Category: Discussions

Why I Join and Love Reading Challenges

Posted January 6, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 14 Comments

I love the beginning of one year and end of another, primarily for the wrap-up posts and surveys everyone shares. Creeping on books is the best! But, another reason I love it is because of READING CHALLENGES. I know there are countless people out there who have opinions on reading challenges, and I think they generally fall into one of two camps: GIVE ME ALL THE CHALLENGES. I love them and they’re fun and motivating! GIVE ME NO CHALLENGES. I hate the pressure, regardless of the goal I set. No thanks. It goes without saying that both of these outlooks are F-I-N-E to have. I obviously happen to fall into the first bucket of people because I generally loooove challenges and readathons and readalongs. I just think they’re fun and they tend to motivate me. Even though it looks like I over-do it and go willy-nilly on the sign-ups, there’s a method to my madness. Today let’s talk a bit about reading challenges and why I like them! When I hit my first full year of blogging, I made sure to sign up for a lot of yearly challenges. I finally could! I started blogging in July 2014, so I kept waiting and waiting for 2015 to hit. I ended up signing up for a total of 9 challenges that happened during most or all of the year. You’ve all probably seen my wrap-up posts and surveys, so you may already know that I completed every challenge except for one. That’s pretty solid, […]

Help Me Deal with HYPE!

Posted December 17, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 39 Comments

After reading yet another book I felt like a huge black sheep about, I decided to work through my feelings about hype and how much I often want to punch it. There have been lots of books that bloggers love and I feel the need to add to my TBR. I’m totally okay with this because GIMME THE BOOKS. But, sometimes the books are so effing hyped that my expectations skyrocket. I don’t mind hype it leads me to great books, but I hate when I have the highest of hopes that this book will be utter perfection. Anything less than than that leads to utter disappointment, regardless of how good the book actually is. I try not to get bogged down by the hype, but I can’t help it. Usually my expectations are too high and the books won’t meet them. Here’s my hype-o-meter to show seven levels of hype that I see surrounding some books. This is just my personal opinion and scale, so hop off me if you don’t agree. It’s just based on what I’ve observed and how I’ve perceived certain books. Let me explain my categories a bit more: Level One includes books that are very under the radar, underrated, or not widely buzzed about. Not a lot of people have read them or heard about them. Not many reviews = not a lot of expectations. You can set your own. Level Two are books that you personally hype up for yourself, even if others haven’t. (For me, this was […]

The Difference Between Readers and Bloggers

Posted November 20, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 31 Comments

A popular TTT a few weeks ago introduced me to a lot of people’s bad bookish habits that they want to quit. Along with popular “bookworm problems” or “confessions,” this general topic makes its way around our section of the internet quite frequently. We’re always discussion some of our quirky or bad habits surrounding reading and blogging. It makes for a lot of fun conversation because you’re like THANK GOD I’m not the only one who does this! In reading the comments on my post, I started to think: bookworm problems that you’ll see on Buzzfeed, for example, don’t FULLY get us bloggers. People who read and people who blog (about books) are sort of really different. OUR bookish “bad habits” aren’t even thought about by the general reading population. Most of them are driven by blogging. We totally relate to those long lists of bookish problems like wanting a full-scale library in your house or thinking of fictional characters in non-fictional ways. BUT, beyond that, we put a lot of unnecessary pressure on ourselves to read and blog and keep on top of things. (I loved Brittany’s somewhat similar post a while ago on cutting ourselves some slack!) Being a regular ol’ reader is a totally different story. This is meant to be a fun post to kind of make fun of ourselves and think about our bookish habits from before we became bloggers. Remember those days? Free from obligations and terms like TBR or DNF? Let’s reminisce on the good days, shall […]

The Evolution of Blog Tours

Posted October 23, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 17 Comments

Lately I’ve noticed a new trend within blog tours: creative and unique posts. The content within the posts is more interesting to read about, and there are themes for each tour. Now, I’m not necessarily saying that the more traditional blog tours aren’t fun to read, but these ones have taken things to a new level. There are a few lately that piqued my interest. If this is the way blog tours and promotional posts are headed, I consider that a major win. I wanted to recognize some of the more unique and fun tours I’ve seen lately, as well as share some of my feelings about blog tours and their overall improvements. I’ve always had mixed feelings about blog tours. I am the kind of blogger that generally avoids requesting ARCs (and I don’t often get the ones that I do request), so that means I usually find other ways to gain access to these titles if I’m really dying for them. Blog tours usually provide the blogger with an eARC (or sometimes physical ARC!) of the book, so I would sign up for the tours of highly anticipated books. Sometimes this would blow up in my face if the book didn’t hit the mark for me, but other times I’d be extremely glad I got the opportunity to read the book early. Either way, blog tours can be a commitment. If you sign up and don’t like it that much, your post will change at the last minute to a […]

Library Dreams

Posted October 15, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 13 Comments

Chris and I have been looking into houses, because frankly we have too much shit for our one-bedroom apartment. We both have major hobbies that take up LOTS of space – Lego and reading. We’ve talked about looking into 2 or 3 bedroom houses (hopefully with a finished basement) so I can have a library and he can have a Lego studio. Maybe these are pipe dreams, but we’re certainly looking! We have zero plans for children in the future, so we’re going to let ourselves do whatever we want with our extra rooms!I love Amy’s Nookish posts and have been adding bookshelf pictures to my Pinterest for as long as I can remember. I love planning what I want my library to look like in my nonexistent house, so here are some ideas I’ve been pining over. [Images from Pinterest and/or link to stores] Built-in bookshelves My dad is a great DIY person and has a huge built-in wall of shelving for his CD collection (#dads, amrite?). I plan to have him deck out the walls with built-ins, so I don’t have to worry about buying and assembling a million shelves. I would love to have them around at least three out of the four walls. I know my dad would take care of this for me, so it feels like a pretty achievable goal for this room! I may leave one wall empty (above the bed – more on that in a second) because I’d like to have a […]

Fate, Destiny, and Choices – Parallel Life Books

Posted September 24, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 9 Comments

I think I’ve talked about this in so many reviews that it’s finally time to bring this topic to its own discussion post. I’ve also touched on it quite a bit during my read-bait series (that will be revived again, I promise) and as a guest post for Andi during Parallel Time Loop. It’s a topic that I think about A LOT and, as a result, love reading books about. I’m going to talk a bit about what guides us through life: fate or choices. Are we destined to reach the same final destination in life, regardless of the decisions we make? Or does each and every choice impact us in some way, where one decision changes everything? I’m not sure we’ll ever know the real answer to this, but some books I’ve read within the past couple of years definitely bring it up in different and interesting ways. I’ll share what piqued my interest in this topic, my thoughts on it, and then some books that deal with it.I think I should preface this conversation with the fact that I am not religious at all. When I sit here talking (uh, typing) about fate and choices and all that jazz, I’m not implying in any way that I think God is the mastermind behind all of it. I’m thinking more along the lines of some grander plan out there. I don’t know what or who or anything… just something bigger than us. I just wanted to clarify that first because I think usually […]

Protected: Slut-Shaming, Relationships, and Feminism in YA

Posted September 17, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 14 Comments

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

How Do You Buy Books? Update!

Posted August 20, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 20 Comments

A long time ago I posted about buying books: my habits, my decision-making process, and why book-buying is hard. In a world where there are multiple formats and locations for purchasing and owning books, how do you decide what to buy and when? I had developed this nifty little chart that showed exactly when and why I’d buy a book in a certain format. My, how things change in less than a year! I’m here today to give you an update on my book-buying habits and how they’ve changed.I would buy a Kindle book if I owned the rest of the series as eBooks, if the Kindle copy was really cheap, or if I didn’t have an audiobook credit at the moment. The biggest reason would be if I just had to have the book RIGHT THEN. Now, some of the same things are true. I’ll buy a Kindle book if I own the rest of the series as e-books. This is definitely true for the Pretty Little Liars and Rusk University series. I already own the beginning books as e-books, why change that? Otherwise, the only actual time I’ll buy a Kindle book is if there’s a big ass deal going on and I need it. I really don’t feel the need to buy Kindle books anymore! I read mostly eARCs on there at this point. I’m more than happy to accept Kindle books as gifts, but I don’t go out of my way to buy them. I think […]

Review Writing: How to Stop Hating It

Posted August 14, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 43 Comments

There has been a lot of chatter in the blogosphere about review-writing and how much pretty much everyone hates having to do it. It’s a chore and a daunting task. We just want to READ and not have to stop to write down our thoughts. Do people even read reviews anymore? No one comments on them anymore and bloggers seem to have more fun writing other types of posts – discussions, memes, and original features. People feel pressured to read and review because really, that’s the core point to book blogging. Didn’t everyone start the blog with the purpose of sharing reviews and talking about books? I think the book blogosphere is growing and evolving, but there’s definitely a way to keep reviews in the mix without making it the worst part of blogging. I feel like almost everyone hates it and has been losing an interest in blogging as a result.Honestly? I don’t mind writing reviews. And I like reading other people’s reviews! I’ll admit that overall I am less likely to read a book review compared to a discussion, but I probably read about 70% of the reviews that cross my Bloglovin’ feed. Full disclosure: I do a lot of skimming and checking for the rating, but overall… I still read reviews. And I still like writing them! I have a system worked out where writing reviews is not daunting or scary or time-consuming. I am able to read the book, write the review within the next 24 hours, and […]

A Love Affair with Scribd

Posted July 23, 2015 / Discussions, Features / 17 Comments

If you listen to audiobooks or read ebooks at all, you really need to check out Scribd. I’m kind of obsessed, and I’m here today to tell you ALLLLL about it. Similar to my lengthy love-filled post about Book Host, this will give you the details about Scribd and why it’s the freakin’ best. Also, I was definitely not paid for this – I just want to shre the love. If you’d like to ignore most of this post and get down to the TL;DR, click here! What is it? Scribd is a monthly subscription that offers ebooks and audiobooks. The best part is that it’s UNLIMITED. There are very few, if any, that offer the feature of unlimited. You can download the app on your phone or tablet, or use the internet browser on your computer. The best part is that it’s only $8.99 a month. If you’re thinking about joining, sign up here and I get free days! (You da best.) Why is it better than other options? With a subscription like Audible, you spend $15/month and get ONE audiobook. With Kindle Unlimited, you get unlimited books and some audio for $9.99 a month – but the book selection is pretty bad. The reason I love Scribd is because the selection is actually pretty great. They have a lot of new releases and backlist, both for ebooks and audiobooks. I was surprised to see some pretty great new releases on there, and they’re updated quite a lot. You […]