Author: Lauren (Bookmark Lit)

Review: All Lined Up

Posted January 12, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

Review Honestly this one wasn’t what I expected. I should have known it wasn’t going to be the LOL-funny New Adult books I’ve recently come to know and love. It was a bit more angsty than that. There were definitely some funny moments that I enjoyed, and definitely a bit of steaminess, but a lot of the “emotional” parts had me rolling my eyes like nobody’s business. Dallas was a bit melodramatic a lot of the time. I get where she’s coming from: her dad doesn’t pay her a lot of attention, her mom isn’t around, and she doesn’t know who she is (apparently). I do enjoy some flawed characters – but only to a certain extent. They have to realize when they’re being weird and insecure in order for me to be semi-okay with it. Luckily Dallas does seem to realize it a few times… “I recognize the self-loathing because I’m a master at it.” – yeah, no kidding girl. A lot of the drama in this book was built on misunderstandings, which always annoys me. Dallas hung around being a whiny baby all the time and Carson remained perfect. (I love him, by the way.) The CHEMISTRY between those two… JESUS. Besides all of that self-pity, a lot of the dialogue (both inside her head and with her friends) just bugged me. People complain that The Fault in Our Stars has two teenagers with vocabularies that are “unrealistic” or too fancy for their ages? Well, I thought that the dialogue in this […]

Blog Tour Review & Favorite Quotes: Perfect Couple

Posted January 11, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

Review This was a cute read that I finished in a day – not too bad for kick-starting my year of reading! It was an “opposites attract” story, much like what I’m assuming the next book in the series will be, which is always kind of fun. Harper is a unique main character that dresses in homemade retro clothes, who is (at the time) dating Kennedy. I really hated him throughout the book and never understood why she stuck with him for so long. He was obviously the wrong person for her; it was frustrating to see that play out longer than made sense. The premise of the Superlatives series is that when the senior class votes on their superlatives, a ripple effect occurs among the winners. In this case, Harper and the popular football player, Brody, are somehow voted Perfect Couple That Never Was. They find themselves kind of drawn together after the vote and things kind of heat up. I loved watching the two of them develop a relationship and have Harper see that there’s much more to Brody than she thinks. The story definitely got steamy, much like the first book in the series. I absolutely love that Echols writes sex-positive characters and isn’t afraid to show that part of high school. Harper had some great lines (you’ll see below in my favorite quotes!) that supported the feminist aspects of the book. Going against that though, Harper decided to change her retro style and get contacts because […]

Five on Fridays #12

Posted January 9, 2015 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 18 Comments

Five on Friday displays the the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc. Snow Sucks Yeah, I hate the snow. I really do. (Despite my smiling face in the photo… It’s Black Friday for Panthers fans, so I had to tweet this dumb picture of myself in my black clothes and Panthers hat)… Driving to work this morning was fairly miserable and I hate how other people act in inclement weather. I know that we should drive slower, obviously, but there are some instances where people act a bit too cautious and make things even worse. FYI, slamming on your breaks suddenly can make you spin out and be even worse than just maintaining your speed in the snow. I am mostly frustrated because my boss lives literally less than a mile away from the office. I’m always the first one into the office because apparently I’m expected to be. So today, in the snow, I had to drive in to make sure I got there in time. I don’t get why my boss can’t just come in to open the office and answer phones while I work from home – even just until driving conditions are safe. That’s all I ask! Bout of Books I know that the point of Bout of Books is to just motivate you to read, even just a little more than you usually would. For some […]

Reread Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Posted January 8, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

Let’s see. I started reading the series when book three was released, so that was back in 1999. I was eight years old. One summer, my friend was reading this book on our summer vacation (we were family friends that went to Cape Cod each summer together), and she started reading it out loud to us before bed. I remember being so fascinated by the series that I asked my mom for the books. I got this first book almost immediately after arriving home that summer. I only remember which year I started because I remember getting books two and three for Christmas that year, and book three had just been released. I remember being in love with it all. The whole world was just so amazing to me. When the movie came out a couple years later, it refreshed my memory on the whole plot of the book. I am really bad at remembering things that happen in books – hence the fact that I have to write all of my reviews within a few hours of finishing the books. I’ve pretty much always known I’ve wanted to reread this series at least a few times in my life. I am normally someone who does NOT reread books because there are so many out there I haven’t read before that I still want to read. I’ve always thought, why bother? BUT, Harry Potter was definitely a series that I wanted to reread. I knew it for a fact. The books […]

Book Jar Review: Pivot Point

Posted January 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 15 Comments

Twice a month, I’ll pick a slip of paper from my book jar and read a book that has been sitting around for a while. I don’t buy as many physical copies as I do e-books, but my bookshelves are still overflowing with far more unread books than ones I’ve read. A lot of these book jar picks will help with the TBR Challenge I joined for 2015, but some books I own are newer books that won’t qualify. Without further ado, here’s my review for the first book I drew from my book jar! This definitely qualifies as one of those books where I find myself asking WHY didn’t I read this sooner?? I absolutely loved The Distance Between Us by Kasie West and heard nothing but great things about this duology, too. I got it in my Uppercase box a few months ago and was really happy to finally own it… and even happier it was one of my first Book Jar picks! Anyways this book was AWESOME. Totally not what I was expecting – in a great way. I assumed it would be really similar to Just Like Fate, which I also liked, but this was definitely higher-stakes. It was a bit of a mystery and I absolutely could not put it down. First, I thought that Addie was a random girl with abilities. I didn’t realize she lived on a Compound full of people with abilities. That was SO cool and really made it much more […]

Books and Bloggers Swap Sign-Up

Posted January 6, 2015 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 2 Comments

Books & Bloggers is a book swap created by Chaotic Goddess Swaps, the lovely ladies who also hosted the 12 Days of Christmas Swap I participated in during the holidays! They offer fun swaps throughout the year with various themes. Of course I HAD to sign up for this one when I saw it! Sign-ups end on January 12th and you have to ship your packages out by January 24th. The Books & Bloggers Swap was created to swap three books with a fellow blogger. You share your wishlists (Amazon, Goodreads, etc.) and favorite genre when you sign up, so you and your partner swap based on that! The three books include: One book you love One book you haven’t read but are interested in One book off of your partner’s wish list I think this one is going to be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to finding my partner and planning out some books… and of course seeing what books I end up with! Want to join me? Maybe we’ll get paired up! Sign up here!

Top Ten Tuesdays #23: 2015 Debuts

Posted January 6, 2015 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 15 Comments

Most Anticipated Debuts (2015) 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’m pretty bad at figuring out and/or knowing off the top of my head if an author is a debut or not. I just don’t keep track of that stuff (yet) since my blog is so new. Everyone feels like a debut to me! Regardless, there are some that pop into mind immediately (um Red Queen) and some I needed to do a bit of investigating to remind myself that it was in fact a debut. Regardless, all of these have been on my TBR for quite a while and I’m very excited to get to them this year! The Night We Said Yes by Lauren Gibaldi: I like books that alternate between “then” and “now.” Definitely really excited for this one. Emancipated by M.G. Reyes: Kind of sounds like The Breakfast Club except all the kids are living in a house instead of Saturday detention. I’m down to give it a try. Last Year’s Mistake by Gina Ciocca: Another one with alternating chapters, this time between two people instead of two moments in time. Still down with it. Even When You Lie to Me by Jessica Alcott: Okay yes I’ve talked about how much I don’t care […]

Random Bookish Thoughts: Confessions

Posted January 5, 2015 / Discussions, Other Memes / 24 Comments

Bookish Confessions I’ve been keeping this draft going for quite a while because I’ve been thinking of all the different book-related “secrets” I keep. These can be things that aren’t realllly secrets because I’ve spoken about them before occasionally, but sharing them here can still qualify as a confession, right? Right. Other things I haven’t discussed with anyone before, so I’m definitely curious to hear your thoughts on them! So without further ado, here are six bookish or blog-related confessions I want to share. Everyone should start the New Year with a clean slate, amirite? My reading history is spotty. This is pretty much the one thing I’ve discussed before, but I feel like I should clarify a little bit. I was a HUGE reader back in elementary school and middle school. I used to go to the library multiple times a week with my mom and get countless books. Over the summer when my sister and I were bored at my nana’s house, we would walk down to the library and read all day in the sun. It was glorious. My reading in high school definitely continued, but dropped off a bit. This became especially true when I got my license. I was never home, and when I was, I was watching TV or immediately going to bed. Most of my reading (okay, probably all of my reading) happened right before bed for an hour or two. I did a good job of keeping up with the book […]

Blog Tour Review & Favorite Quotes: Gone Too Far

Posted January 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Review This is definitely a book that got stronger as it progressed. The first person perspective threw me off a little because I feel like most of the books I’ve read lately haven’t been. It’s a completely different reading experience, in my opinion. Some of the writing felt awkward at first because of that, but then I definitely got used to it. A lot of character names were introduced right away and I felt like they all blended together, but again I slowly got used to it and they all started to differentiate. Our main character, Piper, was definitely a character that developed over time. It was reminiscent of the character development in Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas. The character starts out with pretty general characterizations, (she’s interested in photography and just your average high schooler) and then becomes more involved with some darker stuff. She isn’t a villain or anything that serious, but she gets mixed up in some bad things for a little while. It’s very cool to see a character develop and change in a non-traditional way. Also, there were some majorly swoony scenes with a cute boy… which is always a plus. I like when there’s a realistic romantic relationship included in mystery/thriller books. It adds a little something else to the plot. I like books where I’m suspicious of every character because it makes things more interesting. I’m normally very bad at solving the mystery before the end of the book. I had a lot […]

Five on Fridays #11 and Life of a Blogger #1

Posted January 3, 2015 / Five on Fridays, Life of a Blogger, Weekly Memes / 8 Comments

This week I’ll be combining two features on my blog! plus I write my Five on Friday post each Friday that I actually have some non-bookish updates. (My life is boring, folks.) I’ve also been wanting to join in with the Life of a Blogger meme, hosted at Novel Heartbeat, which happens on Thursday. On weeks where I don’t have a lot of updates, I’ll participate in Life of a Blogger instead of Five on Friday. It’ll just be a way for me to add some personal updates and info each week in one of two formats! This week, the Life of a Blogger topic is New Year’s, which I was going to include in my Five on Friday post anyway! (Also yes I realize it’s not Friday) New Year’s I’ve actually done a wide variety of things on New Years Eve over the past few years! When I was a kid I would just stay up late with my parents and watch the ball drop. In high school, we would go to my friend’s house every year and hang out until the ball dropped. His mom would always make us great food and one of my friends would bring monkey bread. So good. This tradition kind of fizzled out throughout college because less people would be home and some people would be hanging out with their college friends. Freshman year of college, a friend and I went to a house party and it was pretty lame actually. The rest […]