Author: Lauren (Bookmark Lit)

Book Buddies Review: Shadow and Bone

Posted November 26, 2014 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 5 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) Lauren: So what made you initially put this one on your TBR? Kaitlin: I had a big time period where I was obsessed with BookTubers and a lot of the BookTubers mentioned this book on their hauls or recommendation videos and said they loved or liked the/series book. I read the synopsis and thought it was pretty interesting so, I put it on my TBR list. Lauren: Mine was kind of similar actually! When I first started blogging a few months ago, I noticed that it was a series that everyone loved. It sounded really unique but I wasn’t sure if it was a book I’d like. The more I saw people talk about it, the more I realized I needed to read it. Kaitlin: Yea, I think the best place for book recommendations are from other people like bloggers or BookTubers, because if you find someone you think has the same taste in books as you then you can […]

Real Life Insta-Love: Me + Book Host

Posted November 25, 2014 / Discussions, Features / 11 Comments

I DID IT! I am officially no longer a wordpress.com person. I brought my bookmarklit.net over to a new host and am LOVING every second of it. Before the excitement fades, I want to share with you a little bit about how this came about SO quickly and who my amazing host is. Let me just say, if you are thinking of self-hosting but have no idea how to even begin, please keep reading this post. Back story, aka when I was a big idiot I decided I wanted to self-host a while ago. I was sick of not being able to embed widgets like Rafflecopters, sick of manually putting in my book info, and wanted to post my archives to Twitter. After a lot of finagling, I bought my .net name from Name Cheap and tried to do the GoDaddy WordPress transfer. LONG story short, I somehow managed to screw everything up and ended up with the web address of bookmarklit.net, but still over at my WordPress.com account. Fast forward a month – I mentioned on Twitter that I really wanted to move to self-host but was confused and scared, thanks to my last attempt. Jamie immediately encouraged me to do it and talk to Ashley. I knew she was a guru on all things web, but didn’t really think to bother her for advice. Ashley jumped in right away and gave me some suggestions for blog posts on Nose Graze that could help, and also linked me over to […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #17: Winter TBR

Posted November 25, 2014 / TBR Lists, Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Top Ten Books On My Winter TBR Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we give our top ten books to answer each prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Highlights from my winter TBR list! I’ve been looking forward to some of these for a while, but I am officially making the time to read them this winter! For once I have a real TBR plan. I’m going to try to keep up with it as much as possible, but still allow myself to read what I want, when I want. Without further ado, here are the ten books I’m MOST excited for on my winter TBR (lets say the books I plan to read in from now through January). Four of them are holiday reads, two of them help finish up the Private series finally, and four are just regular ol’ books I want to finally read! My True Love Gave to Me by Stephanie Perkins Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo Ex-Mas by Kate Brian Let It Snow by John Green When Joss Met Matt by Ellie Cahill Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally Mistletoe by Hailey Abbott Ominous & Vengeance by Kate Brian

Review: One Past Midnight

Posted November 24, 2014 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Okay so this book is the second one I was WAY too excited about this year (Dissonance was #1). I was afraid I built it up too much and it wouldn’t meet my expectations. Well, it did. HOLLER AT ME for knowing what I like. I loooove books about parallel lives and this one did not disappoint. Sabine is a girl who lives two separate lives; she lives each day twice, once in each world. (Somehow you have to suspend everything you understand about time progression. Just let it happen. Shh.) In one world she lives in a rich Boston suburb, has divorced parents, a perfect boyfriend, two dickhead brothers, and a lot of fancy stuff. In her other life, she lives in a low income Boston suburb, has an alcoholic father, workaholic parents, no money, a little sister she loves, a bad influence friend, and a constant attitude. She literally is two different people. I was so intrigued about her lives from the beginning, and incredibly nervous about how this book could possibly end. One thing that bugged me a little was that the two worlds weren’t explained as much as they could have been. I wanted to feel a strong preference to one world so I could figure out which life Sabine was better suited for. A lot of the “world-building” (really life-building) was just surface level stuff. In other words, I think the introduction part of the book could have benefited from a little more time before […]

Book Nerds Unite: Sharing Is Caring Giveaway!

Posted November 24, 2014 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 1 Comment

Tis the season — for a big ol’ giveaway! The holidays are all about giving. We appreciate your support throughout the year and want to thank you; without our blogging audience we would just be talking to ourselves, after all 😉 Just in time for the holidays, we’re giving away some major gift cards! Twenty of us bloggers are coming together to bring you: Book Nerds Unite, a Sharing is Caring giveaway! To enter, enter on the Rafflecopter below and start following some great bloggers. We’re offering a first place prize of a $150 gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The second place winner gets $50 gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Regardless, you’re a winner, because you get to add some great blogs to your feeds! Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway *If the widget doesn’t appear, click here to access the Rafflecopter! Giveaway is US Only, running from 11/24/14 to 12/11/14. Winners selected at random. Please don’t mark a blog as followed if you haven’t in fact followed. All entries will be checked. Graphic created by Rachel at Hello, Chelly!

Sunday Post #1

Posted November 23, 2014 / Sunday Post, Weekly Memes / 0 Comments

The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, where you share news about your blog on a weekly basis. It can include what you’ve been reading, what you’ve posted, what’s coming up next, and any books you added to your shelves! Eeek! I can’t believe I finally moved over to self-host! I’ll be posting some more information about my switch once I’ve gotten the hang of everything, but guys – this is the best. If you’re thinking of self-hosting but have literally NO idea where to begin, I suggest you check out Book Host. Ashley of Nose Graze makes it SO easy. She’ll answer all of your stupid questions and transfer everything over for you with ease. You can expect a post from me sometime within the next week with my experience and some highlights. Top ten sequels I’m dying to get my hands on My last WWW Wednesdays Part II of the Getting to Know You Blog Hop – my other hobbies and why I blog 20 things you might not know about me! Yolo (Internet Girls #4) by Lauren Myracle White Hot Kiss (The Dark Elements #1) by Jennifer Armentrout The Maze Runner (#1) by James Dashner Book Nerds Unite Giveaway! Top ten books on my winter TBR Part III of the Getting To Know You Blog Hop – my favorite movies and music Five on FridayOne Past Midnight by Jessica Shirvington Book Buddies Review: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo Biggest Flirts by Jennifer Echols

20 Things You Might Not Know About Me

Posted November 22, 2014 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments

I’ve seen some of these circulating around the blogosphere so I thought I’d share my answers with you! 🙂 Question 1: How tall are you? I’m about 5’2″ – I like being short. My 13 year old sister is a good 3-4 inches taller than me and makes fun of me for it. Sorry gurl I’d rather be my height than yours! Question 2: Do you have a hidden talent? If so, what? LOL yeah right. Eating way too much pizza? Question 3: What’s your biggest blog-related pet peeve? Messy layouts, themes, fonts, etc. – I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to stuff like that. I need it to be cohesive and clear. Question 4: What’s your biggest non-blog related pet peeve? Just one? Lol. I think my top pet peeve would be excessive noise that I can’t control. If I can hear my neighbor doing anything I tend to get unnecessarily annoyed. Noise is a fact of life but it gives me major anxiety Question 5: What’s your favorite song? EEK. Ummmm it’s impossible to pick one favorite obviously sooooo lets just say Led Zeppelin. And Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sorry.

200 Word Review: The Maze Runner

Posted November 21, 2014 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

I’m not sure what I can say about this book that hasn’t already been said. It’s been around for a while and I definitely feel like I’m the last person to read it! Regardless, I LOVED IT. Strong 4.5 stars from me. I loved the characters, the story, and the fact that I kept repeating “what the fuck is going on?” Just when I thought there was some clarity, everything got crazy again. You know I love books with slow release of information; this was the epitome of that. I love that you were in Thomas’s head without it being a first person narrative. It made me feel like I was one of the gladers but also that I had some insight as to what he was thinking. The one reason for not giving it the full 5 star treatment: I wanted to punch them sometimes because the answer was obvious! I won’t spoil it, but there are two specific things that happened where I was like UM DUH JUST DO _____. This book’s ending just punched me right in the feels and I am so not okay with what happened to one of the characters. Ready for book two!

Why I Blog & Other Hobbies (Getting to Know You Blog Hop + Giveaway)

Posted November 20, 2014 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 0 Comments

The ladies at Cuddlebuggery started up the Getting to Know You Blog Hop so that bloggers can learn a bit more about you and your blog. I decided to join up and made my post on the first day. I shared a special book series to me and offered a giveaway for one of my favorite books that I read since starting my blog. I decided to post three times about different topics so you can get to know me better! The giveaway is posted again at the bottom so you can enter if you haven’t already. 🙂 11/15 – Getting to Know You: Introduction and Special Book Series (here) 11/20 – Getting to Know You: Why I Blog and Other Hobbies 11/27 – Getting to Know You: Favorite Movies and Music Why I Blog I have tried and failed with starting a lot of different blogs. I’ve always loved writing and the idea of having a blog, but I just never had anything that I knew enough about to blog about. I tried to start a beauty blog when I got into makeup, but I barely know anything about it. I tried to start a fashion blog to show basic outfits you can make, since I’m obsessive about what I wear and when, but that wasn’t for me either. Bookmark Lit was originally created as a “book review and lifestyle blog,” but I couldn’t even think about what kind of lifestyle posts to include. I decided to stick to what […]

Review: White Hot Kiss

Posted November 19, 2014 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

I have a lot of mixed thoughts on this one. First, I definitely didn’t read the description. I’m not sure why, because that’s normally something I read multiple times before and during my reading. Layla is half-demon, half-gargoyle, but her allegiance has always been towards the gargoyles (Wardens). She helps the Wardens keep demons at bay and lives with them on their compound. Suddenly there’s an uptick in demon activity and Layla is the reason. The biggest thing I liked about this book is that it’s incredibly unique. I’ve read and heard of a lot of paranormal books, but this one is definitely different. Demons and gargoyles? Sounds kind of cool. How the heck did JLA come up with this stuff?? A lot of parts of the book were confusing to me because there were so many types of demons to keep track of. Also, Layla talks about how the Wardens “went public” at one point, so the general public knows they exist but don’t know what exactly they do aside from protect them. The story was unique, which was the biggest selling point for me, but I just could not get into it. I was never in the mood to dive in and sit down to read it. I ended up taking a break in the middle of the book to read something else because I just wasn’t making any progress. Luckily, that worked – I was able to pick up where I left off and was suddenly more […]