Top Ten Tuesdays #100: Gift Card Buying

Posted August 2, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 9 Comments

Ten Books I’d Buy if Someone Gave Me a Gift Card 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 topic is the Ten Books You’d Buy Right this Second if Someone Handed You a Fully Loaded Gift Card. I love this because I honestly don’t buy a lot of books anymore. I try to save space on my shelves for favorites and use my library a bit more. In any case, if someone were to hand me a gift card that could buy these ten books exactly, I would use it FOR SURE. I decided not to cheat and count preorders. I want to walk into Barnes & Noble and buy 10 books that are currently sitting on the shelf. PS I Like You by Kasie West / The Lake Season by Hannah McKinnon / Once Upon a Kiss by Robin Palmer A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody / Things I Can’t Explain by Mitchell Kriegman (Whoops I actually just bought A Week of Mondays with the B&N coupon, YOLO) Smash & Grab by Amy Christine Parker / Summer in the Invisible City by Juliana Romano / Nine Women, One Dress by Jane L. Rosen / After You by Jojo Moyes / The Season by Jonah Lisa Dyer and Stephen Dyer

Bookmark Lit Bulletin | July into August 2016

Posted August 1, 2016 / Bookmark Lit Bulletin, Features, Wrap-Ups / 10 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. This reading month got off to a good start, I’d say. I finished a few books really early on and kept being in the reading mood through the rest of the month. I struggled during the readathon a little because I found myself not exactly in the mood for certain books.This feeling kind of continued through the rest of the month – I read some MEH books and that impacted my reading mojo. I’m well on my way to finishing my Goodreads Challenge early! Average rating for books read in July: 3.86 stars All book covers link to their Goodreads pages Best of the Best • Pleasantly Surprised • Disappointed All of the books read this month: Average rating for books reviewed in July: 3.77 stars My final Secret Sister package from Ginger was perfect. I can’t believe this round is already over! Insanity. She filled it with my favorite snacks (Oreos, Sour Patch Watermelons, Junior Mints), two books I’ve been super excited for, bookmarks, and some cute sticky notes/paper. I’ve loved receiving her thoughtful packages because she always seemed to intuitively know when […]

Top 10 Most Anticipated Romances for the Second Half of 2016

Posted July 30, 2016 / Book Lists, Features / 11 Comments

As you (probably don’t) know, one goal I had when starting this blog was to feature recommendation lists for people seeking new books to read within different topics. Top Ten Tuesday kind of took over for this area for me, which is perfect, but sometimes I like to create my own. The Contemporary Romance Challenge hosts a monthly topic to partake in. Past topics this year: Anticipated Early ’16 Romances • Recs for Newbies • Favorite Tropes • Favorite Contemp Romances Ever • Underrated Romances Here’s July’s topic: Anticipated Romances through the EOY I love sharing a few sentences straight from the synopsis to really show you why this book made it on my list. Sometimes certain parts of the book summaries just go right to my heart and insist I add the book to my TBR right away. Kind of like my read-bait! Enjoy the shippy goodness below. A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody “So when she wakes up the next morning to find she’s reliving the exact same day, she knows what she has to do: stop her boyfriend from breaking up with her.” → Groundhog Day/Before I Fall kind of deal that I LOVE Cherry by Lindsey Rosin “Four best friends make a pact during their senior year of high school to lose their virginities—and end up finding friendship, love, and self-discovery along the way.” → I can smell the sex-positivity from a mile away Game On by Michelle Smith “But when he needs a way to stay on the team, she proposes a plan: […]

Totally Should Have Book Tag

Posted July 29, 2016 / Features, Personal / Information / Etc. / 4 Comments

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a book tag! Dang. I used to love these. This one seemed fun so I tagged myself. I’ve seen this Totally Should Have Book Tag around the blogosphere here and here, which is where I found it. It was originally created by Emma Books on Youtube. A book that totally should’ve had a sequel. From what I understood about The Heiresses by Sara Shepard is that when it was released, there is/was supposed to be a sequel. It looks like there won’t be one now? There’s no evidence of one anywhere and the book was released a couple of years ago. The author has avoided questions about it on Twitter (believe me, I’ve searched), so I think it wasn’t ordered maybe? BUT I NEED MORE. PLEASE LET THERE BE MORE. Update: after some further investigating, it looks like she’s answered the question somewhere online that it’ll be a standalone but she’d like to make a follow-up. PLEASE. Thanks. A book or series that totally should’ve had a spin-off. I’m probably going to sound like every person who did this tag, but obviously Harry Potter series by JK Rowling! I think we all would love something about the Marauders or about Harry’s kids. (I guess one of these is kind of coming with The Cursed Child play-being-published-as-a-book.) I would love to read more about Harry’s father, Lupin, and Sirius. This is the biggest request from everyone. An author that should totally write more books. I loved the long-ass series The […]

Review: The Fill-In Boyfriend

Posted July 28, 2016 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

Kasie West is one of my all-time favorite authors. She’s never let me down. I’ve loved her contemporaries as well as her paranormal duo. I always like to have one Kasie West book waiting for me so I can read it whenever the mood strikes… AKA, once her newest book published, I read her last previously published book. This just happened with this particular book as well, but I have to say… I’ve finally been slightly disappointed. Gia’s friends don’t believe she has a boyfriend because there’s a big ol’ bitch in their friend group that is poisoning everyone’s minds. When he breaks up with her on prom night, she asks a nearby guy to be Fill-In Bradley. Of course, she ends up falling for FIB and all the lies go a litttttle too far. I loved this book for quite a while at the beginning, but the mean girl shenanigans got to be a bit much for me as time progressed. The concept and fake dating trope is one of my favorites, so that was nice… but there was something missing to make it a favorite Kasie West book. The mean girl stuff and lies got out of hand. I can generally understand Gia’s motivations for wanting to keep her friendship intact but I also wanted her to trust that her friends would have her back. (More on that later in the spoilery section though.) Gia and her friends were known as popular mean girls and that trope got […]

Sailor Moon Obsession

Posted July 27, 2016 / Personal / Information / Etc. / 9 Comments

Thanks to the Summer of Sailor Scouts feature (click here for more info – hosted by Alexa, Cristina, Cee, Kristin, and Sierra) I’ve become a bit obsessed. I recently did the book tag, as you saw, and have been watching the show kind of nonstop over the past month. When I’m not watching, I’m researching characters and thinking about when I’ll be able to watch next! I’ve already added random crap I don’t need into my Etsy cart… for characters I hadn’t even been introduced to yet. I wanted to share some of my Sailor Moon-related thoughts while watching the show, as well as some of those items on my wishlist. Let’s gooooo. Click on the images for their source. History and early stages of obsession Sailor Moon was always on my radar… since I was a kid. I never managed to watch it for some reason but I think some of my cousins used to watch it? Regardless, I always was intrigued by the concept. When I saw the Summer of Sailor Scouts feature pop up with some of my favorite bloggers, I asked Cristina how to get started with this fandom. She suggested the show then the manga. I immediately decided to watch the show and I haven’t stopped since! As for the manga, I used to draw characters in that style when I was younger but I honestly hadn’t read any books in that format. I did buy the first one recently and will probably start it sometime soon (maybe for the […]

Top Ten Tuesdays #99: Bookish Motivation

Posted July 26, 2016 / Top 10 Tuesdays, Weekly Memes / 9 Comments

Ten Things Books Have Inspired Me to Do 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 topic is the Top Ten Things Books Have Made Me Want To Do or Learn About After Reading Them. I have actually done this topic in the past on the blog and remember having so much fun with it. (The topic was actually inspirational quotes but I had just posted favorite book quotes, so I mixed it up!) I’m excited to revisit this idea because there are plenty of other books I’ve read since then that inspired me to do things. Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick inspired me to start my read-bait blog series up again I love books about reunions and this one was no exception. Any time characters get together after spending years apart, especially if there were some big secrets being hidden… I’m all about it. This inspired me to start my read-bait series up again because I had taken quite a break from it for a while. Adventure Time Volume 1 inspired me to finally read comics and graphic novels Before Scribd changed their memberships up, I came across this comic and just randomly started to read it. It was the final push I needed before I started […]

Blog Tour Review: In Twenty Years

Posted July 25, 2016 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

A group of ex-college roommates returns to the house they lived in together, per the will of one of their friends who passed away. The group had been estranged since her death and things get ~uncomfortable~ as they confront the past and try to move on. The book alternates between each of their points of view: Catherine, Owen, Lindy, Annie, and Colin. The ex-friends are back near their old college campus, staying in the same house they once lived in. I love reunion stories so much, which is why this was quick to make it onto my TBR. The story itself was interesting because you get to see them all work through their issues – both personally and with each other – as they try to figure out why Bea wanted them to come back to their college home. Catherine is the creator a popular crafty blog and is married to Owen, her college sweetheart. She works a lot while he stays home with their kids. They’ve had quite a few issues lately. Lindy is an aging rockstar who doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be relevant. Annie is married to an unfaithful husband and is obsessed with showing off how “perfect” her life is on social media. Colin is a plastic surgeon in LA and still a bachelor. You slowly learn alllll of the complicated bits of history between each person: who loved who, who slept with who, who is fighting with who. It’s all really interesting because they’re […]

Must Read in 2016 Halfway Point (Link-Up + Giveaway)

Posted July 23, 2016 / Book Challenges, Features / 0 Comments

Do you ever look at a book and think “HOW have I not read this yet?!” I created a link-up for 2016 where you challenge yourself to make a list of those books and then read them, instead of sitting around and waiting for the next year to come and go again. These could be books you’re super excited about and somehow never read (and maybe you even preordered them!). I dubbed this challenge/link-up the Must Read in 2016 Challenge, and a few of you decided to join me! I said that we’d check in around the halfway point in the year just to say “oh shit I forgot about this!” and hopefully use it as motivation to READ. THOSE. BOOKS. I welcome you to join in for the 2nd half of the year! The linky is available for you to post your TBRs and the Rafflecopter is available to enter into the giveaway. That’s really all you have to do. Sometimes making a TBR post alone is enough to get me to read the damn books. I’ve edited the “rules” a little bit so they make more sense, now that half of the year has passed us by already somehow. So here’s what you can do if you’re interested in joining in still: 1. Write a blog post or create a Goodreads shelf that shows what books you were HYPED for in 2015 or early 2016 but somehow never got around to. It doesn’t have to be 2015 or 2016 releases – just any […]

A Half-Assed Series Binger

Posted July 22, 2016 / Discussions, Features / 18 Comments

I love declaring that I’m going to binge a book series and then abandoning it halfway through. Not usually for lack of interest or anything, but just other books popping up and getting in the way! I make these grand plans and create my binge-filled review posts, then they sit in drafts forever because I don’t ACTUALLY binge the series. This has happened in more ways than I can count – physical book binges, audiobook binges, fantasy books, contemporary books, super-long series, super-short series, and everything in between. Unsuccessful Binges Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas Started: June 2016 /// Books read so far: 2 I randomly pressed play on the audiobook one morning and blitzed through book one, then moved on to the novella book afterwards. I don’t remember why I lost steam, but I remember just wanting to switch to a lighter audiobook afterwards. I definitely plan to get going on this one again really soon, but it’s not exactly the binge I had in mind. I have a review post drafted for the first three books and then will post one for the next three books in September, when Empire of Storms comes out. Then, I’ll read the final book with everyone else the following year! The Islanders series by Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant Started: June 2016 /// Books read so far: 1 I brought this one along on vacation with me and it took surprisingly long to read. It was honestly not super engaging for me, but […]