Favorite Things to Eat / Drink While Reading Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I will very frequently use some food and drinks as props in bookstagram posts, since I traditionally post more “in the moment” photos than pre-planned and posed ones. I’m too lazy but appreciate those who take the time to make things pretty! In any case, I thought I’d highlight some bookstagram posts that feature food and drinks that I’ve enjoyed consuming while reading! (1) Of course, coffee! Scrolling through my feed, this is very clearly the most frequent drink. I mostly drink with hot coffee in the morning before work or on the weekends, curled up in bed.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Lauren • Bookmark Lit (@bookmark_lit) on Aug 1, 2019 at 4:11am PDT (2) Lobster roll and pineapple soda This is a random one but I loved grabbing lunch with Chris a month or so ago, while trying to complete my lobster roll bucket list for the summer. I was waiting for him to come out for his break so I took a picture with my current read.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by […]

Books On My TBR I’m Avoiding Reading and Why Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I love this topic! I probably could fill this with like a million books??? I am the worst about reading books I’m excited for or just books on my TBR in general. There are a lot of them on here that could just be answered with “I never read my owned physical copies because I’m the worst and prefer reading digitally” but I’ll try to pick more unique books/reasons than that one 😉 I decided to sort my Goodreads shelf by oldest to highlight five books from the far past I have been avoiding, and then I looked to add five books I’ve recently added to my physical TBR that I haven’t read yet. Golden by Jessi Kirby | Owned paperback | I bought this based on its praise in the book blogging community, and then read a different Kirby book soonafter. I didn’t love it, so this has just been sitting on my shelf ever since. The Art of Lainey by Paula Stokes | Owned paperback | I really don’t have a good excuse at this point because so many people love this book and I’ve enjoyed […]

Books I Enjoyed that are Out of my Comfort Zone Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I read too many contemporary books each year, if I’m being honest, but they’re my favorite and easiest to read! Anything that falls into a different category (maybe besides mysteries because I read many of those) tends to be out of my comfort zone. I’m going to include some books that are WAY out for various reasons. Jackaby by Ritter | I don’t read a lot of paranormal books but one set in the wayyyy past with a female character written by a male? Nah. I read this series randomly with my book club and I really enjoyed it though! Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Bardugo | Yes, I love Bardugo, but I don’t like DC Comics all that much. I like Wonder Woman (the recent movie specifically) but I would usually not think about reading a book about her? I haven’t gotten into the rest of this series and I probably won’t, but this was good. Twelfth Night by Shakespeare | I don’t read a lot of classics so this was definitely a random one. I needed to read a play or something for one of my reading […]

Books I’ve Read That I’d Like In My Personal Library Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I apparently deleted my Goodreads shelf specifically about this so THAT’S FUN, past-Lauren! Regardless, I do read a whooooole lot of books from the library (physical, ebooks, and audiobooks) or from Scribd. That’s how I often get away with not buying a lot of books. I like supporting those platforms and organizations, plus I get to save some money and space. Here are some books that I borrowed from somewhere and would love a physical copy of someday. (I’ve done another post similar to this but I’m not going to cheat and look at those rn.) Book: Red, White, and Royal Blue by McQuiston | Source: Library, Scribd I LOVED THIS BOOK just like everyone else on the planet. I got the library book out but also listened to the audio on Scribd. I definitely need a couple for my personal library because I have a feeling I’ll be wanting to reread it someday! Book: There’s Something About Sweetie by Menon | Source: Egalley I realized that I am the WORST and don’t own this book! I have Menon’s other YA books that I’ve loved, like DIMPLE and […]

Favorite Tropes in Books Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I often talk about my read-bait topics, which surround book plot points or tropes that immediately make me want to read a book. It also includes settings and other bookish elements that aren’t exactly tropes though, so here’s a more fine-tuned list of legit tropes (not just romance!) that I love to read in books. Snowed In / Stuck Somewhere This is probably one of my favorite tropes out of all of these. I will always add these to my TBR! I love when characters (obviously possible romantic partners, primarily) get stuck somewhere together or snowed in. I remember MAGNOLIA had a whole bunch of my favorite tropes, where the characters’ two families kept pushing them together but they hated each other, then got stuck together in a tornado. UGH what a book. Fake Dating This is another classic romance trope that most people tend to like! I think TATBILB is one of my favorite series/books that uses this trope. The couple creates a fake relationship for whatever reason (make an ex jealous, get parents’ off their backs, etc.) and ends up falling for each other for real. BFFs to More […]

Characters I’d be Besties With Characters I Wanted to Punch in the Head Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. We had a character freebie recently where I discussed some of my new favorite characters or friend groups, which kind of answers this question – yes, I’d totally be friends with all of them! Because of that, I decided to change this topic up. I’m doing the opposite. There are many books that end up on my “punchable character” shelf for various reasons and I don’t think I’ve highlighted them before? Away we go! Josh and Kristen from The Friend Zone by Jimenez | While I kind of liked this book overall, it wasn’t what I was hoping for. I wanted to punch Josh because he kept talking about how much Kristen was ~not like other girls~ which is one of my least favorite things for a male character to say. He, overall, was too macho for me in many ways, even though he apparently had many sisters that softened him up in some instances. Kristen’s repetitive internal dialogue about him was super frustrating too. Chloe from Notes from a Former Virgin by Chastain | I usually enjoy these Chloe Snow books, especially […]

Cover Redesigns I Love Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I have had such a busy week that I forgot I didn’t pre-write this post! I usually do TTTs a bunch at a time, for the month or whatever, and I got halfway through the day and realized my post had two words on it. OH WELL. Here’s a quick roundup of some of my favorite cover redesigns! Summer trilogy by Jenny Han The Start of Me and You redesign and matching The Map From Here to There by Emery Lord   Allllll the Katie Cotugno books! Little Blue Envelopes duo by Maureen Johnson Prince Charming (formerly Royals) and matching Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins

Favorite Amazon Purchases of 2019 So Far Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I decided to go non-bookish with this TTT! I hope you don’t mind 😉 I thought it would be fun to do a round-up of my top ten favorite purchases from Amazon so far this year, now that we’re over halfway through. I do monthly posts including my purchases from the month but they’re never exclusive to Amazon. Here we go! Reusable makeup remover bamboo cotton rounds I love these! I used microfiber towels before, which were nice, but these work way better with my facial oil. I remove my face makeup with the oil, wet one of these rounds, and then use it to remove the oil and makeup from my face. There’s 16 of them so you can use them for a few weeks straight, one per day, without having to wash them ASAP because you ran out. Ear hooks for headphones I bought a pair of these over a year ago and they got smashed in my purse, so I bought a new pair. These are amazing for me. Headphones (like the Apple ones) don’t fit correctly in my ears and constantly fall out. These […]

Settings I’d Like to See More (Favorite Settings!) Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I made a super quick list in my head when drafting this post and realized that I really just went ahead and listed my favorite settings. The topic is technically about settings I’d like to see MORE of, and a few of these are fairly popular ones, but still – I’d love to see more of my favorite settings too of course! 😉 Here are some of my favorite settings and/or ones that I don’t see enough and need more of! Boarding School I’m huuuuge fan of books set in boarding school. Yes, I chose a Zoey 101 gif because who didn’t want to attend PCA with them?! Good lord, that was the best show. ANYWAYS I’ve talked about my love for boarding school or private school settings a lot, with recommendation lists and read-bait posts, and could ALWAYS use any and all books set in boarding school. I do feel like it stems from that desire we all had as kids to live at a boarding school with a bunch of other people our age, living on a campus away from parents long before college. Beach […]

Adult Fiction Auto-Buy Authors Top Ten Tuesdays were started by The Broke and the Bookish and are now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I’ve talked about my usual auto-buy authors over and over again, so I thought I would focus specifically on the ones who are writing “adult” fiction instead of my usually-stacked-with-YA list! I tried to go with people whose books I genuinely have bought or requested immediately when I saw they had a new release coming. Some are newer to me and some are tried-and true. Either way, you can bet your ass these authors’ new books end up on my TBR right away!    Taylor Jenkins Reid Jenny Hale Bethany Chase   Annie Rains Karma Brown Nicola Moriarty Liane Moriarty Helen Hoang Sophie Kinsella Beth Kendrick