I was reading everything in her voice. It felt like she was talking directly with me as if we were friends (like the synopsis says). I really enjoyed the variety of the content, too. Nothing was stiff or formal. It felt more like a scrapbook than a memoir. She had random haikus, handwritten notes, personal photos, chapters from people like Seth Meyers, and lots of lists. I think that was a major reason that this held my attention better than other nonfiction books do; I was anxiously awaiting the next topic because I had NO idea what it could be about. She had a lovely chapter full of her friends and coworkers…followed by a chapter that’s subtitle was “things I learned on mushrooms.” It kept me on my feet and intrigued. I can’t emphasize enough how […]