Here again with another chat about mysteries and thrillers! My new fave genre. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this category surpasses romance or contemporary fiction for me this year. Okay, maybe not, but it will definitely come closer! Some related posts for further or introductory reading – I’ve spoken about my favorite mystery/thriller reads (I still lump them together because I’m really bad at remembering the difference…) – both adult and young adult – in recent weeks. Way back in the day I also talked about some of my struggles with YA mystery/thrillers (and just had a general discussion about my favorite tropes back then). As for today, I thought I would go through some of my favorite tropes and plot points in mystery/thriller books. (Similar to my read-bait series but I’m being lazy about the formatting and just calling this a discussion 😉 lol). What are some of the keywords, plot points, and tropes in a mystery or thriller synopsis that lead me to pick the book up? Back when I posted my original discussion about YA specifically, I listed the following tropes and types of books within the genre: Historical fiction mysteries Political thrillers Disappearances Memory loss Long series of mystery novels Paranormal elements Boarding school / secret societies I think these are still fairly accurate but not a perfect representation today. For example, I couldn’t tell you the last time I read a historical mystery, paranormal mystery, or political thriller. (Some notable exceptions like The Diviners series, for example). […]

I feel like most people fall into two camps: those who keep up with the hottest and most hyped releases, and those who pretty much refuse to do so (with some exceptions). I think I’ve been more of the latter in recent years because my reading time, energy, and interest has been so limited. I’m sick of talking about it and you’re sick of reading about it by now but yes, my reading life has been crappy since mid-2020. This year, it’s like I’m reinvigorated and back to my old self. I’m finding myself more curious about all the books and adding them to my TBR, even when I’m not sure they’re for “me.” I’m going out of my way to read books that are hyped and seeing if they are as good as everyone says. Many of these overhyped releases are usually literary fiction and that’s kind of the main reason I’ve stayed away, especially in recent years. I don’t love books with heavy topics or ones that make me sad (especially for contemporary fiction – it’s different for me if it’s a mystery or thriller). I just don’t gravitate toward those topics when I read because I like to either solve a crime or be happy in a romance haha. I don’t know what it is about this year that has me wanting to keep up with the Joneses but I’m having a lot of fun doing it, if I’m being honest! Instead of saying “ugh I won’t ever […]

I’ve been watching a lot of booktube lately and have loved watching people like Meg With Books hold themselves accountable about reading and finishing series. I thought it would be fun (and tedious…) to see how I personally do with reading and completing series. Do I start too many and never finish them? How far along do I get before I lose interest? How many series have I read in my life? Read on to find out these answers and more! Overall Series Stats I’ve engaged with 192 different book series in my lifetime. Yes, this is not super accurate since I only put some of my pre-2014 history in Goodreads when I started using it. I didn’t include random books like Watership Down that I read in high school and is technically in a series, but I did include many/most of the series I read for pleasure back in high school (The Clique, Gossip Girl, etc.). I was going to include books that are kind of a series, like the author wrote one full-length book and then followed it up with a novella epilogue or prequel, but those didn’t make the cut here for obvious reasons. I’ve read a total of 560 books that are a part of a series in my life as well. On average, the book series that I’ve started/read contain 4.18 books in the series. This is probably balanced out a bit because some series are duologies or trilogies while others have a lot more books. I’ve read an average of 2.92 […]

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a long time. I’ve debated it a few times on the blog within the last month or so, asked people their opinions on Twitter and Instagram, and just haven’t stopped thinking about it. The world has so many bigger issues right now and this has been taking up unnecessary headspace. I usually am *personally* against the idea of reducing my challenge. Once I’ve committed to it, I want to meet it. I won’t change it or “cheat” to meet the goal by making the goal smaller halfway through the year. Again, people can do anything they want, but I always thought this idea wasn’t for me. Why did that change for 2020? Why I Reduced My Challenge 1. 2020 is garbage for everyone I don’t think a single person expected 2020 to go quite like this. Honestly, most people (Chris and I included) expected this year to be kind of great. We thought we would accomplish a lot, spend more time with friends and family, enjoy our yard and local attractions, casually plan our wedding for next year… basically zero things on our list have been done (or even allowed!). I was really hoping that quarantine would make me read more, but I think my brain was always too focused on the garbage fire of a president, the pandemic, etc. – you know it all. Books can be a great escape, but I found that they weren’t the escape I wanted. I […]

Like a lot of bookish people, I was excited to dive in to a LOT of good books during self-isolation, quarantine, lockdown – whatever you want to call it. I’ve found that my shitty reading habits have continued from February though and I haven’t finished nearly as many books as I normally would. I find myself browsing my phone, wallowing in the news/social media, playing Candy Crush, and watching Chris play Animal Crossing. It’s just so hard to focus for a few reasons, which I’ll get into below. But! I won’t just use this spur-of-the-moment blog post to whine. I’m going to make myself think of a few solutions too. Problems Unmotivated to read in the first place I’ve had a weird reading year so far. It could be general reading burnout from the past handful of years, reading and reading and doing nothing else. It could be King of Crows being the only thing I wanted to read in January and then the only thing I could think about when I finished reading in February. Either way, that book got me, y’all. I just don’t want to read. I’ve been unmotivated BEFORE all of this started and clearly that’s continuing. This situation is just not helping like I thought it might. Mind-numbing games/media > books I get sucked into the news throughout the day, but primarily first thing in the morning when I catch up on things I missed. I just hate it. I’m doing what I personally can by […]

I’ve been thinking about this word a lot lately, both in my reading life and in my personal life. I spoke a bit about it in a recent Five on Fridays post but I’m really trying to find ways to SIMPLIFY. I know I said my word of the year would be SAVE, but I’m adding this one too. (I think I mentioned in that post that saving wasn’t just about money, but also about saving time and frustration. The same thing as simplifying if you ask me!) When it comes to reading, I sometimes enjoy being incredibly organized and scheduled out. But, as my tweets say above, that only helps me when I’m in the mood to read. When I WANT to read. If I’m behind or not in the mood to read, having TBRs and reading schedules absolutely does not motivate me to read. When I’m in a reading rut due to my schedules and TBRs, the only thing that can break me out of it is reading a book I REALLY want to read. When I finished KING OF CROWS, I knew it was going to linger and ruin some other books for me. On top of that, I didn’t finish a book *before* its pub date, so I ended up being quite behind on my monthly numbers by the time I finally finished it. I slogged through a couple of reads afterwards and really struggled to find the desire to read. I started going to the […]

I’ve been struggling with this a lot lately: how do you balance reading books that you genuinely want to read and know you’ll enjoy, with also trying to read out of your comfort zone a bit more? I cannot figure out how to do both and be happy about it. For example, I joined Romanceopoly with the intention of reading some fun books. When I made my tentative TBR post / list of ideas, I came across quite a few squares with prompts that don’t interest me usually. I don’t read paranormal romance and have historically not loved it but there are so many squares within that genre. Fated mates? Ugh. Oldest paranormal romance on my TBR? Double ugh. I rolled my dice for February’s picks and groaned at both of them – I got the paranormal romance one (oldest on my TBR or recommendation from a friend) and the other roll was for a historical romance not set in London. I could very easily read a historical fiction book NOT set in London, but the romance element isn’t my cup of tea. BUT how do I know that? I’ve never read a Tessa Dare or Lisa Kleypas before. Maybe I’ll love it, but I’m stubborn. I’m finding myself unwilling to give up precious reading time to something I’m not sure about and it doesn’t feel great. I read about 10 books a month, give or take. That really doesn’t feel like a lot when you have hundreds of possible […]