Category: Discussions

Consequences of Reading Too Much

Posted February 11, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 25 Comments

I’ve complained plenty lately about how romance in books has been bugging me. I’ve been more nitpicky about what I like, what annoys me, and what feels too cliché. Even though I’ve enjoyed a lot of the romance-oriented books I’ve read in the past few months, there are elements that make me roll my eyes that never bugged me before. I haven’t read a lot of OTP-level stuff since last year. I had another post drafted about genre burnout and how if I read too many books in the same genre in a row, they blend together and/or burn me out. I need to switch to something else. While listening to my audiobook on the way to work, I started thinking about how this was yet another book where I didn’t feel like I really KNEW the characters that well. What kind of personality did they have? What got them up in the morning? Then I realized… this has been happening a LOT lately. I feel like I’m not connecting with characters. It finally kind of hit me that maybe I’m reading too much and the stories aren’t fully clicking or resonating with me. I’m missing something, getting nitpicky, and maybe even getting a bit bored. Does this happen when you read too much?For me, I’ve noticed about three distinct issues recently when I read a lot of books very quickly. For about a week out of the month of January, I read almost a book per day. I just kept getting addicted […]

Organization Part Five: Goodreads

Posted February 3, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 14 Comments

Inspired by my recent organizational acquisitions (and posts by Hannah), I wanted to share some information about how I keep myself organized – primarily for blogging and reading, but also a little about my personal organization, too. Part Five: Organizing My Goodreads Shelves There have been an influx of Goodreads-related posts online lately (Brittany’s post and Bekka’s post for starters!) plus Hannah’s tried-and-true guide that I think everyone has read. Feeling inspired by these posts, I decided to include how I personally use Goodreads to keep organized. I’ve come a longggg way since I first started using the site in 2010. Hopefully some of these methods help you out too! Time for a Change When I first started using Goodreads heavily when blogging, I noticed everyone had fun shelves that they were using to remember certain things about books. They also had them split up by genre, for easy access to certain kinds of books. I think mine was super general, including just read, to-read, and currently-reading. I decided to at least add in genres so that I could keep track of what I was in the mood to read. This was a REALLY LONG PROCESS. I added all of the books I read and all of the books on my TBR to these genre shelves. I also added a few more to keep track of things further. Step One: Genres, Formats, and More I added the shelves you see on the side (thank god for old screenshots from when my Goodreads looked like […]

Organization Part Four: Reading Notebooks

Posted January 22, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 11 Comments

Inspired by my recent organizational acquisitions (and posts by Hannah), I wanted to share some information about how I keep myself organized – primarily for blogging and reading, but also a little about my personal organization, too. Part Four: Revamping & Reorganizing Bookish Notebooks I realize that this is kind of a broad category because I plan to talk about how I take notes while reading as well as where all of my book-related notes exist. I’ve been trying to revamp my TBR creation methods and haven’t had a lot of success. Now that I changed over into a different method that actually helps me take better notes while reading, I revamped my Foxy Dori a little bit. Here’s how I’ve switched everything up lately. The Old Way A major Foxy Dori redo has occurred since you last learned about my traveler’s notebook. I shared how mine contained various sections to hold multiple notebooks and clear pockets to hold things. In case you forgot, here are some of the features of this wonderful invention: Dashboard, including clear pockets and pouch: basically a piece of laminated paper folded in half, to create a separate section inside of your traveler’s notebook – I keep my pockets, bookmarks, notepads, etc. in here. Book notes notebook: a place for me to write notes as I read (and reference later to write better reviews) – this is the biggest issue area for me, and the reason for this entire revamp. Post planning and other notes: a separate notebook that contains graph paper for […]

Organization Part Three: My Planner(s)

Posted January 7, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 13 Comments

Inspired by my recent organizational acquisitions (and posts by Hannah), I wanted to share some information about how I keep myself organized – primarily for blogging and reading, but also a little about my personal organization, too. Part Three: Finding a Planning Rhythm OH HEY, remember this series? I previously talked about my Traveler’s Notebook and Book Bag last year, but I’m here again to update you on some planning-related THINGS. First thing’s first, a little update about my previous two posts in this series… because some things have changed. Updates! On my book bag → I don’t really carry all that shit around to work anymore. To be frank, I got lazy. That’s really all it comes down to. I started sleeping later and now give myself less time to jerk around in the morning. I started realizing that I really don’t give myself time at work to plan or read during my lunch breaks anymore. So why lug it around? On my notebooks/foxy dori → I still use this… in general. I’ve become terrible at taking bookish notes these days (and I feel like my reviews reflect that. Whoops!). I just don’t feel like dealing with it. I still love my Foxy Dori but need to find a better use for some of those notebooks. I like holding my bookmarks in there and recording quotes, but I don’t fully use it like I used to. I still love the idea, but just need to re-evaluate how I’m using it. My Planner-Related Timeline of Failures […]

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 […]