Adult Fiction Reads on my Radar

Posted October 12, 2016 / Book Lists, Features / 15 Comments

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I have been reaching for the adult contemporary fiction books lately. I always used to add them to my TBR based on some of my favorite bloggers’ recs but I would never actually sit and read them. I requested some from Netgalley and got in the groove through ARC August, so now I’m itching for more. Here are some adult fiction books I plan to read sometime in the next few months. I’m trying to avoid the same books I always claim I’m going to read and never get around to… The Secret Ingredient of Wishes by Susan Bishop Crispell /// I don’t read a lot of magical realism, but the recent YA book I enjoyed that dealt with granting wishes definitely helped me add this different adult version to my TBR. Not a lot of people have read this one yet, it seems, but it looks like my friends enjoyed it. The Regulars by Georgia Clark /// Another magical twist? Apparently that’s my new thing. I’m intrigued by the concept: young women in NYC come across something that makes them supermodel gorgeous. I can’t wait to see how their lives change and how they deal with the beauty. (First world problems, right?) The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay by Kelly Harms /// I love second chance love stories! This book takes place in a small town at an inn, which is another favorite trope/setting of mine. I hope this one is as fantastic as it […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #110: Recommended to Me

Posted October 11, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 18 Comments

Five Books I Read Because of a Recommendation and Five Books I Added to the TBR from Recs Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, 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. This week’s TTT is: All About Books You Read Because of Recommendation — Ten Books I’ve Read Because Of Another Blogger (Or Book Person) or Ten Books I Read On Recommendation From People Outside Of This Community or you could talk about recommendations of books you read from other sources — a magazine, a podcast, a “because you read this” algorithm. I love this topic because I really have TRIED lately to read books when they’re specifically recommended to me. If I don’t get to them right away, I still make it a point to add them to my TBR. Because I’m not great about reading them I wanted to split this into five and five. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne // Recommended by Morgan This book has taken the blogging world by storm, but the biggest influence for me to read it was Morgan. She seems to be leading the pack in terms of early readers 😉 She told our Fantasy Football group to read it ASAP, right on the same day my hold came in at the library. So, yes, it was […]

ARC Review: Gemina

Posted October 10, 2016 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Initial Excitement Unlike most people, I wasn’t utterly blown away by ILLUMINAE. I definitely REALLY enjoyed it and gave it four stars, but it wasn’t perfect like it was for so many other people. I was pretty excited for GEMINA when I saw some early reviews roll in and the lovely Wendy let me borrow her copy. Summary in a Second This book is a companion to ILLUMINAE and seems to take place right after the events of the first book. There are different main characters, which was sad at first but got much better. GEMINA follows Hanna, the attractive daughter of the ship’s captain, and Nik, a criminal from a criminal family doing criminal things a lot of the time. Their ship (Hypatia) is the next victim of BeiTech’s siege of all the ships and space things I don’t know how to describe. Storytelling & Setting Like ILLUMINAE, this book is told through various documents, files, IM chats, radio transmissions, and video camera footage (transcribed). Because I read an ARC, there were some final drawings and pictures missing from the book but it didn’t make much of a difference for the actual story itself. The space setting is really fun because it pulls me right out of my comfort zone. I don’t do a lot of sci-fi because I get confused, and honestly this series is no exception, but I just enjoy these more because of the format. The actual plot for this book was incredibly engaging. It featured […]

Five on Fridays #23

Posted October 7, 2016 / Five on Fridays, Weekly Memes / 6 Comments

Five on Friday displays the the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc. Previous posts can be found here! Like everyone, I was obsessed with Serial recently and wish more than anything that Sarah Koenig could narrate everything with the Serial theme song in the background. Obsessed. Since then, I took a break from podcats (except for the occasional How Did This Get Made? or What Say You?). I started to get burned out of audiobooks so I began Criminal, which basically explores EVERY aspect of criminal behavior, trials, and unsolved or unresolved mysteries. Some episodes are fascinating and it offers a lot of diverse topics! I tend to like the legitimate criminal ones best, but some of the others are interesting too. I hope to also start Accused, which is about an unsolved murder like Serial was. We’ll see! Don’t worry, I have some non-murder/criminal-related ones coming up on the docket but I don’t want to get your hopes up without trying them first. I’ve been wanting to listen to more music since my audiobook burnout as well. When my friend visited last weekend, we listened to a throwback rap/hip-hop playlist I created based on music we loved in middle/high school and college. It was such a fun blast from the past! I had recently purchased Apple Music because I wanted to test out the new Frank Ocean CD and I’ve been enjoying it ever since. We’ll […]

NA Reviews: Rebound and The Goal

Posted October 6, 2016 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

My thoughts on this book compared to Boomerang could not be more different. I loved the banter of the first book and literally laughed out loud on multiple occasions. I couldn’t put it down and read the book in one day. Unfortunately, Rebound had a lot to live up to. I’m not sure if my expectations were too high or if too much time passed between me reading the books, but it just didn’t have the same witty magic by any means. Adam and Allison were good characters and I sort of felt their spark, but so much of the chemistry was telling instead of showing. I believed it, but only because the two of them kept repeating how attracted to each other they were. I wanted to feel the chemistry through their conversations but it just didn’t happen that much. Much of the plot and conflict was incredibly predictable. I know this happens in a lot of YA or NA books (especially because I’ve read so many of them), but sometimes it frustrates me more than others. The setup of the story is that Allison’s father is looking to invest in Adam’s company, Boomerang, so he sends her out to get some information on him. Meanwhile, Adam is covering up some secret from his past. You can probably see where I’m headed here but I won’t give blatant spoilers. Just too predictable (and too angsty at times) for me. This is really a low three star book for me. There […]

Going Against the TBR

Posted October 5, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 18 Comments

Do you ever just completely randomly choose your next read? I feel like I usually have a GENERAL idea about what books should or will be coming up next for me. I’ll mostly pick from that vague list in my head or on my Goodreads “up next” shelf I (sometimes) use. It could be a library book that’s almost due, an ARC I’ve been planning to get to, a recent release that I’ve been anticipating, or just some other random book I’ve been meaning to pick up. It’s just kind of in my head, waiting to be read next. Every time I reach for a new book, I have some kind of reason for picking it up, or at least the idea of it. There are obviously some exceptions to this. The moments where you’re sitting there with almost no idea what to read and suddenly pick something completely random to start next. Some of these books end up being great choices! Aaaand sometimes not so much. Lately I’ve noticed myself being a little more flexible with choosing my next read. I go with my mood but also keep my TBR in mind. I have some books that need to be returned or read soon for blog tours and buddy reads, but for the most part? I read what I want, whenever I want. I have to keep the hobby fun. Why I’ve chosen some of my random recent reads: Browsing for a new audiobook while in the mood for a specific type of […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #109: Villains

Posted October 4, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 13 Comments

Villain Superlatives & Punchable Characters Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, 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. This week’s TTT is: All About Villains – top ten favorite/most compelling villains in books, top ten of the most vile villains/bad guys in books, top ten villains I secretly (or not so secretly) love, favorite tv villains, favorite comic book villains, ten “villains” of contemporary lit. Because I’m not someone who actively looks for villains or likes/hates them I’m going to give out top six villain superlatives! I’ll be giving each villain/book a superlative for what they really excelled at as I read them. I loved how Hannah used superlatives for recent TTTs. I’m also going to share four punchable characters from books I’ve read. Yes, I ran out of villains and needed to fill the space but whatever okayyyy? Six Villain Superlatives Most Likely to Fall in Love With // The Darkling The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo • I feel like most people loved The Darkling even though he was pretty evil, and clearly the villain of the series. I have such a bad bookish memory but I know I wish he had a different ending (I just don’t remember what his ending was to be honest). I know there were a lot of Darkling-Alina shippers out there, so I know he’s […]

ARC Review: Wrecked

Posted October 3, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

I included the content warning because this is a story about sexual assault, and wanted to acknowledge the potential trigger warning for my review and the book itself. Initial Excitement I was pretty excited for this book because I honestly haven’t read a lot of books about sexual assault and its aftermath. This one, set on a college campus, was a good place for me start. There have been far too many stories in the news of things just like this happening across colleges… and, even worse, the terrible school administrations dealing with them. Andi and I decided to buddy read it back at the end of July so we’d have someone to discuss with, and I’m glad we did. We agreed a lot on the characters and the story in general, so that was nice. Summary in a Second Haley and Richard are the two points of view we follow through the story. Haley’s roommate, Jenny, is the one who was raped. Jordan, one of Richard’s housemates, is the rapist. The two are designated to opposite sides of the school’s “trial” against Jordan, just as they’re starting to fall for each other. The story follows everyone involved as they hope for the right, fair ending to the investigation. Storytelling & Setting The overall plot was definitely my favorite part of this story. It sadly felt so real because people deal with situations EXACTLY like this across college campuses. I was specifically eager for this sexual assault story because it parallels […]

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | September into October 2016

Posted September 30, 2016 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 8 Comments

The Bookmark Lit Bulletin was created to wrap up each month and prepare for the next. I share my life happenings, book haul, books I read and reviewed, posts I shared, challenge updates, and more from the previous month. I also let you know what may be coming up on the blog in the coming month. You can read past bulletins here and learn more about the feature here. I had a few shittier books towards the beginning of the month, but things definitely improved by the end! September turned out to be a decent month of reading, quantity-wise too. I planned to read WAY more on my vacation from work but that just didn’t happen. The earlier part of the month didn’t involve much reading because we were super busy, but I hit a stride with some books later on for sure. Average rating for books read in September: 3.59 stars Highlights & Lowlights All of the books read this month: Year-Long Contemporary Romance Challenge 8 books this month • 58 total read • 276% complete Books read this month: Debut Author Challenge 2 books this month • 16 total read • 133% complete Books read this month: Backlist Books Challenge 3 books this month • 31 total read • 155% complete Books read this month: Flights of Fantasy Challenge 2 books this month • 20 total read • 100% complete Books read this month: Rock My TBR Challenge 0 books this month • 14 total read • 56% complete No books read this month Seasonal Fall Bingo Challenge 9 books […]

Books I Recently Added to my TBR

Posted September 29, 2016 / Book Lists, Features / 7 Comments

Sort of inspired by Jamie’s “new to the queue” posts and the previous TTT also inspired by those posts, I wanted to share some of the more recent additions to my TBR. All of these books have already been released and there seems to be a good mix of adult and YA fiction here! The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan • Of course any book involving books is going to make it onto my TBR. An ex-librarian moves to a small town and creates a bookmobile to match the people in the town with their soon-to-be-favorite books. Sounds so charming! The Book that Matters Most by Ann Hood • Yet another book about books. I couldn’t resist the synopsis when I saw it. The book alternates between a woman who joins a book club and her daughter that is in Paris, living in a bad relationship. I’m not sure what will happen plot-wise but it sounds really interesting! Life After Coffee by Virginia Franken • I love coffee almost as much as I love books, so this was another no-brainer. It seems like an interesting story about a woman who is fired from her job in the coffee business and has to “learn” how to be a mother again. Her ex comes back into the picture with a job offer and I’m sure a love triangle ensues. The Ballroom by Anna Hope • I wanted to add this book to my TBR to push out of my comfort zone again. […]