Category: Features

2023 End of Year Wrap-Up and Stats

Posted January 1, 2024 / Features, Wrap-Ups / 1 Comment

115 Books Read I’m so happy that I ended the year on a nice cute number like 115! I thought for sure I’d read one more book but I love finishing the year in 0 or 5 lol. I got sick right after I finished my 115th book on the 29th and just decided to totally lay low and not read anything else until 2024. It made life easier so I could work on my wrap-up posts earlier too 😉 This one has my stats about books I read and acquired. Overall, it was the best reading year I’ve had in a few years! Books Read One of my major goals recently has been to continue to diversify my reading from a genre perspective. It’s so exciting to see that I have a huge fantasy chunk this year! Thank you, long ass series! I wanted to read less than 75% contemporary and mystery books, and I finished the year at 69% between those genres. I can’t believe I actually read more mystery/thrillers than contemporary romance too! That’s huge. Fantasy is up from *1%* last year to *19%* this year. Yay!! I love reading books in multiple formats and that’s clear for 2023. I read more “mixed” books this year. This is partially because Everand (FKA Scribd) has more titles, I subscribed to Libby through the Charlotte NC library system, and Spotify rolled out audiobooks. I love having the option to listen to an audiobook in addition to reading it. Okay […]

2024 Resolutions and Goals

Posted December 29, 2023 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

I’ve been making these posts ALMOST every year since starting my blog (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023). I’ll do a quick check-in on how I did for 2023’s goals at the bottom but dive into my plans for 2024 first. Stay on track or ahead of my Goodreads challenge | I like to keep this one for obvious reasons. I’m still debating about what I want my Goodreads goal to be for the year though. I easily surpassed 80 books this year and will be finishing around 116. Do I move it up to 100? Based on another goal you’ll see in a second, I’m on the fence about increasing quantity. Keep up Instagram stories about TBRs and completed reads | I did a good job of this in 2023 and want to also keep it up. I adjusted the verbiage because I like to share monthly TBRs and reviews but only occasionally share current reads. Read my 24 in 24 | I pulled together the 24 books I want to read in 2024, which I’ll be sharing on the blog soon. It’s heavily backlist titles I wanted to read this year but I gave myself a few “freebies” of anticipated 2024 releases as well. Read bigger books | One of the main reasons I don’t know if I want to majorly increase my Goodreads goal is because I really want to read big books I’ve been putting off. I plan to start the Crescent City series (hopefully in January) […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | November 2023

Posted December 6, 2023 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. I definitely planned to read more in November (and didn’t expect for so many of my books to be novellas!). My trip for the last week of the month didn’t involve really any reading, so there are two books I didn’t complete in November that I figured I would. Oh well, it just means December is off to a good start! 9 books in November 9 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Pages read: 2,545 • Average rating: 3.89 stars Genres: 5 mystery/thrillers, 2 contemporary, 2 fantasy Formats: 3 mixed, 2 audiobooks, 2 ebooks, 1 hardcover, 1 paperback Sources: 3 borrowed, 3 purchased, 2 library, 1 preordered Age Target: 8 adult, 1 new adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Popsugar Reading Challenge: 76% 52 Book Club: 75% Must Read in 2023: 75% Romanceopoly: 23% Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge: 96% Breakdown: 4 hardcover | 3 paperback | 2 egalley All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. For Review From Berkley: Summer Romance by Monaghan From […]

Books I Can’t Believe I Didn’t Read This Year

Posted November 23, 2023 / Book Lists, Features / 2 Comments

There were so many books I was totally convinced I would get to in 2023 and even included them on multiple monthly TBRs. Eventually I got sick of seeing them and just knew it wouldn’t happen so they were removed in favor of other books I hopefully will read someday. I do plan on creating a “24 in 24” list of books I need to read next year, so many of these books will appear on that, but hopefully not all of them. I’m aware that I’m posting this in November so anything can happen but honestly… I could have added like 5 more books to this. I’m DETERMINED to read them instead of include them here lol.

2024 Review Copies

Posted November 16, 2023 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 2 Comments

I’ve gotten a few exciting review copies already for 2024 and thought I would do a little post to share what those are so far! Some of these have been waiting on my Kindle for a long time and I can’t believe I haven’t been tempted to dive in… Mystery/Thriller and Fantasy Contemporary and Literary

2023 Holiday TBR

Posted November 8, 2023 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 1 Comment

I decided to remove the holiday movie section of this post because I just have not been on my game this year! If I get my crap together, I may feature some holiday movies on my watch list in a different post. This year we’ll focus on the MANY holiday books I could pick from. I also will do my usual past holiday post roundup at the bottom. Here’s a roundup of ALL of the holiday books I may read, including review copies (both backlist and current year), new releases, and backlist titles that have intrigued me. I have five review copies this year. Last year I only managed to read two of the four I had! Yikes. This year my number one goal is to read all of these without exception. 2023 really goes hard for holiday book releases. I’ve never seen so many! I did a roundup of a bunch of them that were announced by July (in my Christmas in July post) but I added a lot more to my TBR after that. I know I won’t get to all of these (obviously) but I hope to read more than I did last year. I keep deleting older books on here that I lost interest in but there are some that I still can’t believe I haven’t read yet (PRINCE IN DISGUISE, hello??). I added 2022’s books I didn’t get to on here as well. I think I’m going to put all of these titles on […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | October 2023

Posted November 6, 2023 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 1 Comment

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. I was hoping to read a little more in October but honestly 8 books is still great! I’m impressed that I stuck to my guns and binge-read TWO series in their entirety. That was my biggest goal for October. I managed to read those 7 books across two series, then read one standalone in between. I know November and December will be big reading months though! 8 books in October 8 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Pages read: 3,360 • Average rating: 4 stars Genres: 4 mystery/thrillers, 3 fantasy, 1 science fiction Formats: 5 mixed, 3 paperback Sources: 3 preordered, 1 review, 1 owned, 1 borrowed Age Target: 4 adult, 2 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Popsugar Reading Challenge: 74% 52 Book Club: 75% Must Read in 2023: 75% Romanceopoly: 23% Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge: 92% Breakdown: 3 hardcovers | 3 egalleys | 3 ebooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. For Review From Penguin: Raiders of the Lost Heart […]

November & December TBR (Non-Holiday)

Posted October 30, 2023 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 0 Comments

My monthly TBR feature here shows my progress based on last month’s TBR, my plans for this month, and anything else I might be thinking about from a reading perspective. Sometimes I feature a little poll at the bottom so you guys can help me figure out a certain title I should read from a group of books. November and December – EOY TBR Not Including Holiday Books As you may know, I usually combine my November and December TBRs into one post that excludes all of the holiday books I plan to read (that post comes separately). I have a bunch of books I’d really like to read before the end of the year, and try to mix those in amongst some holiday romances across both months. Just easier than making distinct TBRs for both months since I never really know where the books will land! Non-Holiday ARCs: Late and Upcoming These are three romances I’ve been so excited to read and have ready to go on my Kindle! I definitely thought I would have read THE WAKE-UP CALL the moment I got it but for some reason I keep back-burnering it. (To be fair, it has some holiday elements but I’m keeping it in this post because I don’t think it’s truly Christmas-forward compared to others.) RAIDERS OF THE LOST HEART was one of my most anticipated reads so I’m thrilled to have that one. I also grabbed SKIP TO THE END via audio on Libby so fingers […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | September 2023

Posted October 11, 2023 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 0 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin wraps up the last month in reading and what was on the blog, as well as what’s coming up next. You can check out my book haul, books read, posts shared, challenge updates, etc. You can read past bulletins here. If you’re looking for more personal updates, you can check out my Lauren Lately feature; it highlights my life events and non-bookish fun from the previous 30 days. September, as always, wasn’t the best reading month for me. I always have travel and birthday plans on and off throughout the month. I did manage to finish 6 books and one of them was over 900 pages, so I will count it as a major win overall! 6 books in September 6 read • 0 reread • 0 DNF Pages read: 2,789 • Average rating: 3.83 stars Genres: 3 mystery/thrillers, 1 contemporary, 1 fantasy, 1 nonfiction Formats: 2 hardcover, 2 mixed, 1 paperback, 1 egalley Sources: 3 preordered, 1 review, 1 owned, 1 borrowed Age Target: 4 adult, 2 young adult Here are all the books I read this month with ratings and one-line thoughts! Popsugar Reading Challenge: 74% 52 Book Club: 75% Must Read in 2023: 67% Romanceopoly: 23% Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge: 92% Breakdown: 4 hardcovers | 3 paperbacks | 1 egalley | 2 ebooks All review copies were provided for free in exchange for an honest review. For Review / Ebooks From St. Martin’s Press: Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice by Cosimano Kindle Monthly Freebie: Woke Up Like This […]

October TBR

Posted September 28, 2023 / Book Lists, Features, TBR Lists / 1 Comment

My monthly TBR feature here shows my progress based on last month’s TBR, my plans for this month, and anything else I might be thinking about from a reading perspective. Sometimes I feature a little poll at the bottom so you guys can help me figure out a certain title I should read from a group of books. October TBR I was hoping to catch up on library books in September because I spent most of August reading my ARCs. I didn’t totally succeed at that but I was able to return some books I knew I wouldn’t read, as well as read two of them (KOA and DROWNING). I have a more manageable stack of books now. Series October As I mentioned, the past two months have been ~themed~ reading months for my TBR and the same is going to happen here. There are two major series I hope to read in October that I have been thinking about all year. Here they are: I absolutely loved the CARAVAL series but for some reason kept putting off her companion series, ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART. The final book in the trilogy comes out in October, so I thought it would be the perfect time to binge read all three books in a row. I have the first two and preordered the final one, plus the audiobooks are on Scribd. The other series (this one has four books) I’m hoping to fully bang out in October is THE NATURALS. […]